Personal Entry No. 23

[outou]

『the STRONG and weak point icon-meme』

All told, I managed to walk away with 45 initial comments and 58 watchers with this first icon post--that's good enough, considering that I'm probably the least-known iconmaker in the fandom! I'd appreciate it if you could give me some criticism with suggestions on the above thread.

There's an original sketch I'm working on, as well as three music recommendations, behind the cut.



Since I'm getting better at reading 100-plus pages of academic texts a day, and since I like to put off writing my papers until at least five days before their due dates, I've been working on an illustration of my own. This poor girl seems as though she's about to fall off the pier into the uncanny sea.


As you can see, I need to refine the sky, finish working on the sea, and paint the whole of her tsubo-shozoku, the rest of her veiled hat (mushi no tareginu, literally "bug veil"), her hands, and the pier. She's wearing a Kamakura-period traveling outfit, and the landscape is referenced from Salomon van Ruysdael's View of Deventer Seen from the North-West. (No, I had no idea who Salomon van Ruysdael was before I looked up "Dutch Masters" for references.)

Setting that aside, have some more purple!

Unfortunately, Suga Shikao is releasing the full version of Hajimari no Hi in November.

Meanwhile, I've been listening to more of Joe Hisaishi's works while working on the above illustration, including this one:

I apologize for the lack of real content in this post, but my reading really has been getting the better of me--we've moved on at last to the articles and essays concerning the atomic bombings in my "War and Memory: Japan in World War II" course, and it's painful to read. It's my chosen subject for my main research project this semester, though, so I need to dedicate myself to it more than ever. (I've been feeling generally tired and hungry these past few days, as well, but that's my fault. The cold showers, though--I have nothing to do with those! Th-they finally got the hot water back on last night, and I'm hoping it's here to stay. If not, then I'm just going to have to build my character and pretend that I'm in the armed forces, or undergoing purification, or something like that.)

Comments

AGH AGH THIS LAYOUT IS TOO BRIGHT

[outou.livejournal.com]

Pffft! You have almost 1,000 watchers--I think we know who the most preeminent icon-maker in the fandom is! :D

The song's lyrics are definitely more moving after the last television broadcast. By the way, are you going to be using the cover art for Supercell's album as part of your layout? I'm not sure if you're familiar with his work, but Shirow Mira did an amazing job on it.

The reading isn't that bad--I was exaggerating with the "100-pages-a-day" part. XD I had to read about 160 pages yesterday, will be reading about 50 or so pages a day during the weekdays for the rest of this semester, and about 200 pages during the weekends. The writing is much more of a problem for me, and is one of the reasons why I wish I went into the fine arts or astronomy (the only science I have any gift for).

Thank you! It's going to be a while until it's finished, but I hope it turns out well.

Just change the font color \o/

[herinia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but you forgot one important fact: Crysella is almost two years old (not to mention I used to x-cross to everywhere) and your icon journal is only two weeks old. xD; If you keep making icons, more people would soon recognize your talent. It's strange, when no matter how shiny a batch is not everybody will watch you immediately |D; By the way, you should post to manga_colors or participate in m_c_contest sometime! Let more people see and scream at your colouring skills, not just the CLAMP fandom. xD;

Nope - here's a preview of my new layout, but I still need to customize many things (I have been using Flexible squares for too long and Smooth Sailing is coded with complete Martian lanuage to me - plus I lack time right now as I got assigned another two sudden group projects this weekend D':). I really wish I can use a picture from the last episode, but none of the screencaps I've found fit nicely with it.

That's still a lot of reading to do, I guess college really kills your free time (Although I'm no one to say this. I probably should be reading at least 50 pages a day too but I'm skipping anything this is not mandatory...such as review material that I already have a background knowledge of lol). If I can read textbooks like how I can read fanfics then I might have become the next Einstein in the world! *laughs*
I'm surprised to hear that you have problems with writing though. All your sentences are constructed in such a well-thought and educated manner that I've always thought it's something you are proud of or at least enjoy. (I envy people who can write well, as I have no talent in that area at all =w=;;)

Re: Just change the font color \o/

[outou.livejournal.com]

You're forgetting that you're awesome. OДO I-I just put a post up at manga_colors, so let's see how it works out.

The layout looks amazing thus far. I'm terrible at coding, myself--I spent over an hour trying to fix this one.

Well, it's more the subjects I have to write about rather than the actual writing process (which is still a pain for me). As an example: I have to write a 5 - 10 page historiographical essay by November 5th, which will basically be an overview of how the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been studied. It's definitely an interesting subject, but for the love of Montresor I don't want to write about it! (On another note, I think you write very well. I worry about sounding artificial, myself. -_-)