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