Friday, October 31, 2008

California Maki, or is it?

I thought it was a little strange at first, but it seems I wasn't the only one.

We're all familiar with California Maki or California Rolls. They're little rice and seaweed rolls stuffed with crab sticks (which I am told are actually swordfish), mango, and mayonnaise.

But see, when I went to Canada, this is what I get:

california rolls with avocado, crab stick, salmon, and tempura shrimp from a korean-japanese restaurant

So apparently, since there are very little mangoes there, they substituted it with avocado. Or so I thought... I'm told the original California Rolls are actually made with avocado and not mangoes. Makes sense, since mangoes' tastes vary from sour to sweet, while avocados are a little more consistent with taste.

But maybe that's just me.

Now I'm craving for California Rolls. Maybe I should bug Tiff for another lunch date...

You Know Something is Up...

a.illusions - shijiro smirkNot bad... 2-3 weeks into October, I was able to make 4 pages, including yesterday's update. Not a lot of people would be able to tell, I'm sure, since I've changed my manga layout from singles pages to full pages instead.

There's just something strangely satisfying about full spread pages... and the fact that I can overlap drawings within 2 pages will be a challenge.

I think I'll be updating per page again though. Even if one page will have a "next comic in progress" notice, I'll just post as much updates as I can, as fast as I can. I need to get my hits up and hopefully, get google adsense on both blogs.

*in serious need of money here* =.=;;; Hate of hate.

Blogspot is giving me a weird error though. I can't add elements to my 相信漫畫 layout's right sidebar because... well, the page elements section automatically cuts it off for being too long I guess? I've posted in the Help Group about it, no one's answered me yet. ._.;;; Heh...

I guess I should use whatever elements I've added already and modify it instead, huh? I hope Blogspot people would answer though...

Going back to the update... Hm... Anyone guess what's going on? ^___^

Thursday, October 30, 2008

45.54, 777, and 100

plurk status as of 2008-10-30

I do believe I'm addicted to plurk... I love the numbers on my profile right now, so I just had to post this. ^o^

I should really get back to work, haha~

Fish Out of Water

One of the places I went to during my road trip in the USA was Sea World in San Diego. I was looking forward to seeing the killer whales since Ocean Park in Hong Kong didn't have them anymore.

I was pretty excited when my sister, brother, and brother-in-law suggested to go watch the show "Believe" staring Shamu, the killer whale. I've been hearing about Shamu non-stop from my little nephew, who'd gone to Sea World before...

believe - killer whale shamu in san diego jumping out of the water

It was amazing! Such an incredibly large creature Shamu was. It was too bad that we didn't go on a weekend, or else we would have seen "Shamu Rocks"! I heard it was a nice laser lights show with Shamu banging his head to the beat or something.

Definitely want to go back again one day with my nephew... ^_^ Such magnificent creatures... Maybe I'll get the chance to feed one some day.

Hmm... I seem to recall going to Sea World in Australia too. I can still hear the song going "..oceans are fun!" I wonder if they changed the song now, 15 years after? Hehehe~

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Right Place, Wrong Time...

beijing olympics 2008 coundown in hong kongI'm beginning to wonder why I always happen to end up at the right place in the wrong time...

Take this picture for example...

I somehow ended up in Hong Kong during a business trip 271 days, 2 hours, 25 minutes, and 24 seconds before the Beijing Olympics. Of course, when the Beijing Olympics have actually come and gone, I was no where near Hong Kong, let alone Beijing.

Fast forward to my vacation in Canada last September. I had initially thought there was nothing to surprise me when I get there since I had already been there 4 years before. This is why the trip to Mt. Whistler wasn't something I was all that excited about...

mount whistler canada's symbol for the winter olympics in 2010

..drats, the Winter Olympics will be held in Canada on 2010. I am, yet again, too early.

There's a story about this picture actually... I need to arrange my photos so I can share it in my blog soon. Only two more panels to ink before I can update A.illusions this week, zomg~!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Can You Tell?

Disneyland and Disney California Adventure was probably some of the highlights in my trip back in September. Yes, I know I should have blogged about it at the time I was actually going through with my vacation, but it was hard to even find the time to be online at the time.

At least I have time to blog about it now right?

I actually have several pictures I want to share, but I don't want to spam my newly created blog, heh~ For now, let's start with this:

disney's street painting illusion in anaheim, california

Looks normal? But it's not... See the railing on the street? Part of this image is actually only a painting. Can you tell where the buildings end and where the painting begins?

We were right there and it was nearly impossible to tell from a distance what ends where... It didn't help that the actual painting had some 3D elements in it too.

Maybe one day I will paint something similar in my room. ^_^

Monday, October 27, 2008

The Artist in Me...

Back in September, I hardly had the time to draw while visiting Canada and the USA... Especially the USA, since we were on the road most of the time.

I remember it was just after we had gone to Disney in Anaheim... We were all pretty tired, and my sister suggested to eat in Macaroni Grill since we were going to be having a late dinner, and Macaroni Grill was open 'til late.

What I didn't know at the time was that Macaroni Grill had a similar set up to Burgoo... Where they had paper as table cloth and crayons to play with.

I was in heaven on the trip from hell. I will explain that another time...

ariel from disney's the little mermaid - drawn 091708 in macaroni grill, anaheim

I didn't care much about the conversation that night... I just started sketching to my heart's content. At first, I only had purple and blue crayons, but my brother-in-law seems to have read my mind when he went over to the other tables and grabbed several other colors.

Sadly, the colors didn't come out so well in the picture. But I'm still proud of this since my brother commented that I was truly an artist. I think it's the first time he saw me draw from start to finish, and I think he was honestly impressed by my work.

Getting compliments from my brother can be incredibly hard you know..? ^_^

Cosplay in SM Marikina

voltron child cosplayI accompanied my brother in SM Marikina yesterday along with my aunt and uncle from the USA. We had visited a friend of my aunt's in Antipolo and so decided to walk around SM before going home.

There seemed to have been a contest going on for some online games sponsored by ASUS. I wasn't too certain at that point, but there were a lot of cosplayers present. My aunt loved it and wanted to take a lot of pictures... It was just too bad that the pictures didn't come out so well. *must save for new cam-phone*

At least for blogging the pictures are workable. The little kid in the Voltron outfit was pretty cute. He's like a 3 and a half foot Voltron, Defender of the Universe..! Hehe~ And yeah, he had all five lions.

There was also a giant Optimus Prime walking around the mall. My aunt found him to be the most impressive of all I think. It was funny to see him walk very robotic-like.

transformers cosplay optimus prime close up transformers cosplay optimus prime full body

cat girl cosplayYou can pretty much see how huge he is in that picture on the right. A lot of people had to look up to see his head. I think his entire costume was made of rubber too if I'm not mistaken.

Not all of the cosplayers were pretty and/or impressive. My brother was a little disappointed there weren't a lot of pretty girls there. He liked this girl in brown, who was getting a lot of her pictures taken by random people who happened to be passing by. I think Dark Magician Girl got a little jealous about all the attention she was getting though... ^_^

All in all, it was a fun trip to Antipolo and Marikina. I used to go to Marikina just to bother the Culture Crash people, haha. Thesis days made me quite annoying I think.

Come to think of it, I wonder how they are now..?

Oh yeah, happy birthday to my officemate~ Haha, I won't say who, just in case he's shy. ^_~

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Plurk-able...

So with major influences from some people, I decided to open a plurk account and see what all this buzz is about... I mean, I'm told a lot of people from Anime Illusions are there, might as well see what's happening..?

...

As soon as I get how to use this thing anyway, but I need to get ready for work right now, so maybe later on lunch break I can plurk something... Maybe...

Add me? :)

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

A.illusions: Back Online and Updated!

a.illusions rei kuassary - smiling It's been a long time since I last touched my online manga... Huge burnout for the most part, really. After actually working on a "real" manga, Mango Jam: Twilight's Calling, chasing after deadlines didn't make drawing manga look all that fun anymore.

But I can't run from myself, really... I love drawing, and no matter what happens, I'll probably continue drawing for the rest of my life.

Anyway, I finally got the layout to look right..! But I may change the colors of the text a little bit later on. I'm fickle that way.

Now to get myself to get ready for work. I'm beginning to love this jet lag. Sleeping early and waking up early in the morning is quite refreshing, and I never knew this before! But then again... That doesn't change the fact that there's a lot of work to do today. ._.;;; bleh~

I wonder if anyone else from Anime Illusions has a blogspot? Hmn... I need to make a new forum for that too...

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Kuromi in The Block

My brother and I went to SM, The Block to check out some Sanrio items, specifically Hello Kitty for his girlfriend. He told me that there was something of an event there, where all Sanrio items would be on sale.

I decided to tag along, since I wanted to hunt for some Kuromi items... I had no such luck, but I did find something else:

giant kuromi playing baseball

Cute isn't she? I found her in the middle of the event, standing about... 3 feet in height maybe? She was on stage, and I only had a camera phone with me, so this is the best I could do for the spur of the moment.

Sadly, there were hardly any Kuromi products there at all. No spending for me that day, which is not a bad thing now that I think about it.

Ah well... Maybe next time. :)