On an unrelated note, I suddenly totally fell over with a fever a few days ago. I’m much better now even though my throat is going to be good game soon; at least I don’t ache EVERYWHERE and feel like I’m climbing a freaking mountain by walking to the bathroom. I was so bored out of my skull I translated some parts of Blackbird into Chinese and fixed like all of my dad’s laptop problems while being immobile in bed.
I’ve also moved all my crap back upstairs to my old work room because it seems unlikely for the summer heat to return again this year. I can’t work in peace anymore because my dad took up half of my desk with his work stuff and he’s always behind me now. Like all Asian parents, their colourful commentary about my WIPs aren’t always encouraging so I usually don’t work in front of them ): HOPEFULLY MY WORK RATE WON’T BE HINDERED TOO MUCH. I just have to carefully plan when to work on what lmao
It has been a long time since my cats got a cameo! But once again I only have pics of the kitler since the big cat doesn’t like to do anything interesting ):
Since my summer retreat to the basement to avoid AC bills, my cat has enjoyed sitting next to me greatly. First it was just my seat, then my armrest, and recently she’s moved onto the desk. She likes to watch me draw and try to catch my pencil (aside from being kawaii it’s also VERY ANNOYING LOL) but when she’s tired she just bums there. So I took some pics! (the towel on me is because I just washed my hair)
she’s THAT GOOD OK sitting comfortably half on desk half on armrest
don’t mind her 4 ears from my hand shake ): BUT THAT’S BASICALLY WHAT SHE’S LIKE WHEN I WORK
This recently arrived in the mail! It’s a steampunk necklace from Simply Willow. It looks sooooo nice (as you can see :D) and I finally gave in and bought it even though it was so expensive LOL. I saved the image from an ad I saw from it MANY MANY years ago online because I liked it. Then I came across the file in the last few weeks and decided to google and check it out, and omg it has so much cool stuff ): Sucks I can only oogle at the rest of it because of their prices.
I’m leaving for Baltimore tomorrow for Otakon this weekend (: BY CAR (:!!!! for a 9 hour drive YAYYYY……… I’d put on my headphones and listen to music for 9 hours but that’s kinda cruel to my dad who will be driving ): I’ll be seeing a lot of old faces since I haven’t been to a con outside of Toronto for a few years, and I haven’t talked to these people much recently because we’re all busy. It shall be a MOST INTRIGUING EXPERIENCE.
I am pretty happy with my work progress in the few weeks leading up to today; I’ve managed to finish everything I wanted to finish before the con so none of my clients are kept waiting unexpectedly. I’ve got a lot of crap to do after I get back, but having lots of work is good! It means I can keep doing what I’m doing, at least for the near future. It’s just unfortunate that I have to push a lot of personal stuff out of the way to make time for work, like that website revamp that went on hiatus after the draft, and the 3 character portraits I have yet to do, and the abysmally slow Blackbird updates I’ve been pulling off ]: But sacrifices must be made for a good (?) cause!
edit: oh and have a villain! she’s not supposed to be this young (just a few years older) but I find chibis easier to deal with when designing outfits. I’d colour it for easier comprehension but I don’t have any colour scheme in mind ): she reminds me of chibiusa LOL so now my mental image of this pic is like all pink
But first! Two random scraps that I did while taking breaks from work so you don’t have to scroll past the wall of text to see them! Yes, I take breaks from drawing by drawing.
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sepia: no shit it’s your last smoke THE PARTY IS 2 HIGH PRIESTS, NO KILLER
Carrying on… I came back from Europe like 10 days ago, organized my photos but forgot to post about it, so here they are: http://europe.ashen-ray.com. Most of them are obligatory non-spectacular scenic photos though ): but I promise some elements of beauty and hilarity? Europe was a nice place though; it made North America look like a boring wasteland–granted I don’t go anywhere so I don’t really have any grounds to speak on, but still ]:
We were incredibly lucky on this trip in my opinion; gorgeous weather and general good luck dealing with problematic situations were had in exchange for some minor unfortunate events. Nothing is worse than terribad weather on a long trip, and knowing Europe MOTHER NATURE DID ITS ABSOLUTE BEST.
Europe is exactly as I expected, except exponentially more breathtaking. I love to be impressed, and I truly was, by its history and otherworldly craft of its heritage. Just as my teachers and professors stated, photographs can’t possibly express the greatness of things I saw there, and that feeling of awe is exactly what I need to expand my horizon and add to my skill.
My favourites were London and Versailles. London streets themselves are a work of art; the swift pace, precision, and elegance of everything makes London a charming place to see. Plus everything that the Brits robbed from other countries are there so it made it even better. Versailles is just beyond description. I wished it was a little more well-maintained though, I mean the hallway of mirrors is like the hallway of dirty mirrors, but I realized it’s kind of hard given its size.
My least favourite was touristy Italy. It reminded me a lot of China with its poor manner, control, and the general atmosphere that you have to beware of everything. Plus it was super hot. Good thing it was touristy for good reason, otherwise it would’ve been a horrible way to end the trip.
Now, time to catch up with 3 commissions and 2 manga projects fldsj;flkjhgiodfgahs;jfa
This is the first time I went to AN without a helper/partner, and HOLY SHIT it was difficult to setup/take down on my own because I brought so much crap to make my life easier during the con. I was like dropping stuff all over the place outside and blocking traffic ROFL. and I turned down like 4 people’s offer of help because the day before, my dad was all like YOU SHOULDN’T RELY ON OTHER PEOPLE’S HELP, IF YOU TRY AND THINK YOU’LL FIND A SOLUTION when I was talking to him about setting up and I was all spited and stuff uuuffhh. But Draiad was such a sweetie and helped me out <3
ANYWAYS this year I ran into a lot of RO fans, I think it’s because I printed 2 more RO pics lol. this is like the 10th time I’ve said this but I WISH RO WAS HUGE AND SUCCESSFUL. god I’d love to just make a pure RO stand. I also wish they could just get rid of the pro wrestling area next to the artist alley, HOLY SHIT those bunch are loud and I couldn’t hear myself half the time BUT IT’S THERE EVERY YEAR ]: I didn’t take pictures of anything because I had to stay at my table for the whole weekend. Come to think of it I don’t even remember taking pics of friends that came by LOL I’M SO HORRIBLE. I’ll just have to ask minyi for that ONE pic she took of us……
speaking of minyi, turns out she stayed at a place very close to me so I took her to and back from the con for 2 days. She didn’t wake up on the second day and totally jumped when I busted into their bedroom LOL and she was so out of it after that and couldn’t do BASIC MATH…… That’s ok though, her kawaii asianness and awesome free print (fist to whoever that took the one I wanted) and British accent makes up for everything. I swear if I hang out with her for a few more days I’m going to start talking in that accent……
I drew a bunch of sketches on the last day because I was so sleepy and didn’t want to do more commissions. I was a GENIUS and slept at 3am on both friday and saturday nights so I was like brain dead for all of sunday. I was leaning backwards on my chair and drawing on my table at arm’s length. when I was done I look up the paper and they were all long and slanted and trapezoid shaped and WARPED because I was looking at the paper from a weird angle. Now I have to free transform them on photoshop back to whatever strange angle they were at before…… and all the sketches were so generic because I couldn’t think of anything interesting. I tried to make a character design but it was kinda meh and bland cus my brain couldn’t function. At least there was no wrestling on the third day ]:
Second drawing of Veloce in that outfit. She looks like a windmill at top view lol. I STILL can’t decide on how to do the back but whatever. The rectangle on the left is a thumb of how I want the entire picture to be (cumulus cloud covering the sun, pouring over a destroyed land in the horizon). the little text says “Storms that blind the sun cannot extinguish the destruction I’ve wrought”
Random sketch of Blackbird because I never draw her. I hate this sketch though, cus the figure is so not her and the shapes are horrible and her face looks dumb. This one and the next 2 are the sketches that I had to free transform cus they were mutated ]: but ya she doesn’t wear the same thing all the time, just very similar
Vocruen slightly pissed LOL??? he would never pull this face on vel though. maybe on other people…
prelim design for Rae (sangyun is his last name). most of the asian names in the story would phonetically mimic the chinese pronunciation. While I like asian names names I just can’t stand the authentic spelling, not to mention half the time it’s pronounced wrong. So I might as well make up cool english names based on chinese pronunciation! I need to look up chinese clothing to improve this ]: I have very limited ideas when it comes to oriental designs. The rug on his back is like wolf skin but I don’t know how to do it LOL. He’s a young bookworm mr. nice guy king. He’s kinda like Keri save for the fact that he’s not naive to the point of stupid
THAT IS ALL. And going to europe in 2 days :D I’ll be at london, paris, luzern, venice, rome, munich, and maybe salzburg. what are some recommended destinations of these places?
ugh I wish I have more wips to post ]: this blog is so LONELY.
I wish I had more time to draw stuff other than commissions too! Not to say that I don’t enjoy doing commissions. The commissions I’ve done since last summer were really fun to work on and I don’t remember enjoying it this much consistently when I’ve done commissions in the past. But I really need to put some time into doing a few Blackbird pics ]: it’s been 2 years since the last piece, am I correct? THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.
Not to mention now that I can OH MY GOD FINALLY MOVE ON because volume 1 is almost finished, I need to flesh out some designs for some locations and a few supporting characters to come. One thing I disliked about volume 1 was the fact that I did most of the unimportant designs on the spot, as the pages unraveled. so a lot of it is really bad. The YEARS of breaks I took didn’t help either, as I made a lot of mistakes by forgetting design details and being inconsistent on a massive scale. I’m not going to turn around and fix it now because I swore not to do it, but I’m not going to let this happen to the rest of the story.
Anyways, here is another awesome song. It’s catchy to boot and the lyrics are just hysterical. Damn crazy Koreans lmfao
something random! remember that picture I took a few years back of my tablet’s pen nib being all worn down and slanted? here’s what it looked like back then and what it looks like now
bff sepia commissioned a second time and was kind enough to let me do what I want to try out on the pic. Of course it went more hardcore than I had intended it to be, like all of my other artistic experiments, but I will take the time to learn to make it work, and make it as awesome as sepia is yessssss
I’m guessing it is evident what direction I’ve been trying to move in a few of the recent pics! It will be a big change and challenge since I’m not well-informed at all in basics, but I can do it!
In other news, miss adventure kitty went out for her daily exploring on Thursday and didn’t come home that night. She had gone missing for 3 days, and we checked around the neighbourhood with no success. We honestly thought she is not coming back as the last time she didn’t come home for a day, she wasn’t even hungry when she came back and her collar was missing, so I thought someone else probably took her in. But my dad found her when he went out for a walk in the ravine near our house. Actually, pretty far from our house ROFL ): he called out her name and she responded, and he carried her home. The worst part is she actually wanted to go back to the ravine… she’s totally meant to be a wild cat ): but I’m glad she’s back.
so yesterday I woke up and tried to sit down on a chair, and my back hurt like I’m an 80-year-old lmfao I was like WHAT. It took a while for me to be able to move do stuff normally and pick up things… I think I slept on my stomach for way too long or something. Can’t tell my parents cus they’d be like omg it’s the computer IT’S THE COMPUTER, WE KNEW IT WAS GOING TO DESTROY YOU THEN TAKE OVER THE WORLD
but it’s ok, I have google ): I’ll find a way to get rid of it.
ok so it magically fixed itself for a whole afternoon yesterday and I was celebrating, then it went HAHA JUST KIDDING and died again ASDJFA;LDSJFAK;LJK;LJSKLG
