The New Year 2009!
Wow, so it’s been about four months since I last posted. Time sure seems to fly by fast. o_<
I guess a ton of things have happened since I last posted. o_<
-I’ve sold my first commission artwork.
-My sister gave birth to a little girl.
-My brother is finally in Cogswell College.
-My dad came back to the states for the holidays.
-My grandmother broke her hip a few weeks before Christmas so everyone’s mood in my family’s been kinda down.
-My mom is still trying to sell her house.
-Casey and I are still trying to develop our company.
It’s been decided that Casey’s company, Aizen Innovations, will not be selling anime and manga merchandise as a main function. Having a shop wasn’t what Casey had in mind in the first place, he was thinking of just having that on the side. What he really wanted was to start a community for people; something more than a hub, I’m pretty sure I wrote about this before, but I don’t remember if I had on Live Journal. o_< It’s kinda complicated and I don’t really feel like going into details… >.< http://www.penny-arcade.com/ is a good example of what he wants to make. XD
I went back to my home town of San Jose during the winter to spend time with my family. It was rather nice because I got to see family I haven’t seen in a very long time. I miss them. I was really worried about seeing my dad there at first, but it all seemed out to work out okay. He acted like he normally does so I guess the things that happened before are not so much of an issue (it kinda goes deeper, but I don’t really want to talk about it =/) It really sucks that though it seems like we both want to spend “quality time” together, it’s never “quality time.” He wants me to devote most of my time with him when we can, but when we ARE together, we don’t really talk; we go grocery shopping. I miss him, but just because I’m not going to school nor have do I have a professional careers, he seems to think that I always have free time.
(end topic >.>)
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Persona 4
Yay! Before I left to San Jose to see my family, Casey got Persona 4 for the Playstation 2 as our Christmas present to ourselves and it’s an oh-so-awesome game! T-T I haven’t been so much into a video game in ages! @_@ the writing, the characters, and the battles are so great! I have nothing bad to say about the game except that we got to point later in which one of the characters I really liked all of a sudden is starting to act like a jerk to another character. -_- Why? Why Yosuke? T-T
It was so fun I never wanted to stop. We haven’t really played it since I got back from San Jose though. *sigh* -The reason to this is in the following topic. ‘_’
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MMO
Casey bought World of Warcraft just before Christmas because he thought we should try expanding out to that community to do custom art. Getting WoW was not only for personal experience, reference, and research, but because it has such a huge player base. Casey’s friend Erik came to live with us a few days afterwards and being an almost WoW-addict himself, he’s been an immense help in teaching us about the game.
It’s been really fun having Erik over because his presence really brightens up the mood of the house. He’s really playful, is humorous, and Casey and him joke and play around together so much. I’m also really happy to see Casey clicking so well with a buddy-buddy friend since I never really get to see that side of him.
It was just Casey and Erik playing WoW together for the first few days while I worked at drawing; I admit though that it looked rather fun. Casey later thought I should try playing too; I was kinda reluctant, but he activated an account for me and I started playing some also.
I thought for a long time that WoW was “evil” and that I didn’t ever want touch it; I hate saying this, but it’s a rather well made and enjoyable game. '_' it’s so vast, so pretty, and there are so many good ideas implemented. From a game development perspective, I think it’s really amazing! The only thing I think is a real shame is that the character creation engine could have been better; I think Phantasy Star Universe did this the best to date.
I think I’m doing pretty well at my pacing of game play time. I really enjoy playing, but I believe I have enough sense of duty and responsibility to keep focus on my priorities. It’s such a shame though that I’ve almost completely stopped playing RO now however. -_- I love the game but thinking of playing it just sounds so unappealing because I’m so tired of experience grinding in circles, killing the same enemies for hours on end for days and probably weeks and months to gain levels. That’s probably my largest draw to WoW, the fact that doing plentiful quick easy quests distracts you from leveling (and gains you levels too) and gives you a direction, a goal, and achievement constantly and that your chances of getting helpful gear as pauper are fairly good.
So yeah, WoW is a rather well made game, just make sure you have the sense to not let it rule/ruin your life like what I’ve heard has happened to countless people already. >.<
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Meet the Robinsons
I finally got to see Disney’s Meet the Robinsons a couple of days ago on Youtube. =D I’ve been kinda interested in seeing that movie for awhile but even more so recently after asking and hearing from so many people that it’s actually a good movie. I rather enjoyed it! ^_^ There’s only one part of the movie that I didn’t really care for which was after Louis, the main character, first gets acquainted with the Robinsons during which the pacing sped up really fast, but I can understand why they did it. o_< Other than that part, it was positively inspiring and entertaining. -and of course like most time travel stories, there is the issue of time paradoxes happening, but I suppose we should just accept them for entertainment purposes. ^^ I really want to see the movie again.
I’m a bit surprised that I was able to find the whole movie on Youtube since I couldn’t find Shrek3. o_< I’ve been rather behind in watching movies, that combined with my stinginess has resulted in my “piratism(???????).” I don’t download the movies, but am I still considered a “pirate” if I search and watch them on Youtube? o_<
One of the main points about this movie I wanted to talk about was that I think it has a good lesson to teach, to “keep moving forward” and to let the past stay in the past. I’ve heard this line numerous times throughout my life of course, but watching this lesson portrayed in the movie gave it a nice oomph. I’ve actually been thinking about it pretty often lately and have been feeling a lot more in control of my life and its direction. I strangely feel like I have a destiny now. I know it might sound kinda silly, but that’s literally how I feel. =p
It’s a good movie so you should watch it! (Watch “The Secret” too. >.>)
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Art posts
Here’s the stuff I’ve done over the past four months.~
After my last post on my live journal, I also updated on Deviant Art and stuck around to browse artwork. >.> Like always, it really hurt seeing so much amazing art, so I decided to do this picture to cheer myself on. =o -you know, the idea that even though it may hurt, we gotta keep going! I was originally planning to add that text, but even after I finished it, I was still feeling very down so, now it’s just kiiind of an inspiration picture to myself. o_<
I just finished reading a manga with a Japanese rock idol theme which was surprising rather good and it made me really want to draw something within that theme too. I did some searching on J-pop rock idol outfits to get idea of how to design her clothes, but I didn’t really like the things I saw so I designed her outfit on whim with Rockman in mind since I’m such a fanatic! XD
From this picture onward are all Ragnarok Online related. Casey and I used to have a group of friends that we used to party with on a constant basis. This is one of our good friends and party-mates. He/She’s really cute and I couldn’t help but to want to draw him/her. XD The player is actually a guy, but he just unintentionally seems to come off as though he’d make a cute girl.
The potatoes are a reference to an in-game quest in which you have to feed the camel a concoction and hope he poops out dung to make into soap; if the camel fails, it poops out a potato. The quest was very bugged when it was first implemented making it always poop out potatoes. Many players lost thousands and thousands of painfully inconveniently hard to get items that npc’s don’t sell trying to do this quest making it one of those things that bonds many RO players.
This is a picture of the group of friends Casey and I hung out with on Ragnarok Online before Casey started his guild. The left side was actually the picture I originally had in mind when I wanted to draw the previous picture of the girl with the potatoes, but Casey suggested that I add on to it and I just kept adding and adding. It was originally supposed to be a hot spring of sort though I’m kind of unsure if it still is, but Casey insisted that I should do nudes. From left to right, the characters are: Makiko, Ryozo, Erza Scarlet, Symphonic Sonata, Zack, and my gypsy Lilicia.
This is another core part of our clique of friends but we thought that it wasn’t quite right for her to be in the previous picture because she’s only 12 years old. The setting behind her is the dungeon we always used to party in, Nameless Island.
This is Green Halloween who joined our guild soon after Casey started it. She’s really funny and cute and I had to draw her character! XD She tends to really like things themed with Halloween, thus the monsters with her. I think her dancing in the woods with the monsters playing instruments really portrays her character; it was really fun to draw and was surprisingly a rather fast picture to finish.
This is of Makiko’s good friend April who’d party with us once in a while; she was/is Makiko’s official stalker. They are often together and we tease them of being a couple. ~
With the platter of soap, I’m once again referring to that camel dung quest. It is mentioned somewhere in the quest that the camel dung is used as a delicacy in some countries. =F
This is Ryozo, another part of our team. He’s actually a really good old RO friend of mine I met back in the beta days years ago. He came back from World of Warcraft and has been playing RO hardcore for months since then (until recently when he became swamped with school finals and went on Christmas break). Makiko and him used to kid about eating Pecos, the birds knights ride on in-game.
There was a group art collaboration on a popular RO forums page in which people had to draw RO characters running in a stampede. This is my quick contribution of my knight to the stampede.
This is my first paid commission work, obviously an RO player.
This is a somewhat doodle of Casey's blacksmith. I was kind of drawing on whim and didn't really plan things out. It took me a while to come up with what to draw in the background and I didn't want to spend too much time on it resulting in it looking not so polished. o_<
This is Autolux, often known as Melonade in RO. She’s a long time player and old acquaintance of Casey’s. She’s second in command of the guild.