Last day of SL.

Last day of SL today, I guess I'll sort of miss the kids. With this, the last IP event is over. With this, my IP experience has truly come to an end. Sigh. Two years have gone by quickly, haven't they? It'll be 2012 in a couple of days. Looking forward to the class chalet, and of course, turning seventeen :D

I'm gonna try and clear small bits of work today, so I can have the whole of tomorrow to read my Death Note. Like finally.

I do not understand why I still don't get enough sleep during the hols.

Maybe it's because I haven't caught up from all the lost sleep from going to Gold Coat. After all, with SL everyday, I haven't had my usual afternoon nap for a long time. Got to catch up on all that lost sleep before school starts again.

First day of SL today. The kids were more interested than I expected. The younger ones anyway. It's amazing how some of them can already draw so relatively well at such a young age. They were a little unresponsive to my part, but ah well. The rest of the workshop should go on smoothly, I think.

Entering 2012 on Sunday. That's fast. As usual, I think I'll be counting down online, Fiesta most probably.

Time really needs to go by slower

Yaargh so many things to do but so little time. This whole week's gonna be more or less taken up by SL, so I have to use the remainder of what I have of the holidays very carefully. Ideally. it'll be split between drawing that manga I'd been intended to draw since ever, reading the manga I bought, and watching anime movies. But considering I only have from 31st Dec to 3rd Jan, and a few days before 10 Jan maybe, I'm just planning on reading my Death Note and leaving my OP volumes to another time, and leave more time for drawing and anime movies.

This is pathetic. How did the holidays go by so fast? Oh what I'd give to leap through time, or to rewind time with the sands of time.

Back home :D

Well, to sum the past six days up, Gold Coast was pretty awesome hehe. The beach was really beautiful, the sand was really sorta golden too haha. And Sea World, Movie World, Dream World, all of them were awesome. Some more than others anyway. And I got to get close with kangaroos too, that was pretty cool too. At first I didn't dare to go near them, though they're actually pretty harmless. But eventually I went and sort of mingled with them and fed them and stuff. Was a new experience :D

Overwhelmed today when I checked my email. Damn, I've gotta get busy again. I'm kinda lost for SL though since I've been away for a week. Besides that, still gotta finish the newsletter and finalise the nightwalk plans. And I'm not too sure what happened to designing the retrospect. And these are only the stuff I have to do. Sigh. There are still plenty of stuff I want to do, but I guess they've got to wait.

Ah who am I kidding. Gonna go catch up with all the anime and manga I missed now :D

I think I've got The Girl Who Leapt Through Time soundtrack permanently stuck in my head.

Maybe I shouldn't have listened to it so many times yesterday. Or rewatched the 2nd half of the movie ._. Anyway, I'm looking for other really good anime movies like this, and I found one called Paprika, it's about entering people's dreams or something. Seems interesting, I shall watch it when I get back. Damn, I've still got quite a bit of work to settle when I get back. Shall worry about it once I'm back then.

1 more day till I fly off.

Anyway before anything, here's my manga :D







Feel like such a happy kid now that I've got these, even though I haven't opened them yet haha. Will open them when I come back, which just nice, is Christmas. I have forgot the last time I was so happy actually buying something. Think it was years ago, when I bought my last Bionicle set. Guess I didn't really have anything I wanted to buy for the past few years. Even this, I sort of bought it because I had vouchers. Sigh. The time will come when I can spend freely on manga.

And since I sort of wrote the last post in a rush, I don't think I wrote enough about The Girl Who Leapt Through Time. Well I'm not sure how to describe it, but it really is an amazing and wonderful movie, I would recommend watching it. It's one of those unique movies, in my opinion anyway. I like the OST for the movie too. Might watch it again when I come back.

Done packing already. Now lets see, if Australia is as good as I expect it to be. Bye Singapore, hellooo Gold Coast :D

Finally got my manga :D

Well I haven't blogged much for the past few days, mainly because I had quite a few things to do. Anyway, just a short summary of what I did for the past few days.

Work-wise, the Pulse newsletter is about half done I'd say, and nothing much to do for the retrospect for now. As for my part in SL, I'll think more about it over the next week.

Had to move my Bionicle sets to another location, so it was the first time in years that I actually touched them. Got kind of distracted and started fixing up some stuff hehe. But the sad thing is, a few of the parts are broken. Sigh. It really has been that long, hasn't it?

Went to Kino today and bought manga. One Piece volume 43, 44, 52, and 59. The volume which I wanted the most, volume 59, was out of stock. Well, I should have expected that, that's the volume everyone would want to buy immediately too. Bought Death Note book 4 too, which consists of volumes 7 to 8. And it's in the original black version :D I decided on all these after about an hour of looking. If I had more vouchers, I'd have bought everything there. Sigh, the things money can buy.

As I was buying the stuff, I looked behind the cashier, and guess what I saw? ORIGINAL JUMP MAGAZINES! I nearly squealed in delight, luckily I didn't. I can't believe it, they actually sell them here too. Well, that's the next best alternative to a Jump shop I guess. I'll buy them one day when I've got extra money to spend, after buying all the manga. After all, this one is lower on the priority list since it's fully in Japanese. I'll just focus on buying the English versions of the manga now.

Well, having bought my manga, I am now a happy and contented boy :D I guess this is sort of my early Christmas and birthday present to myself. Speaking of which, I'll be turning 17 reaaally soon. I still don't have volume 58 of One Piece yet. Just saying.

Watched The Girl Who Leapt Through Time yesterday, after being reminded a few days ago that such a movie exists. It is truly a wonderful movie, and it's a nice change from the action/adventure stuff that I usually watch. Apparently this movie wasn't advertised much when it first came out in Japan, but because of all the great reviews it eventually spread around the world, and there's even a English version I think. The Japanese version is always the best though.

Time waits for no one.

Finally recovered from my flu.

Looks like sleeping for half the day yesterday was a good investment. Let's see the to-do list today:

Touch up on the design for pages and calendar for retrospect, put them together.

Start designing the cover of the retrospect.

Watch yesterday's Bleach episode.

Read the latest manga.

Finish drawing my manga.

Finish the cover for the Pulse newsletter.

Start packing for Australia.

Go to Kino to use up my 100 dollars voucher all on manga.

It is reaally hard to choose which volumes I want to buy. I'd buy them all if I could. One piece is my first priority, though many of the volumes I want are pretty recent, don't know if they have it stocked. But I'm going prepared, with a narrowed down list of both old and new manga, just in case. Well then, time to get to work.

Busy-ness really kicks in out of nowhere.

Well, I aim to get the retrospect design for the calendar and those other few pages done by tomorrow morning, then I'll try working on the cover. After which I'll start doing up the Pulse cover. And I still haven't gotten back to drawing my manga T_T I just got this wonderful idea for a one page-r with Ace and Luffy. Only problem is, I don't have the time to do it now. And my flu just got worse again, just as I thought it was getting better. My immune system just haaas to fail me now of all times. Still got to pack for my trip to Australia too. Aaaargh. Alright then, getting back to the retrospect design now.

I WILL make time to draw that manga. Somehow, but I'll make sure I finish it before I go overseas.

Down with flu -.-

Aaargh this is annoying, why did I have to get sick just as I got my momentum for drawing? I actually finished a whole page yesterday. Now I can't even draw without having to blow my nose every few minutes -.-

And I don't think sitting in front of the computer the whole day helps. But there's honestly nothing else I can do now. Just been mindlessly leveling my mage in Fiesta. Ah well. Looks like level 60 is just within reach.

Goal for the week: To get at least one page of manga done.

I reaally want to draw fight scenes again, all this while I've only been doing intros for manga. Perhaps this one will turn out good. Also starting to practice various landscapes. Oh, and I got back to the character I was working on before I got distracted by PoP hehe.

Raw scan:

Colour 1:

Colour 2:

Personally, I prefer the 2nd coloured version. I'll try to colour the evil version of him when I have the time too. One thing I realised from this is, outlining without a tablet is painstakingly hard. Half the time the line goes awry and I've gotta undo it. But still, it gives better results than using the original scan outline. Gotta get used to outlining using a mouse.

This week's manga was good

So apparently Jinbei isn't joining the crew now, but later. And The mermaid princess is the ancient weapon that was spoken of previously. I've gotta go re-read those old chapters to refresh my memory on Skypiea.

Got another design job, to redesign the Retrospect for next year. As usual, not much of an idea now, but if all goes as it usually does, it'll turn out pretty good in the end :D

Been reading through my old posts, and I've realised how quickly time has passed, how much has changed. And another thing I realised...

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE EAGLES THAT FLY OUTSIDE MY WINDOW?

I think I'm getting a little sick of Pop ._.

Well, that's what happens when I spam it for a week I guess. Never mind, I've got all the life upgrades now, I can take my time finishing what's left.

Gotta get back to drawing too. I think I'm gonna focus more on working on landscapes, my characters are already pretty okay. Need to get some inspiration for landscapes though. Manga artists usually travel all around the world to get ideas on various landscapes. Guess I'll just have to settle for whatever googling these places gives me.

On a side note, if I ever learn how to play the piano(unlikely), I wanna learn how to play the 14th's song from D. Grayman. It's pretty good.

Finally, finished PoP 2

Well, it took me less than a week. Feels like ages since I started though. Anyway, it's pretty interesting, apparently the Prince did see himself going back to the past to change it, just that he didn't recognise himself because the mask of the wraith made him look like a sand creature. Anyway, the Empress has been killed, the Dahaka no longer chases the prince, and the sands of time no longer exist. And the prince returns to find his city in ruins. This isn't the ending I want. This is the bad ending. Apparently for the alternative ending where I fight the Dahaka, I needa get all the life upgrades, which will unlock the water sword, which will actually allow me to harm the Dahaka.

Hmm.. I think I'll go see where all the life upgrades are today, then I'll aim to finish the game again in the next 4 days :D

The Dahaka is just annoying.

I got chased by it for 3 hours yesterday, without any save points. Mainly because I kept failing and had to redo the level. Only save point was like after it chased the Prince about four times. Anyway, currently I've defeated the Empress of Time in the past, the Prince has returned to the future to find out the Dahaka is still after him, and now he's gone back to the past, to bring the Empress to the present, because if she makes the sands of time in the present and not the past, it would not have been found yet, therefore the Prince would not have been tricked into unlocking it, and thus the Dahaka would have no reason to kill him. Seems like a good plan. Let's see how it goes.

One Piece is the top manga for 2011 :D

Apparently there were more than 37 million copies of OP sold this year, making it the top ranking manga. In second place is Naruto, with 6 million copies. All the rest in the top ten range somewhere between 5 mil to 3 mil. Well, that just proves how awesome One piece is :D

I have really gotta start buying some One Piece manga.

Waiting for my iPod to recharge now

Well my progress so far is pretty good, I think I can complete the game by next week. After that I'm gonna replay it again in impossible mode, and depending on which ending I got, I'll go for the alternate ending. And I think I missed some of the life upgrades on this one, only way I found out about them was by accidentally coming across them in the walkthrough. I didn't really refer much to the walkthrough, I'm trying to figure everything out myself. So far it's been good, and the times when I did refer, it seems that my instinct was correct, just that I mis-pressed the button or something. Oh and I've gotten quite comfortable with the touchscreen interface.

iPod's gonna take about an hour more to fully charge. Guess I'll go running or something and then get back to it. It's nice to forget the world for a while, and be immersed in the Prince's world. Glad I haven't spoiled the details of the storyline for myself yet, that's one of the main things that keeps me playing this :D