Years from now, just as I’ve seen people ask one another “Where were you when the twin towers fell?”, I can imagine being asked myself, “Where were you when MJ was pronounced dead?” Maybe.
I know it’s a little late for a RIP MJ post but I’m still seeing tributes paid on TV and seeing footage from the heyday of the Dangerous era (when I first learned of MJ - but I was so little then I would’ve been clueless if it weren’t for sis) I got to immerse myself in a bit of nostalgia. His world tour in the mid 90s included a visit to Perth where I used to live as a rather unenlightened 10-year-old. My dad and his friends bought tickets to a night’s concert, to my sister’s utter utter UTTER delight but I failed to see what the fuss was about and promptly fell asleep along three seats (because everyone in the stadium was up on their feet dancing) two songs in until the concert ended.
Wow, regretful much? To this day I can only remember seeing him in that gold-plated jacket holding a cool stoic pose not too far away from our row. I don’t even remember seeing him dance or hearing him sing above the super-blaring sound system. How I wish I could go back in time as I am (of course, only in the case of a return ticket!).
Just three weeks before, I was meeting up with an old grade school friend for lunch and somehow we ended up talking about MJ, gushing over how novel his music and dance routines and music videos are and how - unlike a shedload of other 70s, 80s, 90s artists - I don’t see/hear age when I watch his older stuff as it’s obviously the last thing I care about whenever he’s on. Also, looking back on those images I used to see in the media, I realised that nowadays you don’t see a celebrity don imperial-style outfits and march the streets escorted by whole armies and looking JUST at home doing all that. Kind of bordering on cult-y now if you think about it but, hey, he’s MJ.
I also remember watching his 30th Anniversary concert on TV where he performed with the other Jacksons and seeing old ladies SWOON and grown men jump up and down clapping like kids in a Wiggles show. Seeing a fan’s strong reaction, whether it be in a moshing pit or in front of the LA hospital, it’s hard not to feel carried off by the sheer emotional display. Ah, it might be a while before someone of that caliber graces this life again.
Having rambled all that - where was I when MJ was pronounced dead? Asleep in bed, and only heard the news in the morning via Ferrum’s tweet (”What? What is this about?”). Har… Just when I’d begun dusting off sis’s MJ albums and transferring them onto my iTouch (a sign of the changing times!) and wondered when would I get to see old ladies mass-swoon and grown men hop again.
Ah, well, his time was up. Oyasumi, oyasumi, Michael. Thank you for the music =)
I kept thinking how nice a walk it must be - he has Farrah Fawcett walking beside him XDD
Goodnight, Goodnight
Tip tap tip tap
—>Ahh, shoes. He wears Dunhill (not that it’s distinguishable - menswear) and she wears Christian Lacroix. Yeah, I added an extra bow on the left shoe. Sorry, Lacroix.
I… have this dilemma with the unspoken rules/etiquette of the Japanese doujin industry. I’ve said to my friends many, many times that I would much rather dress the characters I draw in real life designers’ fashion (especially when you covet a piece that’s way out of your price range - just draw it to sate yourself!) which I happen to love anyway than designing my own clothes which more often than not comes out less pretty than what the industry royalty churn out (otherwise I’d be a fashion designer). But Ferrum had made sure to let me know - even before I started working on Hibari-san to - that straight referencing (unless from the original work or blatant parodies of other works) is generally frowned upon in that doujin community, and crediting using properly spelled out names even more so.
How does someone like myself, who likes to share my love of other people’s works of art with no intention to endorse consumerism, attempt to minimise the possibility of social sanctions? Sure, crediting may seem like name-dropping to some, but it’s still crediting where credit is due to me even when I badly mangle the original design. Right now, I’m thinking about crediting anyway albeit with deliberate misspelling here and there if nothing else can be done. After all, better to be accused of product advertising than of plagiarism, no?
That’s just what I personally gather so far, though, without a solid yes or no from any Japanese doujinka. I guess I’ll pick up more things to add to my still growing list of Do’s and Do-Not’s In Doujinshi as I go, but I’ll also try to be flexible with my boundaries when my instinct tells me there’s room for a little… deviation. Ferrum’s sidenote is that you don’t have to follow their rules if you’re reluctant to; just that you will be regarded as ‘unique’ (and not in the good way) and… yeah, I got a bit uncomfortable when the ’social sanctions’ bit came up. Never a good thing when you expect to break-even sales.
A month. There’s only a month left. Yikes.
ところで・・・
先週、ツキさんからメールを頂きました *__*
このメールで一日が明るくしてくれました、ありがとうございました。
更科さんにも、英語で返信して下さってありがとうございます！
英語に自信がないとおしゃったが、私にしてはよく表現できたと思っております。
できるだけ早く返信します。
That’s a promise, Tsuki-san and Sarashina-san~~~
Thanks for the love!
Fashionably late as always when it comes to birthday things. Riiight~
—> ハッピーバースデー骸さん！
あっ、更科さんからメールを頂きました。
ありがとうございました！直ぐに返事を書きます！嬉しいです〜〜〜
Yayay
夏コミスペースゲットしましたー！
Offline has been updated with the space number and will be updated again whenever we feel our doujin cover finally looks decent enough for presentation XD. We may not have scored another end-table but at least we’ll be close to the wall circles even better if Amatou is nearby. We were at East-1 in last year’s Natsu/Fuyucomi but this year the Hitman Reborn section has been moved to East-4. Hmm. I wonder if the series’s declining popularity on the fanwork front has something to do with it?
*waves it off* XDDD
I won’t be providing the circle cut we registered seeing how it embarrasses me /////. I haphazardly put something together thinking I only had a mere few hours to do it. It was only after I had forwarded the PSD file to Ferrum did I find out from Ku and Ayli’s exchange that apparently I had another two weeks to do it OTL OTL OTL. And… And it was too late; the haphazardly done circle cut was already registered. Er. Anyway, all I can say is that we’ve probably been put in the 6918 area… or else 18 sou-uke if fandom decides to be mean and shove Mukuhiba in the minority due to its lack of fanbase… again OTL.
Guess this means we need to hustle. Still waiting on our fellow circle friends to announce their good news. Fight! Fight! Edit: Massive congratulations to the girls of Area27 for making it to Comiket~~~~ Let’s do our best and, most importantly, let’s adopt the Daruma’s principle and never give up XDDD
Also… waiting on my favourite circles to announce theirs. But what am I worrying about? Of course they’d get in 8DDDD. I can’t wait to get my hands on their summer releases! Edit: I bite my tongue for that one. One has made it and one did NOT make it ;_____; and I’m still waiting for the other two.
’tis Yami’s birthday
No comment.
Oh, who am I kidding. Of course something needs to be said about the… well, I’ll cover the odd-looking Ciel costume at least. Kuroshitsuji’s art is certainly very, very attractive with its pretty shotabait main (one of two) dressed in a mish-mash of female and male historical English attires taken from different fashion eras. At the moment I only spot Victorian and Georgian being the most obvious, but a more knowledgeable fashion history enthusiast might be able to zero in on bits and pieces that belong to other times. The mangaka is having a ball with this, you can tell XD
I would’ve liked to have a ball with Hibari’s outfit, too, except… Hibari Kyouya in lace and frills? (Forget the stuff spilling out of the pagoda sleeves for the moment) Blasphemy, blasphemy. I had to tone down Ciel’s dainty style by a lot as a result- Oh, that jacket/top Hibari wears is a real antique piece even though it looks a little bizarre what with the sailor suit feature looking like it’s been rigged onto a coat XDD.
Lastly: As others have commented, Mukuro looks just at home in his Sebastian cosplay.
Ferrummmm
Ferrum offered to colour the above raggedy doodle of Tomomasa of the Neo Romance game turned manga Harukanaru Toki no Naka de and, naturally, I went “ajhafkjahsfj PLEASE. I LOVE U” XDDD. Below is the result:
That is a burst of wisterias (fuji), yes. I’ve been secretly shipping him with Fuji-hime thanks to the super adorable hinthint in the manga (gawd, Mizuno Touko’s art is pretty - her HAIR). Sure, there’s a, uh, 21-year gap between them but the Genji keikaku aspect of this pairing just slays me… Plus, who wouldn’t want to see Fuji-hime’s form 7-8 years later (the minimum age at which Tomo promises to “escort” her LOLOL) when Mizuno’s characters are that pretty? Her “One Night Dance” side story at the end of volume 14 is just beautiful *__*
Ferrum: Tomomasa coming home from a yobai with Fuji-hime… umm… in my dreams lol.
Rune: It’s legal! Completely legal! I mean…. far, far in the future it will be orz
Ferrum: But according to Rune, this is Tomo-masa from Fuji-hime eyes.
Rune: That’s right. That’s why I picked this magenta and red dominated filter of all your filtered samples.
Ferrum: Oh golden Genji-keikaku. Tomo-tan, you’re awesome.
Rune: I wonder if I should start calling her Murasaki since it seem appropriate. Just look at her name.
Doodle Time #6
…This has something to do with Hibari’s birthday gift two posts down.
After that talk with Ruka, in which we joked about subjecting Hibari to the same humiliation treatment on her birthday, this idea for a small conversation between him and Mukuro just wouldn’t leave me be.
—> Claim your new wallet here!
A year later, and I’m still agreeing with the entire fandom on the super-duper inconsistent way Amano Akira drew (and draws) her adult Hibari, from his first ever appearance in the manga (who could forget that chapter, really~) up to that eventual switch with young Hibari in the duel against Gen-san (forever?). A dedicated member of the LJ community - who took the time to compile all the main characters’ face shots from the beginning of the manga to the then-end into a sort of “art style evolution” timeline - commented that she could have given TYL!Hibari his own evolution timeline even with such a low tally of appearances XDD. To us her audience, it seemed that even the mangaka herself wasn’t too sure what she wanted her TYL!Hibari to look like.
Being someone who draws TYL18 as a hobby (and being frequently teased by friends for that XD) I could not agree more. TYL18… is plain. Distinctive-looking, yes, but I don’t consider him attractive in the same way that Gokudera and Dino are attractive. That ‘plainness’ and the mangaka’s inconsistency provides endless headache for this fanartist who only wants one head for TYL18 and stick with it (which includes hair - yeap, even that is inconsistently drawn, too). When I saw that full spread of TYL18 for the first time, I gawked, but only because that was Hibari. The next thing I noticed was the stark white space around his face due to the size of his (sexy and exotic to most, okay LOL) eyes and the noticeable absence of his trademark stout nose that used to be SUCH a character design point in his youth, framed with a short, spiky mass of light-absorbing black hair; all contributing to the keywords “sharp edges”, “high-contrast” and “classic contemporary” which pop to mind whenever his name is mentioned. Which is every hour.
Yeah, I OCD over this a bit more than necessary.
I guess one upside is that there are many ways to draw him thanks to his, err, adaptable nature. The above picture of my Hibari-san to Watashi and VFQ TYL18s next to each other was for my own observation… Why I did? Well, at the moment I’m having a bit of trouble deciding on how to draw his head after 2 months of no TYL18. THAT image and THAT head have escaped me again, ahhh x___x Anyway. It surprised me, having not leafed through Hibari-san to in months, to see how ‘tamely’ I’d drawn his spiky head in a time when I still referred to official art to draw my characters. I’ve ceased doing that ever since VFQ came about and am now amused by his hair of all things.
Hair. Oh, dear. That remains one Hibari feature that takes up the most time despite my own belief: Get the eyes and mouth right and you get TYL18 semi-right. Can’t get him ‘right’ as long as Amano isn’t sure how to do so herself. Yargh, lady.
Over and out.
I am a slowpoke
I’ve always wondered how some doujin circles manage to get a hill of releases behind them by the end of every year (Do they not work? Do they not go to school? Heck, do they not live?). Ferrum answered my rhetorical question by simply saying (in general, mind) “They must be NEETs.” And, yes, it’s been proven that those people can survive by doing purely fanwork in Japan.
Not recommendable elsewhere.
I also heard from a fellow Reborn! doujinka that the circle she collaborated with managed to get about seven pages done each day (!!). Without assistants, most likely. I, on the other hand, can only finish one page every two days - one a day if non-stop. Man, if I could zip through my pages that fast I’d be releasing a fanbook every month XDDD. Sadly for me, my current best doesn’t quite measure up to that. The two fanbooks we’ve released as EN-SYN thus far had each taken up one solid month to draw, translate, edit and put together. Haphazardly, at that - only in the English versions did we take our time touching up on stuff and adding in extras.
Right now, I try to be less haphazard with the three months I have to work on my current project and - who knows - if there’s enough time left I might be able to contribute to 1-2 more projects (I WANT to, I really want to augh augh; and if possible, another Hibakuro release before end of year, yargh). Yet, progress is still slower than I’d have liked. For one, I’ve been distracted with random inspirations and somewhat less important side-projects…..
Sigh~ Printing deadlines are such a source of motivation. Thankfully, next time won’t be quite the same: Thanks to Ferrum’s customer loyalty, we’ve earned Eikou’s silver membership which grants a late deadline of one week prior to a big event. Ohyes. I just hope half a year of no won’t suddenly downgrade us back to bronze by the time we need to print for Natsucomi. If. We get in. Hmm hmm.
On a completely random note. Spent the last three nights RP-ing with Ruka as Mukuro as stress relief. I have to say, I might be enjoying walking (…skipping) in his shoes a little too much. Grants me a legitimate excuse to be excessively odd, flamboyant and condescending! No wonder some people love acting.
After being cajoled into doing one by certain people, I gave in and hopped on the May 5th bandwagon. After all, I couldn’t NOT give our Cloud Man something on his birthday. My muse, my motivation, my counsel (….)
—> こっちこっち！
…………..
Answer to possible questions that may follow: “I don’t give birthday people their self-portraits”
I even tagged it as “gift” OTL OTL. This boy has tricked me into believing he’s real and has needs. But I enjoyed reading the audience’s super amusing comments so it’s been worth the lost doujin hours, I guess XDDD.
Paul: Only herbivores fap.
Rune: Shut up. Even hamburgers have pickles.
Back to doujin from today on. Will not be distracted anymore. That’s a promise, self.
