A not-wip wip of the commission I did. one more gift then I can go back to drawing bb yaaaaa! Another CD cover for lalela, and I guess I didn’t succeed in making her look black again LOL. It’s a huge challenge because my anatomy is not that good already, let alone being able to understand and simplify/stylize ethnic features… I should’ve been able to do it because I was aware of what a typical black facial shape should be, but I think I haven’t painted faces for a while and got lost in the rendering (again) and forgot about THE IMPORTANT THINGS.

I bought a pair of heels at pmall last month that I absolutely loved even though it was like $90 LOL ): I was just overjoyed that they were my size (even though it still looked a little big) because all my trips to clothing and shoes stores end with “do you have this in size 5 or 4″ “no” so I guess I didn’t care about the price HAHAH. I don’t even want to wear them because I’m scared of scratching/damaging its PERFECT APPEARANCE LOL see this is why I just… buy shitty running shoes and tshirts lmao. I put off taking pictures of them but here they are :D

please ignore the random marks on my feet LOL I was sitting on them…

I’ve been thumbnailing the rest of chapter 5 (and soon chapter 6) this week. I usually don’t thumbnail ahead of time because I don’t want to have to waste time on making it neat enough to understand, since I know a year down the road I will have NO IDEA wtf I drew on certain panels. Also I change my mind a lot so thumbnailing ahead of time for me is really a big waste of time and does nothing. But now I’m doing it because this book also went through a lot of drastic changes as I illustrated the pages. Like as I was illustrating chapter 4, chapter 5 was completely changed at least 3 times, I put in and took out a lot of different aspects of the story I intended to present using this event on the ship, and in the end even though I’m happy with the final flow/transition of scenes, it got too long. A lot of chapter 4 and 5 pages look rushed and crammed, and I have to try really hard to fit the chapter in under 70 pages while avoiding making the rest of the pages as busy as the ones before.

Before I printed volume 1, I wouldn’t have cared because I would just let the story run until it hits the scene where I want to end the book, because it’s not like I serialized the series and have to conform to some format rules. That’s how I did book 1 and it just so happened that all 3 chapters balanced out to be nice 50- to 60-page chapters. But now that I realized a 170-page book with my current paper quality setting is just a few grams under the maximum shipping limit before prices double, the page per book limit is now 170. I don’t know how I’ll manage page count from now on but for this book, I ended up deciding to thumbnail the rest of the book as soon as possible so I can adjust the pacing. Optimistically, this experiment will succeed and make me realize that doing this ahead of time will help improve smoothness of story telling, panel layout AND let me control page count. Pessimistically, I will just end up changing so much of the story as time go on that the time I spent thumbnailing would be gone to waste as I expected LOL. If the latter happens I will have to try using a slightly lighter weight paper and see if it effects the printing quality. So far my manga book paper quality is the best in all of the mangas I own (even though this is not much…) so I think I have room for that.

I wish I could post some of the thumbnails because they look really bad :D it’d be hilarious to let people try to figure out wtf will happen in the next few months’ updates but at the same time it will probably ruin the story for them for a few months LOL

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I was working on this commission but I was having a really hard time on it because I stopped in the middle of it like two weeks ago, and it’s like a mesh of things that I’m not familiar drawing (even though I came up with the idea myself…) So I decided to PROCRASTINATE and finish this song I had lying around for a while. In the end I didn’t finish it, it has no beginning or ending because those are hard AND I’M LAZY LOL. When I wrote this I was going to save it until I learn to play it and record it myself, because computer generated piano solos sound boring, unless they’re meant to sound mechanical and flat. But then I remembered I haven’t played piano for a year and god knows when I’ll do that again due to my parents’ work schedules lol ):

But ya when I started this piece, I had intended it to be an opening type song for CP, so I made sure it had a melody that can be sung to and is in a simple generic pop song form. But I know I can’t write pop lol so I decided to make it into a piano solo that could stand on its own :D

And then today I tried to work on the commission again and after like half an hour I derailed again to draw other stuff ):…

This picture is like 3 separate pictures mashed together LMAO. I just edited the toccata pic into this pic… the stabby part was in a sketch I did like 4 years ago that I never posted because it had tits, and the dance part I always wanted to do but I never did. I was going to do full body because I wanted to include stilettos (as in heels) to go with the daggers, but the figures got too small ): I was looking at tango pics on google and every picture is like… top half dance embrace, bottom half woman riding man’s crotch :D… needless to say I didn’t incorporate that part into this drawing LMAO

SHIPPED OUT EVERYTHING WEDNESDAY SO I HAD TO DRAW SUM. Long post but at least it’s just long with pictures :D?

I think this is what I’ll name my art book. I was considering Tarantella or just plain Ashen Ray before, but I think a toccata represents my art the best: obsessed with virtuosity and detail with little to no focus in form/content/emotion LOL IT’S SUCH SAD TRUTH

And I finished the r00d pic today. I think I’ll save it and post it when I’m selling my art book just like when I had my manga preorder promotion. But that’s ok this little square is most of the picture anyway LOL

And there was a terrifying thunderstorm yesterday that swept across my neighbourhood. I am scared of loud sounds, and by loud I mean like balloons and toasters (apparently it’s called ligyrophobia?? IT SOUNDS LIKE THE FEAR OF STDs OR SOMETHING) so it was a quite unpleasant hour or two. But this happened and I thought it was pretty fucking cute lmao

I want to draw a character line up poster where they are actually wearing the clothes they wear in the story ): But I can’t think of a setting/theme for them because I fail at group pictures LOL. I want to draw something that shows their height and a walking picture is the easiest setting, but judy already did it ;;;;;;;;;

FFF just 3 more boxes of packages to mail and I’m done. I’m so frustrated by the inconsistency between post offices because each clerk ACCEPTS SOMETHING DIFFERENT. I just wasted an hour talking to the clerk that was in today about how I was allowed to use the old green canada post customs sticker for the other post office, but this guy refused to accept it and insisted that I had to fill out the new one (the one that requires me to rewrite my 5-line address AND the recipient’s address) and I’m like I can’t do this 100 times… so I carried two boxes of mailers around for NOTHING and I have to go back tomorrow when the guy that accepts these slips is in. Also now I’m worried because he says if they’re not accepted, they will be returned to me and there would not be a refund. This is very scary because that’s potentially a thousand dollar loss there because the postage is as expensive as the book. But at the same time the guy who accepts the green slips has a friend who basically sells tons of contact lenses daily on ebay or something, and if his friend doesn’t get in trouble with his standards, I shouldn’t have to worry right???

I wish I was successful enough that I can contract a proper shipping company to manage all this for me… I have no problem doing the manual labour on my own but getting past FLEXIBLE RULES (???????) is way beyond me. I’m so not suitable to be a businessman LOL I consider every worst case scenario and take it as my responsibility to prevent it from happening. My dad tells me I’m horrible at this because I try too hard on service… he insisted the clear plastic bag wasn’t even necessary, and that I shouldn’t worry about the book getting damaged over WEEKS of INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING because it’s something way beyond my control (ie if a postman is bent on snapping my book in half or tossing it in water, he can do it and no amount of cardboard backing will save it). Also he told me to just ship the books regardless of a strike because that is also not my problem, and that I’m going too far in making sure the orders ship in a timely manner because I’m not the one transporting them and should not be the one to blame. It sounds like I’m boasting about how well I treat my customers but I really just find it interesting that he says that when a service is too good in a business, there is a problem with the business. I guess I can understand to a degree, but saying “no, that’s none of my responsibility I’m sorry I can’t reimburse what you paid for” is so hard ):

On the plus side, if I do this very often, my lifestyle will become healthy as I get my daily dose of exercise doing physical labour LOLOL. I consider book weight very carefully next time… This book is giving me troubles because it’s only 1 or 2 grams underweight, and the ones with custom sketches/charms in it are overweight and I had to pay extra. I really love the paper quality of this book but it’s so dense and thick, that it becomes a big problem when it comes to shipping. Lastly, I’m not doing double book shipping next time LOL and I will probably have to up international shipping rate depending on how this old customs form is accepted. Right now I send international orders as small packages rather than letter mail to save about $5 in shipping cost to arrive at the already expensive $10 shipping, but in return every single one of them has to include customs clearance. If they don’t accept this green slip I’m using, I will have to write down the addresses twice per package and I really can’t afford doing that to ~200 mailers. It’s sad because I have almost as much int’l orders as USA ones and the shipping will probably discourage many, many people from buying my future books.

And here are some randomly sexy men

because I was stupid and didn’t make a prompt post about anime north HAHAHA

so I went to AN on saturday with jenny! we basically just walked around the artist alley like 4 times, raided dealer’s room and then got denied at double tree for panels because NEITHER OF US BROUGHT THE PROGRAMMING BOOK BECAUSE WE’RE RETARDS. I got to say hi to a bunch of super awesome people at the AA (which was my sole purpose of going to AN this year LOL) and really looked around AA for the first time in years, and man did people really pick up on the fact that stylish fanart galore is the key to success, because almost every booth has similar portraits of the current trending shows in each’s own style and I was sad ): It’s also weird that despite nailing this down, the only popular/successful fanart booths were really the same ones as before. I wish I could figure out why but it’s probably due to my lack of comprehension in this area that I can’t do well myself LOL. I bought a bunch of artbooks though! they were fucking expensive but I’ll just take it as saving on shipping/effort looking/worries about quality and postage. I miss 50rmb artbooks in china ffffffff

And then we pigged out at a kbbq place I knew… it wasn’t that great but it was the only one I knew of in my area LOL ): I forgot it was a hot day so we kind of grilled with the food in there.

I wanted to go to Dimitri’s afterwards BEFORE we went in but as you can guess we got really full afterwards so it didn’t happen ):

SO THAT WAS SUNDAY. TODAY MY BOOKS ARRIVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m swiftly taking over all the space in my house I swear I’m like a plague. I’ve been packing orders and organizing stuff ALLL DAYYYY ok I lied I only packed orders for a few hours and spent the rest of the time getting pissed off at fucking canada post for the imminent strike that is SO well timed with my preorders. I’m not going to complain though because this is beyond my control, and surely better than say, my books falling into the ocean or exploding with a derailed train or missing pages etc.

lol u gais look at dis mexican sweatshop and this is only like 1/4 or 1/5 of my orders LMAO. But yeah, just like when I started preorders, the beginning of this process was really slow as I was putting my well-planned streamlined packing I’ve prepared for this day into practice.  I believe it feels kind of like a rocket scientist watching their billion dollar baby turn from virtual simulations and scaled models into a machine blasting off into space, waiting for it to explode in midair and FAIL LOL. But I’m so relieved that the books are finally here and that nothing catastrophic has happened yet.

I am happy with the book’s quality; I wish I could compare the final book with the proof copy but my parents took it to read/show people without asking me and lost it LMFAO… but from my memory, the pages are printed in much higher quality than the proof (obviously since it was offset), and the binding–although not completely perfect bound which was a slight surprise, but I don’t know what they did because I’m still unfamiliar with the whole printing thing–seems solid and can withstand some force. As usual, I tried to rip one book apart and the pages withstood mishandling pretty well. The pages and the cover were both darker than the proof, so some pages turned out really dark, but it’s still fine to read. Overall I think I’m just too relieved to be picky right now (and probably a bad idea to start being critical about it before I even ship it out and scare/disappoint the buyers LOL) but I will probably write up a complete recount of my experience with printing for the first time sometime soon, so others will be able to learn from this and have an easier time ^^