Life's short and boring...

(On a side note, I got this really cool Nissy icon off of deviantart.com)

One....
I'm super sad that I couldn't finish my comic last night. It was only 1am and I managed to get caught! I was so close to finishing! I had inked all the panel borders, then I got caught before inking the characters. Unfortunately, in this house, DRAWING IS FORBIDDEN!!! I have no idea why my parents established that rule... something along the lines of "drawing is a waste of time, it has nothing to do with education, and it doesn't feed you!" I'm still not allowed to apply to an art college. I get in big trouble if I'm caught drawing. I get yelled at for drawing at work. Art is a form of freedom and expression, I don't know why my parents don't understand that. I'm really sad about this because I could've finished the Shinjiro comic last night, but I got caught and was forced to stop.

Two....
Another thing which I'm not too happy about... I found someone's Misako fanart (deviation).Their editing and coloring skills far surpasses mine. I am a horrible artist, I'm no match for that somewhat masterpiece! For sure, I know they used a picture editing software, because they wrote it in their comment. I myself use photoshop to retouch / clean up my drawings, but never to such a degree. Call me jealous, but I'm pretty satisfied with my drawing style, it's just... I always fail at coloring. Sushi Master has outdone me! I'm going to work really hard until I can color proficiently. Then... maybe all my comics can be in color someday. As I've always been told again and again... "the things we draw are unique to us, they come from our hearts, they are a part of us, our art defines who we are!" From the wise words of Edward C. Cook, local Batavia artist.

Three....
I lost my limited edition Bloody Monday Falcon USB flash drive. I'm hopeless... I can't find it. I know it's in the house!

Four....
My Zoid I got off ebay still hasn't arrived. If it's being sent by plane a week and a half ago, why hasn't it arrived? I must be spoiled by Japan EMS, they ship fast.

Five....
I have less than two weeks to write my research paper on "social phobia." A topic I'm way too familiar with. Why must psychology be so annoying?

I guess tomorrow's post be a level happier than this one.

The long awaited tribute post has finally been put onto AAAttackers.
Yesterday(Japan time)/ Today(US time) is Nishijima's birthday. So I made a tribute in drawing to "chalong"(celebrate) his birthday. I started working on it at 6pm yesterday and I didn't get to post it until 1am. I think the new comic is awesome! I animated two of the panels in the comic. Both animations are synced together, which is not exactly difficult, but it's tedious. It was done with 98 motion frames. It became such a high number because of Naoya's hair. I wanted to make it look cool and creative. I hope everyone likes it.

I was too lazy to write in my journal last night, so I just went straight to sleep. I was really tired too. I mean, really tired.

I finished some fan art for next week's super special extremely awesome homage.
NEXT WEEK IS SHINJIRO WEEK!!!
LET'S CELEBRATE TOGETHER!
That is... if you understand what the significance of October 3rd is...
Although irrelevant, association is still in the back of my mind.

I love being vague!
Get ready for my Shinjiro homage week!

I'm currently working on the next comic for Attack All Attackers.

OHHHH!
This morning, I finally got my new AAA cds in the mail. As for the collectible cards. I GOT NAOYA AGAIN?! I swear, I keep getting Chiaki and Naoya cards, it's driving me insane. I have all of the cards(from different singles), but the ONLY card I don't have is Shinjiro's card. I have all of them except his!!! What luck! I just keep getting piles of Chiaki and Naoya cards with every new cd I buy. It's like there's a surplus of Naoya cards or something.

I didn't have class today. I still had to go, but all I had to do was print out my test results in the computer lab. I then ran into one of my friends in the cafeteria, since I had nowhere to chill after finishing. She had to leave, so I hung out with her friends who were staying late. One them draws mini comics like me. I was working on something for the web-comic and he saw me drawing. He asked me about it. Actually, I didn't disclose any information about it. His work is pretty interesting. But his stuff is all about ninjas, assassins, and demonic powers! So violent. He draws things on a smaller scale with such fine detail. He's one of those "one-shot" artists. Meaning, he goes straight into inking without really planning ahead in pencil first. It's an amazing talent, but it's poor technique. His stuff is really good too. If only I had my sight back, I would be able to draw like that again.

That reminds me, I've been working on a lot of tributes.
There's Nishijima's tribute coming up next week....
Then... there's Shinjiro's special homage in early October!

Miki got me a really nice Venus Fly Trap for my birthday and I really love it. It's beautiful yet freaky at the same time. It looks very prehistoric.There's something about carnivorous plants that make them really cool.
This is the one sitting in the kitchen.

I just think Venus Fly Traps are awesome! They hunt their own food and their complex jaw snapping system makes them even more amazing! It's as if they're alive.

I even drew a picture of me and my wonderful plant, because I love it so much!


Anyways, yesterday wasn't a very fun day at work. I was busy because I was on a lot of deliveries. There were a lot of dine-in customers too, but I had one crazy food delivery adventure I won't be forgetting about in a long while.

So okay, there's one house on a usual street which we deliver to once every other week or so. It's a really nice family. They stop by to eat too, but they mostly get take-out or delivery. They ordered food yesterday and I went on the delivery route. The house I was delivering to has a big guard dog. The dog is on an invisible fence. You know, the dog has a sensor collar that prevents it from crossing over a digital preset perimeter barrier. After I got out of the car, the dog in the yard sees me and starts growling and barking ferociously. I walk closer to the house and the dog paces back and forth at the border of the invisible barrier. When I was several yards away, the dog started to shake his head really fast. As the dog shook his head... the invis. fence collar slides off the dog's neck and plops onto the ground... My reaction was: "OH SNAP..." The dog began to growl and walk towards me... Then the dog began to chase me all over the yard. He was snapping his jaws at me and didn't want me to escape. I had to run all over the yard, hoping not to get attacked/mauled while still carrying the delivery food. I could not wear this dog down, it would not give up. The owners could probably hear me screaming, "NO, NO, NO, NICE DOGGY, GO AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! LEAVE ME ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!"  I made it to the doorstep. Eventually, the dog jumped on me when I rang the doorbell.

I delivered the food and told the owner that the dog was currently biting my pants and the collar had fallen off in the driveway. How strange that the dog's collar fell off when I was there.

My back and arms are hurting a bit, I'll figure out what else to write tomorrow.

This morning, after my well deserved sleep, I woke up early and went to the open-air bath / hot spring. Hakone is loaded with tons of underwater hot springs and geysers. It's my first time going to a Japanese hot spring. It was so weird at first, "whoa there's A LOT of naked people!" The Japanese don't get fussy over nudity like most foreigners do. Before you enter the spring, after putting away your shoes and undressing, you have to rinse yourself with hot water. Then you can go into the hot spring pool. There's more things I want to say regarding the hot spring, but I shouldn't because it'll be very awkward.

Here's a cute illustration to show my trip to the hot spring.

Yes, that would be me clinging to the side of the spring. Miki and Arata were talking to each other a good distance from me. I moved away from them because the area I was sitting in was where the water was being heated. I was flailing around in the shallow water like a dying fish because the heating mechanism in the water was burning me and I really didn't know it was behind me, which is why I moved away from everyone else.

After a nice relaxing soak in the hot spring, we hit the road again. We drove up a mountain on the other side of Hakone to go see where the steam rises out of the rocks. In that tourist area, there were a lot of suspended cable cars that took you across the mountains. Hakone is also known for it's "black eggs." What makes these eggs special and black is only regional to Hakone. These black Hakone eggs were baked in an underwater hotspring at the base of the Mount Hakone Volcano. They've been baked until the egg shells turned black. According to Hakone folklore, If you eat one "kuro-tamago" (black egg), it'll extend your lifespan by 7 years.

I tried one... and you know... it tastes like a normal hard-boiled egg. I also tried egg ice cream and wasabi ice cream while I was there. Both ice creams were very interesting.

Our next stop was the premium outlets. When we got there, I wasn't all that impressed. It looked exactly like the outlet center that's nearby my restaurant back in Batavia. It had serval shops that were different, other than that it look like an American outlet center. The weirdest part is that the outlet is divided by a valley right in the middle. To get from one side of the outlet to the other, you need to cross a very big bridge.

None of us actually bought anything, so we got on the expressway again. We were on our way back to Saitama. Before returning, we stopped in Ikebukuro for dinner. According to Hiro, Ikebukuro has the best and most famous ramen. Hiro took us to a place where he's a regular at. We know this because we saw the amount of stamps on his stamp card when the waiter asked for it. I had one of those dipping ramens, ohhhhh the noodles were so delicious. We ate and chatted, it was fun. After the meal, we continued back to Arata's house. Now I've figured out the best signal spot for internet which is why this entry exists.

I might go ice skating tomorrow, yay!!!
I'll write again soon, time to go to sleep.

As I said before, I was really bored at work so I drew a little but, wow, I'm out of practice.
Ever since I finished general drawing last year, I haven't drawn at all... well "Tanaka Koki" is an exception, I believe I gave the picture to Jason, so not posting it here...

I'm having another course with the same instructor in two days... oh man the nightmares from general drawing, they're coming back...
This drawing is so inaccurate, I wish I had two eyes to see what I was drawing properly.
Here is my "portrait" sketch of "Mitsuhiro Hidaka."

You can click on the picture to see a bigger shot.
Okay so I went a little crazy with the darkening with cross-hatching.
Just the way my professor taught me, "solid lines do not exist, all structures are made of concentrated cross-hatching."
Those words still haunt me to this day, seriously now, lines are everywhere, how do they not exist?

And on the lighter side, a not so serious drawing which defies college level art:

Its hard to see small, but you get the idea, click on it.
Until next time, this is all I got, bye!