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.

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

All ur text are belong to ME.

State of mind: frazzled
Current soundtrack: Snatches of 'Purple People Eater'

Guess who's the copywriter/editor for Batch 51's graduation campaign? X3 Between me and my trusty, equally grammar-finicky assistant, no syn(tax) shall go unpunished*! No verb shall be treated as a noun! The F7 button will sing beneath our fingers! Behold, TOA, She-Noun and the Masters of the Grammarverse! *triumphant cartoon music* One small problem—I really don't know anyone in the board besides some of my classmates. I guess now's a good opportunity to get to know some people from other majors besides the old foundation gang.

Internship is going along quite smoothly. So far, so good—we're all bouncing merrily off each other and it's proving to be a pleasant experience. Expect to see some of my sketches here soon. :D

I had a horribly, unashamedly moe-riffic dream last night. There was an Ultraman event on for the school holidays—a GREAT BIG event!!!—in which Noa handled a crying baby expertly (cue squeeing from author), I saw a massive flock of Brahminy kites on a beach and life was so good I refused to wake up until I'd overslept one hour. :P

Firnheledien comes over tomorrow for a visit! ♥ But tonight...proposal work. @_@ *reluctantly detaches self from blogging and goes to work*

* we sincerely hope.

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.

Internship!

State of mind: satiated
Current soundtrack: Ueki no Housoku - No Regret (Koda Kumi)

So we're all finally in our internship program—and I'm working for PSTheChildren.org along with three other guys. Again, I am the sole female in a group (not overly hard when your class has all of four). It is also slightly disheartening when the other members are told they are here for their Flash skills and well-roundedness, but the main reason you're with this group is to make sure no one screws up the English content. I guess everyone has their roles, although I'd like to do some of the graphic work at least...

Had a tiring if somewhat fulfilling day today. Went out for Japanese and currently feel like a stuffed eggplant - which makes me wonder how the 4 salarymen at the table next to us could pack it away like there was no tomorrow. Had my first taste of yukimi daifuku, which apparently involves ice-cream coated in a thin layer-o-mochi. I like Japanese food as much as the next person, but why the heck are those things so hard to eat? @_@ Also, there was strawberry ice-cream in mine. I dunno, that sounds more like a sort of hanami daifuku to me.

Now I REALLY must decide what to do for MMP Studio.