Aaaaaaa?

State of mind: confused
Current soundtrack: Ultraman Nexus - Requiem (Kawai Kenji)

Dubious M.Y. is dubious. Is there, perhaps, some piece of history that I missed in the Ultra pantheon? Did Ultraman suddenly age? Was he put under a lot of sudden stress? Acid attack? Freak accident involving hornets?

...No? Rly? Then why do I see the A-type mask in the upcoming Daikessen! Ultra Ultra 8 Kyoudai? Again?

Old 'Man's the flagship of the fandom: the first, the original, the beginning. One would assume you want him to look his very best, and let's admit it, usually he does. One also hopes, with many hopes, that the site Flash uses some standalone promo shot and the A mask was not used in the actual filming. If it was, then Tsuburaya, you have some 'splaining to do! D:

I at least expect Tiga to have some 'By the Light itself, what happened to your face?!' moments, because he and Man have met before.

Work's going OK. I have the brain of a ten-year-old. Also, I saw Hako for lunch today and we had a long mutual unloading session about events past.

Insert bow-chicka-bow-type theme song.

State of mind: hungry full
Current soundtrack: SAMURAI 7 - Unlimited (Aikawa Nanase)

I really need my old doa music back. :P

http://www.ultraman-land.jp/blog/archives/2007/12/post_619.php

...(fili fele tomatosauce)Those who received a winning card will receive a Reimon Monslord version, also in commemoration of Reimon figures hitting the shops.
Here we've run out of win cards, so the campaign has been closed.
If you're asking who Reimon is, he's the mysterious hero appearing on TBS' 'Ultra Galaxy Daikaijuu Battle', so he seems to be holding a key to the story.

...Reimon. Raymon? Equal parts of me are screaming "Hikari!" "Uchiyama!Melos!" "Xenon!" "Deep One!" "Ikan pari!" and rolling around the floor making snide comments. The plot, it seems, must thicken.

P.S. - HATEVETICA PULLED AN A-. ZOMG. Special thanks to my lecturers, Sweii and Hazmer, and the external assessors.

Accio irony!

State of mind: exhausted
Current soundtrack: J-Pop-Rock - REDEMPTION (Gackt)

It's raining outside, a nice pleasant sound with a nice pleasant temperature to go with it. This is one of the best times to be curled up under thick blankets with a fluffy pillow, and drifting off to the sway of one's one thoughts.

I am not asleep. I have a stiff neck, but I have just finished sketching the last sketches...I hope...of the P.S.T.C. internship project and I am pondering the irony of how I, a child of Multimedia Design and Generation-Y and all that, am fervently wishing for a media blackout of about, ohhhh, shall we say two weeks, for the following reasons:

1. My aunt, who is the big Harry Potter fan, has hidden her copy of Deathly Hallows SOMEWHERE in my grandmother's house, and I haven't been able to find it.
2. She's not revealing its whereabouts 'til she finishes reading it.
3. My aunt reads v-e-r-y slowly - it'll probably take her three weeks to finish the book, which in the language of myself and the Internet is half of forever. (To give a sense of scale, I ploughed desperately through OOTP in two days, though without much enjoyment - and HBP took a long Sunday afternoon/evening.)

The annoying part is I don't want to be spoiled at all for this book. I don't want to know who dies when or where with the what by whom. I already felt cheated when someone blurted out Dark Zagi's true identity on the board that must not be named, and since then I have been doubly anal about fandom matters.

Which, of course, makes it perfectly natural for two spoilers to hit me between the eyes within 24 hours; once when I clicked on an LJ-cut to comment on how bleedin' fast someone was reading—I scrolled down, but the browser jumped and a big spoiler sprang at me, and once more when someone slipped an R.I.P. into their Messenger alias.

YEEAAAARGGGH!

Now is the time for the path of least resistance, and less Internet. But I swear if anyone comes up and blurts out anything...there will be carnage. @^@

I also promise you that I will be sneaky and furtive and put any long spluttering rants about the death of (insert name here) behind white blocks of span style.

In the next post: Pictures of what I just blew half my month's stipend on shopping for, and proof I am a complete DORKUS. (If you didn't know that already.)

Aw, man.

State of mind: slightly amused
Current soundtrack: J-music - Starting Line (Kobukuro)

WAHOO, KENA SHOOT BY CLIENTS TODAY. x____x;

All right, it wasn't THAT bad, but it does set the project back considerably...OTL Content needs childifying. Characters need to get their corners sanded off. Also, the interaction wasn't interacting today.

Gwar. Such is life. Still, it's actually good to be in a group and feeling useful again - I just ran the (fifth) draft of the child-friendly content and am sending it around.

Tsukareteru yooooo. I need sleep.

Was talking with my cousin earlier, and I have my first (extremely cheapo) freelance gig. I'll talk a bit about this later.

'They were to come back for me, but they never did...'

State of mind: surprised (and slightly drowsy)
Current soundtrack: The white noise of the fan and the ticking of the keyboard

This is probably going to make no sense to anyone except myself, but what the hey.

It's been a very weird weekend, as I found some fairly old doodles I made while taking my trial HCEs three years ago. One of them included a backstory for one of my characters, Hakugin (Shi had nicer footwear then. I might bring that back.), and it involved two soldiers who were later reincarnated as...well, two others in an already established series. I won't go any further. One was skinny and brash, the other was a big, sweet man. The weird part? A year later, I had to prepare a script for my Drama class. Not only did I turn it into ANOTHER Hakugin backstory, conveniently forgetting this one, I managed to transplant the two characters in—and switch their personalities AND reincarnations. Skinny and brash became slim and innocent. Big and sweet became strong and silent.

...I swear when I scripted Never Alone, Kiichiro and Jinnosuke were designed then. I didn't quite expect them to turn up a year prior to that on an old Math Magic competition form, or hide in my brain and await a chance for rebirth.

Also, I had a dream about being scammed on a family holiday - twice. The first had the whole clan walking home through colourful, chest-high tulip fields (please remember I live in a TROPICAL country), and the next had me kidnapped and thrown into freezing 'brown water', only to later chase courting hornbills and get bitten by the irate male of the pair. To be fair, They were extremely pretty crowned pigeons at the start of my dream. Even better was the look in the male's eyes when I finally stopped playing dead, before he chewed by nose off—"Ha, see, I knew you were alive, you naked Wingless! Phear my 1337 papa hornbill sk33l5!"

Hairy hairy ho!

State of mind: chipper
Current soundtrack: J-music playlist

This is Rosini, her redesign, and her moustached daddy. :)

Happy Father's Day to those celebrating!

-----

Film dude extraordinaire Amir Muhammad used to write parody articles in his NST column, so when he said people were in a flap over Sharifah Amani shaving her head bald during the production of Muallaf, I thought he was half-joking.

...He wasn't, which makes me more than half-shellshocked. Ai. Yo. YO. Face, meet palm. Get to know each other. (The Mail also published another article today about Muallaf and the baldness, here.)

Let's make a checklist here.

• The action has been perceived as 'overboard.'
  The character Sharifah plays? Is bald. Wigs and cosmetics didn't seem close enough, so in came the barber...and out went her hair. That's fine in my book. Obviously, one's mileage will vary.
• The action was degrading and for the sake of popularity.
  Sharifah doesn't seem degraded at all. As for the popularity thing, see the above point, and please to stuff a sock in it. -_-
• Malaysian artistes are becoming too daring.
  How, exactly? :/ By kissing whoever they want to? By shaving their head bald to get in character? Come on! Compared to the 'Western' scene we're squeaky clean! I mean, it's your own decision if you don't want a Muslim actor to play a non-Muslim (because obviously somehow, that'll Reset the World), but by that logic, Prince of Egypt would have been a bitch to cast for if Malaysia had produced it. Ditto stuff like Schindler's List. Does that mean only NAZI actors can play Nazis, then?
• It's SIIIINFUL for a woman to act like a man.
  ...Um, hi there. This is the blimming 21st century, and gender roles are blending delightfully into one another. Women can pee standing up (...with the appropriate paper doodads, but still), if they want to. Men can put make-up on and dance with pretty pink scarves, if they want to. Because seriously, these things are not going to send Malaysia sinking into the seas ala Atlantis, or bring giant broccoli monsters to our shores, or turn everyone into amoral heathens. Trust me on this one. Sometimes a bald actress is really just a bald actress. The dignity of Islam was not contained in Sharifah Amani's hair—although let me tell you, it was a darn fine head of hair.

If this movie gets banned because of ZOMGtehbaldladeez!, it will only prove that no, we're not ready for Vision 2020 just yet. Heck, we might not even make 3030. -_-; Oh my motherland, why are you so devoid of logic?

*your spelling may vary. ^^;

Three young friends

State of mind: pleased
Current soundtrack: Playlist name - series - song title (artist)

This is Rosini



and Mei Li



and Mohan.



They're three of the characters our PSFour group redesigned for P.S. The Children's interactive safety workbook. Redesigns look likely in the future, but for the time being - please give them a warm welcome when they do arrive somewhere near you!

Other things:
Turning the realistic into the cartoonish
Style test
Sketchy Mei Li (excuse the wheelchair)
Sketchy Mohan
Sketchy Rosini
Rosini's friend and her private tutor

In which there is reminiscence.

State of mind: drowsy
Current soundtrack: Ultra Kaijuu Ondo (Ishikawa Susumu)

My prayers, they have been answered! For the moment, I am in charge of the character design for the P.S. The Children internship program. What is is, well, I won't say just yet - but I think you'll find out soon. :) Also, I AM doing something visual with Helvetica for MMP - motion graphics or a short film, most likely, but it does afford me the opportunity to personify the fonts and all. Just imagine Miriam d'Cruz! Helvetica Foong! Arial Wong! Muhammad Zapfino! (While all of these are people I know at college, I doubt that they'd be too chuffed sticking their heads in boxes to act for a short film. Kekekeke.)

I love character design, having a few of my own personal favourites. Pen, for instance, that plucky little turtle which appeared in my first Flash animation project—one I'll be redoing for Graduation Campaign. Ninja Teabags appear quite often nowadays too, in times of randomness. One Arion has a special place in my heart, because he was one of the first really 'different' Ultras I tried my hands at, all green eyes and long limbs. Dark Eye (formerly called Scudwan, do not ask) is one of those I love to hate, along with the stubbly Huang Long general, Ran Seiryuu. There is always Hakugin and Shinku, the bondkeepers watching their charges from a distance. I hope a part of them resides in me somewhere, really. And then there's the more out of the way stuff like Black Colossus, with his evil prosthetics; Tobiron, who now has three origin stories to pick and choose from, depending on who you really wish him to be; Baiyouji, prince of the Western Ocean; Hoshi the Soulmistress/Tamasenshi/Kishu Megami, who was really an extension of what I wanted to become when I was much younger.*

The one that sneaks into my drawings most often, however, is Kamiza Maki, the androgynous white wolf shapeshifter from Kumamoto Higo. She started off as 18, which was hoary maturity to me then; she's 21 now, which I don't think is hoary maturity, just blind youth's final years. There's a scar on her neck I drew once and somehow stayed. Her hairstyle changed about five times and will probably change again. She likes Japanese dumplings and pears. She strikes out blindly. She's not tall, but graceful anyway, and deadly with a swastika sai in her hands. She's got a short fuse. She has a fatalistic inferiority complex thing going on. Her fangs and claws are sharp, when bared. There's probably a lot more of me in Maki than I'd care to admit.

...My point? What point? I love character design, drawing them out, giving them personalities and backgrounds, planting a scar here and a dead eye there, making them speak, giving them pronoun-patterns** and motivations and hearts and minds. I love telling their stories and intertwining bits of my own with them.

So thanks for passing down the job, chief! I'll do my best! * ^_^ *

In other news, I bought some makeup the other day, because Body Shop was having a sale. I'm quite pleased, and actually just waiting for an occasion to try some of it out...although I've already started wearing the Spirit of the Moonflower perfume oil, and it's not lasting as long as I thought it would. It DOES smell nice, though. Also, I took more pictures of the greenery outside Sunway Pyramid. While the flowers I last captured are all beginning to wilt, I caught some butterflies makling their rounds. I haven't seen these for a while, the ones with wings speckled and orange-dotted outside and iridescent blue inside.




*A self-insert Mary Sue, to use the technical term. XD Only one thing remains sure: Hoshi gives up her life in one final battle, far, far in the future when her host has lost the will to live. Her other exploits shall go unrecorded.

** Best explained with Rurouni Kenshin - normally uses sessha to refer to himself, resulting in the author's love for ALL sesshas in her fandoms, but as Battousai, refers to himself as ore.