Picking up the brush(es)

I’ve taken drawing lessons since little—crayon, pastel, watercolor, inking and chalk. Ever since getting Wacom Bamboo and the many pieces of drawing software, I’ve been using just those to draw and color. Then this week my mom asked my brother to draw her a watercolor “kitchen-related” drawing.

Making a digital drawing with resolution high enough to remain clear when blown up to about 16″ x 21″ would result in a really, really big file, so he decided to go old school. So yesterday the two of us headed to Michael’s. There we learned that art supplies here are very bloody expensive!

We bought 5 brushes—granted, they’re really nice ones, a watercolor paint set (10 colors, 1 brush, and a really small plastic paint-mixing palette), paper, and a bunch of little things. Came up to $177.71!!!!! By golly, as my brother said, no wonder artists are poor! ;p

Last night we decided to play with our new toys. Here’s a sketch of Ichigo that I made:

My pencil sketch of Ichigo

My reference was Bleach Official Character Book 2 MASKED, which I just got last week. Took me a quite a while to finalize that sketch, man! I missed cmd + z sorely! I erased so much that parts of the paper became grey-ish, yikes.

Then I set out to color it. After painting it, I went over the outlines with a pen—one of those “watery-inked” ones. Next time I go to Kinokuniya in Japantown I’ll grab a couple of skinny felt pens, I think those give a more natural feel to the outlines.Using the pen as I did made the outlines came out a little flatter than I liked.

Ichigo in watercolor, sort of

Turned out okay I guess, considering how long I haven’t touched an actual brush. My complaints are Ichigo’s hair and sword. I think I still prefer using Chinese calligraphy brush as opposed to these nice synthetic fiber ones…I used to paint with calligraphy brushes last time so I’m kind of used to that.

Anyhow…I must say I really miss being able to easily manipulate different layers and not have to worry about making a wrong move and not be able to “undo” or erase it completely. It was fun, though. I might dabble with it again soon, after all I do have an $80+ investment in these toys!!!

Bleach Concept Covers 2

Just a few months ago I found out that there’s an album called Bleach Concept Covers where the voice actors in the Bleach anime sing the opening/ending themes from the anime. It was really amusing as some of them can’t really sing that well, while some of them sang almost better than the original.

Then, just a couple weeks ago I found out that there’s a second album! It was released just last December. This time the singers are the voice actors from the Arrancar arc (except Ichigo and Rukia). Surprisingly, I like pretty much all the songs in this album…this set of voice actors have better voice!

Here’s an example of a song that I think turned out to be better than the original:

Go Onosaka Masaya!

Bleach 2012 calendar

The calendar I ordered from Yesasia arrived! I’m relieved that it came in excellent condition despite being (probably) the last one carried by Yesasia.

Cover - Ichigo; Jan/Feb - Hitsugaya, Kira, Rangiku, Byakuya, and Hisagi

March/April - Uryuu, Chad, and Orihime

May/June - Tsukishima and Ginjou

July/Aug - Riruka and co.

Sep/Oct - Renji

Nov/Dec - Rukia

There you are. See what I mean about 95% poster 5% calendar? I can hardly read the numbers!

Picking up the pen(cil)

My drawing activities have been on hiatus for a while now. With the new looks of the characters in Bleach now, I finally picked up my Bamboo tablet and pen again and started a drawing. My goal is to draw Ichigo, Renji, Byakuya, and Rukia in one drawing. To quote 9gag: “Challenge accepted!”

Very rough sketch

I’ve only gone as far as their outlines. Ichigo’s stance was taken from Kubo’s artbook All Colour But The Black, but I updated his costume and zanpakuto to his new look. Renji’s stance was “custom-made”, and I think I’ll take his face from either the artbook or some random pane in the manga. Byakuya’s was taken from the last pane in chapter 464. I haven’t drawn Rukia, but I think I’ll take her from the Bleach 2012 calendar that I just got.

I have a loooong ways to go. 🙂

怎么病不好啊~

已经病了一个礼拜半，今天终于心不甘情不愿地去看医生。像预料中一样，医生开了抗生素。没想到的是，就在我要离开的时候，柜台的女接待员把我叫住。“请问你有化妆吗？你的脸看起来真好看。”

于是我介绍了我现在用着的粉底－Bobbi Brown Illuminating Powder Foundation－她很有兴趣地和我确认了名字，看来Bobbi Brown加了一位顾客了！更让我想不到的是，到了办公室，一位男同事看到我时说：“你今天脸看起来很好看！” 好奇怪哦！我天天都用同一个粉底啊！竟然在生病的时候一个小时内给两个人说我的脸的皮肤好看，看来我生病有意外的收获！也不知道人家相不相信我是生着病的。

Anyway, 看来我今天又需要提早回家休息了。唉，什么时候会病好呢？:(

It’s a sad day…

Found out today that the Bleach anime is cancelled and the last episode will be aired on March 27th. My bias aside, this is a horrible point to end the anime because the Fullbring arc is, to be honest, a pretty lousy story. What with the manga going into its last arc, which (hopefully) would bring the series to an epic end, it would’ve been great to have the anime end the same way.

Sigh.

Kubo sensei uses copic markers!

For the longest time I’ve been wondering what medium Kubo Tite uses for coloring. His colored drawings have that flowy, watery feel yet it doesn’t quite look like watercolor. I read on forums that he uses Copic markers, but this video finally confirms it!

Copic markers are horrendously expensive though, so I’ll experiment with the digital Copic markers that are included in Sketchbook Pro 2011 before I get any.

Entertainment during a cold

Last week both Beng and my brother caught a cold, and despite my valiant effort at staying healthy by downing 1000mg of Vitamin C every day, I caught the bug from them. After attending my personal training session on Saturday, it quickly went from slight fatigue to sore throat, then it’s all downhill from there.

Thanks to the combo of muscle ache and the usual symptoms of a cold, I was pretty much KO’ed till yesterday. For 3+ days I did nothing but sleep and watch anime. Ever since I learned that Bleach was going into its last arc (sob!) I started searching for a new anime to follow. Given my priorities when it comes to anime/manga–the drawing style–it was really difficult to find one that fits. Much to my amusement a lot of them share a common theme–supernatural powers, 15-year old teenagers, and demons. Some have interesting storyline, but the drawing styles were just way too cute. Granted, I’m biased towards Kubo Tite’s style, but I didn’t expect it to be so hard to find one that’s similar.

After much searching, I picked Ao no Exorcist a.k.a Blue Exorcist. Interesting premise…it’s about a 15-year old boy (what did I tell you?) who discovered that he’s the son of Satan, and how he fought against his heritage and became an exorcist instead. I found the protagonist (Okumura Rin) to share the same traits as Ichigo–disdain for rules, hot-headedness, and strong desire to protect friends. I guess that’s what Japanese kids want to be? The anime is very short with only 25 episodes, and oddly does not  follow the storyline of the manga, which is still ongoing apparently. I’m quite disappointed by how the anime ended, so I’m going to check out the manga, which is more highly reviewed. But don’t get me wrong, it’s a really good story and the drawing is beautiful, I just didn’t like the ending.

I also saw an episode of D.Gray Man (what’s up with the name??) and Tokyo Majin Gakuen Kenpuchō Tō (what a mouthful!), both also about teenagers and demons. I like the drawing style of Tokyo Majin, but boy it was the most confusing thing I’ve ever seen. The first 3 episodes felt like they’re completely unrelated to each other, and there’s no explanation of how they got their powers, nor what their power really is. For now I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and continue for a few more episodes and see if it improves. D.Gray Man‘s pilot episode was so-so, I’m not too impressed by the drawing style.

So, I’m still on the hunt for one that wows me. In the meantime I’ll continue to be a loyal fan of Bleach and Detective Conan.

And speaking of Bleach, the second official character book, MASKED, is finally being released in English! I’ve been waiting for ages! As soon as I saw it posted on Amazon I placed a pre-order. It’s said to be released on March 6th, I can’t wait!

Also, still speaking of Bleach, I finally caved and bought the 2012 Japan-edition calendar from yesasia.com. It’s like 95% posters 5% calendar really. I was hoping the price will drop further since it’s now February, but no luck. I’m sooo glad I ordered it when I did though, because the very next day, the item is no longer available on yesasia.com. I guess I got the last one!

Well, I’m glad that I had these as entertainment while I’m recovering from my cold, because it’s super boring otherwise. It feels like it’s not going to go away 100% until a few more days, but at least my muscle ache is mostly gone and I can sit down without wincing now.

Bleach Concept Covers!!!

As I was browsing for Bleach ending and opening themes last night, I came across an album that was released last December called Bleach Concept Covers. It’s an album where the Japanese voice actors sing some of the opening and ending themes from the anime! I nearly had a heart attack from sudden happiness right then and there!

Not surprisingly, some voice actors are wonderful singers. Check out this version of Thank You sung by the voice actors of Hisagi and Tosen. They sound almost identical to the original.

Then there’s this disaster by Aizen and Hinamori.

Aizen is just down. right. creepy. They need to make the song a key higher or something for the poor guy. I feel like he must be gasping for breath after every phrase.

My fav:

Byakuya and Renji!!! ♥

Kawaii iPhone photo app!

I know, I know, I’m not 12 anymore…but who says one has to be little to love fiddling with cute photo effects right? ^.^ You know those Japanese photo booths where you go in and have your photo taken, then you have what seems like endless choices to decorate your photos? Super 可愛い right!!!

If you have an iPhone, check this out: DECOPIC iPhone app. No more trying to sneak into those photo booths for fear of being laughed at (seriously, I do feel rather silly using those photo booths along with high school children)! Just take a photo and use that app to add stamps, glitter, frames, and words to create a photo that looks absolutely 可愛い!

Here’s a sample of me:

Wahahahaha! There are tonnes of other cute things you can add to your photos, just don’t overdo it!

By the way–totally unrelated–what’s up with WordPress’ new look?? It’s so difficult to get to my dashboard from wordpress.com. What happened to the old user-friendly drop down menu? I want that back!!!