Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Daily Dose of dutch #14

Nothing much, just popping in to make a note that I'm doing another a follow-up to my previously mentioned Tankadere comic. That one was a 6-page story titled 'Better', this one will be a 60-page comic titled 'Worse', expanding on the same world, surrounding the same characters and core ideas. :)

Here's a painting I just did to lead up to that story:
Life
Stay tuned :)
Wally

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Daily Dose of dutch #12

Okay, so now we're back to the good old daily doses since I'm halting work on my comic for a while, due to end of year Art Theory exam and final projects' deadlines.

Things haven't been going particularly well with me lately.

Money problem is one of the greatest issues. After paying rent for the last three months, I barely have enough left to do anything. Sounds pretty damn pathetic, but I've had little to no luck getting commissioned lately. So if anyone of you out there is interested, I'm more than capabl-

Wait, I'm not actually capable right now, which brings me to the next issue. My laptop's battery charger was fried Tuesday night when I was over at Jamie and John having a baking good time (baking as in getting blizzed). The adapter was literally fried. Sparks and smokes and shit came out of it, and I immediately knew things were gonna get hairy. Now here's the thing, I've been working on a short comic for next year's edition of an annual comic collection-type book, called Tankadere (check out the website here). With everything stored in my laptop and the charger being fucked all over, I might not be able to finish the comic in time and send it in before deadline. eBay is not being the best of help either, for they keep pushing back the expected delivery date of the new one I ordered. So all fingers and toes crossed there.

All that aside, I can't wait to go home in just a month. I miss my folks, the food and being able to lay down and just be lazy as balls.

Till next time,

Wally

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Ellen Page: The Sim. The Eyes. The Eyebrows.

I've finished this sim for quite a while but haven't uploaded till now due to the fact that I couldn't find the hair I used in my screenshots anywhere for reference purposes. Long story short: It's the hairstyle that comes with Pre-ordering Late Night. It's alright if you don't have it though, so don't worry. She won't appear bald because she's packed with the game's default hair and skin anyway.

Here's what she looks like:

Age: Young Adult
Traits: Friendly, Loves the Outdoors, Inappropriate, Brave, Bookworm
Favorite Food: Fruit Parfait
Favorite Color: Irish Green
Favorite Music: Pop

A side by side comparison, with grids and stuff to show you I didn't randomly whip up a face :3 :

Here's what she should be wearing (Casual, Formal, Sleepwear, Athletic and Swimwear respectively):
And here's the actual default game hair that she's packed with:

There's a few hairstyles out there that I'd recommend too, namely:

Important:
*Now in order to have her look exactly like the screenshots, you'll need to download the very few items listed down below, plus the custom eyebrows and eyes I've made specifically for her. Don't worry, it's not much trouble at all. :)

**Her face was sculpted with the use of slider multipliers. Therefore, please do not attempt to change her face without having a certain sort of multiplier (Twallan's MasterController and Pescado's AwesomeMod provide this feature, so you could do a Google search for either of those)

-Facial slider hack (if you intend to fix her features)Bella3lek4's Facial Sliders
-Skin: **choose EITHER default replacement OR non-default replacement version(which you'll need to manually apply to the sim in CAS)** Busty non-default APPLE skin by M.Calero at Garden of Shadows

Everyday outfit:


DOWNLOAD:

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Updated eyelids and Ellen Page Sim preview


Hey guys,

So I received a few requests for the eyelids to be made available as costume makeup, and that's what I did. However, as you all know, the opacity of costume makeups can't be changed. Therefore if you choose to use this version, you'll have to accept to the 50% opacity I assigned to it (via texture alpha)

Also, the male blush version was not enabled for teens and elders due to my carelessness. The fixed version can be found below the screenshot, along with the costume makeup version.
Asian dude, with double eyelids!

Also, I've roughly finished my Ellen Page sim. She also fashions the eyelids and a top I previously made for my Ellie Goulding pack. I'm going to upload her onto Mod The Sims so it'll be a while until she's available for download. :) Below are some preview screenshots:

On an unrelated note, beautiful heaven_sent_8_18 from MTS has a really interesting Sims legacy going on. You guys could check it out here: Heaven's Legacy

Wally

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Eyelids, for EVERYBODEH!


I know, there's nothing too special about this makeup set at first glance, but I found a reason to create it (other than the fact I need it for my upcoming Ellen Page sim)

There are a bazillions of custom skintones out there available for download, and many of them are super well-made. You squeal a little inside when you apply one those awesome skintones to your Sim and see that it's the perfect choice. And then you rage, because there's one very important, appearance-defining feature that's missing and preventing your Sim from achieving pure perfection: teh eyelids! With these eyelids, not only can you satisfy your hunger for eyelids on Sim's face, you can OVERDO it by layering the stuff as MANY times as you please and think to yourself 'Ha! Take that, skintone! Now I have all the eyelids that you deprived me of!'

So yeah, now for the technical details:

There are two styles of eyelids that I've included: one that looks like, y'know, normal eyelids, and another that adds thickness to that region around the Sim's inner eye corners, for those those who want a bit more uniqueness. Both these styles are available for teens to elders, and can be found under the Eyeliner, Eye shadow and Blush categories (If you decide to download all of them)
Female version
Male version
The reason why I made them available for so many categories is so that they are layerable. You also won't have to make a tough choice between these eyelids and another favorite makeup item in the same category, since you can just pick the eyelids in another category and still use that favorite item of yours. Also, the eyelids' opacity levels can be changed to your liking, instead of being fixed onto the skin. In other words, with these eyelids, you can mix and match all you like. :D

Below are some examples of different opacity levels and the eyelids on a darker skintone.


So there, get it from the links below. Download the more, the merrier! :D
*Soon also available on Mod The Sims.

**Don't take my stuff and redistribute without credits.

Wally

Daily Dose of dutch #7

So, I handed in the first major project for Visual Communication this semester. And I shall not go further into it at any cost, for this subject and I have a lot to disagree with each other. Nevertheless, I think the project didn't go too badly. After almost three entire days without sleep, I finished redoing a number of workshops, homework assignments, along with the two final tasks, plus rationales and journal work for them. As much as having a deadline on the first day of mid-semester break sucked, I felt completely relieved after submitting it Monday morning. The following ten hours in bed was inevitable. I deserved that break. (Actually, I didn't. The project was supposed to have been done, breezily, over the course of 7 weeks, I did it in less than 7 days...)

And since it IS mid-semester break, I get to relax a little bit. Well, a little bit more. I'm always so relaxed, if you know what I mean. Enter Jamie and John. The first time I saw their bag a month ago, I was like, 'Holy shit, that is going to last you guys for months!' and John was like, 'Yup.' Yesterday when I arrived at their place (Well, I'm still at their place right now, blogging. Details to come.) and looked at that same bag, I went 'Holy shit, you guys are almost out!' and John was like, 'Yup.'

But I'd arrived here earlier yesterday afternoon before John came home from work, as planned with Jamie, (No, kids. No wrong mental images here please) to have an art jam with him. I know. New term. In our books, an 'art jam' means two or more humongous geeks sitting together drawing and chatting about art and shit like that, then look at each other's works and go 'Challenge accepted.' Jamie was doing his short comics for a contest on deviantART (check out his gallery here) and I did a 'fanart' of one of his original characters (the dude creates original characters for breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper AND the unintended midnight snack. Fantastic story writing too.) This character's name is Sofia, a badass 11 year-old girl:
Just as I was about done with the above piece, and Jamie was done with his contest entry, John came home carrying his gigantic, majestic, logic-defying 27'' LCD screen, adding on to the already impossibly outrageous computer setup he already had (whopping speakers, powerful machine, you get the idea.) He then proceeded to spending the next couple of hours deciding where to place this screen (in conjunction with the smaller one he already had - which was still huge) and which wallpaper would look good running across both screens. To celebrate this occasion, I called for three pizzas. You know me, pizzas and I are best friends. Expensive, but worth it. After all, we were gonna have a night of nights.

Next morning. John made us all coffee and everyone was doing some art while chatting on deviantChat. In that process, I created this character:
Pretty chill dude, eh? Story behind this is that Jamie encouraged me to create a comics alter ego of myself, since John and he both have their own manga universes with interesting characters and backstories. And I thought, why the hell not. So there we have it, a dude smoking a joint, chill as a rock, with futuristic costume and an inter-dimensional travelling pad that are full of win and creepy smiley faces. The Time Traveler.

It was then when they decided to introduce me to Evangelion, a futuristic, beautiful, creative but immensely twisted and antagonistically depressing anime series they've both been fans of since they were kids. So they asked me to stay another night for enlightenment. Well, before enlightenment, we all went to the groceries store to get stuff: Jamie got soda for the night, John got stuff they've run out of at the house (which is quite a shitload of stuff. I doubt they would even think of all that if we hadn't have to go groceries shopping), and I took care of food for the night: beef, broccoli and mushrooms (I don't even have a name for that recipe, but if you must know, there's also lots of red onions, garlic with tomatoes, black pepper and some marinading sauces) It was alright. No one died and the food was swiped clean.

And then, Evangelion Rebuild 1.11 and 2.22 happened. Without prior knowledge about the original series (which, according to the two experts, is far more brutal and plain rude to fans), I watched three hours of this very marvelously crafted world with levels of cool technology and creativity, compelling and deeply troubled characters, hopefulness and hopelessness, rainbows and gore, love and anger, more anger and pure depressing shit that gets you to commit suicide. It was epic. I shall now go back and study this series, from scratch. Challenge accepted.

These past two days have been good indeed, but I still have four days left to go before school restarts. Tune in again for more adventures of Wally the Time Traveler. Bahahaha.

Over and out!

Wally

Friday, August 26, 2011

Daily Dose of dutch #6

Things have been getting busy at school. Getting closer to mid-semester also means deadlines for major assignments are drawing near, and that's definitely not a good thing. I mean, don't get me wrong. I usually try to finish all my projects extra early, so that I get to take longer breaks when they're over and done with, but that's not the case for Visual Communication. Not only is the subject dry as shit, its submission requirement is also a huge load of boring stuff. My next few days of rushing through that dreadful pile of work is going to be hell.

But that aside, last weekend was good. We went to the Republic Bar Saturday afternoon to attend their little music festival One Good Weekend. The bands performing that day were all good. The stuff they wrote was inspiring, original and catchy, and at times really humorous. I also realized playing the violin in an acoustic band is badass. Next goal in my long list of goals: to pick up the violin skill.

I did also spend quite a lot. Around ten raspberry apple orange vodkas, four jagerbombs just to kill brain cells, a pizza and a huge bag of chips. No no, I'm not that irresponsible with money, no. Please don't look at me that way. Okay, yeah. Just a little bit irresponsible, but it doesn't happen every week. Just last weekend. And this. Possibly the next... But there were redeeming points to that pizza: firstly it's a large, shared pizza (so I didn't have to pay for the entire thing), it's also THE BEST pizza I've ever eaten in my ENTIRE life! It's called Peri Peri (which has like chicken and peri peri sauce as indicated by the name and, whatever, it was really fucking gooood)

That same night we also walked around town, past a Subway where I saw this girl who would compete with me every single day at the Art school's library to see who stays longer! Okay, no, it's not a real competition. We don't even know each other, but it feels as though neither of us would leave the library unless the other leaves first. Carly also runs into her all the time, but like me, she never once spoke to her (due to the fact she appears really scary). So we decided, while almost completely wasted, to walk into Subway and order cookies just to make conversation with Mysterious Library Girl (who actually looks pretty damn badass: black eyeliner, two colored hair, beautiful but stone-cold face). So I was like, 'Hi can I get two white chocolates, two double chocolates and one each of the other ones?' and she was like 'Yup. Yup.' - her actions so fast it seemed as though her brain operated faster than normal human beings (omg could she actually be a humanoid? Cyborg? Actual robot? Alien? Vampire?!). Finally I added a 'See you at school', to which she chuckled (like couldn't hold it back) and said 'Yeah'. We exited Subway and were all like 'Holy fucking shit she actually smiled!' and started coming up with name possibilities as we realized we never learned her name. 1095718 names after, we decided Veronica sounded about right. Which is hilarious, because we've been referring to her as Veronica all the time now. Like an urban legend or something.

Art-wise, I didn't really do much last week or this week. There's still a couple of life drawings to show you guys but other than that, nope.

Sims-wise, I've just started on an Ellen Page sim (as promised). I find it quite unsettling that no one seems to want to give feedback on it over at the Creator Feedback Forum (at MTS), even though they read the thread and view the pictures. Anyway, here's some screenshots to show roughly you guys the progress:

Personal notes to certain people:

missroxor should return from holiday! D:

Also, Chris Elliott, you're a great person and you deserve better than the stuff they made you suffer from. I say stand up and be all you can be. You can do it buddy.

To my little friend Ngọc (or Denyse, as she'd prefer to be called from now on), I wish you the best in America. You're still silly as fuck, but your potential is limitless. You will do well if you hang around the right people. Whenever there's anything troubling you, do not bottle it up. Find someone you trust. You'll need them, especially now that you're really far from home. Love you kiddo. :)

Happy belated birthday, Roxanne.

Till next time.

Wally

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Daily Dose of dutch #5

Yup, I know. This #5 is over a week after #4. I haven't even maintained this blog for a month yet and I'm already starting to get lazy.

Not.

The reason why I haven't been blogging is because there's been so many awesome things happening continuously, simultaneously, alltheotherly's.

Right, uhhh. Where to start. Last Friday night. (Nope, NOT a Katy Perry song.)

Friday, August 5, 2011

Daily Dose of dutch #4

Hello. It is I, the boy who does not sleep.

Well, I actually do. Long hours too. However, only after some 30 hours awake. But that doesn't really matter much, because I have been productive - churning out paintings and drawings, being constantly on chat and still having a social life. In fact, I am going out to town later today, having drinks with some friends, then going with them and possibly another group of people to a concert. Woohoo! :)

Okay, wait. Let's backtrack a little bit. Chronological order and all.

First of all, the Art-Off contest (mentioned in the previous two updates) is cruising really smoothly. Everyone is so inspired and enthusiastic in creating portraits of their smug mugs :D I've also finished mine:
 
That was done in about 6 hours in pencil and watercolors on A3 paper. I personally am quite satisfied with how the painting turned out. But everyone else did great too! There's stuff I can learn from every single one of their entries. :) Once again, to follow the progress of the contest, check out the official Art-Off thread at MTS.

Residual inspiration from the above contest also helped me conceptualize a new series (probably three two five) of themed watercolor paintings. Thoroughly explaining these concepts, however, would be tedious and confusing and take away all the fun of doing art critic. Therefore I'll just let the paintings do their part. Hopefully my intended messages are delivered well enough.

The first painting was done last night. 5 hours, watercolors on A3 paper. Titled 'The Back-up Singer'
In case you haven't noticed, the guy in the foreground is supposed to be Kanye West
And finally, here are some more sketches from my Thursday Life Drawing class:



The lines and marks made in these sketches were different from the previous set I posted, as the focus was on the figures' volumes rather than their contours this time round.

Also, trolling and goofing around on Skype and #TSS with armiel, dal, Kayla, beautiful missroxor, Morph and Q was massively fun. I look forward to similar sessions in the future. As in, every day. :3

That's all I can think of for now.
Till next time!

Wally

Monday, August 1, 2011

Daily Dose of dutch #3

Hello, netizens!

I actually got some schoolwork done today at the library. While Skyping. Those two things aren't really supposed to be done simultaneously, but somehow they work that way for me. And you know the art contest thing that I mentioned in my previous update? Well it seems to be pretty warmly welcomed: MTS's HystericalParoxysm and Arisuka have both said (on Skype, so don't be 100% hopeful now) that they'd be participating. Beautiful missroxor has bought new pencils just for the occasion and daluved1 has in fact done some serious work, shading and all. \o/ (<-- Apparently, that appears as a really hippy dancing emoticon thing on Skype. Random fact I learned today.) I have also done some quick sketching myself. For more on the contest, visit the official thread: The Art-Off!

However, the second and most important piece of news I've got today is the fact that I have been featured for the second time at MTS! :D And even more importantly, this feature is my Ellie Goulding sim! Words cannot describe how satisfied I am knowing my precious little project was well-appreciated. :') If you have missed my previous post about this upload at MTS, here's the link to it again (after picture):

I'm also going to start on an Ellen Page sim. She's extremely cute. And her name starts with 'Ell'. Lol.

In other, less important news, it's getting kinda hot again here in Hobart, even though it could get as low as 0 degree Celsius last week. I wouldn't be surprised if it gets freezing again next week. Weird weather is weird. It does help the flowers blossom, though.
Are those actually cherry blossoms? I don't even know. :/
And that's about it for today's update, folks.

Tune in next time! ;)

Wally

Friday, July 29, 2011

Daily Dose of dutch #2

Hi folks,

It's that time of the day again (or night, depending on where you are). Actually got up at a 'normal' hour this morning, 7 AM. Well, I did go to bed at 8 PM last night, but that counted as yesterday! >:)

First order of business: BLENDER, Y U NO BE FOOLPROOF?! Pardon the caps, but I've had a really tough time fiddling around with Blender 3D today. Tried meshing a male version of my previously released Alice by Temperley Game Jacket for females (can be found on Mod The Sims in my upload 'The Ellie Essentials') in Blender rather than Milkshape for a change and realized I won't make it through without reading a few tutorials first. Which I haven't done yet. Can't be bothered. Laziness trumps. This screenshot about summarizes my sentiments.
(In case you haven't recognized, that's a rage face right there. My version anyway)
But in spite of that, I had a really fun time chatting online on MTS #create today, goofing around and shit, and most importantly, influenced the great daluved1 into picking up art again and having an art-off with me next week! Isn't that exciting?! No? Well _|_! >:) I'm excited!

Also, the beautiful missroxor told me today about Phoenix Trading. After skimming through their page, I thought it would actually be a fantastic idea to join them as a sort of part-time job, creating simple, cute, lighthearted postcard designs in ink and watercolors, both of which I love so much. Good pastime fun and some decent pocket money. Seriously considering it. Thanks miss. :)

Also also, sometimes I wonder why I let myself get offended in a conversation with some kid who was clearly misinformed. That's quite unprofessional.

Also x3, since July 26, my deviantArt page view rate has mysteriously multiplied: I'm getting more views in 4 days than I did in 4 months (still just a very insignificant number, of course, compared to the actually popular dA accounts so it's nothing that special, really). Could it be this blog, or my updated MTS profile page that contributed to this boost? Hmmm. More likely the latter.

Anyway, that's about enough of also's for today!
Till next time. :)

Wally

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Daily Dose of dutch #1

Hi all. How are you today?

Felt I needed to do a blog post, since I finally took documentation shots of my Life Drawing class sketches (which is kind of important, considering how all those pencil and charcoal works on super shitty paper will soon be smudged away) and some other pretty cool photos that speak volumes of how my life has been like for the past couple weeks. So I guess this is sort of like a photo journal thing, yeah?

First of all, the most basic and also crucial dutch-related thing you should know is that I have a completely fucked up sleep pattern. Take yesterday, for example. I had a lecture at eleven in the morning, and went to bed (for the previous night!) at 7 AM. Set the alarm for 9:30 AM which did snooze for about half an hour. Ended up getting up at eleven... in the evening.
...
I know. Kids, please don't follow my example. Not because that's not good for your health, but because you can't miss lessons and still get Distinctions. (Like I do! >:D)

Talk about healthy lifestyles. Or lack thereof. Know what I did first thing after getting up at 11PM? Ordered two of THIS.

Domino's Double Beef Bacon Pizza. Hell to the yeah.
I wouldn't usually call for pizzas just like that. No. I was actually like in bed, went on the internet on my phone, checked my email, and saw a promotion for delivered traditional pizzas at $9.50 each, that would end in an hour's time. Doesn't happen everyday.

Eaten a pizza (saved the other one for later tonight when I get home)? Full? Good. Time to go to school. At 12 midnight. And no, I'm not that hard-working either. I'm just that broke university student who didn't set up internet at home just for some super laggy connection and a $40-something monthly bill, while campus is five minutes away with fast free internet and internal heating.

<Fasts forward through some 7 hours of chatting and movie reviewing and other time-wasting stuff>

It was now around eight in the morning, and I had Life Drawing class at nine, so about time I got my ass moving. It's winter in July here, so if I might add, it's absolutely freezing at this hour in the morning, despite the deceiving pretty sunrise. Proof:
Sunrise over the school field. Pretty, yes?

Ohhhhh no. Look a little closer. The green grass has turned frost white over night.

More deceiving natural beauty of Tasmania (bet you've never heard of it)
 Good photos, I reckon. Also made me 10 minutes late for class. Plus my sketches this week were uglier than the ones I did last week. And I had even less sleep last week. Simple deduction: Must sleep less next week in order to draw better.

Documentation is a crucial component of being at the art school, since that's part of how they'll assess your progress at the end of each semester. I figured since these are all quick (between one and ten minutes) charcoal or pencil sketches on really low quality paper, they'd get all smudged and dirty after a short while. Should take those documentation shots as soon as possible. Better safe than sorry.










Also, this just in! The US version of Ellie Goulding's number one hit 'Starry Eyed' (not to be mistaken with my personal favorite 'The Writer'). I personally prefer the original UK version. Displayed her character much better and just packed more energy. This new version, although an absolute eye-candy and Ellie drop-dead gorgeous as ever, seems to lack life. The directing wasn't all that great and I must admit Ellie herself didn't use her best facial expressions either. To each his own, though. :)



Anyway. I'm hungry as hell right now. So I guess it's time to go home to lovely pizza. And some (almost non-existent) bedtime.

Be back soon!

Wally

dutch's Very Lengthy Movie Review #1: Capt. USA!

Lol. That title made it feel like something similar to Team America, which might have been no less awesome than what it actually is. But anyway.

***Major spoilers ahead!***
(seriously, DO NOT read if you plan to watch the movie)
 
Captain America: The First Avenger. (All pictures courtesy of Marvel Studios)
 The movie stars Chris Evans (pretty much known as Johnny Storm/Human Torch in the Fantastic Four movies up until now) as Steve Rogers/the Cap, Hayley Atwell as agent Peggy Carter, Hugo Weaving ('The Matrix Trilogy', 'V for Vendetta') as the villain Johann Schmidt/Red Skull, Tommy Lee Jones as the hard-headed Colonel Chester Phillips, Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark and Sebastian Stan as the Cap's best buddy James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

I *am* the artist, and made you out of pixels and vectors and...

Well hello there,

This is my second try at using and maintaining a blog. The previous blog failed on various levels, and I gathered it was because I lacked the English abilities to really write anything (read: lame excuse for having a painfully boring life). Also, dutch fact: I am... not Dutch (as you've probably figured from that profile picture and blog background. And by the way, what do you think of this blog design? I spent some good 3 hours messing around with Photoshop and Blogger on one of the crappiest internet connections trying to make things look good. :/ ) (That bracketed bit was unnecessarily chunky) (Another dutch fact: I sidetrack a lot. My blog posts are probably gonna be extremely incoherent)

So wait. Where were we? Ah, right. I'm not Dutch. I'm Vietnamese. First fifteen years in Vietnam, following four in Singapore (DO
NOT send your kids to high school/pre-university there, or they'll be deprived of beautiful teenage years), and the coming three in Australia. And you can call me Wally. Just a little bit of introduction there, so we're not complete strangers. On the intarwebz. Lol.

I actually do have a lot of other irrelevant things about myself to blog about (dutch fact: I'm egotistic, vain and proud) but since it's 2:30 AM and there's a lecture in just over 8 hours, I shall do that in other entries to come. Now, for something
relevant. I love Ellie Goulding. (please Google immediately if you don't know her!) And no, it's not just some ordinary celebrity crush it's actual lo-- ahem. Beside that, and the fact that my blog music is mostly her songs (handy little widget right there eh? Me likey.), I have created a huge set of Ellie Goulding-themed items for The Sims 3. And assuming you're reading this post because you've known me from Mod The Sims, I shall skip another potentially lengthy description of my creator self. (my former FIFA creator self, however, could be explored later ;D) Jesus. Did I mention I sidetracked a lot?

Anyway. These items come in six separate uploads on Mod The Sims, and are what I consider most important amongst all my creations thus far. Download links to all these items can be found in the last part of the pack, the Ellie Goulding Sim herself. :)

Here are some screenshots to illustrate the Sim and some of the other mentioned items:















































And here's the link to the actual upload on MTS (where you can find the rest of the items as well):

http://www.modthesims.info/d/449562


Annnd, that's about it for my first (serious) post on the dutch blog!

Until next time, stay tuned.

Wally