Merci beaucoup!

New Blog Design!

Hey all!

So I gave my blog a new face today. It was a day of trial and error and I've finally created something I'm happy with. :)

In other news, I've been working on commissions every day this week, which is causing me to be a total shut-in. It's the rainy season in Tokyo so I'm not too enticed to go outdoors anyway, but that and an impending visit from Aunt Flow is causing me to feel cranky. I actually consumed two ice creams and a whole serloin steak yesterday. D8

Well at least the Draco/Harry commission is done! I've been working on this since November!! Sheesh, that took loooong enough.

Also, some exciting news for me is that my work has been featured at SomethingWeLike.com! 

I had an interview with them earlier last week (which was really something--it was actually a bit overwhelming to be placed beside real professional artists). Thank you to Peter Halim for this awesome opportunity!

That's about it for now. I need to get back to commission catch-ups!

Graduation, FML, Howl and Summer Finn paper doll

Oh my goodness an update is long overdue!

May was crazy, as Mays usually are at Soka. This year's finals seemed to be prolonged for an additional week--my last paper was due 4 days before the graduation ceremony! And I was an emotional wreck during graduation--that's another story all together. It was incredible watching my peers in 2011 walk the brand new, waxy floor of the Performing Arts Center in their gowns and blue sashes and from the seats I felt like I was walking beside them, too. But I've overcome my bitterness about not graduating this year--as a matter of fact, I'm quite excited and honored that I get to stay at Soka for one more year. I'm able to take all these courses that I otherwise would never have had time for. And guess who's learning cello next semester, too!! :D So I see my status as a "supersenior" a privilege. And hell, I am in no way ready to be stepping out in to the workforce.

So that's that and I'm at home in Japan now, with my darling family and my getting-kinda-senile-there cat. I've got this month in Tokyo to prepare for my big trip to Europe in July. I'm just in the process of finishing up commissions. 

Oh, also! I was recently asked to illustrate for fmylife.com! I was so thrilled so I jumped on the opportunity to illustrate my favorite FML:

Today my friends took my phone and changed all the contact's names to characters from Harry Potter. I have over a hundred contacts and no idea who I'm talking to. I've been texting Draco Malfoy for 4 hours now. FML

Here's what I came up with:

Click image to enlarge

So that was a ton of fun. And I was so amazed to find out that this got over 40,000 hits in two days. Thank you everyone at DeviantArt and Tumblr!! :D

And here are some more Howl fan arts I've done over the past two weeks:

「消えて行くハウル」("Vanishing Howl")

The Water Ring

Also, I finally finished a second paper doll. After posting the first one of Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) from 500 Days of Summer, I got a great number of replies on Tumblr asking for a Summer version. So here it is! A Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) paper doll!

Click image to enlarge

Finally here's some Potter Crack I drew as a post script in a letter I wrote to a friend. 

Click image to enlarge

That's about it for now! Sorry this post was so image heavy! Good day!

Catharsis by Ghibli

Needless to say, the internet hiatus didn't work.

I was way too stressed out to stay away from the internet.

I have now reached the conclusion that especially during finals, internet access should be permitted. Otherwise, I become a compressed gas chamber waiting to burst.

Yesterday could have been absolutely dreadful had I not made the decision to just let everything go and watch a movie. I watched Howl's Moving Castle again, but this time in English, which was amusing to say the least. I don't know who thought it would be a brilliant idea to have Christian Bale go Batman on Howl but it certainly wouldn't have happened if I had been in the executive chair.

However, I felt so much better after watching the film a few times on loop and meanwhile drawing this as a stress-reliever. I realized that drawing happy faces releases my sadness. It worked before, too, when I was drawing that One Piece illustration. I think this is my own way of creating value out of obstacles. The Howl group pic took about 7 hours, but it didn't feel laborious at all! I enjoyed every brush stroke! c:

Markl, Sophie, Howl, and Calcifer (c) Hayao Miyazaki & Studio Ghibli

Another Daily Deviation

Wow! I got another Daily Deviation today!! What a great surprise! Thanks to aruachan for suggesting me and to Alexandra for featuring my Amelie fan art digital painting: Letters to Madeleine Wallace on deviantArt.com! Totally made my day!

I don't believe I've shared it before so here's the other drawing I made last summer that got a Daily Deviation, too. This is a fan art for the Japanese comic One Piece titled One Piece Summer 2010.

Really, this couldn't have happened without your support! Thank you for your kind encouragement, support, and comments! You push me to strive harder to become a better artist!

Pre-flight speedpaint

I've been really uncomfortably busy these past weeks and it'll only get busier as we sink deeper into May. I've got three large papers due in less than two weeks, for which I've written absolutely zero at this point. I don't understand how writing has become such a difficult feat with every additional year in college. I recall being (or at least feeling) much more eloquent in middle/high school. 

Anyway, I drew this as a destresser last night. I've been really absorbed with the Space Race lately, and I recently watched several episodes of NASA's When We Left Earth documentary series on the progressive projects to send man out of earth's orbit and on to the moon. The whole space-age decade is fascinating to me, with the almost arrogant confidence that pervaded the politics of astrophysical engineering triggered by the omnipresent competition of the Soviets. 

So instead of drawing the stuff that I should be drawing for The Pearl and commissions and my now completely abandoned independent study (again), I drew an astronaut in one of the original Mercury 7 space suits. I was debating whether to draw Alan Shepard or Ed White (from Gemini 4 and perhaps the most charming, after Neil Armstrong) and ended up drawing nobody. lol This took approximately 2 hours.

Portrait for The Pearl

A portrait of Jenny Ohrstrom, SUA class of 2008, for the upcoming Pearl Memorial Edition! We're nearly there but man oh man it's getting rough. I've been struggling with recurring vertigo these past four, five days, making it very hard to work on anything... let alone draw on computer. Alas, the show must go on (but with periodic breaks on Netflix, now).

Some stuffs I've been working on...

I am determined to make
this SUA 10th Anniversary Pearl issue

nothing less than amazing.

A little sneak-peak of some side-article inserts
made of found-material collages:

Brazilian Wax

Breakfast Music no. 1

Breakfast Music no. 2

Earthtones

My addictions

So my class is making a fancy scrapbook to preserve our memories etc. on a tangible object and every senior was asked to submit one original page. The criteria was pretty loose. Stuff like how you'd want to be remembered and reflecting on good times and all that. Stuff that describes you. I basically saw this as an excuse to mash together all the loves of my life these past four years, from Angry Birds to llamas. So here's what I made:

Probably the rest of my classmates are gonna have pages full of photos with friends and inside jokes and all. Look how much of my limited social life made it to this page. Zero. lol Well, maybe YouTube.

What I wore

An I-wish-I-could-be-more-productive-and-studious-like-way-back-when-but-alas-I-did-what-I-could kinda day. At least those readings got done.

WICKED!

OMG! I FINALLY WATCHED WICKED!!!

GOD I HAD SUCH A BLAST AND I CANNOT STOP SINGING!

So, some really quick Elphaba fan art:

And in tribute to Wicked this is what I wore today:

EDIT: ONE MOAR FOR GLINDA!

(500) days with Tom paper doll and What I wore

Well, after I left you with the previous post last night, I had this sudden urge to want to draw Tom Hansen from (500) Days of Summer, and as I was beginning to draw I thought hey why don't I make this into a paper doll so I can have my own Tom in my life (no, my obsessive-compulsion for fictional male characters will never leave me--that was established a decade ago when I encountered Harry Potter). So this is what I got:

Feel free to full-size view and print if you're inclined.

I admit, this was a lot of fun and I'm thinking I may make another one with "The Dude" from The Big Lebowski when I feel bored and negligent of my many other tasks. lol TBA.

Anyway, what I wore today:

I'm hitting the sack early tonight--for certain this time!

April Fool'd

I hope you all had an entertaining April Fools! I got pranked by my Symbolic Logic professor this morning when I got seated in class and he distributed a pop-quiz with ridiculously difficult deduction problems that we hadn't even learned about yet. It was only after I began trying to solve the first problem that I realized it was a prank. 

I also liked what they did to Hulu, as well as the 1911 YouTube logo, and the elaborate prank with the Google Gmail Motion BETA promotion in which they supposedly created a new type of system where people could compose e-mails through body motion captured by a webcam. I responded to that prank by making this video using their map of shortcut body gestures to compose an e-mail.

Anyway, fun day! Here's what I wore:

What I wore, chocolates and flour

Today was So Cal's warmest so far in 2011 and it was absolutely spectacular. Brilliant sunshine, warm breezes, joyful birds and... the biggest package from home containing 11 boxes of my favorite mushroom shaped chocolate snacks!! If this couldn't be awesome enough, my mom went ahead and caked the whole package with limited edition One Piece postage stamps!! See for yourself!!

LOL And so I was thrilled. I guess the images are self explanatory. 

So here's what I wore on this fine spring day!

Also, I enjoyed this evening listening to a benefit concert-ish performance of three Hawaiian guitarists. It was actually the first sound test rehearsal that was held in the brand new Performing Arts Center at our Soka University, and after the earthquake happened in Japan, the organizers decided to make it public and send all the profits to the earthquake/tsunami relief. So that was really enjoyable and the acoustics were great! These mellow middle-aged men brought the shores and plumerias with them in their cheerful Hawaiian melodies. c:

Finally, I wanted to share that I totally enjoyed Stranger Than Fiction the other day! Gosh, it was so awesome. I couldn't get over the witty narrative, the colorful and dynamic assortment of personalities, the clean, futuristic computer graphics, the delicious soundtrack and the overall creativity of the plot that kept me captivated from start to finish. I absolutely loved Emma Thompson's acting, and Will Ferrell wasn't bad at all for a change. I loved Dustin Hoffman's lit professor role as well. Gosh, what a fun movie! I need to go watch it again--I have a feeling the second time around will reveal even greater details!

Anyway, I drew this based off the relationship between Ana and Herald from one of the best scenes out of the entire movie:

That's it now. Hope all of you make the best of your April Fools!

SSSUUUUUSSSSHHHIIIIIIIIIII

fo' dinnah!

In other news, we watched Disney's Around the World in 80 Days for our Ideologies of East and West class today and I was kinda mortified by the poor execution of the general theatrical performance. Particularly Schwarzneggar as the Turkish sultan or king or prince or whatnot. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't get a kick out of Jackie Chan's minute and a half kung-fu action solely using a wooden bench. 

I'm'a off to watch Stranger Than Fiction with Scott now. Toodles!

Architecture Exam & What I Wore

Well, yesterday was spent studying studying studying for the architecture exam! It's been a while since I've worked this hard to memorize dates and theory and concrete information. But by the end of the day I was actually really pleased because I felt like I learned something that I personally felt was valuable. At least by the end of this spring break I've come to understand that I'm a big fan of the architecture of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and that I need to pay a visit to the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California and check out Louis Kahn's architecture with my real eyes before I graduate from Soka.

Anyway, I really needed exercise yesterday but since I didn't have the leisure to put down my notes, I decided my notes could stay as I worked my muscles. Hence, the intense exam-study-yoga action below.

Lacking in the spiritual aspect but hey wachugonnado

 TODAY! EXAM! I got up early and had a chanting toso with my friend Maiko from 7:30 am. Felt great after chanting and a delicious bowl of granola-honey-cinnamon-yogurt and tackled my notes some more until the exam at 1:00pm. I was a little mortified tho because the exam itself was quite different from the study guide we had been given. But I think I got through it somehow all right. I'm nervous about the results but at least I know that I did my best. Yeah, that I did.

Study days wardrobe

Thank you again for your encouraging replies to the earlier posts! I'll do what I can to keep these What I Wore uploads going. c: These are from the past three days. As it's probably apparent, I really wasn't in any state to be caring about my attire on Thursday. Everyone has those days, amiright?

 Friday was a cramming-for-studies day. Why yes, I am wearing the House Brawl sweatshirt from Threadless designed by Alice X. Zhang! I bought this in tribute to the Harry Potter 7 Part 1 premiere in November! So darn proud of it!

And then today, Saturday, was also a study day. I was pleasantly surprised at how productive I was for the majority of the day. A group of students on campus participated in Earth Hour 2011, coordinated by the Environmental Department. We all unplugged ourselves from our digital lives (which was alarmingly liberating) and gathered to play some outdoor games like tag and icebreaker-y stuff. We had so much fun that we never got around to sharing scary stories and listening to live acoustic music, which was on the agenda.

Tomorrow is the last day I've got left to prepare for the architecture exam! Aaaaah wish me luck!

Wine Mixer flyer

Yesterday was a downer day for me. I felt completely reluctant to do anything productive and my recent subscription to Netflix did nothing to help that situation. So I ended up watching three and a quarter movies yesterday:  Tangled (again), Everything is Illuminated (Russian film starring Elijah Wood), The Big Lebowski (again), and a part of Rango (starring the voice of Johnny Depp) on another online streaming site. I didn't have high hopes for Rango to begin with but 20 minutes was enough for me to shut it off. I don't need anything more than Willy Wonka and the Hatter to tarnish my image of Johnny. 

Hence, been studying most of the day today to catch up. I've got a pretty intense architecture exam coming up on Monday which I can never be overly prepared for.

I also drew this flyer for a campus event coming up. 

Thank you for your comments on the previous post! I'll compensate by posting my uninteresting* garb from the past two days in one dump tomorrow.

*Study days and moody days deserve nothing more or less than sweats and PJs. 

Adventure boy finished

Sorry for spamming all of your inboxes with my wardrobe doodles every day! I can imagine how annoying it would be so I'll tone down the posting from now on.

I'll just share one drawing that I finished last night.

Avery at aflora.deviantart.com

What I wore

I wish there was a way to guarantee productivity on study days.

Felt flower garlands!

I finally made the flower garland after Mikodesign's tutorial!!

Wow, I can't begin to express how much fun I had with this!

Hey,

please know that I'm chanting for you.

What I wore

Rain and wind and flying leaves

Happy Purim! What I wore

Today I celebrated the Jewish holiday Purim with my friend, Scott, who hosted a small party in his room. We had tea and matza dipped in dulce de leche, played a game of mahjong (quite unconnectedly), and watched One Night with the King. Though I couldn't stay for the whole movie, Scott shared the story of Purim with me, in which the Jewish Queen Esther succeeded in thwarting the plan of Haman to exterminate the Jewish people. During the party, Scott pulled out a pair of holographic glasses that turned every light source into little stars of David--a few of us kinda went crazy over them. It was the trippiest, prettiest experience you could ever get with a mere 10 cents.

YAY JUDEO-VISION

Adventure Aviator Boy

Wow, I had a crazy evening. More like a hormonal storm of self-upbraiding. I just needed to come back, scarf down a brownie or two, kick back to some Kate Nash and draw something innocent. So here's a work in progress that I began an hour ago:

Behold the messy sketchiness of my work process

close up detail

Again, hurray for spring break! I'll probably just spend the whole time sleeping, eating, drawing, Netflixing and yogaing. What are your plans?

Spring Break!