My first premium statue

I pre-ordered Artorias the Abysswalker statue awhile ago and it finally came this week. I actually missed the pre-order window by two days last June so this was a wait list order. When I got the email about the waitlist been met and will be converted to a live order I was initially quite hesitant. This was pretty expensive. It's tagged at $499.99 USD not including shipping and handling. After much thought I decided to bite the bullet. Sacrificing a few eating outs in a year vs. having something nice to look at on my shelf for ten years to come seems to be worth it for me. Plus, I really love his armor design above anything else in the Soul's series. The hoodie helm is a really nice touch.

The exclusive edition is set at 1400 pieces world wide. Comes with an art print and two additional uncursed great swords. First4Figures is also making Sif and Solaire, but I'm not sure, might pass on those two and wait for Ornstein, since wallet is crying. The statue is 21" in height, just about if you were to stack five coke cans on top of each other.

Box is the size of a mini-fridge

Base number, pretty happy with the low number

Base details

Front view

Side view

Back view

The three swords

Art sleeve and print

Charlie stood up...he never stands up (too lazy or too fat, whatever the reason)

Cinnamon is confused

In other news, working on a drawing of Filianore at the moment. She is a new NPC featured from The Ringed City DLC for Dark Souls 3. I'm only about an hour into the DLC at the moment, but it's pretty fun so far. I'm currently using Friede's Great Scythe for maximum fashion soulness but I don't think I have enough stamina to actually use it probably, oh well, gotta look dope.

Um...Women's March Toronto

People are a bit strange these days. I was in downtown Toronto yesterday having a casual sushi lunch with friends. Passing by the street corner near University Ave. we noticed the huge crowds and massive amount of police in the area. A lady told us it was for the Anti-Trump/Women's March protest that was going on. Apparently it is a very big event, but since I live under a cave, I was oblivious to how big this got.

Like all movements and protests, I'm sure the folks have important notions they wish to be brought into attention. A few glances at the posters and signs gave me just that. While I salute their dedication and courage in the matter. There is one thing that disturbed me more than anything else.

I'm not an environmentalist or a tree-hugger. In fact, I'm far from that. Having studied in engineering and having the unfortunate opportunity to sit in a semester of energy policies course taught by a guy working for Green Peace, I have a pretty good idea about what's real and what falls under the hypocritical community of pretentious "green" scammers that go around.

That aside, while walking around downtown after my overly gluttonous sushi lunch, I noticed the disturbing amount of trash left behind on street corners from the march. Posters and signs dumped beside street poles, TTC stops, etc. While I understand there is a thing going on about leaving behind all the signs in front of Trump's hotel to force his gang to read them and get a point across, I don't think Trump lives in any Toronto street poles or TTC stops.

I understand a majority of the ladies marching through the movement probably took their signs and have plans for properly disposing them, or keep the posters as a memento for this event. It is just sad to see individuals lacking common sense or maturity trashing our beautiful city and putting a stain on what otherwise is a legitimate movement for promoting a cause. While I'm sure the same scenario occurs in other protests, individual behaviors like this will always have an overall negative impact on the whole movement and overshadow everyone's efforts. A movement like this is meant to inform and educate, not to leave behind a bunch of trash so others can trash talk for weeks to come.

C'mon ladies, we are better than this. Recycle your posters and signs and keep our city clean.

Happy New Year 2017!

First week of work after the holidays always makes me want to just quit and become a boob streamer on Twitch and make money off donations...

Trollolol.

My New Year Resolution for 2017 are the following.

IRL - Health

1. Cut soda to 1 Can/month. (did cold turkey for 8 months in 2016, then had more than a few here and there during weddings, vacation, parties, should be quite doable in 2017).
2. Cut chips completely.
3. Lose 3 to 5 lbs, number do not matter, just a bit of exercise to increase energy level so I don't feel sluggish all the time. Two times a week is a good start.
4. Reduce number of crazy gaming all nighters... 

IRL - Career

1. Get a new job. (this one will be tough, as I get anxious looking at job requirements thinking I'm not good enough, I guess I just need to suck it up and do it. Maybe to start, just send out 1 application per week)
2. Get my PEO experience forms filled out.
3. Learn to not suck/scared at driving!

IRL - Attitude

1. Smile more
2. Be more optimistic.
3. More self appreciation!
4. Less worrying about stupid shit!
5. Be more generous.
6. Nitpick less
7. More tolerant.
8. Have more courage

IRL - Other

1. Draw once a week
2. Update this blog more often (at least once a month)
3. Do more artbook reviews!
4. Do Inktober 2017!
5. Shave/groom my rabbits more often so they don't look like a furball mess.
6. Finish my three boxes of 1000 pieces Jigsaw puzzles...seriously.
7. Upload a new Youtube video every month.
8. Japan trip?
9. Date someone?
10. Learn to look and feel prettier, remember there are no ugly girls, only lazy ones!
11. Re-connect with high school/elementary school friends. (I'm so shy >.<)
12. Read a few books...reddit is not a book

Gaming

1. Reach Master tier with McCree in Overwatch
2. Practice Ana bot training everyday for 20min unless vacation/family stuff.
3. Try for Grand Master tier in Overwatch (maybe...@_@)
4. Beat Deity in Civ 6
5. Reach Legend rank in Hearthstone
6. Finish SL 1 ran for all bosses in Dark Souls 3
7. If job change occurs, upgrade to 144Hz monitors and revamp PC (SSD/RAM/maybe GPU)
8. Less toxic when interacting with folks online, be more tolerant and encouraging/positive!

Day 34: Dark Souls 3 Fan Art

Aldrich, Devourer of Gods

Need to find a better way to shade, maybe toning paper. Killed two pens with this. Didn't want to include the slug part as I rather liked the grace of Gywndolin...rip :(

Day 33: Cat Portrait

Cat Portrait

Request done for a friend. This is his cat. Reference from photo. I watched a bunch of tutorial videos on youtube for a crash course on how to render fur, but ended up yoloing. I think it turned out alright. I haven't drawn animals in a long time so this was very fun.

On the side note, I have been playing Dark Souls 3 for the past week. The game is amazing! More specifically, the environment and architecture design in the game is awesome. I'm about 75% done with my first play through, running DEX/INT sorcerer build (it was a pain in the ass until I got the invisibility spell lolol). Will maybe take some screenshots later before I move onto NG.

Day 32: George Done!

George

Finished! Next up is a cat portrait in pencil. I have been watching some videos on how to render fur in pencil but we'll see.

Day 31: George WIP Con't

George WIP

I think his sword should be slightly bigger. It looks like a 1-hand sword rather than a 2-hand sword. I might make some adjustments in Photoshop.

In other news, I ordered another set of Copic markers for the first time in six years...I know, that's a long time... I picked the 72B Sketch set, and they arrived earlier this week. I was able to find an open-box/un-used set on Amazon.com. The total came down to $478 CAD ($360 USD), shipping included. I think this price is pretty good since Curry's price is around $520 after tax and that's the absolute cheapest price you can find within Canada. However, Too's Copic factory is currently under renovation so they have a serious production shortage, so most places currently do not have sets in stock and won't expect restocking until the later half of 2016.

I purchased my first Copic set (a 36C Ciao set) back in 2010 for $120 CAD. Now those goes for $160  on average. I still highly recommend the 36C for beginners on a budget because it has the nicest colour range. You just need to purchase a E00 and E000 on the side to cover the skin tones and you are good to go.

I picked up some acrylic cases by Muji on the weekend at a local mall. Now everything's organized. ^_^

Copics...must have moar.....

Review: Santa Lilio Sangre - Ayami Kojima Art Works

Book Details:

Hardcover
Title: Santa Lilio Sangre
ISBN-10: 4870319233
ISBN-13: 978-4870319233
ASIN: B005C25DN0
Cover Price: 3400 Yen (approx. $40.00 CAD)
# of Pages: 200
Printed In Japan
1st Print - 2010/11/25
3rd Print - 2013/2/26

Dust Cover Jacket

Inner Cover

Front Page

Some coloured artwork

 Each piece presented has a description showing the medium the artwork was done in, dimensions, and its Japanese title. If the artwork also have an English title, that is included as well. Half the book is filled with coloured paintings, the rest are like below, done in traditional ink.

Gorgeous ink, a piece of LOTR fan art on the right

More ink goodness

 There are some explicit pieces that are rated 18+ so I cannot share them here. Amount them also include a fair amount of artistic gore. You can see Ms. Kojima's knack towards dark fantasy, science fiction and horror, and she's damn good at drawing them!

Alucard and others

Book covers

More acrylic goodies

 Larger paintings span two pages. The colours are very vivid and you can see the textures very well.

Castlevania concepts

 This is my favourite section. Ms. Kojima's character portraits are simply amazing. Most of these are from Castlevania and its various games. But other series are also included. From what I can tell, this book does not contain all the art from her collection, but only the selective majority. For example, portraits of Lisa were not included.

More concepts

Drafts and brainstorms

At the end of the book there is a half page thank you note from the artist. This is in both Japanese and English. This is the only reading content in this book. Everything else is full art.

Summary:
"+" Pros: Gorgeous artwork, hard cover, good printing quality, colour, and paper. A fairly large collection, 200 pages and hundreds of pieces. Great readability because content are in English and Japanese.
"-" Con: Doesn't include everything from her collection. Beware of overpricing on the cover price.

 

Day 30: Pen & Ink

Pen and Ink

Had a lot of fun designing her hairstyle and clothing. Main lines are done with the maru pen. Cross-hatching are done using Copic Multiliner 0.05.

Day 29: George WIP

George WIP

The second portrait commission in the set. Pairing up with Layna from previous week.