The Life of a Freelancer...

After sitting alone in my room in front of my computer about 6 days a week for the past 6 months I've become a stranger person. There's the typical stuff, like loss of social skills and hygiene, but inevitably, I've picked up even stranger habits...

1. During breaks I try to put my feet behind my head. So far I can scratch my head with my toes.

2. I entertain myself a lot, especially when doing 3d. "Estrude!!!" (Saying extrude like a crazy Chinese lady, AHEM.) "Slicey slicey!" (Using the slice plane.)

3. I get overly excited when I get to leave the house, even to go to meetings.

4. I try on a lot of clothes I already own and make outfits that won't be worn for weeks.

5. I look at my toes a lot.

6. There are days that I wear my pajamas all day and days when I go through 6 changes of clothes, just so I feel like I'm not working at home.

7. I forget to eat.

8. I overeat.

9. I do A LOT of laundry, then I forget to do laundry for 2 months.

10. The feather duster has become my best friend. Internet comes in at a close second.

Malaysia 2007: Introduction and the Local Community

I went to Malaysia from February 9th through the 23rd, mostly to visit family and experience the Chinese New Years festivities which lasted from the 18th on. There was a lot of traffic due to the New Years rush that made it virtually impossible to travel to Singapore, other cities, or the beach resort we had planned on going to, so I spent most of my time in the house I grew up in and in the general vicinity. I did however, get to eat lots and lots of good food and capture a few cool shots of the town. I also went to this museum that featured traditional houses from each Malaysian state.

Malaysians are generally conservative in dress, which is why I think they came up with these devices. Thats fake advertising yo.




Malaysia is HOT and HUMID and there are lots of mosquitoes. The weather is hell for a place that is essentially a tropical paradise (or at least it was before development). You can still see traces of it where trees seem to grow uncontrollably in empty lots or along shores where trash has accumulated. I grew up in my grandmother's house Ujong Pasir, Malaka and came to America in '93 when I was 8 years old. There is a small park across the street where I ran around like a monkey and our at the end of the block is the beach where I used to pick up shells and watch the little fish with arms face the tide and hop from rock to rock.

Grandma's House:

My grandmother's house is largely unchanged with the addition of AC (thank god). We had just begun to decorate for the New Years.




There's no garages, so people just park their cars on the patio or on the street. You can see the AC units hanging on the wall. I don't think there are any houses with centralized cooling systems.





Around the neighborhood:



The park where I spent much of my childhood. Old people practice tai chi here every morning.

The beach at the end of the block. It's actually really dirty. People litter here, bastards...



We saw this antique bike on our way to the beach one day. The owner was cool and let us take pictures of it. Here he is posing proudly with the bike:








That concrete boxlike apparatus is a trash can. My mom told me that thats where I came from. Here's another sitting in an alley.





I think this building is cool...




A nearby playground... I bet kids use this hole as an access to the playground.




Super Bas Sekolah.



People pump your gas for you.



AAAH, the Kopitiam (coffee stand/hawker center) right outside my house. Melaka is really small, so its common to bump into people. Here my dad's old friend staring at my mom trying to recall her from long term memory.



People set up shop wherever they damn well feel like. Here is a local Malay woman selling cakes.






I think these are fire escapes. They're generally located in the back of buildings.

More to write about. This blog is getting too long.

Crazy Start to 2007

06 and 07 both started of with a bang... mostly relating to work....

So 06 I landed a job from traffic school and 07 I went from being unemployed to having 3 jobs... Anyway, I'm overworked, I got to go to Chicago (though my trip to NYC got canceled due to work...) **sigh** It's too bad I don't like any of the three projects, but a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do to eat, right? hahaha.

Anyway here are some crappy sketches.

Outside In

I've been trying to draw from the outside in since attending The Drawing Club workshops. The first sketch is blown up from a tiny silhouette I drew in my sketchbook. I forced myself to work in 3 values for the most part. The second is a simple shape exercise with color thrown on. It's really hard to escape the cliché. Anyway, more posts to come when I return from Vegas!

Happy New Years!

Hopefully I will have my new website up by the end of next week.

Ciao.

Old Men.

I colored some sketches I did a while back. I really need more and more practice.

=)

10-26-06 Drawing Club in LA

Woot, my second time going to drawing club. I'm adding it to the routine. Being in an environment with so many talented artists really forces you to work to a new standard. I'm not nearly as good as most of the people there, but everyone's really encouraging, so I'm looking forward to improvement. The model was John Tucker, who used to be a Disney animator. His poses and expressions were great. Check out what the other people there draw like: http://www.thedrawingclub.com/blog.asp

Anyway, here they are! Better than last week, I think. =)

The Drawing Club in LA

The Drawing Club was AWESOME last night. Basically there's a costumed model and every week is a different theme. I think last night was something like The Corpses Bride, but I don't think I was able to capture much of character in my drawing... I was more concerned with how to actually deal with drawing the costumed model. I was really confused at the beginning because I didn't know how to draw them when they're not naked, hahaha. Also I met a lot of really nice people.

It's too bad it's so far...