I’d say another 4 or 5 hours of painting.

And, an artsy photo:

I don’t know why there is a check box in WordPress that says, “This post is super-awesome” but I always check it when I remember. hehehehe….

Well, I am learning a ton about signs. I was skeptical at first, really, since I had no idea what it was about. So for my first week in class back in September, I was inspired by the preferential shapes test — our homework was to create 5 cards that contain a symbol, and related theme and make up my own “preferential test.”

It’s a lot like tarot card reading for sure. I can’t do this test on myself since I am the creator of the cards, but I welcome others to try it. The theme of my card is 5 Popular/Common Chinese Creatures in stories. These include good and bad.

Please choose your favorite animal, 1 being most favorite, and 5 being the least. It’s best not to look past this line if you’re doing the test yourself until you’ve chosen your order.

———————————————–

Positions:

1. Your present moment. (Moral law). This is what you are feeling or thinking subconsciously at the moment; things you truly believe in or think about.
2. What your goal is right now (Heaven). Something you are looking forward to.
3. What is grounding you right now (Earth). Who you really are, your true inner nature.
4. Hopes. (The Commander). Your hopes and dreams of the near future.
5. Fears. (Method & Discipline). What you fear about yourself or your environments currently. What you need to work on improving.

• Dragon: These noble creatures appear throughout Chinese culture and represent the Emperor of China. They are powerful, majestic, eccentric creatures and often considered “lucky.”

• Fenghuang: The Chinese phoenix is the ruler of all birds. It represents the Empress. It has no connection with the Western phoenix but shares similar positive traits. It is considered the pair to the Emperor’s dragon symbol. During times of trouble, it tends to hide away, and during times of peace and prosperity, it appears.

• Snake: Many tales are told about snakes all over the world, most are thought to be conniving and evil, but others are thought to be powerful deities. They embody the femininity and seduction of the woman — this is different from the femininity of the phoenix, whereas one has much more of aristocratic-like feminity. The snake to me represents the raw female that society teaches is bad to indulge in. I am not sure if I agree about that. But Nü Wa is a half-woman, half-snake deity  who is the creator of the world according to the Mao tribe. That is to say, not all snakes are here to make you eat a certain fruit from a certain tree.

• Tiger: The King of all beasts is another power animal that is the rival to the Dragon. These agile creatures loves challenges. It is easy to say that they are wild and feral, and running toward things at full speed. The white tiger is thought to symbolize wisdom in Chinese culture.

• Turtle: Turtle, in many Asian tales and myths, represents longevity. They live for many years, some even longer than humans, and thus, aquire much wisdom and sagehood. They are also guardians, or gateway animals that give people guidance. These creatures are also one of four animals that possess “spirit” according to the “Book of ceremonies.”

My midterm project. Still working on it though, technically, I can move on since I all ready turned it in. Still, lotta things here and there that need to be re-looked at, but welcome for any input too.  The story is based off of Bearskin: http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/authors/grimms/101bearskin.html
So I think I will do his model packet as a side thing~ It’ll be awesome. I think the double claw aspect is bo-bomb. Yet I gotta ask, how the *%#$ will he wipe his @$$?? The things concept artists must think about… hahaha… j/k.

Lotsa bears in my portfolio. Cannot be helped though, bears are hella cool.

So much for posting twice a week. Impossible! Just kidding. Not impossible, just need better management…….

This is a painting of Yerba Buena park. Guess where I sat?? Unfortunately, it was a cloudy day in mid-August… I remember because it was the only cloudy day of the week.

I’ve decided to post a work in progress of this drawing/painting that I’ve been working on steadily, which I started since before going to my parents, and then coming back to SF in Aug. This is a small tribute to one of my old best friends in the fourth grade that I’ve lost in touch with, and he is surely missed. I had moved schools sometime in the very beginning of fifth grade, and I did manage to call him every now and then. He told me he was going to move to Hawaii some time soon, but I don’t really like talking on the phone much so I didn’t keep in touch often enough. I still only use a phone because it is a convenience. Although, I feel like I should get a smartphone soon. I am probably also one of the last peoples on earth to not have a texting plan. So I guess it’s time to move on with the times and join the crowd because that’s how the kids talk these days.

But in any case, he had this thing with Queen Elizabeth that influenced me, and this was also the time when Star Wars Episode 1 came out, and we had this thing/infatuation with Queen Amidala. Needless to say, I am attracted to royalty. ;P I also am inspired by Android Jones and Trinity Blood, so there is some semblance of those also in here. Inspiration from lots of things! M-hm.

And a close up:

And one final, random drawing:

“Le Angry Bübü” © Tannie Duong. Booboo was having a particularly angry week. If you don’t remember where he first appeared this is the post here.

But a year ago, one of my instructors gave out these orange pencils, and they were so good to draw with. They rocked. The pencils are from a brand called Palomino. And it wasn’t until I bought my very first set that I realized they were made in Japan. Figures that’s why.

Dude. The plastic box it comes in is like sooooo nice. I’ve never praised plastic before, but this is a very pretty plastic box. When I opened the flap, it didn’t bend at all. And the art on the cover is cute.

So I’ve almost always used Staedtler, and they are pretty much one of the best brands out there. Faber Castell was next on my list. And if I wanted to be cheap, I’d just go for the store brand pencils, or General’s.

Staedtler pencils

I have had these since high school actually. My sister gave this case to me for one of my birthdays. If anyone remembers the episode in Sailor Moon when these two cartoonists/artist friends bought each other some really nice pencils in a case, I’m always reminded of it. I guess that’s why I haven’t used them all. I always use other Staedtler’s that I’ve received from others. Up until now, one of my favorite brands.

Faber Castell wood and woodless (Pitt) pencils

General's (Kimberly) pencils and graphite sticks

Utrecht 5B & 6B

Cretacolor monolith woodless graphite pencil

It is really too bad I don’t have every single pencil degree, but I have most at least…

What I have found out: Well, the Palomino pencils are the softest out of all the pencils. The lead was smoother and laid down more easily. As the degree went up, the less I had to press to achieve a dark color. It did, break more easily though, but I’m sure the ratio of graphite and clay is much more different. Staedtler was the second best in terms of smoothness. General’s was almost always a shade lighter than the rest until you got to the 4B’s, and so was Faber Castell; for those two, I always had to press harder to get the color darker. That somewhat surprised me a bit, but they are the cheaper brand… Except for the woodless Pitt graphite pencils by Faber Castell. Those tend to be great for heavy areas that need to be colored in… But General’s and Faber Castell was almost always the easiest to erase with my Sakura electric eraser, yet it took 2 or more strokes sometimes to remove Palomino or Staedtler (but that’s probably a good thing right? more easy to smudge though).

The Cretacolor Monolith woodless pencils versus Pitt was practically the same. The ingredients could be different though. You never know.

I tested a lot with the HB and 6Bs.

I did use these:

I assume this to be an HB but I am actually not sure….

And of course a standard no. 2 pencil.

So I’m gonna be treating my Palomino’s with love and care, but they’ll be well used. I hope the local Utrecht and more art stores stock them because the only place you can get them at is pencils.com, they are a pretty cool website, but I want to look at the Palomino Colors or Aquas, which are color pencils, but Aquas is probably water soluble pencils. There are also writer’s pencils on there called Blackwing with replaceable eraser ends. They sell other products too. Man, I want to get that wood craft set; it looks awesome. I would like to build a mini toy town!

I hope people enjoy this review. I found it rather informative (while doing the tests) about the quality of some of the pencils I’ve bought. I guess it’s kind of like testing out paint.

So I’ve been using an online profile thing called “about.me.” It’s in the promotional stages I think, and I got wind of this because I am a BzzAgent — not an overly active one, but that’s okay, I don’t like spamming my friends so often but love giving them free stuff to try. This is great for when you have too many online profiles like me! Sometimes, I just don’t know which link I should give to people. Should I link them my DeviantArt? my Behance? my blog? Most of the time, it’s here, but sometimes having so many profiles, I get lazy about updating them all at once. =_= Yeh.. sorry.

And you can get 50 free moo.com cards! I got my first set, and they were so purty~ And ran out so fast at AM^2, I had to get frugal about giving my cards out on the second day… :\ Some people took more than one, but at least I know there are people who like my art so much. Consider it a free 2×3 bookmark, I guess.

I will be posting stuff again. Currently, working on creating content for my new cooking blog. Stay tuned~

Before I left, I took pictures of my parent’s neighborhood. I run around it so many times that I know it like the back of my hand. So there were some changes. But they’ve mostly stopped constructing new homes. There are some areas where the workers block it off so that people don’t climb over and mess around… As suburban as it may seem, it still has wild areas. I’d love to explore it when I can (this entails good hiking shoes…). It’s a very good neighborhood. Parents are out with strollers all the time, and pets are walked often. You also see critters like squirrels and rabbits running into the bushes all the time. Although some people are really inconsiderate; they don’t pick up their pet’s droppings… Well, it’s less bad than Treasure Island…

Speaking of insanity, I will be starting the workout for this very soon. As soon as I get all the needed stuff I ordered. Though, I need to make some more trips to the store to buy groceries. It really sucks not to drive. I actually don’t want to order online because I never know what I need, and then I see the prices they have online and it’s terrible. Food is so expensive… But my main diet is salad lately. And there isn’t a thing wrong with it since I feel like I have a ton of energy and I can go on and on. Like the Energizer bunny! I can sleep for 7 hours and not be grouchy that I don’t get 8. Anyway, I’ve been collecting images for awhile now that I think are really great organization ideas for an office/studio room. And I made something out of sketch up. Actually, I imagine the room itself would be smaller, I need to adjust that somehow. So this is some of my references. I’m pretty happy with my vision board. Windows are very important to me, as one can see…

The Prince might actually look a little too old, so I might have to play around with that for a bit, or change the ages. I might actually veer off a little from Hans Christian Anderson’s story if I had to, but I still want to remain integral to the original…

Sorry to myself for not posting regularly enough. There are times that I forget about posting because life is kinda good and don’t feel like putting down my thoughts. Not perfectly good, but mostly content. But there is also lethargy. I’ve been quite lazy lately too. It’s always like this when I’m “home.” I feel like I sink back into a stupor, the one where I did nothing all day in high school. Least to say, I must get back to SF before I get even more lazy.

About a week ago, I went to Knott’s. In the time that I have been in NorCal, the theme park has 2 new rides. I couldn’t hold back my screams when I went on Silver Bullet. I think the first part of that ride was scary, because as soon as you strap on and they take off, it’s like this slow-mo suspense part. And you see the “hill” and know in your gut there’s gonna be a drop. Roller coasters in general are psychological mind fucks anyway. Supreme scream is still scary as hell, but I go on anyway. I think my heart has a weaker disposition than before, but at the same time, I enjoyed Xcelerator — I used to hate that ride in middle school…

I am happy to say that I’ve been taking my sketchbook with me everywhere. The lines were long, so I decided I might as well do something to occupy while waiting. They were long, but they were moving. I couldn’t exactly draw a person for more than a 1 minute because they fidget or turn a corner. I just did gesture drawings after a while.

I hope to go to Six Flags someday, with a special friend; I still haven’t gone yet and I’m 22 (and a half!). That’s lame. Need to go before I get any older…

I am still sketching at mass sometimes. This Catholic church is a very small group in a very small place, right next to a bar called the Moose Lounge…. I think that’s hilarious, but the church ain’t exactly rich.