As I mentioned in my previous post, I’ve been planning to move for a while. This is the new site:

http://picchar.cerestia.net/

Actually, I’ve been planning to move ever since I made this. The reason why I started my site here on WordPress is because I haven’t found anyone to host me yet. That and I wasn’t willing to pay for hosting because I’m a cheap and lazy arse I couldn’t find a good deal for a paid host. I chose WordPress instead of Blogger or Livejournal, because I planned to use WordPress once I found a host.

When I found one, I immediately asked for WordPress to be installed and started setting up. I browsed through a number of sites for a free theme to modify and found this. I changed the side bars and moved around the items (widgets) they contained. I actually wanted to retain my original layout since I really like it, but I could not find it online. The creators site only hosts an older version which is not plugin-ready.

So I settled with my second choice and switched to a clean blue and green theme to a bright red and organge with blue highlights one. Oh, and this choice has nothing to do with what the Animanachronism wrote in his blogroll. It is simply a coincidence.

I’ll be keeping this site because of emotional attachment but will no longer be updating here. Contrary to what I mentioned previously, I will not be using this to back-up my new site. I don’t think it would be a good idea to have identical content in two separate hosts. Google might get confused. Haha!

See you on my new site!

Image Sources:
1. First two images
2. Last image

I currently have an fanart request page open in DannyChoo.com. There are 7 slots in total and 3 open ones left ^_^

List of requests here.

Give me a blank piece of paper (in this case a blank WordPress post page) and you’ll get the same from me : blank. I’m not that articulate nor can I express myself very well… especially with words. So I decided to draw for my submission for Oi, Hayaku!’s October 2008 prOH!mote contest.

Hope you like it~! ^_^

I was supposed to be finished by Friday night but her hair was being really bitchy so I cut it. Haha, the original length was up until her feet. ^^’

ps. I’m not sure about the Hiragana but it looks cute. Can someone verify pls? :3

pps. I need to practice coloring more orz

I was on my bed resting my head this afternoon after getting home from work and thinking about how to edit my Miku fanart when something hit me. All this time that I drew on photoshop I would always go over my drawings and “clean” it up. It’s not necessarily a bad thing but its not really how I draw (by that I mean on paper).

My style has a sketchy feel to it. I’ve always liked that about it. When I draw on Photoshop though, I always think of coloring it. Then when I color, it’s usually cell shading, which forces me to clean up my drawings to match the style.

I’m not sure if I’m making any sense but in a nutshell, I’ve been putting too much effort into a style that I’m not very comfortable with ^^;

So I got off the bed and re-did the sketch from scratch. Click more to see the (edited) original and the new version. Comments are welcome and let me know which style you like better ^^

[warning] Skimpified Miku [/warning]

This is the original with slight editing. A couple of the comments were critiques on the abdominal/belly area. The others were about her expression (at least, that’s what I think you meant XD). [edit] This is the newer version. Click here to see the older one ^^[/edit]

This is the other version which I did today. Its sketchier and I guess you could say a more mature look maybe? I like this pose better though. It feels more dynamic and she looks relaxed ^^; I left off the little details for now such as the little triangles on the edges of her blouse, the yellow rectangle and the little ribbon on her pantsu . [edit] Changed her pose slightly. Hopefully its less painful now ^_^’ Click here for the old one. [/edit]

That’s it for now. Have to go to bed since its nearly midnight and I have work tomorrow >.> Boo.

My order of Shunya Yamashita‘s Wild Flower and Studio Ghibli’s Art of Spirited Away – Sen to Chihiro arrived last week. I was so excited for my first artbook only to find out that they were damaged. I’m very particular with my stuff so when I saw the corner of both books were bent and folded I visibly cringed and twitched ^_^;

I called UPS right away since they were the ones who shipped it. I don’t know how it could have happened since it was packed very well by Play-Asia. The books were encased in a bubble wrap plastic bag and surrounded by styrofoam. Oddly, I’ve had a number of items shipped from various sellers (including Play-Asia) via regular mail (USPS/Canada Post) and they all arrived intact. The one I paid more for through UPS is the one that arrived damaged.

UPS took the package back last week for inspection. I’m still waiting for the result. I hope they handle it better this time. I’ll be really pissed if they damage the books even further =_=

How about you, do you have your figures shipped through regular mail, UPS or FedEx? I’m now tempted to try FedEx just to see the difference. Maybe I’ll just stick to regular mail XD For the price they’re quite good. They’re also apartment friendly (at least for me). Unlike FedEx/UPS, regular mail (Canada Post) can put small packages (figure sized) in a special box in our apartment. If the package is too big, I just pick it up from a nearby store.

Miku battles the make-up brush!

Pictures for the tips on avoiding bootlegs when buying figures are not ready yet so I decided to write a short post on how I clean my figures. ^_^

I clean my figures nearly everyday, which is probably overkill XD. Yep, that’s me, part of the 1% in the DannyChoo.com poll. The odd thing is, I’m not a very neat person. My room is generally a mess. The only exception is my desk where my figures and iMac are. I clean my figures everyday because I want to preserve them as much as possible without having to keep them in their boxes. I’m not ever going to sell them and they’re just too pretty/cute to be kept hidden.

It doesn’t help that it gets dusty in my room easily (as does the rest of the apartment). Clean it in the morning and you’ll see speckles of dust in the evening. It is also dry here which causes my skin to flake and shed ^_^’ At least the weather is good for my figures. No worries here about them bending or warping! ^o^

Tools:

Is it dead?

What I use is a blush make-up brush. I figured, if it’s soft enough for my skin then it should be gentle enough for my figures. I especially like the retractable feature. This way the brush itself won’t be collecting dust. It wasn’t as cheap as Danny’s kitchen brush but I think it was worth it.

Brush Attacks Ringo!

Once in a while I also remove parts of the figure to get to parts I normally would not be able to otherwise.

Another one~?!

I also use compressed air for nooks and crannies which my brush might not be able to reach.

Tips:

Here are some pages you might want to visit for actual tips on how to clean your figures:

1. Healthcare for Figures! by Len-Vesper
2. How to Look After Your Figures… Please Read by Enguyen

[ps. Are the captions confusing? Is it better that I don't have them like I did in the previous posts? ^^]