Wheee, I’m home sick today, recovering from the light head cold that Rym has so kindly shared with me. I’ll probably finish the last story painting I have to do for Guns of Icarus (Take a look at the trailer here!), the steampunk-airship-sky-pirate-all-around-things-that-I-like PC game that me and the small team at Muse put together. For as little as we are, I think we did a pretty decent job.
On the train the other day, I wrote a script for a promotional comic which centered around Aya, a pilot who I would write about when I was a young teen. I went through this phase where I was obsessed with stories about youths who fly fighter planes in the desert to defend against the air pirates hordes, and Aya was an imagined character about whom I wrote quite a few stories back then. I think her arrival coincided directly with when I first saw the movie of Nausicaa, and I decided that weird airplanes were WHERE IT’S AT! or maybe before that when I was into The Rocketeer (one of my favorite movies of a kid). Anyway, Aya’s world and the Guns of Icarus setting are so similar that they’ve kind of become merged in my head, and the tomboy ace and the airship pilot from the game exist parallel in the same world. It’s one of the moments when I realize that “Wow, I’m making art for stories that I would have dreamed of making when I was young.” It’s a nice feeling.
In other news, I am one more older now. It was a pretty low key birthday - I went to work, finished a painting, and went out for noodles with Alex and Brian. By the time I got home my nose was running like crazy, and I took some allergy meds that made me all loopy and drunkish, but I managed to make a good dinner despite that. (I also found that throwing a left over spinach salad with mushrooms and bacon in chicken broth with onions and eggdrop makes a surprisingly decent batch of soup!) It seems that now I am officially an adult, not age wise but lifestyle-wise. I cooked my own birthday dinner, bought my own cheesecake from Eileen’s, and washed up the dishes afterwards, which seems a very adult thing to do. Scott and Rym were also over. Scott’s car had a dead battery about which he inconsolable, but he ate the proffered food and only whined quietly. All in all, hooray. (Well, except for the post-nasal drip.)
I’m looking forward to going back to work tomorrow. My building rocks, and I’m learning the Canal Street area as far as food goes. Lots of food for super cheap! Today I ate a fried Pork-chop and Rice with tea egg and cabbage, from a little place my co-worker showed us, for 5 dollars. It was delicious, but I had this horrible image of turning into a fat round ball and rolling down the street at the end of the year as a result of these lunch specials, so I think I’ll be taking food quite often to save cash and my tummy. I feel like doing tennis again today. Yesterday, when I played against Rym I was surprised I could still hit the gosh-darned ball, it’s been so long since I played. Tonight is a Geeknights night, so I should run on my own or something. Or animate maybe. Hey, don’t laugh, I actually worked on a new shot yesterday. When it’s cleaned up, I’ll post a vid here. I’m thinking that maybe this would be a good place to post miscellaneous drawings that I don’t put on my main page. Art dump! Whoo!
Hey, what a weekend! Hey, what a start to the week! The sun is shining brightly on my arms and face as I walk to get lunch in Chinatown, and as the dog days of August come into full force, many changes have occurred around here. Saturday was quite the event. The Johnny Wander Crew was moving to Brooklyn, and the FRC turned out in force to schlep heavy items up the many flights of stairs to their enormous walk-up apartment. Five of them are splitting the rent, so it works out to be fairly cheap, but man, was I ever so envious of an apartment as I am of theirs! They have roof access and a clear view of the Manhattan skyline, and I see it as a perfect place to be young and full of art. Jaa, but we made quick work of the moving. I feel sometimes like our group of friends is like some kind of magic force that you can call upon in times of need, and when summoned descends in a big, overwhelming wave to perform the task of hand. Nat-chan and J. even came, even though it was J’s birthday party that night (they brought an unfortunate fanboy acquaintance from Otakon, who I doubt was expecting hard labor.) We got sweaty and sore, but in a little over an hour, we had the truck empty and the furniture installed in more or less the right places. I brought a change of clothes, but the sweaty boys were forced to buy 2 dollar t-shirts at the bodega on the corner. By the end of the experience, it looked like a uniform of white shirts and jeans had taken over. I finally got to meet Aido’s mom and pop (both awesome) and hope to be visiting the Wander Crew from time to time. Damn, Rym and I missed you guys!
Following the move, the white shirt brigade (minus Aido, Ananth, and Conrad, who needed a little time to recuperate) headed back to Manhattan to go see Ponyo. We barely made the movie because the E train was totally full of fail, but we got there, hungry and tired but happy and settled in for big screen Ghibli time. I had been very skeptical about Disney’s dubbing ability, but every character was spot on. Tina Fey as the main character’s mother pulled off a particularly good performance, and Liam Neeson was really well cast as the sea wizard. It was so great! This is the first time in a long while I have been this pleased with an anime dub. Later, we headed up to a Japanese bar called Riki on 45th, where I had reserved a party room for J’s party. We sat on cushions, ordered Japanese comfort food, and sang Karaoke for hours. It was not the best karaoke outing, but it had been a while, and we used the Japanese machine. We did about half ani-song karaoke, which is tough but always a plus despite my warbling. Out of town Fanboy was a karaoke n00b and a microphone whore, though. I had this mental image of Jumba from Lilo and Stich shouting “Share!” and apparently that was the general mood of the group. Next time, we will not go to an izakaya, but to a regular karaoke box. I hear the one above the sushi train on 3rd has free lunch specials…
We packed up the office for our move today. The necessities are boxed, the random cords sorted, and the software FINALLY inventoried (all this time we had a copy of COMBUSTION? What?!) and with that, Our team is heading down to Soho for the forseeable future. Everybody is all excited about the prospect of all the food down there, because the pickings over by Penn Station are kinda slim, but it may be that we’re just spoiled New Yorkers who find a street with less than three Asian Fusion joints on it some-what bland. I will miss team meals in K-town, my Cafe Zaiya melon-pan in the morning, and the inevitable detours to the Bryant Park Kinokuniya on my way home, but I’ve got a good feeling about this business. I feel like I’m starting fresh, like it’s a new semester and I’ve got all new pencils in my pencil case. I’ve learned a lot in the two years I’ve been sitting at my desk in the one room office of this little game studio, and now I feel like when I sit down at my desk in Soho, it will be as a professional 3D artist, not a green-horn student with diploma in hand, trying to fool people into paying me for my art. (Although, first I may have study up bit. I realized that the people who are my awesome art interns are more experienced than I am, and have the mad 3D skillz.)
It’s weird,when we were cleaning, we found a piece of paper with stick figures on it. It basically was advertising a thousand bucks to the winner of a character design contest, and I remembered seeing this paper stuck up on the bulletin board on the eighth floor hallway at Tisch. I looked at the stick figures, thought “what kind of scam is this, here?” and proceeded to stay up late on my birthday drawing my entry. I didn’t get the thousand dollars. I did, however, end up somehow landing a job at this little start-up web company with a big dream. Now I make awesome air pirates for a awesome living with awesome people. Who would have thought a scrap of paper with stick figures on it would change my life? Thanks, guys. Now I need to stop being full of piss and vinegar when it comes to controvesial subjects, like Office 2008 and Harry Potter. Boss, just think of me as spunky!
Welp, I’ve got some time to kill at Grand Central waiting for my train out, so I figured I’d use the time to do something if not exactly productive, at least having the semblance of being so. Something I haven’t done for months and months, I’ll bring an old project out of storage and try my hand at it again. I’m finally going to *gasp* update my BLOG! A novel concept! My rationale is thus: If I can successfully find the will (for it’s really not a question of time, considering the long-ass commute I have to look forward to daily) to update this baby three times a week, perhaps with the additional prettification of my portfolio site, I may find that I do indeed have the where-with-all to get off my tail and do some sort of serially updated internet art thing. One of these days, I’ll attain my great and momentous dream of being internet famous for a second! Just see if I don’t!
Speaking of art things, though, I have been motivated out of my animator’s funk lately by the kind gift of a somewhat elderly tablet PC. A generous co-worker, upon leaving the company, was apparently moved enough by my appreciation of it (brought on by a nerd girl’s perpetual gadget fetish) to entrust it into my care. New computer hardware is great, but free and art-worthy computers are a joy to be rivaled by few things in life. In any case, not having a Flash license (even if I had the cash, the trial of CS4 was like molassas on this guy.), I have been rocking Pencil, an open-source, no-frills animation program. The name is accurate, for it’s pretty much just a digital version of animator’s pencil and a stack of punched paper. I love it, I think.
[A post I made on the Geeknights forum]
It seems the University of Victoria in Canada is being overrun with bunnies.
Heh…I totally should have gone there for college! That’s like my dream, to be surrounded by bunnies running around me everyday. However, I feel kinda bad. I think they should probably start a sterilization fund to prevent the super overpopulation that’s beginning.
Oh, but I love bunnies. If I was rich, I would have a bunny shelter and play with abandoned rabbits every day. I think that I’d also make a school for orphans and abandoned children. It would be next to the bunny shelter and the kids could go over and pet the bunnies and learn to be nice to animals. I would get good teachers to teach them maths and science and arts and computers. The cafeteria would have good fresh bread and milk. There would be lots of trees.
*Emily is off in fantasy land…never mind her*
[Sonic's Song]
In Emily’s fantasy land… [Emily] “Oh world, you made many, many poor bunnies. I realize, of course, that there’s no such thing as too many bunnies. But it’s no good if they have no place to go! So, what would have been so terrible if I had a small fortune?”
*”Bunny Land” Sung to the tune of “If I Were a Rich Man”*
If I were a rich girl, Ya ha deedle deedle, bunny bunny deedle deedle dum. All day long I’d pet some bunny fur If I were a wealthy girl. They wouldn’t have to look hard. To find a carrot or a scrap of lettuce in garbage can. If I were a little bitty rich, I’d implement my bunny plan.
I’d buy a great big lot with gardens by the dozen, to feed my little bunny town. And a hundred little hutches just in case of rain. There would be bunny spa’s and bunny massages; Oh it would be such a sight! Live webcams to watch the bunnies day or night!
I’d bring in little kids from all ’round the world to learn and play with buns all day I’d have them taught all the skills that are in demand For equal parts of math and art and science and of course bunny care would make their adult lives easier to bear…
If I were a rich girl, Ya ha deedle deedle, bunny bunny deedle deedle dum. All day long I’d pet some bunny fur If I were a wealthy girl. They would play all day long. Munching carrots and lots of other veggie snacks. If I were just a little rich, I could fund my bunny plan.
Oh! If I were just a little rich, I could fund my bunny plan….
Despite my professed love of Japanese animation, I am sorry to say that I have been somewhat blase regarding the television programs airing these past few seasons. Some, such as a fantasy re imagining of Romeo and Juliet, I eagerly anticipated only to have my interest flag a few episodes in. It has nothing to do with the production quality, nor that the concepts are carried off poorly; they just lack the right level of originality, the imaginative nature that sparks my interest. The reason I was drawn to anime in the first place was due to the rare show that lets you feel like you’ve seen something new, or perhaps, even better, like you’ve seen something you’ve been hoping to see all along in some little corner of your mind. Instead of disappointment due to a cliche, It’s something that makes you say to yourself “Wow…that’s a neat idea. Wish I’d though of that.” Dennou Coil was the first show in a long time that prompted such a reaction.
The premise is a relatively simple Sci-Fi concept which hearkens back to the cyberpunk novels of the past few decades. In the near future, wireless electronic glasses have taken the place of cellphones, allowing the user to experience a 3D virtual reality simulation of the internet in tandem with the real world. Every lamp post and concrete wall has a VR counterpart with which your virtual self can interact; you see creatures though the glasses that aren’t really there, things that you can view but not touch. People care for beloved pets that exist only within the virtual realm, and summon animated underlings to do their bidding. That alone is an interesting enough concept, but the fact that the main characters are elementary school children lends a magical quality to the show, and infuses what might be cliched Sci Fi with elements of mystery and danger. The show’s main strength comes not from its premise, but from its characters, whom the writers manage imbue with the right degree of quirk and individuality. Though the main focus is on the two young protagonists (Both girls named Yuko, nicknamed Isako and Yasako respectively), the show brings to life a large cast of oddball characters ranging from the tech savvy grandmother to the foul mouthed, bratty little sister. The children play and bicker, throwing hacker hexes at each other, exploring the augmented neighborhood that exists inside their headsets. The way VR is portrayed makes it seem similar to having magical powers, except that every supernatural or fantastical occurence is caused and explained by the technology, and none of it, at least theoretically, can affect the physical world. As the plot progresses, the show begins to delve into darker territory, focusing on the central mystery of Miss Michiko, a digital being that the urban legends say spirits away children’s souls. At a point two thirds of the way through the series, the comedy fades to make way for a narrative that resembles a cyberpunk ghost story, leading to quite a few genuinely chilling moments. Nice.
All and all, I recommend this series. The animation is high quality for television, and the plot manages to wrap the viewer’s questions up quite neatly by the end of the 26 episodes. If you’re not a fan of Science Fiction or anime, you might find yourself slightly disinterested in the fanciful internet world that the show sets up, but the comedy and drama hold up well enough to make it appealing even outside the target fan demographic. If you’re new to anime, this might not be the best show to start with, but if speculative fiction is your thing, definitely check this out.
So I’ve been working. And working-and-working-and-working. I graduated a year and a half ago, and I have been making computer game animation for Sosauce, and have neglected my blog ever since. I’m thinking that I’ll start posting again, with art and comics and stuff, when I get the chance.
In other news, I went to the premiere of my NYU friend’s movie, Bohemibot, and it turned out freaking amazing! (I only helped a teeny-bit, but seriously, it was just cool to be around to watch this project take shape.) Yay for Brendan “Bzone” Bellomo!
Today, my dear ones, marks 1 year since I began posting on this blog in earnest. It lay fallow for much of my senior year as I scrambled about my animation project. The “Rabbit in the Moon” film is coming along, rather slowly I might add, but hopefully this hare movie will show some tortoise-like qualities and make its deadline despite its glacial pace. When I really think about this film that has been eating my weekends for the past seven months, I begin to realize that in a way my senior project has become a return to my roots. Whenever I pull out old pages of drawings that I did in kindergarten or some other long ago time when I couldn’t reach the bathroom sink without standing on something, the predominating themes seem to be magical flying rabbits and their long haired fairy guardians. All this moolah and time just to make my magic bunnies better? Alas, but NYU is so worth it.
Today also marks the anniversary of the my move to Nagoya and 5 years before that, my move to Tokyo. Five years ago today was the first time my feet hit Japanese soil (or asphalt as the case may be) - This is another instance when I could say I’ve come a long way without really changing the deep down state of things. I talk more prettily, perhaps, but still find myself eating the same melon pan and reading the same manga as I did way back when. Funny thing is, my new apartment is in close proximity to a number of Japanese shops, and with Japanese Karaoke-kan, bars, bakeries, and conbini right around the corner, its kind of the next best thing to instant teleportation in the event of a bout of sharp nostalgia. It’s the perfect compromise, and how I fear the inevitable expulsion from the Eden that is the Village. Enjoy it while it lasts, kiddo, ’cause “Time waits for no one.” (Toki wo Kakeru Shojo was just at the Children’s Film Festival - reason number 10384 to love this town)
So today was a good one, apart from the fact that my stomach churns with anxiety at the prospect of tomorrow’s vaccination. (Why do people get so worked up over needles, a tiny twinge that is dwarfed by the pain of, say, stubbing your toe?) The day was sunny, clear, and with a slight chance of deja vu. New York weather, aside from a few tentative attempts to muster up a Spring-like climate, has stayed brisk, or regarding this weekend’s blizzard, a bit more than that. It was full of overall niceness and good feelings, portfolio revisions and good Thai food. I think I’ll go to sleep now, before it wears off.
Now that was fast. I’m on the LIRR [Long Island Railroad], going out to visit a friend and I realized that the last entry I made I was in Nagoya, nattering on about food and movies and bicycles and not much else. In some respects I was hoping to leave some more substantial account of the expatriate experience but in the end it was as it always is…a series of fragments, pictures and blog entries, some old papers et cetera that I can hold out and say “here, look…Japan. My life.” The rest is fated to remain inside my head, invisible to everyone around me, gradually fading to be rewritten with new memories as life goes on. I was happy to have moved to Japan again, to once more have suffered in the muggy heat of the summer there. The cicadas were so loud…One time in a park where I rested one morning every branch must have been home to at least five dozen of the fat bugs because the sound was so loud to have been almost a physical sensation. The last week I was there, just before relinquishing my bicycle to my next door neighbor, I took a bike ride around my neighborhood by the drainage ditch in the evening. Bats were flying all around, looping overhead and the lights were going on in the little mom and pop okonomiyaki joints down the street. I rode a lot that summer, to Sakae, to Yagoto. Dispite the pest problem I liked the apartment building, with its metal doors and cement balconies and the most fantastic veiw I have ever had over my railing. Life was simple and interesting and free.
My sister came out to visit. That was the most amazing thing, seeing her in the airport, her hair grown long. I have gotten so used to Japan it no longer seems foreign place to me, but it is a place, as it were, apart. Old connections, old problems are, for the most part, traded in for a new set. However, sometimes the two world brush against each other, and you are reminded about how small the world really has become. It is a strange and wonderful thing to see a your sister, a personage so familiar to you that their sudden appearance in a setting that you though of as being severed from your “other” life makes the whole thing seem like a dream you are having. We had a fun two weeks. My friends at the movie club liked her…the two of us dressed in Yukata and went out for kaitenzushi (sushi train, according to the Australians.) We went to Kyoto and met up with her friend from school. She helped me clean the apartment and put up with me freaking out thinking I had sealed our night bus tickets inside the cardboard box. We ate eel-bowls and went to the Noda’s and did many, many adventures. I love my sister. Not only that but dad had a business trip in Yokohama and we got to see him too! It was crazy! The three of us all met at Hachiko statue in Shibuya and had dinner with my Japanese family, and then we went back to the hotel the next day. It was one of the big ones in the Yokohama Skyline, right across the street from the big ferris wheel that the show in Hachikuro and other movies. We rode it and I sat with my sister and dad, looking out over miles and miles and thinking…I am happy.
