Colours of Dreams

HELL YEA! The sample pictures of our book has arrived! X.X
I just can't wait to get hold of a copy for myself. In another 2 weeks or so the books will be ready to make its debut in Singapore Cosfest 2010! (if all goes well i hope) I will not be attending Cosfest though and would have to wait for the others to bring it back from Sg.

Enough prattling for now, have a look at the samples :D






I'm quite excited coz this is the first time having my stuff along with my gang's printed in a book! I guess this is the only thing i might be looking forward to in a while.....

Fantasy Earth Zero Contest

Joined another contest on deviantart. Supposed to do a rendition of our own version of either warrior, mage or scout. I chose scout at 1st but gave up and went for warrior instead. So here's some progress of what i did to the final product.

Did some rough sketches and silhouette study to find a suitable one for me to work on. i wanted an interesting silhouette that will bring out a character more, so i chose the bottom right one. Eventually i combined other stuff together from all that mess to the base i chose. I can already hear ringing words from my lecturer that i need to do more but time is not on my side and i am loaded with college assignments as well. This is the best i could do for now.


Next comes the weapon. I researched a bit on the skill list tree of the warrior class for the game. Then i came up with a weapon that could use ALL skills. We have the single handed weapon and shield skills followed by smashing skills for double handed wielders. As usual my preference of weapons usually end up with hammers. So keeping the hammer in mind, i created a gauntlet/shield that acts as defence and offence at the same time should the warrior wanted to do hand to hand. Think God of War gauntlets of Zeus. Then a hammer would still need a long haft, so a spear it is. And one that could combine with the shield gauntlet thingy to make it a hammer. There you go, best of both worlds for the skill tree.


The initial rough stage...the theme for my armor is 'Hawk'. The hammer looked weird at this point but i couldn't be bothered to fix it at that time. Assignments first.


Later i whipped up a more solid looking hammer head and tested it on the arm that was to wear it as well.


Confirmed the outline at this point and worked on the basic color feel i would want for the overall.


The very initial color base without the shine works yet. The armor still needs some polishing for that extra glow.


The red skirt-cloak was feeling a bit too monotone and making it seem lacking in contrast and boring. So i tweaked a dark blue tone to it instead and found it more satisfactory. Polished the armor a bit to have that oooo-so-shiny effect.

Fun facts
- After completion, i notice that the colors are very Ragnarok Online-ish. I might have been subconsciously doing a color scheme close to theirs. Coz that was the very 1st mmorpg that i loved very much.

- As if the color scheme wasn't a blow enough, many pointed out that this looked something like the paladin class of Ragnarok Online. Ok...must be the blue i made myself change to. Wait does that mean it would be a Lord Knight class if i left it red instead? ARGGGH FAIL IS ME!

- So yea because i wanted to do hawkish stuff, i ended up with a chocobo head for the hammer head. I totally did not intend for it to be chocobo related and reffed off a real hawk's features. To tell the truth i kinda despise FF.

-The earlier hammer head ended up looking like it came out of Card Captor Sakura xD not intended as well. But rofl, really looks like that wand Sakura carries about capturing cards.

---

Fat chance of winning for this, but just gain more experience joining these competitions. ;_; i wished that i could draw more for the contest. But i'm so time tied this sem that i wanna go jump off some building.

Don't Say Lazy

Sadly this is not an article about K-on! but only borrowing the title of the song for my entry title.

Another day, another week, another month, another sem. We as students never cease to piss our lecturers off, just to be fair about how they mess with our lives too. Today, like any other day of the week we get constant slapping to the face on how much we really suck.

Recap on some of the finer points we heard today from our lecturer.

"You guys are too lazy, never listen to what i say and love to do/repeat mistakes"
i would avoid it too if i had such strong art sense to know how to...

"90% of the pile of works here can be trashed into the bin"
at least my work can help fill up the bin for the trash lady to take out...

"The good ones must have gone to other majors like multimedia or others and left the remaining in Illustration"
...i...*speechless*

"Only once in 10 years we get a special case"
Looks like we can strike out our batch for this...

"Illustration major is a master in everything (drawing related)"
Come to think of it we must be architects when we need to, fashion designer when we need to, hairstylist when we need to, mecha artist when we need to....*list goes on*

"Illustration is hard to get jobs, because you are not what the industry wants. You graduate but your art sense is not there."
D: i think i'll go be a programmer...

I'm beginning to feel that it is true what my brother tells me sometimes. If you're not talented in some ways this whole art deal is a real torture to the common art-tart wannabes. Be it you have talent in execution, talent in hard work, talent in enduring verbal abuse, etc. We must at least possess one of those traits to survive in a more bearable state. Screw the "you can be like this level too without being talented but through working 10 times harder than the talented person next to you". So yea, you work 10 times harder just to be barely able to keep up, and let's just say that next talented dood just puts in a little effort, and VOILA! you go "wth have i been doing..."

You'll end up disillusioned at some point at why DA FARK you can't get to do anything right no matter how much more you put in than the regular Joe. Nevermind you think, just put in more effort. Devote your life, devote every waking second of your time and focus into it. And still the results are bare minimal. Something is really not right here...the word 'SUCK' must really be written somewhere on your body and sapping all your goodness away.

Let's just say you choose to continue in that pattern and push on despite not seeing any visible improvements yet. You ignore the fact that you have to sacrifice more to get by. Then comes along the weekly bombardment of nuclear bombs that goes off with radiation that contains the 'SUCK' ions. Shit hits the fan at this point...the feeling gets worst that all this while what you have been doing is for nothing.

That's where you are given one of the choices in life which will determine your outcome. Take the easy way, just forsake this hot pot for the frying pan and hope for the best in future.

OR

Do it the tough guy way as the saying goes "When the going gets tough, the tough gets going". I'm sure if you are familiar with Benjamin (China dood) you would know how he toughed it out and walked through all the shit and 'SUCK' radiation. He was told that he will never make it with his works and now? who's having the last laugh when he's making a name for himself?

So at the end of the day, morales might run low and you might be covered full with shit (from the spinning fan earlier). But don't give up yet coz everyone in the same room is covered in shit as you are. Go use that shit, fertilize some flowers, smell those flowers and get that ass working again.

I need this entry for my own sake more than anyone else...