Evermore

So it was announced today at AnimeNation that the popular manga (and a still-airing anime) will be adapted into a Taiwanese drama starring Ariel Lin as Mogami Kyoko and Jerry Yan as Tsuruga Ren. I am not surprised since Taiwan seems to be on a roll adapting manga series (mostly shoujo) into dramas after the huge success of Meteor Garden (an adaptation of Hana Yori Dango). My major gripe is that they seem to feature pretty much the same cast in most of these dramas. Either that or they keep using the same popular actors. I am curious who they will cast as Fuwa Shou. As much as this tempts me to watch it, I think I’ll pass since I already have a huge list of unwatched dramas and anime due to my two finals. Besides, I’m already watching the Skip Beat! anime which is very entertaining as it is.

Before I moved to America, I was still living in Hong Kong in the 90s. I was a child in kindergarten and often watched TV. For children and teens, they often broadcasted educational programs about the community and the arts as well as anime. I’ve recently thought back to that time and the prevalent anime during that time were Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, Doraemon, Crayon Shin-chan, Ranma 1/2, and Magical Taruruuto-kun (see the opening sequence below, so nostalgic for me!). Obviously, most of these aren’t really pure kid-friendly shows with the violence in Dragon Ball to the naughty antics of Shinnosuke to the gender-bending romance in Ranma 1/2 but they were still very popular with the younger generation because it had exciting and cute plots that interested many.

(more…)

So I just finished revising my proposal, filled out the college/major transfer request form, and planned out my academic progress with all the courses I will need to take to graduate. And if everything goes according to the plan, provided that I don’t fail any courses and that all the courses listed are available when I register, I will graduate after the Fall 2010 semester. Right now, I am in the Fall 2008 semester. In just two years, I graduate! It’s so hard to believe because these past few years have just zoomed past. However, as to what I’ll be doing after graduation, I have no idea, at least not right now. But it would be really cool if I was selected for jobs like making or editing commercials or music videos or even making my own animated film!

I checked in with my Interdisciplinary Studies advisor today to get my major’s proposal under way so I can register for the next level of animation courses. Good thing I made a draft proposal because he only made some minor changes to it and then I can ask my ACM advisor to sign it. After that, I officially submit it to IS for review. One more thing I’ll need to do is to finish my JUMP session where I plan out all the courses I’ll be taking for the rest of my college years in order to graduate. This thing is troublesome because courses are not always the same each semester and there’s no way of knowing what exactly will or will not be available in future semesters. When I finish that, I submit it and sit down for an advising session with the College of Arts & Sciences. And that’s it! Unless they don’t approve it and I have to make another proposal but let’s not be negative here.

In good neutral news, my 3D animation short for the final has been shortened from one minute to 30 seconds in order to let us spend more time on our 2D animation final. In a way this is good news because we have less to render but after making up our short stories to fit one minute, it’s extremely hard to trim and dumb it down to only 30 seconds because it will affect the flow and mood of the story.

A little after midterms are over, it’s time for finals. It’s early for us compared to other students because we get the rest of the semester to work on these. For my two 3D classes, we get one combined final so that’s good. We have to create a one minute action scene involving a superhero using his powers to do something. The main thing is to incorporate everything we’ve learned into this scene and the really big thing is particles. For my hero, I have the idea of a guy who’s not the superhero type (clumsy and stupid) but has got these powers. The scene is a building that’s on fire and the firefighters are working hard pumping water but it’s no use. Plus, there’s a girl trapped in the building. So this hero wants to save her to prove his worth but he doesn’t do it smoothly. (more…)

Our animation class went for a field trip today! Gosh, I feel like a little kid writing in his diary about his field trip. I think the last time I went to the zoo was back in the 90s… I’m not all that sure when exactly though. Anyway, we had a task to draw movements of three different species of animals. We met there at 11am, me with my sketchbook in hand and hauling a laptop in my backpack (for my 3D class in the morning). That thing was heavy! Not to mention it started to get pretty hot during the afternoon. I basically just walked from 11am to 4:30pm with very minimal breaks. (more…)

A few years ago (has it been that long already?), we had the chance for a free screening of this Hong Kong Christian documentary about the whereabouts of Noah’s Ark. This group of Chinese expeditioners were the first to gain access to a secret military base at Mount Ararat and to film footage of the area as close to the purported ark as possible. And I actually managed to find this on DVD at YesAsia. It has English subtitles in case you’re interested. With a pretty good soundtrack to boot (especially the theme songs), I’d recommend you to check this out. Furthermore, it has DTS 5.1 surround sound, something which the screening had not so lucky you.

For those who doesn’t know, it was around December 2007 when I sent in a short story manga to a competition hosted by Boombox Media. Surprisingly, I got in and my manga will be published in their upcoming manga anthology, titled “Shockpop World Manga Digest”. However, the release date has been pushed back to spring of 2008. Well, we all know it’s well past that and Boombox staff has got their own lives to deal with, too. But I just read on their blog today that the publication date has again been pushed back to early 2009 due to the recent economic crisis. Sigh, there’s no helping it I guess. I’ve been looking really forward to my first published work (second published work now if you count my college paper comic strips). I hope the economic situation will get better soon.

I’ve completed my dialogue animation two days prior to the deadline! So the night class I had just now was basically a free period and I just drew in my sketch book. For some reason, I had this picture of a girl listening to music in my mind and I drew it with the constant feeling of music and melody while drawing. Ironically, I wasn’t listening to any music at that time. But I think it turned out pretty well! I want to redraw this on the computer so that it’s less messy and develop it into a colored illustration in the future.

So here’s my updated dialogue animation, I just thought I should post a better quality version here since the previous one had shimmery lines. Please tell me what you think! It’s probably far from perfect but at least it’s better than before (in my opinion). This time, I darkened the lines, added mouth shapes, added eye blinks, and removed the last scene in which she slammed the knife into the table. I thought that scene was too much work in itself so I removed it.