I don’t have anything to post so I GO BACK IN TIME TO FIND SKETCHES I FORGET TO POST HERE FROM TUMBLR HAHA. Click for bigger image!

I think this was another drawing that was supposed to only have blackbird but veloce invaded how r00d

drawing out a rigidly planned/thumbnailed story this time around wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I remember the first manga I started many, many years ago, I quit it and got bored of it because the story was already written out to every last detail that I felt like a printer printing out pages into art format. I’m not sure what changed but I haven’t gotten tired of drawing this book yet. Maybe it’s because my thumbnails are so ridiculously funny looking that I look forward to drawing them properly, or maybe it’s because I’ll be seeing it in print that makes it motivating.

I read this chinese novel my mom recommended to me last year or the year before; it was a very simple romance novel based on a true story during the cultural revolution. It was bland and simple and the characters were dumb (because well, it’s a true story) but my mom said that it was such a hit among people of her generation because the way the story was depicted spells out society and life in that era very plainly and truthfully. She wanted me to read it because it was the most effective way anyone can show anyone else the world from another time–through the eyes of people living during those times, so in this case, the characters of the story. I don’t know if I’ve been effected by that mentality but it was what I wanted to do with carciphona. Not that I don’t care about its characters, in fact I do dearly and everybody–even people who don’t do jack shit now–has something to contribute, but on top of the characters, I really do want the readers to see a convincing world from the characters’ eyes.

My world was really loosely built before this year so all of the story parts I’ve written have little focus on the environment. I’m also not a big reader so my writing skills and knowledge base is really limited. So far I’ve always relied on dialog between people of different backgrounds to describe the ways of the world, when true customary practices should show themselves in the environment, background, within the actions and reactions of people towards certain things without the need of words. I hope I can work some of these fixes into the next book and on and make cp a more convincing story so that even if people hate the characters, it wouldn’t hinder them to think that the world is believable and memorable, and even if all of its characters and the events were removed, the world would not fall apart.

up to page 124 is done! 30 more pages and then 10 ish pages of extra content to do :1 if I can keep up drawing 6 pages a week, + nyaf I can finish mid november! I can probably get some proofreading done while I’m finishing content, and I should have a few weeks to revise anything I want to change. I can’t believe I’m actually making this feasible considering how laid back I usually am hahaha. All the page drawing and black and white stuff is making me forget how to colour… except I finished a cg just last week so ??????????? LOL MY BRAIN. I was planning to draw more pages today but I figured I should at least spend ONE day and do something else. But it was a bad decision in the end because I really wasn’t feeling like CGing and I had no inspiration for the cover anyway HAHA. now it’s all broody and dark and heavy… maybe on a better day I can sparkle it up with some desu

In other news we went to a restaurant for my grandma’s birthday yesterday. It was a chinese restaurant aimed towards the more classy/rich non asians, with an objective of “showing the western world what true chinese cuisine is like”. The whole place was decorated in baroque furnishing, except since it was done by chinese people it has the usual unauthentic vibe to it which I thought was hilarious, because I really think regal ancient oriental palace style decoration would’ve looked no less classy, without any of the counterfeit look LOL. The food itself was decent, but not worth the expensive price because I can name a lot of loud crowded and shitty looking restaurants that cook more authentic food, the money paid was mostly just for the service and environment. I should have taken my camera with me because at least for the money we paid I would’ve gotten some nice photos out of it but whatever! Also now it’s making me want baroque furnitures and want to paint my room red LOL my tastes are so old q_q

And here are some more photos from my window! there was a storm near the east coast but as usual, we didn’t get much of it. but storms mean rainbow hotspot yay! it was so bright it was glorious

and the day after the storm was cleared. suppressing urge to photoshop out the trees

I don’t like snacks but these rolls… I was just gonna have one and before I knew it the whole pack was gone LOL damn chinese snacks… I BET THERE’S CRACK IN IT

I’ve been spending like… 15-20 minutes a day on this picture cus that’s all the time I end up having to spare without feeling guilty about not working on real work lol. I was just going for a simple picture of blackbird with her FACE on it cus I cut it off almost every drawing. unfortunately veloce invaded anyway I hope she enjoys the smell of blackbird’s armpit

And ohhhh I totally forgot I drew this after I posted it on tumblr haha. It’s one of my attempts to draw a group picture; I see group pictures all the time and I always want to do one but I just suck at stuff that don’t involve people making out or fighting or in DESPAIR for whatever reason. I was debating between character focus and environment focus, in the end I decided environment focus anyway to maybe have a chance to illustrate more of the world but this setting isn’t really reflective of my world at all LOL. I don’t know when I’ll have the time and balls to colour this but I do hope I will get to it eventually because I need drawings like these ):

took these photos to show my friend my latest mudkip installation

GET THE FUCK OFF MY HEAD GRARRRRR

I don’t recall posting this, I probably have but w/e I have no pictures to post LOL

I BROKE MY COMPUTER by installing a crap load of programs trying to fix my artbook’s file problem. I don’t know what’s wrong with it but it’s either there’s too much shit loading at startup, I got malware, or I’ve been opening multiple huge files in huge programs too frequently recently and force restarting too much whenever it starts lagging to shit. I can’t fix it despite disabling a lot of startup programs and uninstalling a lot of stuff and I really don’t have the time to reinstall windows right now, so I went back to the windows xp I used 2 years ago since I leave that drive plugged in anyway to use for space. And MAN it’s so fast and smooth with an utter lack of bullshit I don’t know what the fuck I did wrong with Windows 7 that could make it inferior to XP LOL… I pretty much have everything I need on there and installed whatever that’s missing, and now I am even more unmotivated to go back to windows 7 cus what’s the point ): just going to wait until no one makes software for winxp anymore or something lmfao

I’ve been having a lot of problems with the artbook but the most important one is finally fixed today. I am waiting for a second proof to be made and once it’s ok I’ll get it printed. It will probably be here by the end of October, but at this rate I probably want to wait for the books to arrive before I start taking orders. I will be gone for a week in the middle of October anyway and I want to wait til I get back to work on this, because I don’t want there to be any unexpected problems while I’m away and unable to tend to it. I am considering fedexing a small number of books after they are printed to bring to NYAF to give to friends/sell but I’ll see when I know the costs/time!

I’ve also been working on the year-end deadline for volume 2, and trying to get ahead of my schedule because I am pretty sure I would need to fork out a lot of time proofreading and editing any problems with the book after I’m done, which I didn’t plan time for. My relative who is coming has two high school and college aged kids and I am now charged with looking into enrollment and credit transfers for them lol ): I also agreed to work on a website for a friend and my dad wants to do some major renovation before the end of the year so all this will probably take a lot of time out of my schedule, so I’m trying to prepare for any unexpected time consuming delays (LIKE THIS ARTBOOK SHIT UGH) but right now I’m only 2 pages ahead ):

It didn’t occur to me that the last time I’ve drawn veloce normally in the story was like… 40 pages ago or something, because I was comparing how I’ve drawn her now to just earlier in this book and I just laugh at how badly I draw people LOL. During most of book2 I thought I kinda settled down with how I want to draw these pages and the change throughout the book isn’t as drastic as book 1 I guess, I should be able to look through my work after I’m done without feeling embarrassed about it right? WRONG HAHA man I’ll never be able to take CP seriously, I’ll just look through it and feel like I’m reading porn in public… I am not even trying to do anything good or out of ordinary, I just want them to look generic and good WHY AM I SO BAD AT LIFE.