Photo Spam!

Once again, my sister took the camera with her to Canada so I don't have much of my own photos to share. I've been extremely lazy about taking pictures these days...and I wish my itouch had a better camera. All of my own photos in this entry was taken with my itouch and edited on photoshop (still crappy no matter how much i PS them). I've developed a habit of saving pictures of items/things I find interesting, so I have quite a lot to post...

Well here goes!

Photo of my brand new Yamaha T121!! I waited six years, but it was well worth the wait. I can sit and play on this piano all day because the sound and the touch of the keys are amazing (compared to my old one).

My panda-z figure set took two months to arrive in the mail. I was worried because the seller didn't provide a tracking number and I was almost positive it got lost in the mail.

My final project in figure construction course. A life-sized self portrait. I have to admit, my face looks super strange and this photo REALLY emphasized the weirdness. Its not great, but its not that bad if you see the drawing in real life either. Maybe I need to take a picture of this with a higher quality camera later...

My final project for color cheory course. A digital drawing done on photoshop with an analogous color scheme. These are (almost) all of my favorite 3d animation characters.

My art portfolio webpage layout for Internet Concepts course. I just need to fix some codes and I'll try to upload the whole website so I don't have to use dapoortfolio anymore.

A set of dimsum characters I designed for my cousin's HKSA club at the University of Oregon. This style of drawing cute faces has been done (literally) a MILLION times (and im pretty sick of seeing it too), but I didn't have much time to work on it and they didn't ask for a unique design so I ended up with this predictable set of dimsum :) added watermark because this was designed for HKSA.

Speaking of design, I've also been working on a logo for my cousin's upcoming restaurant/store/cafe (im not even sure what to call it). It took a long time to finish and I still can't say im completely satisfied with it. My sister and I also worked on the interior design of the restaurant. Obviously, she was in charge of the project since shes an architecture major, I mainly just gave suggestions and ideas on the decorative aspect. I will also be working on ads, menus, photos, tshirt designs, etc for the future restaurant. Very exciting stuff!

My cousin from HK tagged me with this photo. I thought the design was awesome. They're keyboard figures with different emoticons. Very creative!

My very first model made in Maya for 3D and modeling course. That course was such a nightmare...just looking at this photo makes me feel a chill up my spine. I have to take the second part of this course next term...ughh

Mini calpris be@rbricks. I love the size of these 40% be@rbricks, I used a lego for size comparison.

TO-BUY BOOKS!!

All the photos from here onwards are not mine, credits to wherever I found them...

Definitely on the top of my to-buy list. I've been trying to find this book in stores so I can see whats inside, but no luck =/ from the few pages of preview on amazon, it looks pretty good.

Probably my next book purchase. I've looked through this several times at the book store, and its amazing and inspiring. I've always enjoyed watching behind-the-scenes clips in DVDs, this book is even more informative. I've always been curious about the references Pixar used for the toy designs.

I have this strange fascination for mascots and I've always wanted to do a series of paintings on them (I did one last year and its one of my favorite piece although most people prefer my other paintings). Maybe its due to my childhood phobia of mascots...and now im fascinated by them.

Just bought this book recently, a compilation of Hayao Miyazaki's interview and few other animators. Its an extremely interesting and inspiring book (partially inspiring because some of the facts makes me feel worried about my future as an animator). I would recommend this book to any Hayao fans or animation majors.

Expensive but huge book of Friends with You artwork. Im such a huuuuge fan of their works and style. Must get my hands on this book some day...

Friends with You~

So envious of their wonderful style and works...

Random stuffffff....

Friends with You mimobots/usbs! They're a lot cheaper and cuter than mimobots, but still expensive for 2gb USB.

There needs to be a giant vinyl figure or a mini keychain of the mario kart bananas!! Maybe I will be the first one to make one... puhaha

Super nerdy but awesome tshirts. I love buying cool graphic tees and im hoping to get one of these, preferably the dissected Mario... They're made by a company (?) called Otaku Underground. I don't really consider myself an otaku (although I claim to be a border-line otaku in my profile) hahah its not really something to be proud of, but hey...Mario is everyone's best friend....

Bought one of these on ebay, they're pretty cheap. Hoping to have a small Toad collection... he's too cute~

Treeson series 2 is out!! $60 per set...its over my budget so I will save these for later.



An old Ren progress shot, just want to share this because these types of sculpt/progress photos are extremely inspiring to me (not sure why...) they remind me of how much I want to become a toy designer some day.

Would really love to own of these panda-z figures. The red one looks amazing, but its over my budget. I've always been interested in things that are somehow 'opposite' or contradictions, like for food; sweet&salty, and for toys/character designs; cute & tough or ugly. In this case, I like that combo of mecha + cute character. Its both a girl and guy friendly character.

This is major problem I have with american children's toys and characters. They're always SO stereotypical. Girls toys are always pink, purple, dolls, and cuddly animals. For boys, they're are always cars, weapons, or action figures..all designed in 'boys' color. Why aren't there any toy designs that can be played with by BOTH girls and boys? Seriously, America needs to step up with their toy designs.

A Dr.Evil Porkchop collectable figure!! (photo found on someone's flickr)

A new be@rbrick...can't remember the name of this one and where I found it, but I think the use of materials is quite interesting. Would look less tacky if the stars didn't have bead-holes in them, but still cool nonetheless.

I've always wanted a 400% be@rbrick (28 cm high) and if I were to buy one, it would be this one. I like how the back is silver and how the body is transparent with beads. Definitely brings back memories of my childhood toys.

Mari Inukai – Sekaiseifukudan Full Sets. Very very nice....

Im not sure why, but that squirrel with the red headscarf puts a smile on face every time I see it...

I've been seeing these around a lot on the internet and I finally found out what they're called, FumoFumo. Im going to make my sister look for one in Hong Kong next time. They look extremely cuddly and cute...and TONS better than pillow pets. I don't understand the pillow pet hype, they're soft but they look like those cheap and ugly stuff-animals you get from claw machines.




Hoping to learn amigurumi when I have time. This is a cute and original design :D

Some random toy. Its kind of got this oldschooled vibe to it, which I like. The randomness of it is also awesome.

When I first saw this, I was like "OMG an awesome calendar! I must get one!"...but then i realized that its be totally inconvenient cause I would have to change the date EVERY day. My guess is that its not a calendar, but more of a birthday reminder type of present.

Wall-E figure made out of wood! How awesome is that?

Would be fun to piece together if they sold them as model kits.

Badtz Maru characters designed by Amanda Visell. I prefer her other figure designs, but this is kind of interesting.



Modified mecha Danbo figure!! I would buy one...




Adorable teapot designs!! Would make a great present for tea-lovers.



Cool cloud shelves. Not sure how practical they are, but its a neat idea.

Been trying to find this Sy and Am Tinpo set...no luck as of now :(

photo credits to http://www.flickr.com/photos/67896537@N00/sets/72157600060779748/detail/

such awesome photos of vintage and other random figures!!

Iron Man figure by 3age. I like some of their chibi super hero designs...gotta say Iron Man is my favorite design out of the rest.

Im only interested in Hello Kitty collaborations (or just anything thats sort of 'out of the norm' for Hello Kitty). These Hello Kitty snowmans are a bit too girly for my taste, but the snowman idea is very adorable.

New uglydoll series!! I like what I see :O ...the fancy boxes are a plus too. Im too cheap to buy blindbox figures these days.

Im waay late, but im currently obsessed with Project Runway. There are so many seasons out, I decided to start with season 2 because i heard it was the best out of all the older seasons. At first I couldn't figure out why most of the contestants dressed so badly even though they were fashion designers and could make amazing stuff on the runway. And then I realized its because season 2 started back in around 2004... its kind of amazing how much fashion in the U.S has improved (although its still not up to par with Europe and Asia). This show is intense and amazing even though im not a huge fashionista.

Jesus christ...maybe its time for me to get a tumblr. Would probably make my life easier.

Long awaited spring break!

This is such a long and wordy entry I decided I’ll separate this from my photo blog update… will get those up soon.

Second term is over and it's finally time to blog again! Simply put, this term was a bit of a nightmare. The last week of finals equates to a week of no sleep and constant paranoia. Every minute I had this little voice running in the back of my head, hurrying me to move on to another project.

Now I gotta rant and give my ‘review’ of each course.

3d modeling- I believe I might have aged ten years and grew several strands of white hair thanks to this course. First, I must rant about my instructor. For one thing, nothing annoys me more than being called "honey" like I'm still a kid in diapers. On the other hand, I have been accused by her THREE times. First time, she yelled at me for doing my homework in class when I wasn't. Second time, she accused me of wasting her time by turning in an old assignment and trying to pass it off as an upgraded one. I might’ve mistakenly given her the old file, but that's unlikely because I have overwritten the old one (I didn’t get the chance to clear this up with her). Third time, she made it seem like I was lying about getting the wrong final schedule when it was our schools crappy website’s fault. She allowed me to do my final early with her other class which is kind of nice... but anyway, Maya is the most annoying program I've ever used. I'm going to quote somebody from last term when I asked him about Maya," it's not difficult to use, it's just a major pain in the ass"...yup, took the words out of my mouth.

Figure construction- The homework in this class was the most time-consuming. We did the same thing almost every week; drawing figures of live nude models. I thought it would be a bit awkward to draw nude figures in the beginning, but when we actually started, it wasn't strange at all. I actually learned and gained a lot in this course. Before, I had a lot of difficulties with drawing human figures from imagination, but now I definitely have a much better understanding of the human figure.

Design, media, and communication- A course I dreaded going to every week. I almost had a panic attack when I heard it was a speech class. Yes, I have this MAJOR fear of public speaking that I probably shouldn’t have at my age. Thankfully, we didn't have to present a lot. The course was actually quite interesting and had topics that got me thinking (not to mention, super easy hw)... but if I had I to retake this course, I might go crazy.

Color theory- This class was full of awesome people and it's probably the only class I felt comfortable in. I gotta admit it's kind of a tough course even though the workload was not that much. I over estimated myself and thought I was pro with colors, but apparently I'm not even close. I kept getting B's on almost every assignment (even though I spent hours on them). I think I did terrible in my finals exam too. For one of the questions it asked me to design a product for baby boomers and the product was pastures (??). This is stupid, but I assumed that baby boomers meant toddlers, and pastures (or however it was spelled, I have no idea what it is) was some odd term for diapers. Then I reread the question after I finished answering in paragraphs + color diagram, and realized baby boomers meant elderly people between the age of 55-66. Wow epic fail much?

Internet concept (web designing course)- Listening to webpage and HTML talk for hours was like listening to a year-long lecture in a foreign language. I actually used to be pretty good at html, but I've forgotten everything (unfortunately). Web designing is pretty fun + satisfying stuff (although extremely frustrating at times). Despite in how the lectures made me doze off like crazy, this course actually made me want to switch my major to web designing for a minute. But I totally bombed my final exam cause I thought I would pass it with flying colors. I seriously need to stop overestimating myself…

Its only my second term and im already complaining. I didn't struggle with the workload until finals week, but I went through a lot of mental stress this term. I felt extremely intimidated and insecure in my classes, I seriously doubted my major for the first time, and I constantly felt frustrated by the things around me. Mainly, I was angry because I didn’t know why I had to go through so many things I didn’t ask for. I only want to do art… why do I have to deal with all this presentation crap, why do I have to take courses im not interested in when im the one paying loads of money, why do I have to deal with people, why do I have to stand in the freezing cold and wait for the bus that never arrives on time…all these little things I pretty much know the answer to.



On the bright side, I finally bought a new piano after wanting one for six years. It cost more than I had expected (I felt guilty), but it was the last of the made in Japan YAMAHA pianos. All of Yamaha’s new pianos are made in their China factory and they are no longer selling the ones made in their Japan factory to the U.S. There is no way I am buying a piano that’s made in China, no matter how strict their quality control is. It was now or never, so I ended up buying the Yamaha T121. No regrets!