I think that after graduating from Animation here, I might be taking a Degree in Illustration instead of Animation.

ok, from here onwards it's a long and tiring post, but i need to vent and sort out my notes...

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Lately the lecturers have all been telling us to be certain about exactly what we want to do in the future, and somehow I still think that I would be happier doing illustration than to be in the animation industry. Ideally I want to work as a concept artist, character or environment designer, but now people are saying that those jobs are usually given to illustrators, and in any case there are so few concept artists needed per company that the chances of getting that job is very slim and probably will only come after years of experience.

Even if I don't get into concept art, i think i would still be happier doing editorial illustration ( illustration for books and magazines). That was my dream since highschool, when i started to seriously think about what kind of jobs i want to go into. The only thing is that everyone says that illustrators have a lot of competition and their pay is very low, because there are so many illustrators for employers to choose from. But what I think now is that maybe it's better if I do something i genuinely liked since a long time ago and do it well, rather than do something that I don't feel i'm good at. The animation industry after all also has very high competition, if what I see from online 3d communities is anything to judge from.

So maybe if I'm 100% honest the only thing that make me choose animation between the two was because of money. But come to think of it, if the pay is enough for a reasonably comfortable life, why live a life rolling in money but never feel job satisfaction. And if you want me to burn the midnight oil, i think i would prefer illustrating than anything else. I do that on my own accord sometimes anyway.

My dad seems to think that illustration is an 'unspecialized' course aka low class and anyone can do it even if they never went to school. But then there's no mistaking that I really miss foundation year when our subjects were all figure studies, painting and design classes. Flash and Maya were interesting as curio knowledge and might even be useful even when i take illustration, but it just doesn't give me the same kick as illustrating. The lecturers advised us to find a mentor, someone whose work we admire, if we start to feel apathic in animation. But then until now i realised something, why are all my mentors illustrators, not animators, not even 3d modelers

I dunno, i think the next step now is to ask the opinions of the lecturers and illustration students at college and decide what to do. And probably another trip to the international office. You would have though I know the family history of all the staff there judging by the number of times i go there.

Some more of the crafts I've been making.

First up, funky flower friend. The photo isn't that clear tho...but since all I have is a web cam I can't complain.

And a kusudama ball. My mom joined in the effort halfway too. Kind of difficult to make it symmetrical. Just used string to join all the paper flowers together(36 flowers, each made with 3 pieces of origami).
Closeup.
Oh yeah, btw , a note to Big Che, I was thinking that the link i posted in the last post might have a few ideas for you to share with Zoey for her future arts and craft sessions XD. Ma already seems interested in teaching her herself.

Yet another one of my recent happy hobbies... this website. ( which actually was introduced to me by Sook)

Paper Crafts

It's nice to break away from the arts part and do some crafts once in awhile. Or at least see what other people are making, which is kind of fun because you never know what creative stuff they come up with. And it kind of makes me feel like a kid again to have bits of coloured paper, old cut up magazines and sharp cutting tools littering my room.

On a side note, I don't really agree with the whole business of selling expensive papers for scrap-booking. After all scrap book are supposed to be made out of...scrap... but some of the stuff they are selling nowadays are pretty nice.

And here's one of my recent creations. Bracelets made out of rolled-up-magazine beads. I know, a little bit uneven, but it's the effort that counts DX

And while I've got PhotoBooth up, I might as well take a pic of one of my long ago creations, Mr B the styro cup character. You might remember Mr C, my first character, who was a palace guard. Mr B is a quee...er...king.It's just so fun making feminine characters and deciding to make them male only after you've finished. lol...

And since the names seem to fit in so nicely, (Mr C is Caucasian, Mr B is Black) I'm thinking of making a 3rd character, Mr A who is Asian . Prolly a court jester or something. BTW I'm not having a go at some cultural joke when I mention their social ranking, just for fun.

Ps: Ms Producer, I'll be starting work on the modeling a bit later, I feel burned out. Need to get back the inspiration and stuff like that *ahak*

Yes, people, it's time again for another pseudo-holiday.

Anyways, I shall try not to be sarcastic, and instead share some interesting stuff I found online. I'm totally doing the arts for arts sake enjoyment right now.

First up, Cirque Du Soleil fandom once again. How can you resist their costumes and lighting... My second sis and her husband went for one of their shows for her birthday T-T. So happens that the troupe was in Melbourne at that time. Sohs for all of us who are not so lucky, we have to content ourselves with the wonderful piece of technology called YouTube. Also, I just found out that the Cirque recorded some CDs of their shows, although I dunno if you can find them in Malaysia. Anyways, here are some of my favourite acts (so far) from their Alegria show.

Power track act. Feels like power bars shooting up your eyes to watch them perform...



The Flying Man act- I think has the best music and a good measure of unpredictability.

On a related note, I have finally managed to finish collecting all 7 Harry Potter books. Now we'll all just have to wait for Tales of Beadle the Bard(Have a look at the original 7 handmade books, looks nice), if it's ever going to be published and sold to the Malaysian market.

Anyway, back to the main story, I bought book#6 at Popular the other day. It was impromptu, but well worth it, I didn't even know, but there was a 25% discount for all the books in the series ending on the day I went there, and the copy I got was the last one they had of book#6,lucky me. I got it for RM 29.90. I think when it first came out it was about RM120 right?There you go...another good series of childrens' book worth keeping in the family. My Enid Blyton books were handed all the way down since the 1950s or 60s.Seriously.

On a side note, for those who are interested in Studio Ghibli animations, Popular is selling the Collection #1 and #2 pack of CDs, which pretty much covers all their projects.

Horrors of horrors

Recently I have been rereading my old Enid Blyton books, so I was curious to see if they are still being sold, since my collection is not complete. I was thinking I might finish buying the collection if the price was reasonable enough. Sohs I walk along to MPH to have a look. After several minutes of going through highly commercialised new childrens' books ,many of them being movie tie ins(and incidentally seeing that Rob Patterson or whatever his name is guy from Twilight's photos splashed across books several times) I reach a rather small bookshelf carrying Enid bylton books. And what do I see?

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jengjengjeng

WTF...

What is that?????

That doesn't look like the Famous Five I grew up reading about. Those look like characters from the Bratz line of dolls.

Sohs I went online to read up about this horrible phenomena, and turns out that many other people are not very satisfied with the new covers either. Here are a couple of snapshots I took from online:
Phew...at least now I know they are the animated version of the series. And those are not the original Famous Five characters.They probably have a sound technical reason for making them look the way they do.

Nevermind, lets move on to the next famous Enid Blyton series-St Clare and Malory Towers. We all love the quaintness of the old English schoolgirl's daily life,secret midnight parties, old fashioned sports competitions and understanding teachers.
These are the kind of covers I have in my collection.

And what do the new covers look like?
Oh noes....

I feel like an important part of culture is being crushed by the modern wave of terrible tweens who watch too much MTV and want to grow up to be like Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers.

Something has to be done.