/me sitting in my corner….. waiting……….

——————
Update: I’m gonna be lounging around on IRC again, suckers! Funnet, #pinkbunnies

Assignment: Anomaly and Bridge Tones

Part 1: Create 3-like compositions, using a tightly unified color field. e.g. complementary tones, analogous or monochromatic tones, limited value range.

Part 3: Change two of the existing colors to create bridge tones that will soften the starkness of the anomaly.

I wanted to do something simple, since I had to do 3 iterations of the same composition. What better to do than a tribute to the Super Mushroom?

Here’s what I came up with:

Final Product: Mario Mushrooms

Alllrriiiggght, so I didn’t really follow the assignment! I added a bunch of white to the bridge tones for fear of the mushroom looking too toxic! I changed the golden yellow sun streaks in the background to a yellow-greenish tone (but with LOTS of white), and the mushroom spots from red to a very slight purple (tho it looks blue next to the blue mushroom base color).

I had a LOT of fun working on this project! I might go back and redo the same composition with more popular Mario mushroom colors: the new super mushroom (red base, white spots), the 1-up (neon green base, white spots)

Assignment: Proportional Inventory Study

Part 1: Make a proportional inventory of an image that has an easily countable number of tones.

Part 2: Create a composition of your own using the colors and proportions of the inventory.

This is my FAVORITE piece at the moment!
For Part 1, a few days earlier, I had stumbled upon this image by strongstuff

Optimus Prime Commission by strongstuff

I just thought this Optimus Prime image was AMAZING: blocky style, and minimal colors used to denote the curves and shadows around Optimus’ form. I decided to use this piece for my study.

Here is my Proportional Inventory, breaking down the proportions of how many colors there are in the Optimus Prime piece, and also how MUCH of it exists in the piece all together. (Ex: 20% white, 5% light gray, etc.)

NOTE: Depending on your computer monitor’s settings, the colors might not match. My desktop monitor’s colors are all kinds of whack so I used to my new laptop to view the Optimus Prime pic. From there, I spent a while mixing the colors on my palette until it matched closely the colors on my laptop screen.

Then came the fun part!! I needed to figure out what Nintendo character was mostly blue and red… At first thought, of course I thought of Mario! But I had a few problems: Mario is mostly red with blue overalls, plus he has skin tones, which was not part of the Optimus Prime color inventory! I texted Norvelle, Brent, and Greg in class and we came up with a few options: Mario, Yoshis, Sonic(!!). As much as I wanted to do a piece on Sonic <3 <3 <3, I realized that I could do something with Megaman. Megaman has very minimal skin so it would be a nice experiment!

But what could off-set Megaman’s mostly blue body with red?

Here’s what I came up with ;)

Final product: Megaman+Protoman

Protoman’s red base served as a perfect balance for Megaman’s blue. Being Megaman’s brother, I found it appropriate to do a split down the middle between the two. The ultimate battle between Good and Evil!

Result? Bubbling New Ideas For Future Pieces!

After I started taking on the assignments with subjects that were more of my style (illustrations, more graphic/character-based), I concentrated and spent more time working on my pieces. I noticed that I enjoyed it x100 more doing fan art! Soooo…

My new project will be to create a series of classic videogame fan art!

Have any ideas or requests? Please comment and let me know what characters or game you would like to see!

Oh, and if I’m not already familiar with the game, I promise to play it to learn the ridiculous intricacies of it. (ex: Ninja Gaiden’s CHEATER birds. BULL.SHIT.)

Anyway, a LOT has happened and SO much has gone by like a flash. But… I’m grateful for where I am today. I’m 100% glad of everything that is as it is right now.

I’ve been very occupied lately. Namely because Mario Kart has gotten my competitive side back on edge.

Goal: Daily Mario Kart practices.
Optimistic Goal: Unlock something every time I play.

Even though it’s more difficult to snake, the game play is still up to par as Mario Kart has always been. A lot of people bash on the wheel, but I think it’s alright. I kinda got good at it. And it totally makes you like… move around. Bummer that they don’t have Yoshi’s Circuit for this one, though some of the stages are really fun and challenging. I believe the online play is unlike any other game out there right now even though I really haven’t played any other games’. WHATEVER. I’m convinced. Mario Kart is ALWAYS fun, and it’s even MORE fun when you whoop your friends’ ass!! *Pointing to Darren!!*

Last Friday, Brian came up and we had dinner with Batz. It’s been a long time since the three of us had dinner together so it was rather refreshing! (Although, I must be honest. I always feel so rowdy and crude when I’m around these swwweeeeeeeettttt guys.)

Brian + Batz

“Hey what are you guys doing later?”
“I’m busy later.”
“I’m going to my sister’s place. What are you doing later?”
“Hmm? Oh.. I’m going to a LAN party.” Waaaaaaaahahahah

LAN party at MY place, of course! Eshen and Darren have LAN parties often, now that I think about it. It’s no wonder our apartment is always scorching…

Lynn’s so cute when she plays.
And I like how Patson’s head is turned too–he’s watching Lynn play!! IT!!

Yo roomies, we need a shoe rack…

:D

Wet willllyyyy!

Old school SC, dota, and of course MKW.

I feel a little bad for some of the folks around… I gave fair warning but the tourette’s came out and I think it startled a few people. Oops ^________^;; Yeah yeah, I’ll admit that I sucked for a bit. But after a few games, I started to get a little better. Then, I 100% prevailed when Eugenia called and I talked to her on the phone while playing. 1st place baby!

This last weekend didn’t compose of much. I stayed home 99% of the weekend–WINNER!!!! Saturday morning, I woke up and played a few rounds of MKW with Darren. That JERK kept waiting for me at the finish lines and waited for me while I kept on falling off the sides on Rainbow Road. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!! But 100% fun! Eugenia came over and she watched me play some more MKW while she was in actuality watching Battlestar Galactica going on in the same room. She caught the Flu… I more or less did the same thing until the night, finishing with all Golds in 50cc AND 100cc. winner!

Sunday, I played a little more online. I owed Peacock a game of MKW so I round up the troops. Gregwhichquan and Nrvl even delivered tacos from the truck to me! Waaahahah! 0% leaving the house! We played for a few more hours and I couldn’t play anymore and had to sleep. Right then and there while they were there. Oops. Whatever. That night, I made cookies for Ozma.

Monday, an awesome Ozma show as always. Batz, Brent, and I were x10 exhausted and hoped to grab some energy drinks at a restaurant down the street.
“Do you guys have Red Bull?”
“No.”
“Hmmm…. do you have any energy drinks?”
“No.”
“Hah… hmmmmmmm….”
“We have …. Coke?”
“Okay.”

Man comes and parks, I swear, in the FURTHEST parking spot IN THE WORLD from the venue. We sit and watch this guy not care about his Ferrari bumping into the Benz behind him. (We lock the door.) We see the same guy a few minutes later in the Benz. Oh. He’s a car mechanic working for the car shop across the street. We see these teenagers and we laugh (and lock the door). Then we laugh about the idea of them being the ones that own the Ferrari. We hold their breath as we watch to see if they go to retrieve the Ferrari. They continue walking down the street. Noise continues on in Man’s car as usual.

KNEES OF STEEL *honk honk!*

How does he put up with us, after all these years??? The mysteries of the world….

When sleepiness hits…. Eugenia’s favorite sleeping spot. Hahah.
(Dude, in retrospect, hella WOO JO, YO!!

Ryen + Star

A crazy shot of Ryen. I think Man took this one.

The setlist. (SO thirsty!!)

Realization of the night: We’re a bunch of OLD folks and we can’t handle being front row anymore and we would much rather chilling on the side lines and not being scared of being elbowed in the face.

Realization #2: We’re a bunch of OLD folks because 11:30PM is LATE and we needed to get to BED.

Realization #2 was supported by yesterday day. We were ALL 100% exhaaauusstteedd. I skipped class yesterday and instead decided to come home, eat dinner, shower, and go to sleep. My goal was to be in bed by 8PM. I made it into bed by 6:30PM. That’s right.

craisin (6:32:52 PM): going to bed
craisin (6:32:54 PM): goodnight
craisin (6:32:55 PM): LOL
GregQ (6:32:57 PM): nighty!
GregQ (6:32:58 PM): hahahahaha
GregQ (6:33:04 PM): this is a little late for you
craisin (6:33:08 PM): WAHAHHA
GregQ (6:33:09 PM): on sunday it was 4:30
craisin (6:33:21 PM): hahahahhaha

Latest roommate compilation <3

Things to look forward to:
- This weekend!
- Last day of class
- LOST Season Finale (2 hours!)
- LOST Season Finale Party! Dress up as your favorite propppp!! (“I got tail section!” “I got Jacob’s cabin!”)
- PROM!!
- PROM Post-Party!
- Cherry picking!

Yesterday was a really fun night, ’90s video game night at my house. I brought out the old Sega Mega Drive and I found the old NES too. Not only did we realize that these old games are waaayyyy too fast for our brains now, but we realized that our minds are not nearly as ADD enough anymore for these games! Holy SHIT are we OLD? I mean seriously… Sonic seems really TOO fast now. El Viento was way too much information for my eyes to take in at once, too, when I totally used to play these games. Maybe I need to not play games that are fast-based. -_-

Highlights & Moments to Remember:

1. CHEESEBOARD
2. HIDING (see #1). haaaaaaahahah Eugenia hiding too, HAHAHA
3. Novaaaaaa
4. Greg showing pics of his not-Japan trip but rather pics of the Eiffel Tower, New York, Bart trains, etc. etc., and of course, the United Airlines Bullet Train.
5. Doodling with Greg’s first pic of Tokyo Tower for 5-10 minutes, HAHAHAH
6. Mauricio FAILING at the second stage of Sonic 2 with the block elevator things (“WAIT FOR IT, just STAYYYY on iiitt!!”) ; The panis music when Sonic runs out of breath! Talk about high blood pressure to the MAX! This game is HARD!
7. Mauricio FAILING at walking from one sliding plank to another at the second stage of Sonic 2. “DUDE he totally went FASTER that time” [enter reeaaallyy lagged Sonic walk]; consistently falling back into the water; trying to figure out how to use the bouncy spring to get out of the water–AHAHAHAHAHAH FAAAILLLLLLLLLURREEE
8. Mahjoong Zero Wing!! The green one is the best. Using your “dudes” to break stuff on the map and to take all the hits = the best strategy evar. Last time, Greg0r spent 2+ hours playing this, and this time we spent 15 minutes on it… it’s so HARD!
9. TMNT2 for NES: poor chap who has to push those HUGE metal balls down the stairs, which may or may not hit anyone at the bottom; the foot clan ninjas that hide directly behind a flat poster on a brick wall–HAHAHAH; Bebop is invincible. No matter how much time has passed, this game is SO awesome (but sooo HARD!!)
10. Quackshot for Genesis: I TOLD you guys this was a good game! Ultimate stomach sliding technique ftw! This was definitely one of those games where I thought about learning Japanese for the sole purpose of being able to play all the Japanese games we have. Cuz seriously, not knowing where you’re supposed to go to where to pick up whatever item makes this game SO hard!
11. Golden Axe: The Duel! hahaha ; Sucks not having a B button to do regular attacks -_-;; CLASSIC game… but man it’s HARD!!!
12. P.O.W. for NES: This totally gave me flashbacks of Conrad playing it nonstop back in the day! They gave up playing this within 10 minutes. HARD.
13. Shove It! turned out to be THE game most suitable for our elderly minds yesterday–and even then, we gave up immediately when the stages got complicated and we realized it was too hard for our late night, Friday brains to handle.
14. And of course, 2-3 hours of the original Ninja Gaiden. I fell asleep but I kept hearing: “NO! Don’t get that item, that one sucks!” ; “Don’t get it, keep going.” ; and lots of laughing and clapping over how ridiculous the last stage of the game was. I mean… it really IS ridiculous. You could be jumping over to the next ledge and three enemies will appear out of thin air, with no prior indication that they would fly out. gg getting so far on another hard game, guys… ;x

Here are some other happy moments recently:

Bri’s last game: Boobies play! Missing a few people tho :(

I saw this at Target! How CUUUTTTEEE!!

Brent’s really popular and had a lot of his friends show up early to the UFC bbq.
(The best part is: in this situation, does Eugenia actually count as HIS friend? waaahahha)

GH;ASS: Got hungry; ate some salad. [hhahah gass?? waaahha]
Reaching over the railing to pick up the salad.

In actuality.
SOOOOOOOOOO close!!

A picture’s worth a thousand words.
Oh, Eshen!

Cute, guys.

Yummmyyyy! Harris’ filet mignon + scalloped potatoes! DREAM COME TRUE!! =DDD

Two things that make me extremeley happy while at work

I’m sure there will be plenty more to come tonight! Happy birthday, whichquan(s)!! <3 you!!!

Continuing with two posts ago… big changes are in play.

One of them is the fact that I’ve been eating out every night for the last month and half with the exception of like five nights since Henry’s been back home. My, my, we do LOVE to eat, don’t we? Not to mention that he’s long since discovered that the key to my heart is food. Yum yum.

With that said, I just had my annual physical check-up and surprise surprise, I’ve gained 10 lbs in the last year. Haaaaaahahaha. Anyway. Starting next week, I’m determined to start jogging the Lake again.

Also along the lines of self-improvement, I gotta start learning how to save money better. I need to start budgeting my money if I’m intent on saving money to go to school again. Despite popular belief, I do pay my parents for rent. And with my dinky little paycheck, I pay them about 20% of my monthly income. The rest? Commuting costs, and food food food. For the sake of my health and my wallet, I really NEED to stop eating so much. And I really need to start dedicating a specific portion of my paychecks to go directly to savings or I’m never gonna get anywhere at this point. Maybe I can even come up with a $ goal for each month. Which also means I need to not go out as much and just be at home (Double Dash challenges are welcome to entertain me).

To be honest, I’ve been trying to implement these things for a while but man every time I’m about to start, I keep making exceptions like “Oh, well this big event is coming up, I’ll just wait until after that.” And then another big event comes up, etc. I totally need to get back to being self-disciplined.

There’s also a few other things I need to do to get started with the art stuff: talk to an art school admissions counselor [goal date to be set], enroll in art class for next semester [tbd], make two more pieces for my portfolio by the end of the year [Dec 2007], go check out National Portfolio Day [Jan 2008].

I should also start eating fruit every day and being strict about my sleep times again.

That should be enough for me to handle for a while. Now… onto the goodies. Things to look forward to:

• Late-Oct/Early-Nov — Possible socal trip?
• Nov 30-Dec 3 — Bday in Vegas?
• Dec 11 — LOST Season 3 DVDs! >:O~
• Early 2008 — Mario Kart for the Wii!!
• Feb 2008 –LOST Season 4 BEGINS!
• Sometime 2008 — The Sixth Album O_O_O_O_O
• ??? — my hair will finally get long

I’m glad that Heroes is back to have a weekly thing to look forward to again, but kinda not because it totally ties me down! I’ve seriously been going through some major Lost withdrawals tho… I mean, I had a dream the other night that I was sooooo pissed off at Locke because he killed someone, and I got washed away in some lake and while I was underwater, I saw that the Others were watching me. *shudder* It needs to come back soooooonnn!!

And to follow up on the last post about Mario Kart… slowly cutting off a few seconds every time… I’m gonna rock you, Peacock.

For 90% of that winter break, it was endless Double Dashing. We were all newbs with the exception of like two people who had the game a few weeks longer than the rest of us. We played lots of co-op games and we talked a tremendous amount of shit every time we played. Man, I totally SUCKED back then. So, when we weren’t playing at night, I was busy practicing on my own in the mornings and afternoons. I mean come on, I needed to get in on all the crap talk too! >:(

I pretty much sucked even until the end of winter break. So, I went back to UCLA and practiced practiced practiced until I got better. Next time I went back home for break, I was finally able to keep up with the rest of the guys. All that Double Dashing at Steven’s place finally played off!

Anyway, to say the least (haha), I got pretty awesome at Double Dash–not gonna lie. But Peacock had left a mean ghost on my memory card for Yoshi’s Circuit. That stage is hands down the best drifting map ever… Anyway, it took me a year to beat his stupid ghost and I forgot to save my own ghost!)%&!@# Either way, I beat it.

Three years later, our subletter Bobby spent days and nights playing Double Dash at e-303 and also beat Peacock’s ghost. At this point, V was starting to get really good at Karting and I refused to play against her ever again because I was the one that taught her how to play and it would just be shameful if I lost–WHATEVER! So I stopped playing and didn’t feel like getting whooped by Bobby either. His Yoshi Circuit time: 1:04

I told Peacock that Bobby rocked his ghost, and that I too had beat it a while back. The first day I hung out with Peacock since he moved back to the Bay, he said, “I challenge you!!” Oh heeeeeeeeeeeeellllllll naw. It’s on.

Being MONTHS since I’ve last played, Henry got me to practice every day to get back to where I used to be (omg this is like some Rocky moment where I had to get back in shape and work off all the years of built-up fat or something). After a few weeks of putting Peacock off, I played him again last night.

Omg he was sooo rusty the first two cups. But when it came to the Star cup, he got his groove back and left me in the dust, just like how he used to–jerk. We were done “warming up” and it was clearly time to get down to business. Time trial: Yoshi Circuit. Load Bobby’s ghost.

After one or two tries, Peacock beat Bobby’s record by 4 seconds and even unlocked the Nintendo creators’ ghost. Then, he beat his previous record by a few milliseconds. Standing record is now 1:59:07. My fastest last night was 2:06. I hate you Peacock.

Anyway, all of this is to say that I’m getting addicted to Karting again, which is probably the best thing to prepare for wii Mario Kart when it comes out.

“Fucking Blue Shells” by xkcd comics

It’s GREAT to have someone to race with again. Time for my comeback… *cracks knuckles*