So, it's been a while. A long while.

I'm in the mood for some re-vamping here, going to try a new layout (I don't know when it'll be done yet, but...I want to make a new layout), and try to blog some more.

While I have been not-blogging, I did happen to pick up a side-project and this was the result:

It's been quite a while since then, and graphic sites these days are all shutting down cause their either too busy or too dead...it's a shame, really.

But that allows me to segue into this - I myself have started up a graphic request site of my own called "generationXIA."
After coding the layout and all, I officially started it up a couple of days ago on the 12th of August, and well...I can't say I've been real busy since then. My advertisement-methods are quite 'abnormal' though, so I'm not too surprised.

If you're interested, please come and visit and/or request at the site, http://generationxia.blogspot.com
I've been making and giving out "business cards" to fanfic authors in the name of promoting generationXIA that take on the form of a fanfic poster. It's busy work, but I'm pretty happy with this because it gives me a chance to try out some different things and see where my inspirations take me.
Here's some of the stuff that I've come up with so far, because of it:

The stories are also linked to the thumbnails, so please go read them if you have time! I've read what they've posted so far and liked it. They might not be ready to be published in books or anything, but to be honest, I haven't really read fanfics in a long time and they all reminded me of why I even started reading fanfics in the first place. Of course, through what I read, I was touched in some way and found the inspiration to make them a poster.

So that's all for today - keep an eye out for the re-vamp!

Labels: Fanfics, generationXIA, Graphics, Life

So, it's a new year, and I now have a new layout! All credit goes to Hapii pailin for the original base-codes, all I did was make and throw in my own pictures and edit the color-scheme to match my picture.

I'm thinking that I'll probably stick with this style for a while - it's more graphic-portfolio-like, which is what I wanted to begin with.

I've also become a designer at Purple-Sashiin, hopefully that will help make me use Photoshop more and get better at designing graphics. I still have a long way to go!

Here's a graphic I made at the end of last year - I thought of it while listening to Kim Hyun Joong's "Kiss Kiss".

Any thoughts?

Lately, I've been trying to catch up on watching movies and dramas. One that most recently made my "Masterpiece" List is "In Time with You" (我可能不會愛你/Wo Ke Neng Bu Hui Ai Ni). It was simply...too great to describe with words. It moved me so much that I just had to write a review on it because there were so many things that impressed me about it that were not mentioned at all in any of the other reviews - I felt like someone might appreciate what I had to say, so I wrote one up! (My first ever review on...anything?!)
My review is posted on a site called "My Drama List" (http://www.mydramalist.com/). If you want to find my profile on there, my username is "Silver". Or, you can also find it under the "Profile" section by clicking on the Profile button up at the top.

That's all for now - hopefully 2012 will be a year of more-consistent updates from me!


Note: Also, I've updated the link for "I Hate You but I Love You" in the last post - it's a high quality verison now!

Labels: Dramas, Graphics, In Time with You (Wo Ke Neng Bu Hui Ai Ni)

It is now Winter Break of 2011.
My, time sure does fly.
Last I posted, school hadn't started yet.
Now, I've already finished a semester of school.

Speaking of school, this graphic was inspired by part of a performance of Giselle at my school.

I hope it's not a surprise that I named it "In Love with Giselle".
A pretty simple graphic, really, but you know what? Sometimes, simple is good.
While doing this one, it made me realize two things:
1) I haven't touched Photoshop in months.
2) I should really update my texture-collection.



Oh yes, here's another one I finished a few months(?) ago, for LoveYouMika and Rai-na's "I Hate You but I Love You."

Funny story that goes along with this one - a few people at school saw me working on it at various times and I was messing with fonts for the "I Hate You" part. The "but I Love You" hadn't been typed out yet, so everyone who saw my screen during that time was just like "Wow, that's harsh."
Note: The quality seems to have down-graded? I'll have to look at that again...seemed fine when I made and uploaded it a while back.



To wrap it up for today, here's a letter that I think everyone should send to themselves.

From: Me
To: The Future Me
-
The scariest thing about growing up is the possibility that you may grow up to become the kind of person that you once couldn't stand.

Labels: Dramas, Graphics, Letters

For starters, I now have an "Affiliates" section. I actually wasn't planning on collecting affiliates until I upgraded my site to something more..."me"...but since there were a couple people who asked, I figured it was time to start responding. I also didn't think anyone would actually visit this site, since it's not a graphic request site and I don't really know other bloggers (except Jtoasn), plus all I seem to catch are blogwalkers in the cbox. XD

But well, it's there now.

And if you haven't noticed, I'm jumping the order of that title....


My latest completed-request:


After finishing this one (and working on the background), I sent the poster to my friend and she told me that I should add something to the top so that the eyes don't go directly to the faces since they stand out so much - normally the eyes should go to the title first. We also talked about "negative space" - usually artists/etc. try to fill in that negative space with something else so that it doesn't seem so empty. I however have found that I am someone who likes negative space. o_O
Not so much boring "blank" negative space, but rather the simple "fading away" negative space. ...I don't think that made any sense. But I mean, I LOVE when posters blend in with/into the background like a...floating thing?
...Anyways, I'd realized that after going back through some of my works -
Here's another one that is negative-spacey:


So from now on, I'm going to do more stalking studying of other graphic designer's graphics and pay attention to this "negative space" that I seem to love so much....


And last but not least for today: Colors.
I always seem to come across situations where people request for colors like pink, blue, and/or purple, or something like that (and no offense to them, I just find it interesting that it always turns out to be these colors/some combination of them/something similar to them) on a happy poster. I grew up being told that purple was a sad color, so the only way I know how to make it happy is for it to be "bright purple". But I don't know, a small part of the reason feels like it's because of the colors, the rset of it seems to be because I still fail as a graphic designer. I'm going to try and experiment with making more "happy" graphics with colors that are not related to black and white. (I feel like my favorite graphics that I've made all seem to be grey/black/dark-color -based, and the ones that are brighter/"happier" seem to come out...not as great.)



Roses are red,
Violets blue,
For now,
This is all I have to say to you.

Labels: Affiliates, Colors, Graphics

So, today's [first?] topic is "being overdramatic."

I, one week ago, was being quite overdramatic. And here I am now, one week later, apologizing for the inconvenience it may have caused...anyone? [I just had a friend tell me the other day that reading about other people's rants about life was the "fun part," but...who knows.]
So, I sincerely apologize for making it seem like my world was coming to an end [if anyone felt that way at all].
Now in reality, I would've apologized the day I finally managed to get my facts straight, but life had gotten its claws on me again last week, and I haven't had the time to sit down and type away at a blog post until now. [Minus the past few hours that I spent watching dramas....]
But anyways, let's start there.

Get your facts right.

That's probably one of the top reasons (if not the top reason) why rumors start. Someone says something casual, someone else hears it and assumes, and it gets magnified to the next level until everyone knows and it's become this unstoppably mutated disease.

Don't make a big deal out of nothing.

No use freaking out about every little thing you hear. That'll just...start more rumors. First make sure you've got your facts right, then calmly begin to take your next step.


Haha, it's funny how it seems like I'm just ranting about myself now. But that's probably true in a sense. I don't think I used to be this crazy/OMG-you're-kidding-me,-right?...and last week kind of wasn't really a cool feeling. I felt like a drama queen, and well, I don't actually want to be a drama queen.
(Which makes me wonder, is ranting/venting/debating/whatever-you-want-to-call-it on a blog "drama queen"-y?)

So this is what they mean when they say there is no such thing as "perfection."

Maybe there's no balance between "being a drama queen" and "not being a drama queen." If you rant, you're a drama queen. If you don't rant, then you're not. Maybe it's just as simple as that? Like how there's no gray on the Yin Yang. Although it contains both black and white, and both 'halves' have a little bit of the other, but there is no in-between. You either are, or you are not.
As far as perfection goes, you're either a true OCD-like perfectionist, or you're not. No in-between there either, cause well, if you're not always a perfectionist, then that means you're technically not perfectionist-enough to be considered a "true perfectionist," and therefore, you are not.


Interesting, I think.



So at last, I've completed a long-overdue graphic request for Yanni (Sorry about that, but I'm glad that you liked it.)
I'm going to try to make an effort to make this into a graphic-profile of some sort for myself, but I'll start by uploading the one I finished for Yanni's "Complicated Life" and kind of...work my way backwards from there.
Poster for Yanni's "Complicated Life":

Reflection: I definitely need to work on my "cute" skills.



From: Silver
To: jtoasn
-
Yeah, I guess that's the easiest thing to do; I guess I just got tired of ignoring and making it seem like she could make all my decisions for me because I "didn't care." If only I could 'not bother' with her life anymore than I already am...it's starting to seem to be that she likes to stress over other people's lives, seeing as how she is doing that already, and very obviously stressing about it.
Haha that made me laugh, the cupcake thing. Unfortunately, I think the whole world would go into chaos and hatred if I threw a cupcake at my cousin's face. Or even threatened to. Ha. My mom keeps telling me that there are some people in this world that you just kind of have to "let them do as they please." I guess she's just one of them. The good thing is, I'm not the one that's holding on to her [I don't think]. The bad thing is, [I think] she's holding onto me.
Haha, don't worry about spamming my cbox, I can't even begin to count how many times I've spammed yours already!


-End Note-
A completed blog post at last; that feeling's starting to come back again, the feeling that determines when I start ignoring my blog altogether. Usually, I start getting lazy to blog and type, and eventually that turns into blog-reject-mode. But maybe/hopefully it'll go away cause someone's actually reading. XD
It's actually great to have someone reading/commenting/cbox-spamming because that means I have to keep coming back and have this blog layout poking me in the face. Not that it's bad or anything, I think it's awesome. It's just that ever since I started going around blogger & such [what, six years ago?], I'd made it a goal to code/create my own blog layout. Now only if I could get anywhere closer to that goal...

Labels: Apologies, Dramatization, Graphics, Letters, Life