Year in Review

"Oliver, this is your life.  It doesn't wait for you to get back on your feet."
--A Lot Like Love

This year goes along with my pursuit of happiness from 2011, but in a very different chapter, where I've been consistent with jobs, set a level of goals and attempted to keep my finances strong.  I'm living in a different apartment with my other sister now, and I thought I would've hated being broke in the city... but in the end it's made me stronger and wiser and more appreciative of the things I've had.

2012 would've been a terrible year in the eyes of someone else, because frankly... my art hasn't left my bedroom, I've failed to find a full-time job with benefits, and my love life has been close to non existent.

On the other hand:

-JAPAN.  After three years of studying Japanese and telling myself that it was too expensive to go, I traveled with a guy I'd coincidentally met on a first date.  We were just friends, and I remember him telling me that he was so glad I ended up going to Japan as a travelling buddy.  It was like living someone else's dream, and even though I couldn't see myself living in Japan, I'll take this memory of the trip as something I pushed myself to do in spite of my financial situation.  =)

-SECOND CITY.  I'm still working there, still part time, but the opportunities I've had while being there have really been worth the mean customers and heavy-lifting.  I now do sales and merchandise, I have eligible benefits and vacation days, and I've made a fan-comic of the show that has taken my artistic abilities to another level.  =)  It's made me feel really good about being an artist.

-CHICAGO MARATHON.  I ran it.  After a full summer of training in the heat and asking for donations for my Girls on the Run charity, I'm proud to say that I completed something only 1% of the entire world has done.  It's made me into a Zen runner, where when I run I feel at peace and can only think of the goodness in my life.  I hope to run another marathon at some point, because running has now become a part of me.  =)

I'm still blessed to have a great family, good health, and my constant desire for creativity that will keep me going next year.  For 2013, I will continue to do art and writing, I plan to cook more, and I hope to be true to myself and continue with this desire for knowledge and travel.  =P

Indie Comics

Abraham & Mary Todd

I have so many movies to see this holiday season.

Morning Bakery-Opening Marathon

Julia & Paul Child

Chicago Marathon tomorrow!

Lots to be excited about lately!

- Officially got my Japan Rail Pass for November.  Japan is getting closer!

- About to celebrate my 1 Year Anniversary with the Second City, which means I'll get health benefits!

- RUNNING THE CHICAGO MARATHON TOMORROW!

It's so funny how I just one night at a Starbucks decided to go for this big Marathon challenge after just a few weeks recuperating from the Champaign Half this past April.  I joined a great charity with Girls on the Run Chicago and sent a bunch of emails out to friends/family to help me raise $750 - so I could run the Marathon for free!  I spent the majority of my summer in Chicago working long hours at Second City, and using the rest of the time running along the lake front.  I've had those moments where I've wanted to give up at the smallest sign of pain in my joints, or even at the rising summer heat.  I've taught myself how to stay hydrated, how to eat properly for long runs, and especially how to stay positive and just keep running.  It's been a crazy ride, and now I can't NOT see myself just go for it tomorrow! 

I'm probably gonna watch the great Chicago Marathon documentary film, "Spirit of the Marathon" tonight (for the third time) to keep myself motivated.  I got to meet Jerry Meyers from the film at the expo a few days ago!

He started running at 65 and hasn't stopped.  What an inspiration!

It only took a Sonnet

Boat

Koi Fish and Party

I really really really need to invest in a scanner!

... like really.

Sea Life

Drawing a Foot

I've been on a huge role with figure drawing lately, and it feels so good working with India Ink again.

Reviews

 This past week I got to see some things I'd been anticipating for the longest time, and so I've decided to give my 2 cents about them... WATCH OUT FOR SPOILERS!!

Sepia makes everything classically EPIC

 

 

 

 1)  Okay, mind you, I had started watching this show with a pre-conceived notion that it wouldn't live up to the same sense of Epic that the original show had brought to the table.  And in the end... it did, and it didn't.  Call me a hard-core Avatar Universe Dramaturg, but by the end of the Finale, I noticed loopholes that the creators had placed about their own universe and the Avatar. 

For example, is Bending genetic or a spiritual influence?  In the first series, it seemed that it was the latter, and Mike & Bryan even explained through an interview that the essence of Bending goes beyond genetics and more as a connection to the elements and spirit world itself.   Now, in Legend of Korra, it's Aang's son who has the airbending ability, and this son has passed it down to his own children... making them the only airbenders in the entire world still.  I was disappointed in learning this, because I was hoping that at some point after the Avatar Finale, Aang would've passed his philosophy of Airbending to outside minds and create new airbenders, instead of just counting on genetics.

As the main character, I really liked Korra, but I didn't see her being as flawed as Aang was, given her prodigious ability to bending and her ecstatic feelings towards being the Avatar in general.  She's proactive and tomboy-ish, passionate and compassionate, and doesn't like to be seen as a weakling.  The fact that she could successfully bend 3 elements by the age of 16 was... unrealistic to me... since Mike & Bryan implied that it took years of training to master even one's own element.  Perhaps they overlooked this to keep the main character an adolescent, but still... I just wish it had been more credible.  I also felt that her pet polar bear dog, Naga, was less of a character and more of a commodity in this series, compared to Aang's pet bison Appa.


New characters.  Mako started out as a serious, assertive guy looking out for his younger brother... but then he became a jerk who couldn't choose between one girl or the other (for no damn reason!)... and let that question drag until the very end of the season.  Bolin is the fun boy who can throw a mean punch when he or a friend is being bullied, but also can cry his eyes out over heartache.  I think he's great, but I just don't want him to fall into these comic-relief one-liners permanently just because Korra doesn't like him in that way.  Asami came as a big surprise for me, when initially I thought she was just there to provide some competition for Korra to win Mako's feelings.  Wow, was I off.  Asami has become a strong girl on her own, dealing with the betrayal of her father, confronting Mako about his possible feelings for Korra, and demonstrating that she is loyal to her friends and to the Avatar regardless of the personal crap she's dealing with.  I have a feeling she's a natural in maneuvering anything... and I can totally see her with a badass leather eye-patch.  Weird.
Also the adults, Tenzin and Lin Bei Fong... LOVE.  THEM.  Relationship baggage or not, they make a great team, and I love their bickering whenever they try and get shit done.  I wanna know who broke it off all those years ago, and why... and how...!! (fanfic spasms) 


The main villain in Korra was more emotionally involved, I feel, as the theme of the show carried darker intonations about Bending prejudices, Modernism, and Revolutionary warfare.  We first meet Amon as a guy with a grudge against Benders because his family had been killed by one, but then his story becomes a hoax when we realize that he is a Bender himself and that he'd made up his story.  That twist in the Finale wasn't great for me, because it made Amon look like a less-threatening villain, however powerful he was as a BloodBender.

That's another thing:  Blood-Bending.  You know a show turns dark when the dark side of Bending becomes the crux of a few episodes.  Those scenes were difficult to stomach for me... all the crunching and twisting sound effects that came from manipulating another human being's body.  Oy.  And I thought the book was closed for Blood-Bending when Katara decided not to use it in Avatar, but I guess it made sense that other Benders would eventually learn it.  =S  This turns up a new issue in the modernized Avatar world... does the ideal goodness of Bending justify the dangers and harm it will cause to those who can't defend (or Bend) themselves?  Hmm...

As for the overall plot, I give Mike & Bryan credit for making a bull-headed tough girl learn to be patient and spiritually calm when dealing with not only the hustling/bustling of a New Age city... but with the bonus that half the city secretly wants her dead.  Her airbending training gets... pushed aside?... along the way when Korra discovers Pro-Bending and forms this huge crush on Mako, and then gets even more side-tracked when Amon gets more in her face about eliminating benders altogether.  Airbending becomes less the central goal for Korra, and it ultimately becomes her just wanting to save herself and her Bending ability from the man who can take it away.  Lo and behold, the story comes full circle when Korra learns to Airbend to defend Mako in the Finale and becomes a fully realized Avatar who can return people's Bending.  A bit too rushed for my taste, and... how is returning people's Bending going to stop the Non-Bending oppressors to keep... oh I dunno... oppressing?  Maybe that's what Season 2 will be about.

The technology is quite intriguing in the Korra universe, and it's great how Mike & Bryan incorporated a industrialist/steam-punk setting to show human progress and modernism.  It echoed a lot about what the Mechanist character had started back in the first series, but taking it a step further and realizing that too much technology could also harm a society.  This encourages the central plot revolving Korra: how the non-Benders don't actually need Benders anymore in a progressive world, how Bending has become both a sport and weapon, and no longer seen as a symbol for peace.  Needless to say, the spiritual side of Bending has been lost... and I suppose that's what Korra has had to figure out in herself as well.

Anyway, that's all I can come up with for now.  The animation in Korra needs a standing ovation, too, because the animators have upped the quality of the action sequences and the overall feeling for this world that's gritty and full of dark corners.

7/10 stars. 

2)  I'm as much for girl-power and archery as the next guy, and BRAVE was something I'd anticipated for a long time ever since I knew both elements were going to be in it.  I wasn't disappointed in that sense, but I was a little disappointed about how the story was executed.  I've seen that a lot in animated film these days: writers think they just need to come up with a handful of interesting characters, and the story writes itself.  What you need instead, is a well thought out conflict that has all the characters involved to resolve it - not just one or two of them while the others stand, waiting on the sidelines.  That's how I felt BRAVE turned out in the end.  Merida and her Mother become the central theme of the movie, while the other characters with so much development potential just fade away in the beautiful Scottish highlands. 

Don't get me wrong... the story was wonderful, but I really wish that they could've added a stronger villain to have the story behind this girl's FATE be more intriguing.  It made the movie's conflict seem - rather than a matter of life & death - like a due date for a really crappy homework assignment.  I love Merida as a character (her qualities are very similar to Korra, haha) and I love that she was full of spunk and determination to get things her way, and all of a sudden feeling vulnerable when she actually does change her fate. 

6/10 stars

Officially Summer

(My days are better said in Doodles now.)

 

This summer has been pretty uneventful, thus far, except for the blistering HEAT WAVE that's been hitting Chicago all week, but I feel lucky that my two jobs involve working indoors.

 

I must say that working over the summer has its good moments, but then you have to sell sugar.  The bakery speaks for itself, but now Second City has its summer during the day, and part of my job involves selling concessions to them.  I didn't realize how much sugar kids intake on a daily basis.  Was I really that bad at that age?  No joke, one kid bought a 16oz Mug Root Beer, a 16 oz Mountain Dew, a Three Musketeers and a bag of Chips for his lunch.  His lunch.  I was appalled, and almost wanted to refuse his crumpled up dollar bills unless he got himself a water or an apple instead of ANY of the above.  I feel like a criminal letting kids consume all this junk.  Of course, we also have granola bars at the store... but we can't sell them due to the risk of fricken'  peanut allergies.  Really. 

My writing has gotten back on track... after 6 months of telling myself to do something about it.  =)  I got to meet comic artist Lucy Knisley at Columbia College this past weekend!

(Her work is an inspiration to my comic-making!)

I'm doing a bunch more drawing when I can, and pushing myself to get this book idea rolling.  The tough part is the re-writing:  going back to your initial chapters and changing some of the details to go with a major change to the setting in the story.  One of my coworkers mentioned how one of my ideas are way too similar to something that already exists... and that really stinks, because I believe it has great potential.  

I need to get my butt into a library and research the crap out of Chicago in the 1930s, because that's where this story is taking place.  I want it to be vivid, magical and filthy at the same time, where you can see these characters and have conversations with them.  I want to write a story that wins awards and sells for its quality, not for its dirt-cheap appeal. 

 

It's amazing how many awesome writers I've been able to meet thus far:  Neil Gaiman, Brian Selznick, Audrey Niffenegger, Linda Sue Park, Lucy Knisley... haha.  I think there's room for another great story. 

Plans for the summer:

-WRITE and RE-WRITE my Hatchlings book.  Write 1 page a day.

-Start cooking in this lovely new kitchen I have in this lovely new apartment!  ^^

-Keep at it with the Japanese (you never know!)

-Draw for myself and for others.

-Quit worrying about these metaphysical 'deadlines' I have about life.  Things will happen when they happen.

-Run and train for the Chicago Marathon!!!

Ink practice

Figure Drawing class!

The Dairy Gang

Second City folk inspire me so much.

Neil and Korra

So... I've been in a huge literary kick this year.  

I've not only run into Brian Selznik at my bakery job, or got to see Audrey Niffenegger at a reading at the Museum of Contemporary Art, but yesterday... I got to meet NEIL GAIMAN!

The man who wrote Coraline, Neverwhere, and the award-winning The Graveyard Book.  He's also written for television (Doctor Who) and for films (Hayao Miyazaki's English adaptation of Princess Mononoke!) and I just can't believe how humble of a guy he is in real life.

He talked about how his ideas for children's books aren't systematic, how they're basically taken from his own childhood experiences and "what if" situations.  Coraline, for example, came from a question he asked himself when he was 12: "what if I came home one day and realized my parents had moved away without telling me?  And what if they replaced themselves with two people who looked exactly like them?"  He talked about the goal of wanting to frighten children with story ideas, but not overwhelm them in the scary plots that they wouldn't want to read more.  He wrote Coraline while using his literary agent's daughter as a guinea pig to see if it was too scary for children, and it was because of her intrigue that the book got published... except that the girl admitted years later that she was terrified the whole time she'd read the book, but still wanted to know how it ended!

Neil also mentioned how it took him 10 years from conception to publishing Coraline!

It's one of the things I admire about writing: you never know how long it'll take for an idea to be fulfilled on paper... or how long it will take others to realize its potential... and yet you strive to get your voice heard.

I've been in a creative-limbo lately, in terms of writing my childrens' novel and getting my stuff out there, but I'm really glad that these ongoing moments of inspiration keep coming my way.  I'm off to a great start, though, with my main characters all fleshed out (except the ages) and putting them in a Chicago 1930s setting.  Yay!

In other news... THIS PREMIERED!

It's been a surprising good few episodes thus far, and it's killing me how Mike & Bryan make all these references to the old Gaang.  Katara's the elderly and wise figure now!  This new series has taken a much more mature and darker direction than the original, with the characters being teenagers and having a little romantic tension behind all the political oppression that's going on in Republic City.  The style of the setting is very much the 1920s with steampunk, and I love the art backgrounds and the outfits and awww, everything.

Korra is the polar opposite of what Aang used to be.  To me, she's a combination of what Katara and Toph would've been as a 16 year old, not to mention a bigger prodigy than Aang since she can bend three elements naturally at the age of 4!  She acts violently and passionately through her emotions, and she needs to learn to be calm and reflective (which is why she needs Airbending so badly!)  It's... different.... overall.

Romance-wise, I'm rooting for Korra and Mako - partly because they remind so much of what Katara and Zuko could've been - but what's bugging me is that Bolin is clearly the one who makes Korra laugh and encourage fun out of her.  Bolin's the kid at heart, and Mako's the sullen teenager taking responsibilities.  Ugh... I have a feeling Mike & Bryan will be prolonging this love triangle throughout the series, and it'll be awkward since Mako and Bolin are orphaned brothers!  Oy.

In other news...  I'm officially a half-marathon runner!  2 hours, 11minutes, running nonstop.  It's a part of who I am now.  ^^

What happened to March?

(So excited for this film, and the Japanese poster is inspiring me to learn the language)

Seriously, this month is just flying by, which means that a fourth of the year is already over!

I don't know how I feel about this, but I do feel like my life in Chicago has been jumping from good moments to not so great moments. Financially, I'm doing okay (breaking even for the first time in 6 months!) and I have two part-time jobs that are getting me by. I already know that I don't want to live off of minimum wage, and I want to make myself proud as much as everyone else.

Sadly, I haven't been able to do much creative stuff this month, but the ideas keep rolling. I suppose that's the tricky part to being an artist - you can't just wait for the ideas to be fully fleshed-out before taking the time to write them or draw them. I'm excited for April because I'll be participating in "Script Frenzy" where I'll be drawing 100 pages of a graphic novel in the span of 30 days. With a 39-hour work week, learning Japanese, volunteering at a Literacy Center, and training for a half-marathon at the end of April, and my birthday plans (!)... this is not going to be easy.

Things to do for April:
-celebrate the anniversary of my quitting art school by drawing every day for "Script Frenzy."
-turn 28. Bake my own cake.
-run my first half-marathon.
-successfully translate the BRAVE poster in Japanese.
-write a comedy script.
-get back into Yoga and Dancing.
-use my tax refund for something fun. Maybe a vacation. Or a MacBook Pro.

In other news, The Hunger Games film rocked! =)

my Twilight moment

Gotta love Miyazaki

This is Hayao Miyazaki's latest film project, "The Secret World of Arrietty," and once again I'm impressed and taken aback by the emotional layering he can bring to a simple relationship between a little person (aka "a borrower") and a sickly young boy, Arrietty and Shawn.

The film overall is not my favorite of his works, but I just wanted to commend Miyazaki for some beautiful sequences he does, such as the beginning with Arrietty's first "borrowing" expedition at night. You can see the obstacles that a little person has to go through, how the simple task of getting sugar in the kitchen involves spelunking, rock-climbing, and being quick on your feet with unfriendly bugs.

There isn't much action in the film, as it mostly takes place inside a house, but the artwork and intricate details that Miyazaki places inside the walls of that house makes things intriguing to the viewer. You see things from the little persons' perspective, similar to that 90s film "Honey I Shrunk the Kids" but in animation. I also loved the slow, delicate moments between Arrietty and Shawn as they slowly begin to understand each others' place in that simple world. Shawn begins to see Arrietty and the Borrowers as people rather than just secretive little creatures, and it's an amazing transformation to watch onscreen.

Overall, a great film to watch for the sake of storytelling.

Figure Drawing

Once a week, I go to this art academy downtown for some Open Studio time, where the objective is to draw a human figure in whatever medium you'd like. I'm trying to get back into the comic-drawing mode to work on a graphic novel, and in a way, I'm also re-learning the basics of animation.

The thing about Open Studio is that you don't really have a teacher critiquing you on what you should improve on. It's the artist who needs to fix their own mistakes and trust their individual skills. I like this method, but I've noticed that it takes a lot of energy and motivation for me to actually open a sketchbook and draw outside of class.

I did the above motion sequence during a break I had at work, and I can already tell I need massive improvement. Nevertheless, I felt really proud that I had successfully drawn something in sequence!

My next goal is to start writing this graphic novel to get a good idea of what I should draw. Lots to do!

Painting!

I call this one "Ornamental Radishes," because they remind me of tree ornaments and radishes.

New Year, New Me

It's been a couple of weeks into 2012, and I've had my roller coaster of emotional turns already, with my decisions to turn down graduate school and instead work on my writing/art and my physical health, while supporting myself in the city. I've felt fear, doubt, nervousness, fear, pride, confidence, fear again, and... hope, all in the span of 2 weeks while I've felt the pebbles in my stomach feel less and less heavy.

I forgot how great it felt to paint something on canvas and to write something in a journal, filling my head with ideas. My goal for 2012 is to run a half-marathon (^^) and take a full commitment to my artwork and my abilities to tell stories, keeping my feet on the ground with deadlines for manuscript submissions and the acceptance that there may be multiple "no"s along the way.

I'm giving myself until June 15, 2012 to get one of my ideas published.

The truth is, I thought about it one night... and realized that one day, I would wake up and regret not trying to be an artist.

"It's said that if you do what you love, you'll never work a day in your life. Well, if that's the case, then for the past forty five years or so, I've never had to work. Hah. Because my passion in life has always been acting." --Morgan Freeman