chibimiji

They're DONE ahhhhhh.

Geez, this was kind of an ordeal haha. I wanted to see how fast I could finish a pair, which resulted in me painting for 9 hours straight on the 2nd day and getting blurry eyed/nauseous/headachey towards the end. And of course, last night as I was in the home stretch and mixing the gray background paint I neglected to fully cap the bottle and yea...Luckily the shoes came out relatively unscathed but I can't say the same for my bedroom carpet. I think when I start doing these for real I need to put a daily limit on my painting time. The total tally is 22 hours over the span of 3 days, a HUGE improvement over my first pair, but still not that great. I was aiming for under 20, but that just resulted me in feeling rushed and stressed while doing it.

I hafta say that I really liked working with the Vans, the quality just feels so much better than the Nikes I used for the ME ones, and the fabric is so much smoother/thicker. I tried making this pair simpler in design, but I just kept adding stuff after drawing the main 4 characters, I couldn't stop D= I need to work on that...

Anyway, lesson learned: ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS cap your damn paints. ALWAYS.

So, Vans just came out with a canvas high top line that is PERFECT for shoe painting. The reason I gave all my friends who were pushing me into doing custom shoes as a side business was that I couldn't find a suitable replacement for the discontinued shoes I originally used (I don't like Converse for several reasons).

But desperate times...I've decided to try and get into the commission business due to my increasingly dire financial situation (student loan payments are coming up soon), but thinking about it just kinda freaks me out. I can freely admit I am totally not the entreprenuerial type, and taking on that much responsibility all by myself is scary. I really suck at logistics, where do I even start? Is there even a demand? When I originally posted my shoes on tumblr a couple people asked me if I would be willing to make more, but who knows if they're still interested after ME3. Another big thing is pricing, I have no clue what people are willing to pay. I would really, REALLY, prefer not to do another crazy ass pair like the ones I originally painted, 16 characters is just toooo many. Right now I'm considering charging on a sliding scale depending on the complexity of the design and tacking that on to the cost of the shoe. Maybe something like $20-30 per character, so people could pick and choose which characters they wanted and potentially keep the cost affordable? Aaaah I dunno.

I talked my former roomie into buying a pair of the Vans so I can paint them (Adventure Time themed) for her as a test/sample and actually time how long the whole process takes me. Then I'd also have at least have one example of non-ME work to drum up interest. I feel like I can't really open up an Etsy shop because right now I literally have only one product with a limited fanbase. Ugh I'm scared to even make a Tumblr post about it before I paint up a new pair of shoes for fear of being ignored as old news. Why do I have so much self doubt when it comes to these things??

=(

Ugh, I can't believe it's already been a whole freakin' year since Thane pumpkin. Time passes so quickly now and I still haven't accomplished anything career-wise. Blegh. Oh well, guess that means it's time to distract myself from my depressing life by immersing myself in totally inane hobbies! PUMPKIN CARVING TIME.

( I am totally bringing it this yearCollapse )

Okay making gifs takes a lot more effort that I expected, trying to cram like 60+ frames into less than 2mb was maddening. I spent an embarrassing amount of time on this and it still kinda looks crappy.



Still worth it.

AND THIS NEATO TUTORIAL

Awww yea custom nerd shirts for SDCC! Since I really dislike most of the women's shirts in the Bioware store (I don't like crew necks and their materials suck) I decided to make my own nerd couture.



( More picsCollapse )

Bleeeagh LA

=(

Jimmy: i think imma watch korra again
for the 3rd time
hahaha

me: hahaha
i heard that mako is even more of an ass
dude why is he such a dick

Jimmy: yeah he is

me: they're pushing makorra but they're making him out to be suuuuch a sleazebag

Jimmy: dude
he should just get with asami
and stop playin around

me: he should end up alone!!!!
hahahahaha
his trashy ass

Jimmy: dude
i found out
that mako's voice is bud bundy
hahaha

me: LOL
WHAAAAAAAAT
are u kidding????

Jimmy: yeeeep!

me: hahahahahahahahahaha
wtffff

Jimmy: hahahahahhaa

me: gotta look this up

Jimmy: he is dude

me: omgggggggg
hahahahaha
david faustinooooooo
lololol

Jimmy: uh huh

me: dude
that's AMAZING
hahaha
no wonder he's so sleazy

Just got to see Brave today during a friends and family screening at Pixar =D

My non-spoilery thoughts:

• La Luna is freaking BEAUTIFUL omg. The colors and lighting are amaaaazing, and I loved the entire style and mood of it. There was one shot that I thought used 3D in a really cool/non-gimmicky way, which is pretty rare in animated films. The story is simple but super cute, I think it rates as my second favorite Pixar short behind Partly Cloudy.

• Story-wise, I think Brave is leettle mediocre in that it's pretty predictable. I was able to guess the plot from the trailers (as I think most people can), and the final resolution was kinda cliche. There were some other things that seemed kinda shoehorned in and unnecessary. Overall it wasn't BAD really, just not up to par with the majority of Pixar stories imho.

• On the visual/technical side, oh lawd is this a gorgeous movie. The hair and cloth simulation, jeeeez. I made a comment to my host about how mad I would get if I had animated a shot with Merida only to have 90% of my work covered by her hair, and he laughed saying that that was the general consensus. But yea, tons of scenery porn, the lighting and color are sooooo good. My host said he had a debate with another animator as to whether Brave or Finding Nemo was the prettiest Pixar film...personally I would pick Finding Nemo but Brave comes in at a close second.

• Animation-wise, omguh. People were raving about Tangled's animation (which IS awesome), but honestly I thought that Brave's was more impressive. Mostly because of the animal stuff, how they found reference for some of those shots is beyond me. The horse animation on Angus was SPOT ON realistic while still having character, which I prefer over Maximus' (from Tangled) cartoonier style. And the animation on the triplets and bb Merida, aaauuuuugh so cuuuuuute XD

[One spoilery thought (not about the main story arc), read at your own risk] I'm SO SOOOO glad that the movie didn't focus on any romantic aspect at all for Merida, and that she remained single at the end. It's really tiring to see every single animated movie with a female as the heroine heavily feature romance as one of the driving plot points. Even Mulan had that thing with Shang, and she was fightin' a war dressed as a man fer chrissakes. And don't even get me started on Korra. It's so refreshing to see a story about a strong female lead that DOESN'T fall back on any sort of romance/love-interest as either a motivator or end goal. You go Pixar.

But sometimes it's so good

Joanna: Hahahaha dude
Joanna: I was just in a gold game with 3 random guys
Joanna: it sounded like they all knew eachother, and they were cracking bro jokes n shit
Joanna: They were making dumb "that's what she said" jokes that didn't even make sense
Joanna: I stayed silent the whole time
Joanna: So we did really well, minimal problems
Joanna: And in the end, I freaking creamed them in the scoreboard
Joanna: One of them was like, "holy shit, how did weemiji beat me??? I thought I was first!!!"
Joanna: The score wasn't even close hahaha
Joanna: If you looked at my medals I had the most gold ones, over 75 kills vs their 25-50
Joanna: So at that moment I pressed the speak button and I did my evil laugh
Joanna: And then I quit the group
Joanna: Hahahahahahaha
Joanna: They were good at surviving and support, but I could tell I was doing most of the killing because like 90% of my shots were killshots, but I kept running out of bullets
Joanna: And that usually never happens
Joanna: Man that was super satisfying hahahaha

Jesse: LOL

Joanna: I thought I took a screenie but my stupid fraps wasn't on
Joanna: Dammit

Jesse: Hahahaha
Jesse: So up to that point they didn't know you're a girl huh

Joanna: I have no clue hahaha

Jesse: XD

Joanna: I mean they saw my screen name, they even said it a couple of times
Joanna: But one of them had a really animu sn and he was a guy
Joanna: SakuraJD or something like that

Jesse: But if ur evil laugh is really deep then they might not know for sure...

Joanna: I don't think it was hahahaha
Joanna: Both diana and joey have complimented me on my evil laugh

Jesse: Lololol
Jesse: Oh man
Jesse: Hahahahaha
Jesse: I feel like u just made their balls shrink into their bodies
Jesse: Not, shrink, but retreat
Jesse: Like a turtle's head

Joanna: Hahahahaha
Joanna: One guy kept going on about how his burps smelled like tacos

Jesse: Hahhahahahahaha mmmm
Jesse: This is so wrong but hearing that just made me crave tacos