Bad lighting

An image I thought I uploaded, but never actually did. The characters in the front are Blithe and Monday (when they were younger), and the ones on top are....well, I don't have names for them yet. The one with the eye-band thingie is SoSo (short for Sophie Solice), and the one jutting out at the uttermost right is Rue.

A simple dress design I did for no apparently reason. Shall colour this someday and make it look more trimmed. The dress is striped at the top, and is connected with a white skirt; babydoll style. I know alot of fashion magazines crucify the babydoll dress saying that it is absolutely unflattering (I see their point), but they look cute on paper. Key words: on paper. But then again, I also have a babydoll-cut winter coat.... so who am I to talk...

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Ah, it has been a long time since I last talked about my apartment situation, hm? After one of my good friends/roomates (there are four girls in total living in this apartment, including myself) left for an exchange program, the apartment has never felt emptier. A new girl moved in, and we get along well, but it simply isn't the same. But my roommate-roommate (the one who I share a room with) is sanity-challenged.

Alright, that's abit mean. Maybe it's just a cultural thing? Afterall, I come from a relatively docile family and cultural background...and going to school next to a cemetery for seven years must have sobered-up my way of seeing the world. In contrast, my room-roomate seems to find drama and problems in everything, and constantly complains how everyone around her is in the wrong. I would sympathise with her predicaments if only I (and another roommate of mine) didn't know she was cheating on her boyfriend.

Not a Giving Person

Here is the draft version of the DGM image I'm drawing this V-Day. It's Allen in a girly costume.

My good mood today was destroyed when I got a letter from the local Mission Centre asking for me to donate money. I don't mind giving a little (I do have part-time jobs for a reason), but last time I donated they:

-sent me a letter of thanks with a ton of stuff praising god (god has nothing to do with me donating money to your charity. I didn't hear any voice in my head telling me to open my cheque book, grab my pen and start writing. I am an atheist, but I also think I am a decent enough person to help those in need without some divine entity prompting me to do so). The letter was so filled with the word god I couldn't read it after the first two paragraphs.

-sent me another letter within a week asking me to donate again; this time for a different event. I'm happy to do the occasional good deed, but I'm a student and I need to eat and pay rent too! After that, the letters just kept pouring in. I felt as though I've opened some sort of floodgate. Don't make me regret having donated in the first place.

The cupids fear me.

Don't worry, this isn't the image I plan to submit for V-day this year. I have something completely new, but just needs to be uploaded and coloured. Should take less than a month (hehehe, I'm joking). The image needs to be penned on Open Canvas.

But yes, I am indeed one of those curmudgeons who depises V-day. Not because I am never on the receiving end for roses and candies (save for one high school year, where I was so cynical I started suspecting that someone left me a box of chocs as a joke and subsequently recycled the accompnying card), but because I find the idea of 'super' loving someone for one day to be so ...superficial.

Some people seem to stress over what to buy their other (and probably better) halves. (Other people I know are worrying over what to buy their better....thirds...get the hint?). Just the other day I was watching G4, which is technically a male-orientated television channel, and they were running adverts for a website that allows people to buy flowers for someone in under 2 minutes. They feature 'real men' who were prior customers, and their drive-at-home point is that "it takes one thing off your mind". Seriously? If you find buying flowers for someone to be such a hassle, wouldn't it be better to....not buy flowers at all? Or not married/dating at all? Plus, flowers are such a generic gift that screams "no mental capacity was wasted on the choosing of this gift".

As for me, this year I am going to spend my V-Day alone. Though granted, I have to spend it alone since I have work, meetings and class from 8:00am until 8:45pm. People might give me sympathetic looks as I walk in solitude (ooh, such dramatic langauge!) on campus that day, but they can just go and shove it.

Misc.

Sketchbook plan for the composition of an image....never got around to actually starting the final version.

Sketch of children and their demons, a part of an entire sketch series I have

My first attempt with using watercolour on wood...not exactly done very well, but the primary purpose here was to test colour combinations. This look is probably good for someone who needs make-up ideas for Halloween. Heh.

An example of the other kind of stuff I draw/paint. Credit goes to to Clara who took this photo for me.

Note that these images are not chronologically arranged (too tired to do that), so it is difficult for me to say which images show my more recent works. However, I can say for sure that none of the stuff shown in the images are complete, and they are all still works in progress. Since I have a tendency to get bored of the stuff I do after a few weeks, so none of these look the same anymore...

...I'm really not cut out to be an artist. Nor do I really have the intention to have art around 24/7 for the rest of my life. I'll just stick to anime/manga, or other art hobbies.

Lunar New Year

A day late, but Happy Chinese New Year everyone!

Though personally I'm not on board with this 'new-year' plan, since I got a horrible prediction for 2008 from my Chinese horoscope. So I'm going to be in denial. I'm atheist, and I normally don't believe in these superstitions, but it's just so depressing to know that someone else thinks the next 365 (366, since it is a leap year!) days of my life is going to be one downhill ride. Well, whether I believe in these predictions or not, I'm still going to make the best of what I have.

Hm, surprisingly optimistic thoughts coming from a pessimist.

Well, I've spent my New Year working at the library and writing up my thesis. The former is going perfectly well (it is now my job to mutilate and discard books, and I'm proud to say that I'm very competent at that), and the latter is moving at a snail's pace. I sat in front of the computer for five hours before realising that my paragraphs were getting redundent. Looks like I'll have to work harder this weekend.

To be coloured...

Kanda and Lavi in a whimsical childlike setting. I still need to edit and colour this, so it's still considered a work in progress. I was debating whether or not to submit this as a b+w image, but then whose childhood is b+w? (Maybe except Allen, since he was all emo and angst in his earlier years).

I love DGM, and the recent chapters are very exciting and all, but that level 4 akuma has me cracking up instead of feeling creeped out. It's the half-man-half-woman torso part.

It's almost Super CHOOSE-day.

Aein and Blithe

Random illustration

Random illustration 2

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I finally received my voter's guide through the post. (A month after I sent the application-- if I was in Hong Kong, whoeevr it was in charge of this business would have been fired. FIRED!). I was hoping to use a mail-in ballot instead, but the documents arrived after the deadline for that passed, so I guess I have to take time off on Tuesday just to head to the voting booth. Apparently, the voting booth closest to me with be at the elderly home down the street, so I'm going to assume the entire process will take 4 hours or more. (When I voted on campus in 2004, the queue was so long and the students so numerous that it took me 3 hours to get where I needed to be).

Wait, today was the superbowl?