Evermore

Ready for 2010?

Posted by Billy on December 30th, 2009 | Filed under Life

The year 2009 went by so fast, it’s unbelievable! I got accepted into the local animation internship so I’ll be busy with that next semester starting January. While I don’t have new year’s resolutions (yet), I am working on some renovation during this break so be looking forward to that soon. And of course, I’ll definitely be trying to squeeze in work on a new short film during next semester if I’m able to handle it. So have a Happy New Year everyone! Sorry for such a short post, I promise I’ll change that in 2010.

Clearer picture, better experience

Posted by Billy on December 13th, 2009 | Filed under Life

I finally settled on an HDTV and bought the Samsung LN40B630. It’s purely awesome watching everything on it from TV channels to my DVDs. It certainly makes me want to re-watch every single DVD that I have. I’ve read a lot of reviews about how bad the picture quality would look if you played standard definition TV and DVDs on HDTVs but personally, the decrease in quality is hardly noticeable unless you really look for it. The TV also has two USB slots where you can play pictures, music, and movies (which includes all kinds of formats even MKV and soft subs).

Anyway, with that aside, my semester had ended. I finished animating my scene, submitted my demo reel, and I just need to take the Japanese final on Wednesday. I have no idea what to do during winter break but I’ll find something. Let’s hope I hear back about the animation internship. Happy Holidays!

Happy Thanksgiving

Posted by Billy on November 26th, 2009 | Filed under Life

I’m so sorry for my long period of absence since September! School had just occupied all of my time, more so than before. It’s also hard to imagine that there’s only about two more weeks left for school and another month to go before Christmas and New Year! Are you ready for 2010?! So many things have happened during these last few months from my desktop PC having some problems and my having to re-install Windows to rushing for my animation project and at the same time, trying to make the deadline for a local animation internship. I’ve also been totally absent from Twitter these past few months.

What’s more, I’ve also spent lots of time researching HDTVs and narrowing it down to a good model. Right now, I have my eye on the Sony Bravia KDL-40V5100 or the Sony Bravia KDL-40VL160 at Costco. The deal at Costco is that if you buy the HDTV plus the Sony BDP-BX2 Blu-ray Player, you’ll get $280 off which technically means you’ll get the player for free plus a discount off the TV. While the free Blu-ray player is nice, it’s not multi-region and since we mostly buy a lot of Region-3 DVDs, it won’t be able to play those. Thankfully, Hong Kong, Japan, and America are all on Blu-ray Region A! Just have to wait for those Blu-ray prices to come down…

Ironically, none of the Black Friday deals are good this year in my opinion (the above are not BF deals). But even so, I heard some people were already lining up on Wednesday night in front of Best Buy for the Friday sale! But anyway, I wish everybody have a nice family Thanksgiving dinner and happy holidays!

ACM 420 Concept Art

Posted by Billy on September 12th, 2009 | Filed under Art, Design

For my final animation class this semester, we’re collaborating on two short films. Production is already under way for one of them and everyone created concept art and character designs (and they were all so incredibly awesome by the way)! So here is my concept depicting the two main characters. I decided to try my hand at digital painting and this is the result!

This was done entirely in Adobe Photoshop using my tablet. I admit, it is very annoying to draw large fine lines in Photoshop because I’ve grown accustomed to Manga Studio’s line smoothing feature. But thankfully, this is a painting so no need for outlines! The major problem in this painting is the lighting. I’ve done some more touch-up at the end but it still does not seem to be illuminating the characters correctly. And because of the light, I should’ve added more depth and shadows to pop them out more.

So I’ve also been assigned to do sequence design for one shocking scene so I’m pretty psyched up. I’m already getting all these ideas in my head. I’m sad this is my last animation class so I’ll have to give it my all definitely!

Shirt designs are printed

Posted by Billy on August 19th, 2009 | Filed under Design

The shirt designs I did back in July are finally approved and printed. I was in charge of designing Alliance Bible Church’s special 10th anniversary shirts. The colors were of their choosing and they chose bright green and orange (not shown) for the T-shirts, dark purple and dark green (not shown) for the polo shirts. Since this was my very first official shirt design, I was pretty nervous about how it would turn out, especially with the gradient part in their logo. But no worries now, it turned out just like I thought it would! This was actually pretty fun and I’m excited to do more in my spare time.

Actually, long before I designed that, I took my shot at doing a tribal design and this was what I came up with. This is just a mock-up, since it was done for fun, it is not printed. Not much thought went into the design as I just experimented with lines. In the end, I seemed to have drawn “31″ for unknown reasons.

In need of new direction?

Posted by Billy on August 1st, 2009 | Filed under Life

So this blog has been in operation since January 2007 and it’s come a long way. Originally, it started as a sort of scratch pad to store my daily thoughts, ramblings, rants, and opinions of anime, TV shows, and movies. But over these years, I’ve began to question my real interests which seem to be (web) design, food, and TV. Surprisingly, my interest in anime is fading (possibly due to the lack of originality and the inclusion of “moe” in these days’ shows?) but hopefully it won’t vanish completely.

WIP1: From Yesterday

Posted by Billy on July 30th, 2009 | Filed under Art, Manga

So here is the first sneak peak work in progress for my one-shot comic, “From Yesterday”. It is based on a short story I wrote for ENG 273 Short Stories last semester. I finished revising the story, writing the script, paneling, and started drawing a few days ago. The story will have 38 pages (39 including the title page) and I will be entering it into the Morning International Comic Competition held by Kodansha. The deadline is December 31, 2009 so I’m pretty sure I’ll make it. I also have one more month to work on this since school doesn’t start for me until August 24th. Wish me luck!

By the way, what is my attachment to “yesterday”? My webcomic is titled “Tale of Yesterday”. The short story was titled “Something Amiss” but I felt that “From Yesterday” feels more well-rounded without giving away too much.

Diagnosed with dermatographism

Posted by Billy on July 23rd, 2009 | Filed under Life

This is a condition that has annoyed me for many years and thanks to the current information age, finding information was as easy as typing in your main symptoms in Google and voila, the result is there accompanied by sample pictures! So it’s safe to say, my illness is called “dermatographism“. The Wiki describes the illness much better than I can. In short, whenever I apply any kind of pressure to my skin, the area becomes red and bumps up in a matter of minutes. By pressure, that includes scratching, tight clothing, and pressure from water faucets and shower heads. Any object that is capable of applying pressure results in this condition on my skin. Also, when running hot water and then emerging into a cool atmosphere (shower, swimming), or vice versa, sometimes results in the same effects. The bumps are not itchy nor is it painful, it’s just a bump. They go away and the area returns to normal at least 30 minutes later.

Yuki Kajiura Live Vol.4

Posted by Billy on July 12th, 2009 | Filed under Life, TV & Movies

Kajiura Yuki recently held her Live Vol.4 Everlasting Songs Tour 2009 in Nagoya, Osaka, and then ending at Tokyo’s JCB Hall. This concert includes all FictionJunction members: Keiko, Kaori, Wakana, Yuriko Kaida, as well as Yuuka. As a bonus, Hikaru from Kalafina is also participating as the chorus (but no Kalafina songs were performed in this tour). I bought the DVD of Live Vol.2 back in December 2008 and to this day, it is still my most prized possession (despite it costing a hefty $60)! I can’t help but just love her songs because they have this certain quality in the melody that I like. I noticed that the last Tokyo concert had added songs that were not included in the Nagoya and Osaka concerts. And for the good news! From people’s comments about the Tokyo concert, Yuki had announced that the Tokyo concert will be recorded on DVD with the release date some time in the fall or winter! I can’t wait, it is such a blessing for those who cannot attend her concerts live in Japan. See the set list after the cut.

CFWan Portfolio Design Process

Posted by Billy on June 28th, 2009 | Filed under Design

After a long time of designing and experimenting, I finally settled on a design for my portfolio. I wanted to present my skills not only in web design but in animation, sequential art, and illustrations as well so the web design must reflect that. Because of this, it was very challenging for me (which was a great experience) and I’m still pretty amazed when I look at this process from the beginning to the end to see how it has evolved. Please bear with me as I show you my messy design sketches! Without further ado, onto my design process!