musica

So, Gorillaz has a new album coming out this year called "Plastic Beach". In the past two days, two different track lists have "leaked".

First:
1. Intro
2. Welcome to the World of the Plastic Beach
3. Whiteflag
4. Rhinestone Eyes
5. Stylo
6. Superfast Jellyfish
7. Empire Ants
8. Glitter Freeze
9. Some Kind of Nature
10. Mellon Collie Hill
11. Broken
12. Sweep Stakes
13. Plastic Beach
14. Binge
15. Cloud of Unknowning
16. Pirate Jet

Second:
1.Intro
2.Seagull Massacre
3.Broken (featuring Mos Def)
4.Stylo (featuring Bruce Willis)
5.Electric Shock (featuring De La Soul)
6.Satan’s Burlesque (featuring the Horrors)
7.Pirate Ship (featuring Mark E Smith and Einar Örn Benediktsson)
8.Sweep Stakes (featuring Mos Def)
9.Carousel (featuring De La Soul)
10.Sloped Tropics (featuring De La Soul)
11.Twilight (featuring Ozzy Osbourne)
12.Daydream Daemon (featuring Mos Def)
13.Plastic Beach (featuring Lou Reed)
14.Banana Bunch (featuring Snoop Dog)
15.Arming The Nation (featuring Barry Gibb and Bobby Womack)
16.Closing Time

UPDATE:
Another variation of the second track listing has emerged adding "Tokyo" and "Outro".

I've decided that I'll record any of these songs that don't end up being real. I'm hoping the first list is the fake one because I'd love to record a song called "Cloud of Unknowing".

Wednesday's Comic: Ice Ice Baby

Click on the preview to see the rest of the strip!

... and no, it has nothing to do with Vanilla Ice... (or at least THAT kind of Vanilla Ice.) XD

This was also the first strip inked in Painter. I'm going to have to write a whole blog post about this... I'm not really comfortable with the Painter layout and need to research where all the tools are... but at the least the results are MUCH better than anticipated.

I also tried downloading Manga Studio 4 demos and that app just makes my head spin. I wish there were comprehensive tutorials on it. The ones on the site are practically useless. X_X;;

Check out my band site! I just added my "TV's Kyle Sings the Cartoons" covers of the "Back to the Future: TAS" and "Darkwing Duck" theme songs! http://www.TVsKyleband.com

As I was getting ready for work this morning, I had the bright idea to find an old photo album that I didn't care about anymore, take out the pictures, and use the album book for my 2010 Post-It project (wherein I illustrate 1 post-it per day for all 365 days of 2010. It's a new years resolution! Website forthcoming.) I came across a photo album of my shenanigans almost 10 years ago. As the bf rifled through it (and got to see pictures of ALL the men before him! Hahahaha..um. Ugh.) I kept saying "oh geez, I don't wanna see that, oh man those were my embarrassing years!"

After he finished and left though, I picked it up and went through it myself. True, some pictures make me cringe from the sheer stupidity, and some people in the pictures have since fallen off the map one way or another. But unexpectedly, the pictures brought me happiness. Happy that I had such fun in those days. Happy that I LOOKED so happy. And a tiny bit of pride to see where I've come since then.

I've spent a lot of time running away from past things, and trying to forget about past mistakes (and dear god, there are a lot of them). But I think they're something to embrace, stupidity and all. I can't disown things that define me and are going to always be a part of my life, so instead I will cherish and appreciate them for what they are.

As my Livejournal is roughly as old as the pictures I looked thorugh were, I thought it appropriate to post here. :) Happy New Year, I hope it's a great 2010 for all of you...

Those who I have had the pleasure of knowing in the past, thank you for helping define who I am. I will cherish the memories.
All of you whom I have the honor of being with presently, thank you for being there. I love you guys.
And to all of you whose paths have not yet crossed with mine, I am looking forward to it. :)

In another 10 years I'll look here and think I was such a sappy fool, I know it. XD

~Wei-Ling

These are all events I personally witnessed this past few days. Well, maybe not the very last panel. ^^;

Monday's Comic: Christmas Everyday

Click on the preview to see the rest of the comic~!

I also have a new wallpaper up for grabs~

A variety of sizes for desktops and iphones/ipod touch~

I have my hopes on this year being the most productive yet~ Once I can get over this FRUSTRATING FEELING of Photoshop being a PAIN.

Application works fine. It's just that my linework has steadily gotten worse and worse and for some reason it takes me LONGER to do my strips than previous. How this works out, I have no idea. Switching to brush/ink/nibs is not so much of an option -- they aren't available locally and most art shops only ship UPS. (Which is my I primarily work digitally.)

Painter folks -- do you work with a Mac? What version do you have and what size dpi/resolution do you regularly work in? I am looking for options here~ T_T;;;

I fought a tiger earlier today and won because I am so manly my bread has a beard.

This morning, Josh told me to check the last few shots taken on our camera and this is what I saw:





He went into the study early in the morning and found her like that in her bed. All curled up zzz-ing! Like a perfect ellipse! I had to draw a line around her:



How did you do that, Nyonyo? By the way, today's date is a palindrome!
01022010

Hello 2010. So far, so good, except for the diarrhea I've had the past few days. I'm getting older, which means I'm running out of time.

2010 Resolutions (in no particular order)

1. Achieve 4-pack (I can see like 2 of them if I move around and flex right)
2. Obtain personal trainer certification
3. Dye all of my hair bright red (at some point, just to say that I've done it)
4. Curb my road rage
5. Correct horrible sleeping habits (... as I write this post at 5:00am)

I am also considering on swearing off drawing anime/manga style for the year (with the exception of MangaStart and freelance), but I haven't made a solid decision about this yet. I'm considering this because I've looked back at my progress as an artist over the past year and found that, while I did expand my skill sets, that overall I haven't really challenged myself or practiced the many fundamentals that have been drilled into me when I was younger.

It's not that I am blaming anime/manga or anything like that - I will forever love the stuff, probably read manga until I go to my grave. But, as an artist who is experienced in both anime/manga and traditional art fundamentals, I am aware of how engrossing it can be... to the point in which an artist may forget to look at other ways of expanding that may not be as interesting (at first.) As I get older, I feel that my skills should get sharper - and this is only achieved through proactive studying and practice. I feel that I may have to leave my comfort zone, revisit old skills and experiences past, and learn new skills to keep growing as an artist and creative soul.

And with that, I end this post with Mr. Snow Bear, whom I built with love and care up in the frosty mountains of Lake Tahoe on the morning of New Year's Eve. Thanks to my man Dan for the awesome 360-degree photo action.




Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all have wonderful aspirations to strive for and challenge yourself with for 2010.

Really, if you're interested in seeing what I did this past year, look no further than the nemu*blog archives or my personal nemu*blog. All the important stuff is posted there first. ^^

Thoughts? It was a rough year. Health-wise, better than past years. Physically, fatter than last years. It was really a roller-coaster ride of a year. Busy, but not as productive as I'd like for various reasons. Lots of highs, lots of lows... but things seem to be ending on a pretty nice note~

As for 2010?



That image pretty much sums it up for me. :D

Happy New Year from one of the last places on Earth that celebrates it!

Now to just kick this horrible kona weather and get over this stupid cold! UGH!

I finally got a much-needed laptop upgrade about a week ago. On a lark I named it Chromie. Of course, I should have known that would be a recipe for strange things happening.

Sure enough. The HD crashed rather abruptly a few nights ago. Since I'd just transferred over from my old laptop, I lost little more than some downloaded music and a few WoW addons, and a few days without Chromie while Apple got a replacement drive.

So Chromie had to have her disk operated on, but she's much happier now. ^_^

Last comic of the year~ :D

Wednesday's Comic: Busy Doing Nothing

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Head-cold go away~ TT;

And just when you think you've gotten your life sorted out, someone swings by the corner to remind you that you haven't.



This brings to mind excerpts of a very lovely poem by Robert Fulghum that I chanced upon at my workplace last week:

Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do, and how to be, I learned in Kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sandbox at nursery school.

These are the things I learned:

Share everything. Play fair. Don't hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don't take things that aren't yours. Say sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup? The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup - they all die. So do we.

Think of what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned up our own messes. And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

Man, what a weekend. Got sick on X-mas day (post-nasal drip ---> super sore/swollen throat) and slept for most of the weekend. Drank tons of water, Advil, and Allegra. Feel much more human today, although throat is still kinda sore and PND is still on-going. Thankfully, powers that be -- I have an appointment with a specialist ENT doctor tomorrow morning. I'm going in for something completely different, but if he can tell me what's going on with my constant allergy attacks/PND, I'll be all ears~

So, I'll be playing around with the comic layout this week, in the spirit of the holiday season. I told Scott to come up with the layout for Wednesday's strip, while I work on the New Year's strip. We'll see how this turns out.

Monday's Comic: Let It Snow!

Click on the preview to see the rest of the comic~