BACK FROM THE DEAD! I BRING NEW SH--I Mean, STUFF!
Catching up with my good friend Mr. bigmuffin, I realized I haven't posted anything in a long time since that depressing rant I had eons ago about the flood ruining my fan art.
Good news is, the fan art survived. It's safe, dry, and nicely compiled in my plastic envelope of artworks. I did a video for my Japanese class and my friend took shots of my works, so I could show my drawings here. I haven't posted them in the main LJ community for the anime nor in deviant art cuz I haven't scanned and cleaned my art.
Actually, it's also because I don't have and I don't know how to Photoshop DDDDX
so yeah, here's a sneak peek of my work:
A friend gave me a sketchpad for my 17th birthday and this one was my first drawing in it. I watched Memoirs of a Geisha on HBO and was inspired to draw this. I haven't colored this until now because when I was drawing the details on the fabric, I didn't really have any color in mind. So, coloring is free for interpretation XD
As you can see, the shots didn't show the complete drawings. But I hope it gives you a good idea of how I draw. so, yeah... This one is my second drawing in the sketchpad. Technically, it's the third because my guy friend drew on the second page of my pad. It's a fan art of Hetalia with the characters Poland and Lithuania. Their outfits came from a Korean fashion magazine. After finishing the kimono art, I was practicing on how I could improve my art style. The best way I thought was to use fashion magazines as reference, instead of studying anime drawings.
This is the only artwork shot in full. It's also a fan art from Hetalia. This is Russia. I also used a Korean magazine for reference in this one. In the magazine, the model was a girl doing an editorial for androgynous French fashion. So, the backdrop's probably French architecture.
Lo and behold! this is the fan art I bawled over and thought was washed away during the flood. You couldn't see the details from the picture, but you get the point (I hope). For the details of the reference, refer to my previous post XD
So! You've seen my artwork.
Last time, I was raving about how I survived my school term just stuffing myself with Flaming Wings. Since then my majors started to become more demanding of my time that I couldn't afford to wait for a seat to open in the very busy food joint. So, for chilling and continuing the research work, my thesis mate and friends hang out in this recently-opened Korean coffee shop near our school.
Folks, here's
Korea isn't just a land of pop stars, fashion, electronics, and kimchi. It's proving to be an emerging authority in the department of "kawaii", which was usually dominated by Japan. Noriter translates to "playground"in Korean.
I'm not the first to blog, rave and whatnot about the cafe. The people who hang out in that particular branch in Taft avenue are mostly:
1. couples looking for a slightly secluded public place to do whatever our schools are not permitting them to do,
2. college girls from an exclusive Catholic school looking for a cozy place to vandalize and gamble in,
3. Koreans (of course),
4. curious students,
5. students with money to burn on over-priced bread and coffee,
6. people who go to Nori (as it is lovingly called by my friends) because they're sick of the snobby atmosphere of Starbucks (which, by the way has two branches in front and a few block's walk beside our university),
7. artsy fartsy, hipster people because they believe Nori=indie
8. otakus and gamers (Surprised? I'm not)
and since these folks most likely have laptops (Macs and high-powered models being the laptops of choice for customers 7 and 8); you can be sure that if you google Noriter, most of the results will show satisfied customers and lurkers (mostly from the Philippines, like coffee shops equate to fine-dining restaurants) blogging about how much the place is as quoted, "made of awesome".
Of course, I'm not offering a detailed taxonomy of what sort of customers Nori is home to in its daily operation--it's the management's job. From its interesting demographic of customers, you would wonder what makes them come to this place. I'm there almost everyday and I also wonder why.
These are my own photos. I stopped to fetch my friends here for the birthday lunch, so I did not really stay long to take pictures. These are the best I managed to take. Unlike the flurry of Nori fans who took nice photos, I'm not claiming to be a photographer. Well, taking advantage of that part of them as well, the rest of the photos will come from them. (more specifically, images will come from Google.
That photo up there, according to Google, came from digitalglomp.blogspot.com nice folks, nice pictures
This one up here's from flickr.com
ugh, since I'm no plagiarizer, my conscience couldn't take taking anymore photos (however tempting) from good 'ol Goog.
I'll post another journal with more of my own Noriter photos. In the meantime, here's what Nori is as a sneak peek.
My good friend (probably, my only LJ friend that actually replies to me) Mr. bigmuffin had asked me in a private message about what sort of music I listen to nowadays. I did answer him there. But for anyone who'd care, here's some of them:
image courtesy of Google
Pizzicato Five: pioneers of Shibuya-kei. There's a similarity with a certain group whose name is commonly bought in drugstores (oh bigmuffin, you WOULD know XD)
Recommended track/s: Sweet Soul Revue for a trip down memory lane and an interesting cover of Girl From Ipanema (my favorite!) Nonstop to Tokyo (from Ca et la Dun Japon if I remember it right) is also good, as well as Watashi no Koto (or All About Me from their album Made in the U.S.A.).
Now, I'm not sure if they're just a duo or there are more of them because the Album covers and publicity photos vary from duo shots and pics with the two of them plus other peeps.
image from Google
Up there is the group, Fishmans. Recommended track: Melody. The music is groovy, trippy, and soothing. I looked at some of their tracks way back in the 90's and they had some reggea songs if you're into that genre.
image from Google
image from tokyoska.net
Skapara, as their Japanese fans call them. Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra is a big group in every way. They have been around for a long time and have done European and U.S. tours. They have also collaborated with Puffy Amiyumi a lot and was commissioned by Cartoon Network to make a song for Teen Titans (again in collaboration with Puffy).
If you're not into ska, that's ok, don't look for them in youtube. Recommended track/s: their cover of Lupin III's 1987 theme and the Love theme from The Godfather
image from katteni-shiyagare.com (official website of the band)
By now you may have observed that my latest fetish is men carrying around brass instruments; you're probably right. Summer is a nice time to listen to jazzy, latin-y music. It's warm, it's humid, and it needs to have some brass playing in the background (it can be the energetic up-notes from a trumpet in a ska interlude or a cool exhibition from an alto sax).
Recommended track: Vermouth Flowers performed by the band featuring Yoshie Nakano from another great jazz band Ego Wrappin' (best played at night)
Ooh, my entry's getting long. So, I'll end here. Next post will be more Noriter photos from my very own camera!
See you around!
Good news is, the fan art survived. It's safe, dry, and nicely compiled in my plastic envelope of artworks. I did a video for my Japanese class and my friend took shots of my works, so I could show my drawings here. I haven't posted them in the main LJ community for the anime nor in deviant art cuz I haven't scanned and cleaned my art.
Actually, it's also because I don't have and I don't know how to Photoshop DDDDX
so yeah, here's a sneak peek of my work:
A friend gave me a sketchpad for my 17th birthday and this one was my first drawing in it. I watched Memoirs of a Geisha on HBO and was inspired to draw this. I haven't colored this until now because when I was drawing the details on the fabric, I didn't really have any color in mind. So, coloring is free for interpretation XD
As you can see, the shots didn't show the complete drawings. But I hope it gives you a good idea of how I draw. so, yeah... This one is my second drawing in the sketchpad. Technically, it's the third because my guy friend drew on the second page of my pad. It's a fan art of Hetalia with the characters Poland and Lithuania. Their outfits came from a Korean fashion magazine. After finishing the kimono art, I was practicing on how I could improve my art style. The best way I thought was to use fashion magazines as reference, instead of studying anime drawings.
This is the only artwork shot in full. It's also a fan art from Hetalia. This is Russia. I also used a Korean magazine for reference in this one. In the magazine, the model was a girl doing an editorial for androgynous French fashion. So, the backdrop's probably French architecture.
Lo and behold! this is the fan art I bawled over and thought was washed away during the flood. You couldn't see the details from the picture, but you get the point (I hope). For the details of the reference, refer to my previous post XD
So! You've seen my artwork.
Last time, I was raving about how I survived my school term just stuffing myself with Flaming Wings. Since then my majors started to become more demanding of my time that I couldn't afford to wait for a seat to open in the very busy food joint. So, for chilling and continuing the research work, my thesis mate and friends hang out in this recently-opened Korean coffee shop near our school.
Folks, here's
Korea isn't just a land of pop stars, fashion, electronics, and kimchi. It's proving to be an emerging authority in the department of "kawaii", which was usually dominated by Japan. Noriter translates to "playground"in Korean.
I'm not the first to blog, rave and whatnot about the cafe. The people who hang out in that particular branch in Taft avenue are mostly:
1. couples looking for a slightly secluded public place to do whatever our schools are not permitting them to do,
2. college girls from an exclusive Catholic school looking for a cozy place to vandalize and gamble in,
3. Koreans (of course),
4. curious students,
5. students with money to burn on over-priced bread and coffee,
6. people who go to Nori (as it is lovingly called by my friends) because they're sick of the snobby atmosphere of Starbucks (which, by the way has two branches in front and a few block's walk beside our university),
7. artsy fartsy, hipster people because they believe Nori=indie
8. otakus and gamers (Surprised? I'm not)
and since these folks most likely have laptops (Macs and high-powered models being the laptops of choice for customers 7 and 8); you can be sure that if you google Noriter, most of the results will show satisfied customers and lurkers (mostly from the Philippines, like coffee shops equate to fine-dining restaurants) blogging about how much the place is as quoted, "made of awesome".
Of course, I'm not offering a detailed taxonomy of what sort of customers Nori is home to in its daily operation--it's the management's job. From its interesting demographic of customers, you would wonder what makes them come to this place. I'm there almost everyday and I also wonder why.
These are my own photos. I stopped to fetch my friends here for the birthday lunch, so I did not really stay long to take pictures. These are the best I managed to take. Unlike the flurry of Nori fans who took nice photos, I'm not claiming to be a photographer. Well, taking advantage of that part of them as well, the rest of the photos will come from them. (more specifically, images will come from Google.
That photo up there, according to Google, came from digitalglomp.blogspot.com nice folks, nice pictures
This one up here's from flickr.com
ugh, since I'm no plagiarizer, my conscience couldn't take taking anymore photos (however tempting) from good 'ol Goog.
I'll post another journal with more of my own Noriter photos. In the meantime, here's what Nori is as a sneak peek.
My good friend (probably, my only LJ friend that actually replies to me) Mr. bigmuffin had asked me in a private message about what sort of music I listen to nowadays. I did answer him there. But for anyone who'd care, here's some of them:
image courtesy of Google
Pizzicato Five: pioneers of Shibuya-kei. There's a similarity with a certain group whose name is commonly bought in drugstores (oh bigmuffin, you WOULD know XD)
Recommended track/s: Sweet Soul Revue for a trip down memory lane and an interesting cover of Girl From Ipanema (my favorite!) Nonstop to Tokyo (from Ca et la Dun Japon if I remember it right) is also good, as well as Watashi no Koto (or All About Me from their album Made in the U.S.A.).
Now, I'm not sure if they're just a duo or there are more of them because the Album covers and publicity photos vary from duo shots and pics with the two of them plus other peeps.
image from Google
Up there is the group, Fishmans. Recommended track: Melody. The music is groovy, trippy, and soothing. I looked at some of their tracks way back in the 90's and they had some reggea songs if you're into that genre.
image from Google
image from tokyoska.net
Skapara, as their Japanese fans call them. Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra is a big group in every way. They have been around for a long time and have done European and U.S. tours. They have also collaborated with Puffy Amiyumi a lot and was commissioned by Cartoon Network to make a song for Teen Titans (again in collaboration with Puffy).
If you're not into ska, that's ok, don't look for them in youtube. Recommended track/s: their cover of Lupin III's 1987 theme and the Love theme from The Godfather
image from katteni-shiyagare.com (official website of the band)
By now you may have observed that my latest fetish is men carrying around brass instruments; you're probably right. Summer is a nice time to listen to jazzy, latin-y music. It's warm, it's humid, and it needs to have some brass playing in the background (it can be the energetic up-notes from a trumpet in a ska interlude or a cool exhibition from an alto sax).
Recommended track: Vermouth Flowers performed by the band featuring Yoshie Nakano from another great jazz band Ego Wrappin' (best played at night)
Ooh, my entry's getting long. So, I'll end here. Next post will be more Noriter photos from my very own camera!
See you around!