I've never used an oekaki before, but I decided to install Facebook's Graffiti add-on. phutro has one of my favorite photos of his as his current user image, so I decided to be a Hamza Ahmed Fangirl and doodle something quick. I ended up really getting into it and spending around an hour on it; not bad for my first try, especially considering that I was working with slightly different dimensions from the original.

( behind a cut, because the second image is a 200k .png )

Hamza Fanart! Fitting, for one of my favorite photographers. ;o)

Working on a Japan journal redesign. Screenshot behind the cut.

( 800x500 screenshot )

Speaking of redesigns...I kind of wonder if I should migrate the blog over to WordPress while I'm at it. I think it's most important to get the design up first, though, before worrying about the back-end software.

And wow, half of what I wrote just sounds so weird--I don't think it's possible for me to write normal-sounding English right now, because of how much Japanified English has seeped in and influenced my diction. I even used "very" up there!

Wow, a rare public entry.

I just wanted to point out, for people who are relatively new to my journal and don't know what this Pirates of Dark Water thing is that I keep talking about, or who don't know who those characters in my mood theme are--the show's on YouTube. All of it.

(I'm enjoying going through and reading the comments from people who've been watching these episodes there for the first time in years. It always gives me a thrill to see that sort of thing. It's especially cool seeing comments posted when episode 4 was posted and people who hadn't seen the show in years (or ever) were waiting in suspense for the conclusion.)

All these links go to part 1 of each episode. There are 2 or 3 parts per episode, due to the max file length limit on YouTube.

1. The Quest
2. Dishonor
3. Break-Up
4. Betrayal
5. Victory
6. Andorus
7. A Drop of Darkness
8. The Beast And The Bell
9. Panacea
10. King Niddler
11. The Collection
12. The Little Leviathan
13. The Darkdweller
14. The Dark Disciples
15. The Ghost Pirates
16. The Dagron Master
17. The Game Players of Undaar
18. The Pandawa Plague
19. Sister of the Sword
20. The Soul Stealer
21. The Living Treasure

So, yeah! If you're new to the show, do consider checking it out, and I hope you like it--let me know what you think! It's a lot more accessible now than it was just as a torrent, though even that's a massive improvement over what was available just 5 years ago. But if you like what you see, I'd highly suggest trying to download any of the torrents, to really be able to appreciate the stunning visuals.

And I have another big project or three coming up fast as well. Whew.

Pinocchio poster - finished!
- there's some text on the right-hand side (an English/Japanese "free"/"easy English and some Japanese" announcement) that isn't shown here. We also may be switching a venue, so some of the bottom text will change.

And this is something I pretty much did today--Anya asked me last week if I'd put together a design idea she's had for the Tokushima AJET sweatshirts we're doing. We're actually having a design contest, but though a few people are apparently working on designs, nobody else has submitted anything, and she's been asking for submissions since December, so...yeah, hopefully everyone will like it. I did a low-res mockup at work today and spent about 4 hours recreating it at 300dpi for the printing company.

front (left breast) and back (center, big-ish)
(the green dude is Sudachi-kun, the mascot of Tokushima Prefecture. A sudachi is a very sour citrus fruit that resembles a lime. It's what our prefecture's known for.)

Believe it or not, the last major art project I did was the playbill for the 2006 Tokushima AJET musical, and now it's that time of year again. I'm really, really rusty, so please be kind, because it definitely is a bit sloppy. This has taken pretty much all my waking time outside of the conferences and other obligations I've had lately, not counting the school days when I was busy all day and didn't even bother bringing my laptop.

Crits and suggestions are totally welcome, but keep in mind that at this point I can't/won't change anything major. This poster needed to be in to TV Tokushima over a week ago so I'm really hurrying to get this done.

( low-res image, with a link to a hi-res one, and commentary )

Portfolio redesign is live.

I'm having this strangely surreal moment as "Making of Cyborg" from the Ghost in the Shell score by Kenji Kawai is playing, while I watch as the files in my beta/ folder, which has sort of "sustained" my portfolio redesign for all these months, seem to fly away and vanish.

Anyway, take a look, and please let me know if anything's broken or if you have any suggestions, presentation/content-wise. Thanks!

I got the idea to start a list of these--just songs that grab me out of the blue and don't let go. I don't want to forget what wonderful music I've rediscovered.

(April 11, 2007)
Jeff Buckley - "Hallelujah" (orig. Leonard Cohen)
I have no idea how I missed this song before. I'd heard this song at our annual Burns Supper, and then promptly forgot about it. My friend and I were talking about classic rock and older songs last night, and he sent me a link to a YouTube clip of this song, and I was transfixed. You just don't hear music quite like this anymore, and I can't believe I never heard this before this year.

The Imogen Heap version just made my breath catch in my throat and tears come to my eyes.

(May 15, 2007) Haven't updated this, but hands-down, k.d. lang's version is by far my favorite. Incredible.

( older )

These are the Lookbook pages for Tokyo Orientation, for the incoming Tokushima ALTs to look at. A Lookbook is a book of pages pitching the various AJET chapters in the prefectures/designated cities--each pre/DC is allotted 3 pages, and since I've sort of become the graphic designer of our AJET group by default, it fell on me to do this. The info on these is redundant because we already put this in the welcome flyer they received with their packets, but this is just eye candy--also, other prefectures actually require AJET member registration, which is why a pitch like this is required, while Tokushima JETs are all automatically in AJET to avoid excluding anyone.

とにかく。。。

one, two, and three

It's been a while since I've really gotten into a design project like this (well, "project"--started it yesterday and finished it today, minus text edits which'll probably come in Monday, which is the day I have to print and mail it). I've been doing design things--I designed our welcome flyer (front/back) that the new ALTs received with their initial info packets from the prefecture, redesigned my Japan journal, am currently working on a redesign of my Pirates of Dark Water site, and need to start ASAP on the tokersajet.com redesign...this just has me on a bit of a high. It's not often I do work in color that I'm really thrilled with, and it's also not often that my work's intended for a real audience. I hope that I've helped to give the incoming ALTs a good impression of Tokushima by presenting a professional but cool appearance in our documents to them.

http://andorus.ecomancer.net/new/

Thoughts? Just wanted to do something a little different (for me, anyway)...if it's plain or dumb-looking or the picture's dorky or it takes too long to load or anything, don't hold back. I threw this together in several hours, when I was avoiding wading through the nasty CSS for my Pirates of Dark Water site back-end revamp.

(15 extra icons! Ooh ooh ooh! What to make...?)

Cleaned out my friends-list a bit tonight and removed about 10 screen names of people who haven't posted in a long time and/or who I just don't talk to anymore, in person or via any other medium. It's really nothing personal at all--we just don't talk anymore (if we ever really did--I removed a couple of those "phantom" friends, who friended me and who I friended back but we never commented on each other's posts, etc.), and since this is a friends-only journal, I like to keep it down to people who I know are reading it and want to keep up with me. Also, in a couple of cases, you may have continually posted not-work-safe stuff and never put it behind a lj-cut, and since I do check LJ from work...yeah.

Oh, and for any of you reading this...seriously, if you don't read my journal but still have me friended for some reason, I won't be offended if you de-friend me. Just go for it. I know that not all 100(!) people who've friended me actually read my entries--I'll be lucky if 3/4 of that number do--so if I'm just occupying guilt-ridden space on your f-list and you've been looking for a way to take me off, just do it. Not a big deal.

There aren't a lot of Tech people on here, and those of you who are from Tech (and were either CS majors or Japanese students between 1999 and 2002-ish or involved with College Democrats) probably already know--but Adam Stevens (CS '04) was found dead in his apartment this morning. We don't know anything yet, though people suspect that it could be due to recent medical problems he's had, plus he just returned from a trip to India a couple of days ago.

This has me really, really shaken up--I hadn't kept in really good touch with him since graduation (he graduated 12 months before I did--I was at that ceremony and remember the huge, triumphant, relieved grin on his face when he walked), but in school he was one of my better friends, a friendly, funny, laid-back, charmingly nerdy, and compassionate guy I always had a lot of respect for and really enjoyed hanging out with. A complete sweetheart, a hard worker, a hard-core devotee to the things that were important to him...he also struggled with computer science, but he stuck it out and ended up graduating with his bachelors in CS. We also had many Japanese classes together, and he envied me for sticking with Japanese the way I envied him for sticking with CS. He worked so hard to make things work.

He was only 24 years old. He didn't deserve something as terrible and random as this to happen to someone as wonderful as he was--he'd worked so hard to get to where he was, and there was so much more in store for him. Work and school always kept him so busy...he deserved a wonderful and fulfilling life, a chance to take a deep breath, let it out, and really enjoy himself.

The last time I saw him was when we saw Episode 3 together over the summer, a few weeks before leaving for JET. It was the first time we'd seen each other in a really, really long time, and I wanted to see him one more time before going to Japan. We gave each other a really big hug as we parted ways outside the Regal Hollywood 24, and I invited him to come visit me in Japan any time he wanted. I regret not making more of an effort to see him--granted, he was always traveling and really busy with his job, and wasn't in Atlanta very often--but I am glad that I did get to see him that one time at least.

I found out when jleepig k-mailed me right after I came home during my lunch break. I signed onto AIM and talked to her for a bit, and then called home and talked to my mom for a while, and in the process missed my bus for my elementary school (the class is at 3, but the only way to get there via public transportation in time for the class is a 12:45 bus)...I'd called because I wasn't sure if I should still go, because I didn't want to go back to work and start crying. But at the same time, it doesn't do any good to stay here and hope that I can hear more information. I've already heard the most important piece: Adam Michael Stevens passed away. He died, and he isn't coming back.

Rest in peace, Adam. I love you and miss you.

It's finally done! I just e-mailed the large files off to the guy who'll be making copies...

- Outside (doesn't Peter look much better now? The back cover now has a ridiculous amount of text on it, but it couldn't be helped.)
- Inside
- Larger version of the cover

I also made an A4 poster version of the cover (at my JTE's request; I guess they wanted to make sure my art was properly displayed, and they wanted a version that emphasized the two closest shows to us, which the kids would be able to attend most easily), and will be posting it along with the actual musical poster all over my junior high school tomorrow. I hope that my kids (and some of my teachers) will come check the musical out! If you're in Tokushima Prefecture during any weekend in March, you should come check it out as well.

*collapses*

( new cover image )

The other 2 images are too big to post, so I'll link to them: outside and inside of the playbill. The lines on the inside are supposed to be guidelines for people to fold along; I hope that when we start making copies, they line up properly.

And the info's definitely not finished, because I'm having problems reaching people--it's hitting me that this won't be done by this weekend, mainly due to not having all the text taken care of. I don't have everyone's info for the crew, I'm finding out names of more people I should include (I really need to shrink ALL the text on the right-hand inside panel)...I will include everyone, but I hope it's still readable when all is said and done.

And the blurb in the middle of the outside...that's supposed to be a quick synopsis of each of the 7 scenes. In English and Japanese, ultimately. I'm worried about the readability of that, as well, and I also am hoping somebody can do the translations for me...and maybe people will figure out how to simplify AND shorten that text, because it's too long, but it has to be something that ESL viewers can use to understand what's happening onstage, since the majority of the show is in English.

I did print out what I had, though, on the community center's high-quality printer, and tried making copies (I'm glad I remember the kanji for "photo," 写真...without that option I'd have had to redo a huge chunk of the image due to ridiculous amounts of contrast), and it worked like a charm. Totally doable, with great results! I just have to lighten Peter and John's hair, and tone down some shadows. (I also want to darken Wendy's skin a bit more--Audrey, the girl playing Wendy, isn't Caucasian, and I want to reflect the multi-ethnicity of the cast in the image if possible. It's only faintly darker now.)

And...that's all for now.

I'll post my images as well, but I really could use some advice first. ;o)

[EDIT] Nevermind, courtarro and his nearly endless repository of computing knowledge kindly helped me out. If you're wondering how to save an image in Photoshop so that the file size will be preserved no matter what program you open it in, go to the image resize window and disable "resample," and set your image dimensions (and DPI) to whatever you want. It works like a dream; I printed off the images today, and besides needing to copy them at 98% (and then realizing that I have to lighten Peter and Michael's hair), it did exactly what I needed. Ethan rocks. And the copying went really well, now that I know what the kanji for "photograph" is (写真: しゃしん). I'm really thrilled! It's a HUGE load off my shoulders.

( onto the image! (54k) Comments/constructive criticism totally welcome, though I may not be able to change a ton at this point )

I have no idea exactly how many hours I've poured into this so far, but it's probably around 15 at least; I put quite a bit of time into my original (and fairly crappy) idea before seeing Jamie's poster and redoing my design. I hope the end product ends up reflecting the amount of time I put into it, and that I don't have to rush to get it done by this weekend.

Jumping on the Batgirl bandwagon...



(Pardon my stationery--don't have any plain paper within grabbing reach, so a pale blue sketchpad with manga-style bunnies on it will have to do!) I wanted to do this a couple of weeks ago, when I first noticed it, but I'm a slacker. I need to go take photos of the other sketches I've done...I really haven't drawn a lot over the past 6 months. I'd draw a lot more, but I get my inspiration while I'm at school, and I can't very well yank out my sketchpad in the teachers' room...grrr.

EDIT--wanted to mention this last night but forgot. I just wanted to link to what's by far my favorite Batgirl image, by Clio Chiang.

I can't remember who I've told and who I haven't--but I've been regularly uploading my photos of Japan (including a few photos of my small but increasingly cozy apartment) to my new Flickr account:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andorus

Take a look. :o) They're for the most part in order. I'll try to organize them into sets soon, but I only get online access in spurts, and this computer doesn't have Flash installed (or Adobe Acrobat or other fairly important programs either), so I'm a little limited right now. If you're on Flickr, feel free to add me.

There'll be a huge photo dump next week, since we have a major long weekend orientation/English camp/extremely famous prefectural dance festival (called Awa Odori--the capitol city's population goes from 200,000 to over 1,000,000) starting Friday and finishing up Monday.

Life is moving rapidly here. It's easy to forget that everything doesn't grind to a halt while I'm gone, and that life does indeed go on at home (or end, in some unfortunate cases)...one of my relatives in India (the father of the 2 brothers getting married in December and a really wonderful man) passed away just under a week ago. Peter Jennings passed away. Discovery landed yesterday. My friends are moving on to bigger and better things. But here, things are moving as well--I've been helping 2 junior high school girls with their English-language speech competition preparations, and I'm hoping to go today and meet the teachers at the 5 elementary schools I'll be working at. I feel so alive, and I'm learning and seeing so many wonderful things and meeting amazing people every day. I keep plugging my Japan journal/smithainjapan, but I haven't had a chance to transfer my Word-file journal entries over to Blogger yet. I swear I'll try to get them up soon! It's going to take hours to edit and post them, though, so I may just wait till I have internet access set up in my apartment...whenever that may be.

Moshe called me a couple of weeks ago to invite me to roadtrip with him and his friends to just inside the Alabama border (~1 hour west of metro Atlanta) the evening of the 4th to buy and set off fireworks and whatnot. After not feeling sure if I should go because I needed to save up for Japan, he convinced me that it was a stupid reason not to go, nobody would care, and I should come anyway. So I did.

( Photos (18) and commentary )

New weblog layout--I wanted to do something Indian-themed for a change.

swtrivia and starwarsmusic

The former was started by jedimara77, and co-moderated by her, christmasjedi, and myself. Woo! It's a place for you to post little-known facts and take part in regular trivia contests. The first contest is up--take a look!

In the works: a community devoted either to Star Wars music or to John Williams. jedimara77 and I are still need to figure it out, but I'm really looking forward to that.

The latter is now up! Started by me, but it's Nanci's idea, so she and I are co-moderating it. We're hoping to have regular discussion topics up there--it's for all fans of the Star Wars music, as well as John Williams in general.

Saw it again. Cried again from Order 66 (ywingempress, I now get where you got your SW journal name from! It took me a while--I didn't even pick up on it in my first viewing, haha) through to the end. I'm at 2 viewings now--jedimara77 and mrewagoo, I WILL catch up! ;o) I'm hoping to see it again tomorrow if I can do so without getting too much flak from my parents (who also really enjoyed it, but the boga drove my dad crazy). ;P Maybe I'll pretend to go play frisbee but will head to a local theater instead.

Anyway, on to my (incredibly, incredibly long) review...I think this'll be one of those things I have to edit as I think of new things.

( SPOILERS aplenty! )

Okay, I'm done. ;o) In short, besides a few issues I had, I give it a BIG FREAKING THUMBS UP. Here's hoping for viewing #3 tomorrow!