Art and Depression

MMOs

2011-11-28T20:45:00.001+02:00

I recently got moderately hooked (about 40 hours spent ) on DC Universe Online. This gave me the push to also evaluate few other games, specifically Champions Online and World of Warcraft.

The UI is significantly worse in both CO and WoW - in fact, CO has a rather similar UI to WoW. However, WoW is TERRIBLY, HORRIBLY boring, unlike CO.

The reason seems obvious.

In CO, you start out by thwarting an alien invasion.

In WoW, you kill a bunch of things, then another bunch of things, then another bunch of things, and so forth.

Also, in CO as well as DCUO, you start with a movement power - flight, super-speed, parkour, whatnot. In WoW, about one third of the time is spent running s l o w l y back to the quest giver with nothing happening.

Both CO and WoW use the, in my opinion, rather boring mechanic of target enemy, activate power, wait for recharge, activate power....

*Yawn*

Still, I'll probably keep on putting a bit of time in them, at least until I reach level 20 in WoW.

Sucker Punch

2011-11-05T02:36:00.003+02:00

I didn't like it.
It's a sad thing to say about a movie with obvious anime influences, not to mention
STEAMPUNK ZOMBIE NAZIS
but, there you have it.
I just find the injustices shown in the film to be of precisely the sort that makes me want to turn into a beast with a face made out of blades.
That sort of a thing.

Google Web Store

2011-09-05T12:33:00.001+02:00

Hooboy.
I'm taking a look at

Cloud9 IDE - I like it for javascript, and it integrates with Github. Not too shabby, although it's better suited for running on one's own server.
Sumo Paint, which seems like a really robust paint package, more focused on painter-style stuff, though
Pixlr editor, which is fairly impressive. Layers, shortcuts and so forth. I think I could do either digipaint or pixel stuff with it.
Email Game - I... think I can recommend it. It's exactly what it says on the tin - it makes a game out of checking your Email.
Ajax Animator is so far failing to load.

Pixel painting....

2011-09-02T22:26:00.000+02:00

I think I've tried out most of the software available. ASEPRITE is useless to me.Tile Studio isn't horrible, but it's lacking in features.

Grafx2 is at least somewhat usable, a rather nice pixel paint package, especially with limited colors. However, it's not that good for sprites and tiles.Graphicsgale is still close to the best. Paint Shop Pro 9 is very good for this. My experience with Gimp and Photoshop is limited, although I think they're probably pretty good, depending on configuration Paint.net is very nice, surprisingly. So is the new MS Paint. Simple enough?

Title - and the key - for my last post is 'bits'.

Today's image with grafx2 and touchpad.

*edit* and tweaked in Paint.Net. I do like it for pixel-precision stuff, after all!

01100001 01101000 01110011 01110010

2011-09-02T10:49:00.000+02:00

01110110 01100100 01101011 01101011 00101011 00011111 01101000 01110010 01101101 00100110 01110011 00011111 01110011 01100111 01101000 01110010 00011111 01100101 01101000 01101101 01100100 00101101

01001000 00011111 01110110 01110001 01101110 01110011 01100100 00011111 01100000 00011111 01100001 01101000 01110011 00011111 01101110 01100101 00011111 01100010 01101110 01100100 00000111 01100011 01100100 00011111 01110110 01100111 01101000 01100010 01100111 00011111 01110011 01110100 01110001 01101101 01110010 00011111 01110110 01100111 01100000 01110011 00011111 01001000 00011111 01110110 01110001 01101000 01110011 01100100 00011111 00011111 01110011 01101110 00011111 01100001 01101000 01110011 01110010 01110011 01110001 01101000 01101101 01100110 00101101

a little post

2011-09-01T22:42:00.003+02:00

smaller and smaller...

Soon I'll just communicate in binary dots.

Mouse

2011-08-30T12:11:00.000+02:00

I cheated, sort of . I drew big, resized, then fiddled. In my defense, I think the same
strategy is used by nippon ichi artists.

I intended to do more, but I'm kinda busy, I basically stole the time to do even this little drawing.

I started out with an idea....

2011-08-26T00:54:00.000+02:00

...but it got away from me .

I'm out of depression.

2011-08-14T20:01:00.000+02:00

Thought I'd make a note of it.

I'm also testing out keyboards, my old-borrowed mini-keyboard gave up the ghost.

Fortunately, I have a din-to-ps/2 adapter, so I can use any old keyboard.

Anyway, I'm currently typing on a Nokia Data keyboard, which I got for free from a friend. It's a bit stiff, perhaps due to lack of use, and the keyboard curves a bit too much for lap use, but otherwise, so far so good.

The other's a Schneider MF2, which has semi-mechanical switches, although it doesn't seem it's liked by many people. We shall see.

Give peas a chance

2011-04-07T16:42:00.001+02:00

Image via Wikipedia

I like puns.

Okay, so due to lack of money, I've had to get creative with food. Rice and carrots form the base, but dried peas - the worst kind, really - can be a great source of protein.

I did make a mistake in my first attempt, putting in way too much peas in the risotto I made, also without first soaking the peas, so they didn't cook very well. They DO make for a handy tasteless snack, though - a handful of peas and a lot of water is a decent meal replacement when one's feeling too lazy to do anything.

In other news, I woke up yesterday and found myself in control of myself. It was a weird experience.... well, I'm in a weird situation all around, so I guess it's to be expected.
I'll Zemanta up some recipes - Blogger has a lot of new features, gotta try them out, wouldn't be proper otherwise.

Some 'splainin

2011-03-29T04:04:00.000+02:00

Okay, so my keyboard broke - or possibly the PS/2 connector on the motherboard, I'm not sure. To sum, I can only use mouse on my desktop machine, right now.

There's also trouble and stuff, I'll elaborate if it's relevant after a while.

I saw my dream notebook again.

2011-03-16T14:07:00.000+02:00

It was interesting, obviously. This time, I saw a lot of moody and dark stuff in it.

I also dreamed a nearly complete story about a... well, it gets really complicated. It was about a shapeshifting two-hundred and forty-six year old amnesiac hero who cut off his head to forget traumatic events, thus submerging underneath a different shape and personality - only one of the personalities remembered everything, the others were unaware of each other, and none controlled the shapeshifting - the character's appereance just changed, depending on which personality was in control.

The story was about saving a bunch of genetically engineered children from an evil organization, which used insects and insect-based monsters, as well as owning a mundane private military, as well as learning to cope with oneself -

Oh, and there was an immortal deep sea anemone woman, who was apparently the mother of one of the children.

No wonder I sometimes prefer sleeping to being awake....

I'm not very good at drawing buildings

2011-03-09T23:28:00.000+02:00

I can't even pretend I am.

Still, not like I'll get any better if I don't draw, so there.

Characters, creatures, objects and buildings. That's the stuff that needs drawing.

Maybe. Something.

I need to draw Something // Funny consciousness thingy

2011-03-09T00:10:00.000+02:00

Practice. Based on a Sargent sketch. I need to draw lots, lots, lots more

I still have no strong desire or drive towards anything, but I think I can pretend I do, which may be enough to get my body moving, which is the important part. So, I'm trying to see if I can act (do stuff) by acting (pretending I'm someone motivated).

Now, it's very clear to me, that the part of me thinking in words, the one who tells me a story about who I am, is not actually the part of me that controls my actions. I _think_ it's the part that listens to the story, so it's somewhat possible for me to convince myself sometimes. However, it seems to be horribly unreliable -- basically, I don't listen to myself, I guess.

I still hate myself.

2011-03-05T05:07:00.000+02:00

Not much here to see. Go read
http://www.agirlandherfed.com/

I'm really rather annoyed that I need to be in a sufficient amount of trouble to be functional.

Something nicer

2011-02-26T14:09:00.000+02:00

Mm... Not completely horrible. Pretty bad, still.

I promised Ben something

2011-02-25T01:10:00.000+02:00

It's not much of anything, though. I have some other doodles, too, but nothing relevant.

Despair and Depression

2011-02-24T16:19:00.000+02:00

I seem to be doing worse. It's been eleven years, this fall, since I started at the university, and I keep on falling back to nothing.

I think one of the worst things that could happen to me, would be suddenly gaining a lot of money. It's quite possible I'd never do anything at all, if that would happen. On the other hand, worrying about money is a total mind-killer for me.

Sometimes I miss those deepest parts of sleep, when there are no thoughts or sensations.

I think I've mentioned I sometimes draw in my dreams. I had an informative one a few nights ago. Apparently, I've drawn one hundred and thirty-five comic pages when dreaming. It's a shame...

The reason I'm not drawing is probably the same I'm not doing much of anything else, either. I have almost no desire or passion... Strictly speaking, I'm doing actually BETTER today, since I'm capable of writing, but I was feeling terribly down last night. I can hardly believe I actually drew what little comic there is currently, it actually seems beyond my ability to draw, focus and organize.

Mmohdear....

Bite Me!

2011-01-02T13:42:00.000+02:00

I know there's a lot of noise about this already, but it's really quite good.

Today's agenda:

Walking
Drawing
Schoolwork
Sauna
Job Hunting

2010-12-22T18:09:00.000+02:00

Gunnerkrigg Court: The expression in the first five panels is awesome.

Hello or Something

2010-12-15T16:43:00.000+02:00

Sloppy color - face and hair is ok, though. Wanted to try my hand at another take of my new new Ameixia design.

According to this thingy there, I have 29 followers, most whom I don't recognize. So, a request - could you post a comment, and tell me how you found my little blog?

Pixels 'n links and stuff

2010-11-23T00:53:00.001+02:00

I've become unsatisfied with Graphicsgale. I mean, it's not a bad program by any means, but outside it's animation capability, I feel that Paint.net or Paint Shop Pro 9 ( the one, the only, the best ) does the job better. Since I now have Ubuntu as a boot option, I've been giving GIMP another look, too... it can be quite good with a bit of customization. And then, of course, there's my own paint app... But that sucks, so nevermind.

The problems in KZ sprites are too deep to be fixable with tweaking, so I'll need to re-draw. I think I'll go through the hand-drawn -> scanning process this time, it'll give me a better pose, and animation is easier, too...

Speaking of which, Pencil is relatively impressive. I'm not sure which I prefer, Plastic Animation Paper or it. I guess pencil is better, but I like sketching with PAP4 a bit more. Well, maybe.
On the digital painting side, I still think OpenCanvas is probably the best.

I'm also itching to do something with Adventure Game Studio.... when I'm not swamped by studies.
Oh, yeah. I did complete the Chzo Mythos series, too. Although in wrong order. Once again, 5-7-notes-6. I played 6 as the second game, and whoa huge spoilers. T_T

Something Pathfinder

2010-11-19T16:14:00.001+02:00

Rogue, Shadowdancer, failed attempt at playing someone who doesn't talk all the time :/
The rather static posing may be because I've been thinking in side scrollers lately.

I'm liking the boots.

Something

2010-11-17T13:46:00.001+02:00

Took more than five minutes, yes.

*edit* I hacked my paint app I've named 'JOOPaint' sufficiently that I can now haz colors.

TBD:

adjust image size/create new image - currently, when you start, it creates a 320x240 image.
Scrollbars. It zooms to upper-left and that's it...
Also viewport
Dropper
Flood fill, also adjusting lineweight. Current 1px gets tiresome really fast....
Layers

Guess which java app I wrote today?

2010-11-16T01:06:00.000+02:00

No layers
No colors
No eraser
No resize
No flood fill
No pen size
No problem XD

Heh. I hope it's enough for a passing grade in my OO class. Load, save and zoom were implemented. Hardcoded resolution at 320x240, I think.

Old stuffs.

2010-11-09T19:25:00.000+02:00

I haven't seen this pic in a while, so I thought I'd post it. Some issues, but I actually like the colors, so....

pixel-fu

2010-11-04T10:20:00.003+02:00

Gotta do this too, from time to time. I wonder what happened to Chesu?

*edit*

So, yeah.
*edit2* click it. I dare ya.

Copying.... //Something

2010-11-03T20:37:00.002+02:00

4e Warlock's 'default' appereance.

I bought a new HD today as my machine didn't seem to boot. In retrospect, it may have been a case of loose wiring, but I've been having issues with my XP install for a while now, so I had enough excuses to get a new HD.

So, lots of space. I'm transferring and reorganizing files, and currently there's still ~200GB to copy from the drive that gets retired --- my HD300LJ has started resonating in a really nasty manner, so it's the one that goes. This may be because my MP3s were on it, so it got a decent amount of access. Hm.

This leaves my current HD setup as 1000 / 500 / 250, which is plenty for my purposes.

not quite as something

2010-10-23T16:11:00.000+02:00

Brought to you by the art of procrastination. *sigh*

I'll get back to my regularly scheduled essay writing now.

Something blue terra sketch

2010-10-22T18:00:00.000+02:00

Not that sketchy sketchy.

Was going to draw more, but this turned out relatively nice, in some areas. I'm slightly busy right now, trying to finally get my CS Bachelor's degree.

Something // Lecture doodling

2010-10-14T09:27:00.000+02:00

...is helping me get back into drawing. That being said, I'm studying properly, which takes most of my time, but still... I'll probably draw enough, or draw something scan-worthy every now and then. Or at least, I can fire up OpenCanvas for five minutes like I did today.

My lecture doodles are something similar to this about now. There's a certain stick figures / animation vibe in what I do right now. Sort of kickstarted by re-checking them Risus rules.

Character Design

2010-06-16T19:26:00.005+03:00

I'm sure I had a spiffier title earlier today, as well as something to tell. Oh well, I'll remember it later. Or not.

This here's Ameixia. She's been following same themes from the start, but I finally have a facial design I'm happy with, including a super simple hairstyle, which should be easy to draw. Her hair's very straight and stubborn, and as we first meet her, she's not at her best, so it might be neater later....

Her hobbies include gemstone enchanting, deadpan snarking and suppressing her inner manic pixie.

This one is... some sort of a arcane trickster in a sword-and-sorcery type setting ( with maybe a touch of steampunk.) So, basically Eberron?

Magic is imagining something and then making it happen

2010-06-13T10:18:00.002+03:00

I actually like this one, more or less.

'tis a character.

Eyes are uneven and such. Eh, it's still okay.

Realistic, no reference

2010-06-12T09:10:00.006+03:00

Not too lovecraftian, but I still haven't gotten over my habit of making faces. In all honestly, I don't like it too much, but practice is practice.

Neutral expression = BOOOORING. more exaggerated posing and facial expression would be lots more interesting.

Bonus.
It's supposed to be standing meditation.

As an aside... sometimes my head gets too big and heavy and I can't do anything.

Right now, I like colors and brushes and things like that.

Thinking in Fiction

2010-06-11T11:51:00.005+03:00

I keep doing that, thinking these snippets of... Backstory? Exposition?
It's definitely a fantasy of sword and sorcery - kind.
I probably should write the stuff down, but the thing is, it's not my hat. It's Ben's hat, even if he's not wearing it.
Not that I've been doing such a good job with my hat, either.

*edit*

THE HAIR SHALL EAT YOU!

Movies // Iron Man

2010-05-13T20:42:00.003+03:00

Went, saw.

Okay, but not as good...

Science was a bit less believable, MST3K Mantra applies. Besides, hey, kirbytech.

Most of the charm of the first movie did come from building the tech - it was like a more geeky version of a training montage, after all.

All things considered, it was about as good as it could be, I think. Although the new element business was over way too fast, in my opinion.

Art and....

2010-04-24T16:59:00.002+02:00

Mostly artwork here. The thing is, when I'm depressed, I don't write blog posts.

I do have that single-mindedness trait that can be so useful in science, but it really messes things up when it's focused on a show or a book series or such.

This fails on so many levels...

2010-03-11T23:10:00.003+02:00

But, there's something about the technique used that's interesting. I think the proportions are off and that's why it looks bad. Face has uncanny valley effect, but that's not the problem here, exactly. In any case, there is something intriguing here, so it might be worth showing off.

Been painting.

2010-03-07T22:56:00.004+02:00

Borrowed a digital camera, better picture. Also, final changes

Old picture's here, too.
Webcam is a webcam. Oh well. I started this painting some years back... it seems this year, I'm finishing it. I think I might tweak it a bit more, but I think it's more or less done.

something re-done in black and white.

2010-03-01T12:26:00.005+02:00

Yeah. Not chiaroscuro, per se.. I'd probably like something of a background, here, but as you know, I'm lazy.

I think I almost managed to retain the essential charm of the image, though.

This reminds me, Ben used to bug me to make things neater and cleaner and less fuzzy... I generally work from, sort of blurry towards sharper.

Old, old, old piece

2010-02-19T13:25:00.006+02:00

This is still brilliant, in my opinion. All flaws aside, it has this really neat movie-poster thing going for it. I really like it.

To find this... Well, I didn't, outside my old web site, actually. I'm sure it's there somewhere. but... let me put it this way: I've drawn a lot. A LOT. Hoo boy. I found, probably hundreds of pieces I had forgotten whilst digging.

In any case, I may make another attempt at remaking this, with a bit more detail, and, uh, hopefully, skill.

What's going on here, then?

I'm just procrastinating, that's what I'm doing. I have more IMPORTANT things to do....

Ah, that was fun Something

2010-02-17T10:54:00.002+02:00

This just flew out, very relaxingly.

I wonder what it'd look like with the black-and-white treatment?

Arctic Orc

2010-02-14T21:30:00.003+02:00

I had little idea what to do with the body so I went for chiaroscuro. Reminds me of Petri Hiltunen and old RPG illustrations.

Something of 2010

2010-02-11T18:20:00.003+02:00

yeah, no intention to draw per se... as I haven't been able to, but the lines started looking like something, and before I knew it, I'd gotten this far.
It's basically just a small step above junk.
No idea who or what the character is. Looks sorta pumpkin-y

Picture of an idiot who cannot draw

2010-02-09T23:34:00.003+02:00

Natural media - in this case, oil pastel on paper, always has some charm, even if the image is junk. At least you can see the effort. :P

Something to see here

2010-01-29T17:47:00.002+02:00

Move along, move along....

Thing

2009-10-09T09:55:00.003+02:00

That's all.

Science of Discworld is a very good book, too.

Dragonball Evolution

2009-08-25T08:44:00.002+02:00

A very bad movie. It was so bad I had to watch it four times.

Four words: Tiny Lizard Sheng Long.

The actor wossname was just fine as a teen Goku. It's very... in Tokyo.

Mangled this one up quite badly

2009-05-17T22:21:00.002+03:00

So... yeah. Face was in a strange angle, and wasn't paying too much attention to proportions. Generally, I've had an 'off' day all day long. Lots of relatively interesting coding things circling in my mind right now, but no focus.

Something is more of the same.

2009-05-16T23:15:00.002+03:00

Ah, advertisement. What would I do without you :P

Y'know I've been drawing somethings for four years now. I started after a year of drawing almost nothing, as Ben and I figured, "something's better than nothing".

Time goes so incredibly fast.

Something is moar ad spam

2009-05-14T23:50:00.007+03:00

Same as before, snailmail spam -> sloppy drawing. Actually looked at values a bit harder, this time.

My 3d OpenGL engine doesn't currently like meshes mixing quads and triangles, at least not in the same mesh. I wonder if that'll be a problem. OTOH, one can just select all faces and say "Turn to triangles" in Blender...

I tested with some raw data -> copypasta. I'm thinking of writing a raw reader, just to hasten testing. I'm .... but, I'm rambling about something I haven't really talked about before, so nevermind.

Basically, it relates to something like this:

As you can see, I did write a RAW reader.

Blender .Raw exports everything separately, so I had to load multiple meshes for this output - got to test my GLScene's capability of rendering multiple meshes. Neat.

Oh, and I convert quads to tris on the fly, although not 100% sure if that works.

So I learned something new today.

2009-05-14T01:23:00.003+03:00

Not much of anything, admittedly, but SOMEthing.

Okay, so I'm doing some OpenGL stuff, and once you've hand-written in one cube's quads, you start already feeling, "importing meshes from file formats can't be that hard." So, I took a look at what Blender exports.

Blender is... almost easy, these days. The UI looks terribly complicated, but it isn't. I did suffer a bit with texturing, but even that gets a bit easier. The stomach side is undone, and the mesh is broken in places right now. I'm going to have to leave it segmented too - this 'fish is meant for NWN1, which has some... basically, it doesn't animate much of anything --- or rather, it doesn't transform meshes. it just moves them around. So, head and body at least need to be separate.

...Not that I'll ever get done, seriously. I was just looking for file formats, is all. This just happened to be in the folder I was exporting cubes into.

Something the thirteenth.

2009-05-13T00:49:00.004+03:00

Warmup. Referenced from an ad dropped in my mailbox.

OpenGL is kinda neat. Well, no. But, a 3d API is kinda neat, VS. making one yourself.

Still gotta do that at some point, just for kicks, but....

Well, that was... colorful. I had this lineart I drew, and started pushing and prodding it in OC, and ended up with this mess.

Now, mind you, I did learn something, perhaps, while doing it, but it sure ain't pretty. Despite all the pretty colors, too. I do like the teef, though.

I think I've told about this before

2009-05-11T13:36:00.004+03:00

My planning was unfortunate for that game.

Edited in OpenCanvas, which Ben got me a while back.

Oh, a quick speed tip: RAMDrives! Modern computers typically have 2-4 GB of RAM, and I generally have over 1TB idling.

So, I created a compressed RAM drive and pointed my Temp files there. This speeds up NWN2 load times, at least, significantly.

you could even transfer an entire game into a RAM drive for play time, or at least it's resource files, and point the .ini files at them. I'm sure there's plenty of other similar tricks that can be done. Uses for a RAM drive are many.

Whipped up something.

Probably my favourite chibi. Nice, B&W color scheme, not as complicated as Chibi-GD - who is also quite nice, actually.

Where does the time go?

2009-05-11T00:44:00.005+03:00

Bleh bleh bleh. Not all in all that bad, but still bad.

Discovered kumikyouku niconico douga. I've been feeling fannish about Touhou series for a while - and they recently got an animation, too. Some of the most ridiculously overpowered characters there, based on some Troper's analysis. As we all know, ultimate power is kinda neat.

Third in a series

2009-05-09T00:36:00.005+03:00

I pretentiously might call this one 'Genesis'. Spot the other two and get a virtual cookie!

Took actually something like thirty minutes, although I sort of idled... but, there was also this interesting thread about, y'know, context and, ugh, meaning.
I have an aversion towards all sorts of artiste nonsense, but it's not like it's entirely pointless.

Oh, and I almost always trip at first on the fact that Terra's practically a BABY. Her head is like, one-third of her height. The anatomy of a child that young is significantly different from older people's.

Everyone knows ConceptArt, but if I knew of Pixelation, I had forgotten.
Not that much code-stuff today, mostly just website backend stuff - a basic MVC framework in PHP, I did. I decided on JSON as a data storage format, since I don't want to turn postgres on....
This probably means there'll be minimal further development on my CSV - class. Oh well.
I'll probably do some joystick-controlled OpenGL cubes this weekend, at some point.

Still no job nor money. If I lose this apartment, then I lose it. That's life.
It's a shame, though - for what I pay for it, it's a relatively nice place.

Art! // Jittery 'n jumpy

2009-05-08T20:42:00.003+03:00

Took almost long - maybe ten minutes.

How much win can be fit into one thread? when it's a low-poly modelling thread at polycount, quite a bit.

I didn't know flash could do that. I mean, quakelive, yeah, but it effectively downloads a rather large module first...

Very tired, energetic and thus jittery. Still stuff, lots of stuff... I'll start making sense eventually, but I'm in no hurry.

Art! // Insomnia-time!

2009-05-08T06:15:00.003+03:00

About 2 minutes something.

Yeah, it's that time of the year, again. I'll be getting a good night's sleep sometime mid-october next, I believe.

I lost my sleep mask and I can't afford to buy a new one. I can't afford to buy anything, actually - I have no expected income and almost a kilo in bills.

I'm mostly happy right now. I'm doing something useful every day, like studying, coding, or job hunting. Also quite a bit of exercising.

Been spending time getting familiar with SDL - did some blitting, moving, keyboard input and such today. I expect to have an OpenGL scene with smooth shaded boxes sometime... um, next tuesday, maybe. On one hand, I have a test on Monday, on the other, I compiled SDLGears today, so I have some example to go on.

I'll probably encapsulate all the GL-junk in a GLScene class of some sort. Digressing.

Been hooked on Google Tech Talks, too. Set up a git repository on Trista (the old linux laptop).

Urge to draw is rising, too, but it's sort of low priority. I wish....
If wishes were horses....

Um. I really should be sleeping. I am tired. It's light outside, I can't get no sleep.

Depression?

2009-04-27T14:53:00.005+03:00

Okay, so according to one's standard eldritch-horror type view of the universe, nothing makes sense, nothing matters on any larger scale, and the entirety of all humanity ever accomplished will be for nothing.

Got that? Cool.

Now, naturally since nothing is of any particular importance, and you could die in about two seconds after reading this, you can pretty much choose yourself what you want your life to be about, what is your purpose, basically what you want to do.

Which is your basic "You are the main character of your life" spiel.

I've been looking at my motivations for a while now, trying to see if they're the reason for my lack of, what I see as accomplishments, in my life, thus far. And....

I am indeed lacking in motivation, in drive, in the need to get things done.

Sure, there are things I wish for - for good things for everyone, for nice, hedonistic things for myself, and, and I do care about people, at least on some level. It hurts when they're hurting and all that.

It's just... I don't really care for things, at least, per se. I've practically trained myself to NOT care for items. I mean, I love stories quite a bit, but I do not need to own any sort of physical media for them, or to even experience them twice... and I don't particularily care which of the various good stories I get to see... or, at this point, with the amount of stories I've already digested, if I even experience further stories.

Other material goods seem equally pointless, I cannot really think of any I cannot do without.

Personality-wise, I'm an introverted recluse, so while I do actually enjoy human company, I can do with a very frugal amount of it.

Relationship-wise - well, okay, I'm a bit lonely, but I'm quite accustomed to it, and to be in a relationship would once again be, most likely, an equal mix of, well, various things.

I have some self-esteem issues, so it's hard to see myself ever accomplishing anything relevant, but I might have some interests there. Still, at best I would accomplish the same things thousands have before me.

I do like having a warm, dry place to sleep, eating, sleeping and washing regularily. Although it would be somewhat less bothersome if I didn't need to do those things.

I'm sorry, I guess I'm just feeling particularily apathetic right now.

So, what's my motivation in this scene?

John Carpenter Recycled IN SPACE!

2009-04-24T07:55:00.004+03:00

Fun dreams:

A ragtag team of misfits, if you like, some veteran spacers, some total newbies, start on a voyage on a heavily-armored old junker with blast doors on every cargo hold.

In one, sealed and locked, a tiny xenomorph is discovered. This is enough to panic the veterans, but the little thing seems relatively harmless to those with less experience, and eventually most of the crew comes to take a look at the thing. Things, however, are worse than they seem.

In fact, what the hold contains is a mimic, capable of infecting and possessing other lifeforms... and there's no idea who are infected, including the viewpoint character ( in this case: the dreamer. )

Thought I'd mention it. Title comes from, y'know. Fever always gives me fun dreams. Well, sometimes. Well, once or twice.

With web links and, y'know, subtext becomes text.

Exorcising a story idea from my mind.

2009-04-14T16:31:00.005+02:00

This is just one of the random things bouncing in my head. The idea would be to describe an RPG campaign in the style of Darths & Droids or DM of the Ring.

You'll never actually see it, since I'm no good at writing, but the idea could potentially be amusing, at least.

The story goes something like this:

GM: I've been planning this new campaign, in the spirit of wuxia movies, set in... I'm not really sure. Mythic China seems the obvious choice, but I've been thinking, maybe something like modern day but with supernatural elements - you know, kinda like The Medallion or... well, it's a work in progress. Interested?

As-of-unnamed-player: I guess... which rules will you be using?

GM: Well, I was thinking, we could stick to the stuff available for free in the web, so maybe D20 SRD and D20 modern SRD, using Gestalt...

A-o-u-p: Gestalt? With Modern? You'll get some really high-powered characters that way. I mean, not that I mind that much, but players will be wanting quite a bit of combat.

GM: Yeah, that's pretty much what I'm after. If you're interested, why don't you try creating a character? You don't have to fill it all the way out yet, we'll check it before I approve of it. We'll start at level, oh, five or six. Maybe six.

Aoup:

Later:

Aoup: ...So, what do you think?

GM: A nine-year old half-giant natural were-ape monk? Are you serious?

Aoup: Well, yeah, although I'm thinking of it as a more of a new race, with tail.

GM: Apes don't have a tail, you know? Oh well...

GM: .... Fine. You can have your tail. I'm also making you twelve, and giving your some stat penalties instead of a level adjustment, so it'll hopefully be playable. You do realize that you only have that high strenght in ape or hybrid form, right? And you'll still likely be terribly underpowered.

Aoup: Nah, I have a good feeling about this one. Besides, if I die, I can roll a new one, right?

GM: Whatever. I still say you're going to be terribly underpowered.

Moar Japan - Shibuya

2009-04-08T02:39:00.011+02:00

It's been more than a year since I posted some pictures. I really have no excuse for that. Still...

Um, okay, this system of tracking passengers was, in fact, new to me. I think this is the Yūtenji station. There's a really nice bookstore not far from here, and a rather nice fast food place right next to it. We were rather puzzled about it's name, but it seems my katakana reading prevailed, eventually.

The park in... uh, close to Hiroo. I think.

Nice small waterfall.

The Awesome!Dog

Encountered somewhere between a 100yen shop and the Finnish embassy.

The obligatory Hachiko shot. I took a few shots around there. As we later discovered, a trip to Shinjuku would'a been proper. Oh well, hindsight.... fortunately we didn't lose much. I was completely lost at this point, and I eventually took a solo trip just to learn how to navigate in Tokyo. That's the good thing about a long enough trip, you can "waste" time and no harm's done....

Yep.... Shibuya....

Here's the thing... there aren't many "Real" cities in Finland, if any. Oulu definitely isn't one. The photo doesn't give the right impression, but the Shibuya station is mind-bogglingly huge. Someone like me who's lived in cities with 5-digit population cannot easily grasp such sizes. I got completely lost in the shibuya terminal at one point, during my solo trip... and that's just a small fragment of Shibuya, which is a small fragment of Tokyo. I mean, Tokyo is practically a country on it's own, and I heavily advocate separating a trip to Japan from a trip to Tokyo.

Next time, more of life at Hanne's apartment and the first of our many trips to Akihabara .

That's not bad

2009-04-08T00:19:00.005+02:00

Sort of fashion-y. I was actually going for fantasy, but, whatever. Had fun with the folds, even though they kinda suck, as I am out of practice.

I was thinking, not strictly speaking of a roleplaying character, but more of a RPG mechanics verse character, in a story idea that's pouncing in my brain.

I like RPG mechanics for a story, as it prevents overt plot-induced idiocies, like superhumans being beaten by random norms... or Buffyverse vampires, with their spongy chests and vapour clothers. (Seriously, a normal human can stake a vampire with a pencil. What's up with that?)

I have several stories bouncing in my brain, most of them bad or underdeveloped, and they'll probably never see the light of day.

A bit unrelated, but I'm trying something odd involving imagination...

Yeah, vague.

I shall endeavor to explain that better at some instance in the future.

*edit*

Also, doodles!

Is 'Hope' an emotion or a decision?

2009-03-28T20:31:00.004+02:00

I see it referred to as the first, but I feel the second applies better.

Sharpie on paper, 30 seconds or so. I should'a drawn it facing the other way, after finishing the eyes, but draw like this by rote.

Thousand Shinji, very YMMV. It is probably not a good indicator it gives me the Things Don't Work Like That vibe - not quite a WallBanger, but... I find the other WH40k crossover better, even if both take quite a few liberties with various things.

Children of an Elder God remains my favourite. Probably. Although, it seems to be abandoned.

My mental health remains... not so good.

Doodleriffic, 3-5 min?

2009-03-14T10:17:00.004+02:00

I almost just hit delete with this, but I decided to put a bit more effort into it, and as it turns out, it has few nice elements in it.

This is not a return to a regular or constant update schedule.

Srsly.

A million things

2009-03-13T15:42:00.003+02:00

Didn't I, like, use to draw something like this?

Lately, there's been much depression and little art. Or, at least, apathy. My particular mental quirks are rather harmful, especially if kept unchecked. Then again, anything without moderation is harmful.

Crossposting

2008-12-22T23:28:00.001+02:00

A tree with a star on top.

Still so slow. Mellow Terra is Mellow.

2008-12-16T23:26:00.003+02:00

I am getting better, but it's slow and I'm spending most of my energy at work.
Anyway, for warm-up, I drew an Arbyfish and a random Terra.
After "inking" Terra I realized I wasn't likely to draw anything better today. So I cropped rest of it away.

Independence day

2008-12-06T15:19:00.002+02:00

In Finland.

I've been getting hooked on a manga called 'Bakuman'. Grows, like fungus. Still, reminds me of the huge bulk of manga bought from Japan sitting on my bookshelves. Needs to read.

I've been thinking of drawing a more traditional strip-style comic, to get back to comics, and to dump some of the story snippets and ideas whirling in my brain.

Workin' on Something.

2008-12-03T08:04:00.003+02:00

A... 'piece', it might be called.
Might finish later today. Peek, for now.
I see some problems already, I'll probably fix those. Just doing this to get back in shape, really.

*update*: No time to finish this today, ended up fiddling with the laptop. :/

Something after

2008-12-01T00:18:00.002+02:00

Has some lines I like. It's better than nothing....

Air Guitar World Championship

2008-08-23T01:03:00.001+03:00

Performance Art. Woot.

I shall need to be more verbose. Or more graphic, as it may be.

30 minutes

2008-08-04T15:42:00.003+03:00

You know, one of the reasons the amount of drawing I do drops significantly from time to time, is that I feel guilty about drawing instead of studying or working or exercising, cleaning, or doing anything non-hobby. Consequently, the impulse to draw evetually brings out a wave of guilt every time it comes... and then, there you are.
I have now assigned myself 3 hours per week for drawing and NETTG work.

3 Hours, not much.

My best result, getting used to it, is for last week, at 115 minutes. Still 65 minutes short. Interesting.

*edit*
This was on the other side. It's not bad, so extra service!

I drew this after re-reading some Ranma volumes, can you tell?

Blargh // no, just Blargh. // Triple-blargh

2008-07-25T13:49:00.006+03:00

Things like composition and proportions, and the general whooshiness of images I do much better on pen and paper. However, the editability of digital work is also a delight.

It doesn't look that horrible at a distance. Click closer at your own risk. T_T
---
Hm. OpenCanvas was still running.

On a different note, I need to draw SIMPLER. Simplify, simplify, simplify!
I have some pen-on-paper drawings there, but, it's not a scanning kind of day, so nyah, I guess. Basically there's some junk and one decent Terra, so you're not missing much.

Something in 15 minutes // in 20 minutes

2008-07-17T17:59:00.003+03:00

Now which parts should be black, which grey and which white? XD

*edit*

More lineart-like stuff. Couldn't be bothered to even crop this one, I guess. There's something wrong with the twist, but, meh. This pose has just a bit too much wushu in it, I think, too...

More practice, Tablet, Paint.NET

2008-07-15T00:06:00.003+03:00

Paint.net...

Well, it's much better than Paint, definitely. Still, it's no Photoshop, or Paint Shop, or Opencanvas.

Art practice

2008-07-14T02:12:00.002+03:00

From the back of a Cosmode magazine,
"Baby, The Stars Shine Bright" brand, line "Alice and the Pirates", I think? I probably walked right past one of their stores in Harajuku at some point.

Did this one fast, so it's not accurate or proportionate or anything. Hm.

About Tetris...

2008-07-03T15:38:00.003+03:00

I don't speak much of game development here, but recently, I learned JavaScript ( which is kinda awesome, really, ) since one job I applied for required knowing it --- not sure if I got the job, or even if I'm taking it, but --- nevertheless, javascript: Fun, easy, fast to do stuff with.

So, I wrote a Tetris game with it. It's a classic style tetris, without gravity-based chain reactions. Nothing fancy. It stores the latest highscore on your machine as a cookie, too.

I really liked working on the block rotation and collision algorithms. Fun stuff.

I'm never drawing that armor again.

2008-06-27T12:19:00.004+03:00

Which is a shame, since it's kinda cool.

Lineart, essentially. Some shading or color would be nice. Blame this one on the new Iron Man movie, or something.

But! Let me geek out for a moment about the fact that the university's scanning room has, not just an Epson A3 flatbed scanner, which I SERIOUSLY should abuse more. Epson does, like, the best scanners. But that's not all. There's also apparently a freakin' light table here! Also, the machines here have actual 16:9 aspect monitors! This is very noticeable as most monitors are, in fact, 15:9 or 14:9 or something silly like that. ( I probably should check the exact number. )
*edit* 16:10. That was it.

The art: I'm not entirely happy 'bout the face, looks kinda wide or something -- and I seem to draw really huge necks for some reason. Oh well. There's also no shading nor camo pattern, which would help and... eh. Take it as it is. Or don't.

I am sorry 'bout the lack of updates.

2008-06-26T16:49:00.003+03:00

This blog was created as an outlet for my art, since online communities are, in fact, one of the big motivators for me. Which is a fancy way of saying "I like attention," but skips the fact I'm embarrassed by the fact.

In any case, there are some other things which motivate me - stories put images into my head, and sometimes certain concepts need drawing. However, I haven't had that much of an urge to draw lately ( which is a shame, as I've finally gotten semi-decent with it, ) and currently I don't have a monitor ( nor a display adapter -- IE, a graphics card, ) nor a job to get money to buy ones.

However that's not exactly the key problem - I could get a semi-decent CRT tube cheap or free if I wanted to, and there are some GFX cards I could also get. However, I've found myself doing a bunch of other things that need doing, a lot more since my monitor went *zzzap.*

So, I'm currently doing things like coding, reading science texts and trying to get a job, as well as figuring out of how to graduate, instead of being sucked in by my own computer's access -- there seems to be a difference in attitude between using my own computer and using other computers.

As a downside, I feel quite awkward doing graphics stuff on other computers.

As for blogging... I don't write for the sake of writing. I'm not a writer, like some people, and I do have a rant-about-things blog... which is in Finnish, sorry.

I have been thinking of starting yet another blog focusing on certain other interesting things, but I'm not sure if I will.

I do still intend to draw - I even intend to complete NETTG:TEY, in fact. Maybe I shall write about that later.

4e Dragon

2008-06-21T17:27:00.005+03:00

I wanted a nice graphic on a web page I needed to do for school, and... well, that's about it.

I cheat shamelessly there.

Hmm. DrCloud, BTW.

Monitor broken // I draw comics with my brain!

2008-06-09T09:12:00.006+03:00

University has scanners, though, so we'll see about art. Otherwise, being without monitor - and thus, computer / net access at home - has been a boon, distinctively. It has helped me notice certain things that I've managed not to think about lately.

I'm reading Shura no Mon in Japanese... I think I have all of it, bought it last February, back when I still had money. I'm up to volume 3 right now. There are 31 volumes, I'll need to check how many I have... I might very well have them all.

I actually found this one originally through Shura no Toki anime, which is a bit... it's not like you'd assume based on early first episode. It goes bad at around midway through, but the early episodes are quite tasty. Adaptation Decay perhaps?

I'll need to tinker with them ads, it seems. T_T;

Okay, Among The Chosen, what now?

Doin' the DnD thing again... or something.

2008-04-05T12:40:00.001+02:00

Mm... Ghost Crusader 12, I think? Pens are fun, if messy.

Pun-Pun / Oh, yeah. How about no?

2008-04-03T17:53:00.003+02:00

So, I tried doing this in CGI after initial sketching. 'twas horrible.

Dunno, maybe I'm just rusty concerning CGI. Anyway, PP on a day he decides Winged + Multiheaded + Floating Head is a nice combo.

This isn't the post you're looking for

2008-04-02T18:56:00.000+02:00

Move along.

So I did a silly test

2008-04-01T18:45:00.002+02:00

So, according to the test

I Am A: Neutral Good Human Bard/Sorcerer (2nd/1st Level)

Ability Scores:

Strength-14

Dexterity-11

Constitution-14

Intelligence-13

Wisdom-10

Charisma-14

Alignment:
Neutral Good A neutral good character does the best that a good person can do. He is devoted to helping others. He works with kings and magistrates but does not feel beholden to them. Neutral good is the best alignment you can be because it means doing what is good without bias for or against order. However, neutral good can be a dangerous alignment because it advances mediocrity by limiting the actions of the truly capable.

Race:
Humans are the most adaptable of the common races. Short generations and a penchant for migration and conquest have made them physically diverse as well. Humans are often unorthodox in their dress, sporting unusual hairstyles, fanciful clothes, tattoos, and the like.

Primary Class:
Bards often serve as negotiators, messengers, scouts, and spies. They love to accompany heroes (and villains) to witness heroic (or villainous) deeds firsthand, since a bard who can tell a story from personal experience earns renown among his fellows. A bard casts arcane spells without any advance preparation, much like a sorcerer. Bards also share some specialized skills with rogues, and their knowledge of item lore is nearly unmatched. A high Charisma score allows a bard to cast high-level spells.

Secondary Class:
Sorcerers are arcane spellcasters who manipulate magic energy with imagination and talent rather than studious discipline. They have no books, no mentors, no theories just raw power that they direct at will. Sorcerers know fewer spells than wizards do and acquire them more slowly, but they can cast individual spells more often and have no need to prepare their incantations ahead of time. Also unlike wizards, sorcerers cannot specialize in a school of magic. Since sorcerers gain their powers without undergoing the years of rigorous study that wizards go through, they have more time to learn fighting skills and are proficient with simple weapons. Charisma is very important for sorcerers; the higher their value in this ability, the higher the spell level they can cast.

Find out What Kind of Dungeons and Dragons Character Would You Be?, courtesy of Easydamus (e-mail)

...Hm. Well, I certainly don't completely disagree. Looks unoptimized, though. :/

Opera no longer has any ads // Something

2008-03-22T11:22:00.010+02:00

And no-one told me this?

Well, I immediately switched to Opera. It's probably the "best" browser anyway, although I haven't tried Kazehakase.

Had a marathon DnD session yesterday/last night. Shouldn't do that. Well, in any case, it was Epic. Heh.
...Sorry, an inside joke. But, as you can see, I'm not running on full capacity right now.

About the drawing: Random bug, although it seems my faces don't have much variance just yet - I've drawn a similar bugface before. The badly-drawn girl below was included since I actually want to try something CGI, and it was good enough for that purpose. It's a double-hash lostnumber, since I'm at a different machine and I have no idea if I have any lostnumbers on my primary box.

*edit* This isn't what I had in mind--- still, it's good to dip my toes in the water every now and then. in any case, there will be a costume. Nice fingers,
mostly. I liked the ears, but this most likely isn't the final pose.

I'm currently still quite excited considering game developement stuff. I shall be coding in the future. Also modelling, maybe playing with sound... and so on and forth.

I'm also twiddling with Zenwalk on a 128M RAM Compaq Presario 1700 laptop - it's a 700mhz Celeron coppermine. I've also switched from XFCE to... well, I'm twiddling between Fluxbox and IceWM. Switching to Opera also helped save a few megs of RAM. There's also Dillo there, but it's lack of CSS is enough to make me not use it. I'm also looking if Xserver is smaller than full X.

I'm doing this for fun and learning purposes - if I wanted minimum RAM footprint I'd just start with DSL-N and build up from there, probably. Of course, DSL-N isn't a terribly mature distro yet... well, maybe Puppy Linux...

Still, if anyone wants to send me some RAM for that old piece of junk, drop me a note, okay? :D

Something is Gainax Fanart

2008-03-20T15:58:00.005+02:00

It's Nono from Gunbuster 2!
Or rather, it's a drawing eyeballed from a photo of a cosplayer in a booklet which came in a recent Cosmode magazine. In any case, it was done with a ballpoint pen, so... not bad. My eye's pretty decent with 2d shapes, at least, these days. Still, a somewhat pointless exercise.

I just wanted to post something. Plus, more views equals pizza. Or something.

In any case, I'll probably do more ballpoint pen stuff, as well as some Wacom stuff soon. I'll need to make another Japan post one of these days, but in the mean time, check out Heikki's Scrapbook, for his reports on the trip. ( link in the sidebar on the right side. )

I've been learning new things, but I don't have much to say about that, yet.

GDM should probably switch to GTGE, JMonkey, or maybe LWJGL ( my current favourite. )

There are so many game engines these days, that if one intends to do something, optimally one would test each and everyone of them before committing to one. It might be interesting, fastprototyping some game for each engine, at a pace of, say, one game per week. At least you'd end up with lots of games.

Something Strikes Back!

2008-03-19T02:14:00.003+02:00

I hadn't done a "something" folder for 2008 yet.

Random skintight doodleman. Almost feels like I've seen this before.

Superpowered individuals are in my mind relatively often. In this case, I guess I, first of all, didn't want to spend too much time, which meant a practically naked model, and second... I've been thinking of a certain game idea. Basically, an immersive superpower game, where you start as an effectively a normal human, and start gaining abilities --- and in the end you can leave the planet under your own power, and can do all sorts of DBZ-like things. It'd be interesting, in a sand box type sense.

Trip to Japan #2: Resting, finally

2008-03-16T09:52:00.011+02:00

Instant noodles, kappuramen, nomnom.

Our most generous hostess didn't want me uploading photos of her half-awake in her pajamas for some reason. I guess I'm respecting her wishes on that matter. *sigh*

In any case, we actually managed to use the subway to get to Naka-Meguro, and from there we took a taxi cab, who dropped us to the address we were given. It took a bit of walking around, but we eventually found the... I guess Maison would be an appropriate expression, actually.

Anyway, I do have a picture of the place from outside, but it took me almost two weeks before I remembered to take it.
There's where the three of us slept. The Air conditioner device pushed hot air down from the ceiling. It ALMOST reached the ground level, which is to say "not quite." In other words, it had to be on quite high to make living bearable.

It was cold, I'm telling you.

Space-wise, it was surprisingly accomodating, although we mostly just slept there. Oh, and watched some TV and played Go, and occasionally Hanne, our hostess, cooked.

...I'm getting a weird vibe from the word "hostess", but maybe it's just me. Can't think of a more appropriate one right now, though...

This here be Heikki trying some traditional japanese Umeshu ( it's from the green bottle ), most likely. We've just been to Natural Lawson, which is one of those 24/7 convenience stores common in japan. I'm not entirely sure why this one was Natural Lawson, as most of them were simply called Lawson. In any case, this is the following day, so that would make it... 2nd of February, I think. The instant Curry there is the same brand Konata ate in one episode of Lucky Star, coincidentally.

In any case, what do you think 'bout the Umeshu, Heikki?
Oh, okay then.

Reminds me, we bought a Winnie plushie from Finland. In the mean time, Hanne had gone nuts 'bout the Evil Kitty.

...
In any case, that day we visited the Finnish Embassy, I think... Lots of walking was in store for us.

This is from Yutenji. I was struck by how NARROW every street was there. It felt somewhat dangerous, even, what with cars and such. Japanese people have incredible parking skills -- on the other hand, almost every car had some scratches in them.

Another were the spiderwebs --- Er, the wires hanging over streets.

I mean, it definitely makes me think of some sort of a huge Technoarachnid, but I guess it's handy if you need to rewire something. In Finland most wires are underground these days.
Mm... I guess that may be the case in Japan, too --- but then, how much wire can there be?

In any case, my next photos are from the park in, er... Hiro-o, I think. And there's a bunch of those, so they shall get another post.

Ben bribed me / Something

2008-03-10T11:20:00.002+02:00

It's not much, but... it's not much. Well, I'm sort of happy 'bout the hands, I guess.

On other note, I got the permission to put up pictures of people, as long as they're not bad pictures. How ambivalent.

Well, it's better to apologize than it's to ask for permission, right? Update soon, then, I think...
Oh, and, the Forums went *poof*, it seems. Mmohdear....

All roads lead to Yokohama.

2008-03-02T08:18:00.019+02:00

Okay, so... Trip to Japan, telling people stuff, and so on! Left on the last day of January, Arrived the first of February. I haven't ever really travelled much, but a friend of mine, who suggested the trip, has been to Nepal and northern China, so we're all good, yes?

That's him, in plane. Nobody told me, you weren't allowed to take pictures in a plane. In any case, Finnair has direct flights to Japan from Helsinki-Vantaa international Airport. Next Stop: Chubu airport.
Ahh, the joys of learning to use local Public Transportation - on the train from Chubu to Nagoya, in First class....

Which we didn't have tickets for, as we eventually figured out thanks to the friendly Mr. Conductor. Oh well, off to the sardins-in-a-can class cars. It wasn't crowded, really. Afterwards, we were in Nagoya, waiting for a bus, by the Yuri fountain.
We waited for two hours, listening to the "Pikku pikku Kaamera" chime from across the street. What's that there, though?

Oh, look! Real live japanese schoolkids, on a class trip, even! How curious--- Wait, what's that?

I has been spotted! Oh noes!

Heh, there was mutual laughing afterwards.

Anyway, we got on a bus, which was kind of small. Buses in Japan are... not so good. Not much worse than here, really, but a bit smaller perhaps?

In any case - I guess this comes as no surprise to most city people, but I never realized Finland only really has one city, and that one's not very large, either. There are some city-elements in most Finnish cities, but they just lack the population. Where are all the forests?
I also didn't realize it was okay to build roads on top of concrete pillars which go over other concrete pillars which just may go over a shopping street down below...

Oh, and these people don't really bother hiding wires from the view. In Finland most wiring is hidden from sight. In Japan, it's like a spider web between buildings.

A funny story: As Heikki's an experienced traveller, we - that is, my mother was being comforted by the fact he was with me, so we'd be safe and get where we're supposed to be, in time.

Surely you can trust that face, 'tis a honest face. Even if he found Zoolander to be a very funny film. I haven't seen it myself, though.

That reminds me, there were instances where we were going "Dude!" "Sweet!" a whole lot, but that's a different movie and a different story. In any case, we were on our way to Tokyo, and he told me we were going to the Shinjuku station or something.... We had arranged a meeting with the person whose place we were crashing in for our stay in Tokyo. ( I'll need to get her permission to use the photos, btw. )

Nooo problem... If he's looking like death warmed over, it's just because he'd only slept for like four hours in the last thirty-six or so. I tried explaining my theory of "While your eyes are closed, your optic nerves are resting", but that didn't take --- yet.

We weren't supposed to drop off at "Tokyo station", right? I mean, there was no proper bus stop or anything, right?
The driver -- the bus is circling around. We could ask, but that wouldn't be Proper. Surely, there's a proper station here in Tokyo, right?

"Next Stop, Yokohama." SVOBU? Wot? But, but... Aand we're on some sort of a freeway. no hope of stopping now....

Oh well, cannot do much now. Let me see those directions, will you?
...
What's this, a map? "Bus stops here," "Tokyo Station"... What? Dude, you had a map! What do you mean you assumed it was for Nagoya? It says "Tokyo station" right there!

Oh , great. Yokohama's a different city, right? Great, so now we're going to Yokohama. Just great.

We had a Learning Experience. Level Ups, don'chaknow?

Well, fortunately in Yokohama, we were helped by a friendly local who'd been an exchange student, and spoke better English than we did. We got some more experience in using local public transportation, and we took a taxi cab from Shibuya, to see if the person waiting for us, still was. She wasn't so now we had to figure out a way to get to her apartment on our own...
But that's for later, okyes?

Dummies Guide for Japan - Tokyo

2008-02-18T03:13:00.003+02:00

1. Got to the government building in Shinjuku. Get maps, check out the view from 45th floor.
2. Get good shoes. Use the subway, but do check first if places are within walking distance.
* Avoid the early morning rush!!
* Get a Pasmo card.
3. Go to the side alleys. Tokyo's a safe city, and many of the interesting shops are there
4. Gaijin Park
* Limited Express may get you to Yokohama.
5. A place to live in; A Guest House at around 2500 yen a night is the best you can get, probably.
6. Ask.
* Otherwise you may end up in Yokohama.
7. Akihabara, Kanda Bookstore Area; Avoid these for the sake of your wallet.
* For clothes, go to Harajuku or Shibuya. Cheap shoes.
* You'll probably find the best place to shop in within 100ft of your living quarters, one day before leaving Tokyo.
8. Hyakuen shops. Way too much useful stuff, too cheap.
9. Learn to say "I am not an American" in Japanese, if it applies.
10. Visit the Ghibli Museum. Make sure to make a full day of it, and start early, since it closes at 6 PM.
11. Stick to the left side. Except in Kyoto.

Nerima Wrecking Crew

2008-02-04T08:42:00.001+02:00

Totally random title, which only has any relation to anything by the fact that I visited Nerima today. Very scenic, nice little town -- in comparison to, oh, Shibuya.

Akihabara is an evil, evil place.

( Must update this post later )

*edit* must still add pictures or something.

Still alive, still in Tokyo.

Svobu? It's not wrong...

2008-02-02T06:18:00.001+02:00

...So, I'm currently staying in Tokyo, Meguro-ku, Naka-cho. I''m more or less culture-shocked, with very little net access. I'm taking a lot of pictures, will probably make some sort of a report out of those.

Until I get back to Finland, no art.

The title comes from what I've been saying a lot. Weirdness.

A weird hand thing

2008-01-29T21:58:00.000+02:00

I promised two posts, didn't I?

Seven hours to wakeup. Um. Nervous much? Not consciously, no. Subconsciously... my neck and back muscles are really really tense.

Arts are doodle-riffic.

So. First a 6-hour train to Helsinki, then a 9-hour flight to Japan, then something like 4 hours to Tokyo. Oy. That's a lot of travelling.

If I have computer access, I shall post something somewhere, in some language.

Hopefully, I'll come back better than I left.

It's there, then it's gone / Death By Scanner

2008-01-29T19:15:00.000+02:00

Um. Yay for floating heads? This scanner is okay, but it has the tendency to scan kinda light...

I couldn't draw hands for the life of me. ;_;

Priceless

2008-01-27T23:56:00.000+02:00

Silly idea, so outdated etcetera.

I'm not a particularly good Dungeon Master, but I am quite up to date and I do have a keen understanding of the rules. Basically, I have a bachelor's degree on DMing. Possibly a master's degree.

Never-the-less, warts and all, I kind of do like the system. Still, I'd rather be playing.

In any case, a plot-device mage went *splat* a while ago, and AFAIK, his recovery tactic is contingent reincarnate.

Reincarnate is superior to other death recovery methods mainly due to the fact that

The magic of the spell creates an entirely new young adult body for the soul to inhabit from the natural elements at hand

Two days to Japan. Two more posts, then.

Blue Warrior Needs Food Badly

2008-01-27T00:49:00.000+02:00

This image doesn't relate to Gauntlet in any way. I've only played the first one, really, on a C64.
Leaving soon... I have an intention to post every day 'til I leave, but I'm out of scannable material.

I is done with DnD almost.

2008-01-25T14:00:00.001+02:00

Well, almost, anyway. That is, the big adventure is over, and I can now leave that particular campaign lie with good conscience. People got to level 23, and then they were eaten by big dinoes.

Medetashi, medetashi.

I have no idea what that means, but that's what popped out of my phrasebook. ( See: How Esas learn languages. )

In any case, today's drawing is new, and quite awful, but not so awful that I wouldn't post it. I think it looks like Terra Incognita, maybe.