Jun 26 2007
A Sneaky Surprise
My sneaky friends gave me the sweetest, cheesiest surprise last Saturday. There I was at our favorite pizza place thinking we were all there only because it was Kathy’s birthday, when suddenly they whipped out a video camera and proceeded to almost make me cry! I’ll be leaving for Singapore soon, so they decided to send me off with a few speeches and a box full of fond memories. Each gave me two gifts — one that reminds him/her of me and one that’s supposed to remind me of him/her — which they put in a lovely box that the uber-talented Phin made. I don’t think I’ve ever been more surprised or more touched. I wub them *squishes friends*
Group photo snagged from Kathy’s Multiply album
From Kathy I got something floppy and something squishy: a Stitch (my favorite cartoon character) pen that flops about as you write and a koala-shaped, gel-filled wrist supporter to remind me that — major cheese alert! — she’ll always be there to support me. (You can click on the thumbnails for a full view.)
Jun 19 2007
And Now for Some TMI…
I am PMSing in the worst possible way. This means for the past several days I have been jumping from one of the following moods to another:
- cranky, as in becoming irritated by the most random and trivial things, such as people walking too loudly (I’m not kidding);
- hungry, as in eating the entire contents of our refrigerator every two hours; and
- horny, as in wanting to pounce on every hot (or even not-so-hot) guy that I see.
Even more interesting is when I experience two or all of those moods at once:
- cranky & hungry, as in becoming irritated by the fact that I’m eating my third bag of chips for the day;
- hungry & horny, as in wanting to pour melted chocolate over every hot (or even not-so-hot) guy that I see;
- horny & cranky, as in BDSM; or
- all three, as in BDSM (melted-chocolate edition).
As much as I love being female, I can’t help but wish I didn’t have to go through this hormonal yo-yo every single month. Le sigh.
Jun 11 2007
Coloring with Adobe Photoshop
Several people — Sara being the most recent — have e-mailed to ask how I go about creating my mixed media illustrations. I tried my best to write a coherent reply every time, all the while thinking to myself, “I really should blog about this one of these days.” After Skye asked how I colored yesterday’s tiger-in-a-suit drawing and then gave me a shout-out and some imaginary strangulation on her blog, I finally went ahead and wrote this little how-to article.
I suppose you can call this a tutorial, even though it’s not as detailed as the better tutorials you’ll see around the Internet. Just for kicks I used the previously posted tiger’s decapitated head for visual aids.
Jun 10 2007
Illustration Friday: Suit
This little fella is my interpretation of this week’s Illustration Friday topic, suit. Tigers are such handsome animals, and I thought a cartoon tiger would look cute in a suit. It was partially inspired by a Calvin & Hobbes comic strip where Hobbes dressed up in a tie for Susie — but mostly I just wanted to draw a tiger in a suit 
As usual I drew the outline on paper then did the coloring on Photoshop. The original sketch was a full-body picture, but I had to stop inking because the pen dried out, and the only other pen I had was twice as thick. Methinks I need to buy more pens
Jun 03 2007
Finally Making Progress
It looks like my plan to rid myself of designer’s block worked. I made five layouts in the last two weeks and am now more than halfway through my huge backlog of design projects. Go me!
The first three designs are grossly belated birthday gifts for my college friends. I was broke last year, so instead of buying cheap gifts that I wouldn’t want for myself, I promised to make new layouts for those who had blogs or LJs. I’m still broke, so the question is, what will I make for them this year?
Anyway, the fourth is for our group blog, and the last is a streamlined, resume-appropriate version of my portfolio. Check them out! Links and screen shots (as well as a few web design questions that I’m hoping you coding gurus can answer) are after the jump.
