Kitty Cat Charms

*Credit of the photo book photos to their rightful owners. Found most of them through Image Google since my camera and phone camera are giving me probs lawl. ( -- ε -- ;)

Cover of the book that has brought me joy just by flipping through the pages.

Books have always been a huge part of my life and continue to play such a role even today. I used to occupy my childhood days with reading encyclopedias as long as I'm not out causing mischief. My first passion were animals and in the 3rd grade I aspired to be a veterinarian and I often read books and drew animals as a way to express it. And my supporting parents made sure I was often surrounded by pets to practice and expose myself to them at a young age.

Though as soon as I hit 12 years old, my passion and aspirations changed altogether with the appearance of Manga in my life and soon abandoned my veterinarian ambition for ink, paper and adventure stories. My aspirations have took a different turn but my love for animals remains, especially for cats.

Ever since my passion for Manga kicked off, I cease to buy books that are not drawing or Manga related (with the exception of Self Motivation books since I can't function without them), and yesterday I broke my 7 year record by purchasing a Rachael Hale Photobook titled "101 Cataclysms: For the Love of Cats" for a whopping RM16.90 bargain only. I fell in love with the first turn of the page and immediately proceeded to the counter for payment.

Rachael Hale is best known as an animal potrait photographer and looking through the pages, I can see why. 101 Cataclysms is not simply a cat photo book filled with cute cat pictures, but rather their artistic beauty and character as well. Her ability to make the cat look Angelic or Cheeky or even Sensuous astounded me. It has even inspired my parents and me to go out looking for a kitten of our own today!

Anyways enough with me rambling, here are some previews of the book. I fully recommend this book if you see it anywhere in bookstores. (I bought mine in Borders MidValley Gardens). Especially to all cat lovers and enthusiasts out there! Enjoy!

The cheeky Scottish Earfold Kitten, Merlin dozing off after a play day with his wizard's hat.

The feisty 11 year old Birman Cross, Saasha. This is one of my favourite in the entire collection.

2 year old Ragdoll Cross, Honey portrayed her namesake with this shot with bees. Ms. Hale picked out bees that died naturally in the hive and use adhesive to attach it to Honey's fur. I love reading the notes about each photograph.

A cute shot of 2 year old Domestic Shorthair, Guiness, who according to Ms. Hale was incredibly tolerant of having his vision temporarily obscured with his beanie.

A characteristic potrait of Charlotte, 8 year old Red Self Persian. Despite her snotty image portrayed above, Ms Hale describe her as "A fluffy bundle of cuddles and cat kisses." and "The most affectionate feline with the cutest squeak of a meow that melts your heart"

Fearless and in fact keenly, 2 year old Domestic Tabby, Cougar enjoyed his shoot with him in a tub of warm suds.

Two steps back for a leap forward

Well, Raya has calmed down now and a lot of people are moving back to their respective states to resume working life and the roads are starting to clear up.

Over the month of Raya alot has happened but not so much recently especially regarding some significant matters with my family. As a result of the recent series of events, I've decided to move back to my humble hometown of Ipoh as soon as I can. I don't mind, in fact I'm looking forward to being in the same roof with my sisters again until I go study abroad next year or so. :D

Though my only worry is that I can't get enough money for my yearly trip to Anime Festival Asia in Singapore. I planned to work extra hours when I get back but as the situation demands I can't do that at the moment. I've already forked up 80% of the needed so it's just a few hundreds more. Well I guess I'll just scrape my way through. >:3 Though that's a definite "no" to the concert though. .___. I really wanted to go since I've never been to a concert before and this time they managed to bring in SCANDAL, one of my all-time favourite bands. At first I thought it was possible to go for one day (since it's a 2 day concert) but I guess next time..huh. X"D

Ah, and my efforts to submit an entry to the OTACOOL 4 contest is apparently extinguished since I'm only returning to KL by Monday so only then can I scan my illustration which would leave me less than a day (since I'll be working for the last time at my part time), to CG it and for a completed piece according to my track record that's not going to happen haha. I've tried to locate a scanner to use here (since I use B4 paper) but the cheapest costs up to RM5000+ alone so I guess not now. So for now I'll be relying on the printing shop I've always frequent for scanning TwT

BUT NONETHELESS! none of this dampens my spirits in doing my best! >8D FIGHTO FIGHTO OOOOOOOUUU!!!!!! *slaps tummy*

Daruma Doll Effect

Do I have the best group of friends in the world or what?

Just when I'm down face flat on the ground, I'm picked back up and kicked in the butt to run again. This is why I feel I have the best people around me physically and spiritually TwT They make me into an invincible Daruma Doll; just roll myself back up when I'm turned upside down~

I LOVE YOU GUYS. LIKE. ALOT RIGHT NOW. TwT

Mmhehs and urghs.

My current desktop. Wallpaper courtesy of Danny Choo from his Wallpaper Pool.

Don't ask. Just feeling below the weather by alot of things (mainly just a few). I'm not the sort of person who likes being shoved and pushed around by people who don't care the effect it has on me. -___-;;;

Anyways, my desktop wallpaper right now describes my current fandom: Rillakuma. No, I'm not kya-kya-ing over it like some twitchy 6 year old but I find myself drawn to them everytime I see one. I think it's my female instinct taking over. My phone wallpaper is the face of Rillakuma as well. What is happening to me /orz. Though it does have a calming effect on me.... (I need it so bad right now).

Well with AFA X coming around the corner and their official announcements of what and who will be available, everyone's bustling around for money and whatnot. Not to mention the concert this year provided all 5 sensational favourites JAM Project, Aniki, SCANDAL, Angela and MAY'N. Don't even say about the concert, I'm still struggling to come up with accommodation and traveling fees. And I'm already skimping out on the food by smuggling in instant noodles. Not to mention the TTGL Fanbook printing.

Nonetheless, I proceeded to ask my manager at my part time place for more hours when I get back in order to make some extra bucks. And I'm prepared to sell off alot of items in my closet in order to scrape whatever little I can. >___<;;; I don't mind working hard. I have no frets about that, I'm not under the weather about the money (well kinda, but that's not the main reason). I'm just a little down with the people I thought would support me in working hard when their half heartiness in supporting me. Oh well, I guess they're all just pieces of the puzzle for me to solve, as Danny Choo would say. Things could be worse.

>_______< *slapself* RIGHT! No more sulking around~! Shall do my best to make money and at least have some extra cash to spend if I can't make enough for the 2nd day concert. いつもどおり、がんばります！SCANDALまっててね！

Practice makes perfect

CG practice. Lineart NOT mine. MACCO (c) respectively.

after my long abandoned hope for CG style of coloring determination these past years, I decided to give it another shot. Partly inspired by my fellow peers after signing up at Pixiv, I downloaded the program SAI and decided to dig up for some linearts in my reference folders (since I do everything traditionally and I don't photostat them anymore, I don't have linearts of my own to kill) and stumbled upon the awesome MACCO's lineart of Hatsune Miku and Rin. Check out MACCO's awesome gallery at Pixiv here.

So far it's hardly progress and was experimenting with more of a cellshading thing but...... I dunno :"/ I find my color selection to be too dull for the skin.... it's not "popping" enough for me. And I'm kinda having trouble with maintaining a paint style for the eyes. But I guess nothing is achieved overnight or with just one try so I'll do my best to increase practice time. (￣ε￣ ;)

Anyways hope you guys are spending your Eid celebration happily and safetly!! :D Can't wait to see my girls when I get back to KL. <3

Collecting Life's pieces of puzzles

"Life is a jigsaw puzzle. You don't know whats going to go where, you don't know where the pieces are but you do know that you need to keep looking for the pieces and figure out where they go. All events that happen to you is a piece of your puzzle. if you are stuck in a rut at school or work and keep asking yourself the "what if" question then its a sign telling you that there are no more pieces of the puzzle to be found where you are."

-Danny Choo

Those were the words that I read on one of Danny Choo's post regarding Living Life to pursue a Passion on his utter famous blog. I now have new found respect for Danny Choo (not that I didn't before) but more so as he's proven to be more than a pop icon in the Otaku Community.

In his post "Pursue Your Passion", Danny talks about living more than today fulfilling the puzzle that Life has given each of us, some sort of what we were born to do; our destiny, so per say. How when you hit a brick wall of repetition and void-ness in our lives that we must reach beyond what we feel is comfortable for us so we can reach out and be more than we are today.

It's funny... the things that I read in that post were things that I know consciously and subconsciously. But it suddenly I see them in a whole new light.

うん！なんか今・・・ドンドンがんばれなくちゃ！

Piling Up

It seems that hampers are all that are occupying my days that it's sending my drawing works to take a back seat (￣ε￣ ;)

Well, usually every year when hamper season comes along, I and my sister would gain at least RM500+ per person. We get paid RM5 for each hamper we do. We were overjoyed this year when our father agreed to raise our pay to RM8 each but it seems that this year we're getting less orders of the hampers than we usually do (￣Д￣ ;)

But I guess I can't really complain. As of now I'm a few dollars richer than I was before I came back to Ipoh. I just hope I can get enough for the printing of the Fanbook by October is all. (.___.;;) I guess I'd have to count on my part time job... which will pay less than 50% .. darn lawl.

But on the bright side, I'm getting great ideas for the Fanbook illustration and also for my submission for Otacool 4. ヾ(●⌒∇⌒●)ﾉ So I just have to work it out so I have enough time to put it all down on paper~! よおおおおおし！がんばります！

Hopefully I get to do an entry for Raya, but until then, Selamat Berpuasa to all my Muslim friends and Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri to all~! (*≧▽≦)~♪