A Friend’s Artwork for the Year’s End

Lately, I’ve been using this blog partially as a developer’s log for this project. Consider that as part of my motivational reward since it’ll be a freebie by next year’s end. Afterall, where else am I going to promote this project but in my own site?

Naah, I’m fooling with you folks. I just don’t want to think about my exam that’s coming up in a few hours. Yeah, let’s put the blame on that.

And so the artwork for this week is somewhat of (not to say lower quality, but...) a younger experienced artist by whom I had been ‘glomp’-ing out on a regular basis, Nessiah.

Nessiah aka Enexodia aka Archeia aka Jasmin aka Expialidocious is a Filipino girl who just moved to Findon, Australia and is probably getting ready for her first Christmas outside of South East Asia. She’s working on Unlocking Pandora’s artworks for free.

A freelance artist (who could be paid to do this thing) is actually making my game project for free (Let’s emphasize on the word, ‘for FREE!’). And I only gave her some illegal key-generators programs as Christmas presents to unlock those pesky 60-minutes-only downloaded games, so what does that say about me? Cheap? Oww...

It started on some help on battle animations but then I decided she’s really got great art sense so I asked her to do some artwork and character art. Hey, I didn’t expect Marvel comics or Hong-Kong-type mangas but this one’s actually very nice.

Nessiah did this one in GW.net forums. It’s a portrait of my female protagonists parents, Feladie and Iqeas. In the project storyline, the portrait will play a strong role in Act03 on plot discovery and character development.

What kind of plot development? Oh, puh-leze. That’s a major spoiler. Even Nessiah doesn’t know what the mini details of the portrait actually represents (haha!).

But I’m glad she liked the project. She even made an MS Paint tutorial about them. But as usual, clear-headed as she is (cue lightly implied sarcasm here), she wrote in Feladie and Keea, instead of Iqeas.

But I supposed that there’s no harm done because Keea, my main character, is named after her mother, Iqeas. Sort of. The Wolf and the Wildflower story tells another tale though, but I ain’t telling you fellas that either. Not yet anyway.

All part of the ‘hyping’ rule (Hype! Hype! Hype!).

If you will excuse me, I declare this week’s image blog entry done. Now I got to run for the watch-shoppe because though I remembered to bring my calculator, I forgot to buy batteries.

Crap.

An Empty, Open Future Lies Before Me...

Pretty much, I feel like the whipped guy in this GIF pic. Made this one ages and ages ago for a map contest in GW.net forums, mainly because I had just completed a pixel art character marathon of making all nine characters a ‘whipped’ look.

Though, only this blue female character will have a Pink Feather Duster of Whipping. Consider it as Special Combative Weaponry for Girls against Guys-With-Stupid-Questions. Works with game animated guys too.

Back to Me, like I said; I’m feeling for the whipped guy. It’s not because my exams are on tomorrow (note to self, bring calculator) or that I’m suffering a stomach-ache from yesterday meat-feast (I think... potato salad. Mm-mmm...). And no I’m not taking my medicine anymore (ran out of antibiotics anyway).

It’s the lazy girl syndrome.

Haha, nothing serious to report. Because after this exams, I’m going to face a 3-and-a-half weeks of completely empty days. No more driving to school, no more traffic jams and no more over-heating radiator, no more Touch n’ Go card mishaps (I have the propensity to loose my card in even the safest situations, like the card falling out of my hand while I’m drinking Milo from a styrofoam cup).

It’s not that I have completely empty-empty-empty hours for the days ahead. I’m planning on spending most of it in front of my PC, working the kinks out of my game storyline and code programming, next to a process of pixel art-making.



Then maybe run out to the Curve and stay at the Borders bookstores for long, my parents started calling for police and public assistance for my rescue (they almost did once, since I’ve ran way from home before). I don’t have any more money to buy books, which is a bummer, but at least I can take time to spend more hours with my old friend, Astro’s Animax.

So I like anime. Sue me.

And let’s not forget the cyber cafes. I’m cutting it back though, since I won’t be using the school’s workstation. So when I do blog, I’ll probably post up to 3 or so entries between a period of 4 or 5 days of Shadow Pimpernel’s quietness. Just to warn you guys ahead of schedule.

Repetitions of those activities aside, I really do have empty days. I don’t know the state of my school grades so there’s no point worrying about whether if I could or I could not get that thesis paper v2.0 for next semester.



And there’s no point in whipping myself if I don’t score for that. But the faculty can’t say I didn’t apply for the course. The twist-in-this-tale is that they won’t allow students to send in their own proposals starting next year.

Which means, I can only choose projects as written by the lecturer. Damn. I’ve been working on my game project specifically for thesis paper v2.0 (I’m Multimedia Majored, by the way). On the off-side, I know the faculty’s MultimediaHead pretty okay so the best I can wait during this long holiday is try to convince her to use my development tool as ‘reliable’.

Yeah, right, since when did things ever get to go my way? If I do figure something out that could convince MultimediaHead, I just might whip myself with glee with the Pink Feather Duster of Whipping.

Happy Aidil Adha 2006! ... sorry, 2007!

It’s the same as last year and the year before that and the year before that as well. Family coming from everywhere, crashing into the Batu Arang House and bringing pot-luck food which you can only pray that it’s digestible.

And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Okay, I know I’ve been pretty cynical about my family (because I wanted to) and that’s because it’s the truth. And that I wanted to.

Ayah is a busybody, Mak doubly so, (between the two of them, nothing gets done in time). My eldest brother *Arsenal is still being plagued with “Why aren’t you married yet?” inquisitions, my sister... MySis... had to bail quickly so she can suffer her husband’s family as well and my younger brother *Genius is so blur, he’s deploying his ‘whatever’ attitude.

For a genius, my little brother had to ask my parents, “Where are we going for Hari Raya Haji?”

Oh geez, Genius. Let’s see, we have a map of Batu Arang. We’re all leaving at 1030, 1100 and 1130 hours, depending on who is not ready and whose car is running for the last 10 minutes.

Mak borrowed PakSu’s Nissan van so she can transport the barbecue, turning the seven-men vehicle into a 2-and-a-half-men-plus-oversized-barbecue-set vehicle. Oh, and we do this every year so my brother really HAD to ask.

Me? I’m sick dammit. If I didn’t prepare myself for a stomach of steel, I would have literally made myself v-o-m-i-t. And it’s rude to barf up your aunt’s rendang so soon after you’ve swallowed it.

The thing is... I liked my family gathering holidays.

No really. I do. A lot. There are times when I think I shouldn’t be feeling so darn happy to see my close relations.



I mean, I’m surrounded by my mom’s 9 brothers and sisters and each one of them had multiplied to an average of 5 children each so that’s 45 cousins on all fronts. Several of my cousins had multiplied as well so that’s a total of 5 or so ‘little people’ running everywhere, getting into trouble so their elders can scream at me, “Why didn’t you watch them?!”

Do the math. I have a big family. Big Freaking Malay Family. If you’re not tripping over the little people, you’re being cornered by 2 aunts (my mom’s sisters travel in packs) so they can ask you everything about yourself since they already know how many diapers you use a day, back in the days when you had diapers.


Don’t they look like brothers? Cousins? No... they are uncle and nephew.

Of course, some of my cousins are celebrating with their in-laws or that they couldn’t come home from overseas so the total number had been helpfully reduced this year. Oh, one of my cousins brought a tourist with him, a Muslim convert from USA.

The guy was born in Malaysia actually (or so I’ve been force-fed the info) to a pair of globetrotting professor parents. *TanFace, my cousin, brought him over from Massachusetts to experience Hari Raya Haji in Malaysia.



“Clan Jailani, meet *Abdul-Something.”
“Abdul-Something, meet Clan Jailani. Now you’re the flavour of this year’s Haji. Brace yourself.”

My father, Ayah, was at awe. Ayah was self-learning bits and pieces of Arabic so he’s trying to impress Abdul-Something with his lame Arabic vocabulary (it turns out that Abdul-Something is an Arabic teacher). In return of listening to Ayah, Abdul-Something gets a bit of Ayah birthday cake.


It’s raining in Batu Arang... but that’s not going to stop the cow slaughtering!

That went on and on until after the lunch hour passed and the men left to send our family’s 2 cows for slaughter at the local ‘surau’. Then the meat-feast begins with Barbecue Party (just like last year).

Sorry Abdul-Something. Hary Raya AidilFitri is all the traditional food eating. Hari Raya Haji is when Clan Jailani eats Western. And Westerners are delicious. Especially the pale, skinny, Half-Dutch-half-Irish origin.

All and all, like I said, I reluctantly enjoyed my Hari Raya Aidil Adha 2007. Because unlike most families, Clan Jailani actually made the effort to keep in touch with each other throughout the years, even after my grandparent’s deaths.

I got an uncle’s family living within walking distance from my school and another uncle’s family within my house area. And the latter uncle’s wife, my aunt, has HER family within walking distance as well.


Cheap and lazy photograph copy of my mom’s family.

And every year, every body converges into Batu Arang (eldest uncle’s house) for whatever holiday they can drag their children too. Heck, even NOT-HOLIDAY, like cousin’s new house, aunt’s job promotion, whatever, is an excuse to get as much as mom’s 9 brothers and sisters under one roof.

With food. Golden rule; must bring food.


However, stray birds that flew into peoples’ homes by mistake, need not stay.

The family will be having another biggie gathering again in 2 months or so. It’ll be a family discussion on one of my aunt’s medical bills, the bungalow rents and late grandfather’s pineapple farm in Pontian. Maybe this time it’ll be in the uncle’s house in Kelana Jaya or maybe the aunt’s house in Seremban.

How the hell should I know? We do this every year. Oh hell, we do this on average every three months for freaking sakes! It’s just the same like every other gathering. Bring food, bring family members and bring gossip.

It’s just that Hari Raya Haji gives the excuse to indulge even more and maybe bring a tourist friend or so. Just like last year. Or like the last super gathering at Aidil Fitri, barely 2 months ago (aunt’s house in Seremban, I passed some books to my cousin, TanFace).

Funny enough, I wouldn’t have it any other way...

The Thesis Project Strikes Back!

Just when I thought I have heard the last of my thesis project, out pops a ‘ding-dong’ SMS music from my Sony Ericsson. Normally, it would have been some random AhLong wanting to give me a Christmas special offer (borrow money now and get a FREE microwave!), but surprise, surprise, it was Supervisor.

Oh for jeezes’ sake, what did I do now? The message was a shortie, just asking me to come up for presentation today in the faculty office. I had wished that she mistaken me for another random student who didn’t show up for their presentation D-Day so I just messaged back, asking exact time.

Apparently, Supervisor knew she got the right stupid kid when she SMS’d me back, asking for an 11am interview.

Damn...

Normally, I loved presentation. I do. I got A+ in public speaking co-curriculum and was the co-head of my group. My software engineering class didn’t have a bad presentation either. I can speak well, dress well and as long as I can focus on the subject matter, technical difficulties be damn’d.

But I DON’T feel focused today. I haven’t eaten breakfast. My head is still woozy-oozy-dizzy and it feels like my stomach wants to be woozy too (I think I have self-fermenting crack in my system that my body doesn’t want to share with me).

And so here I am at school, making a few last-minute touches on my system. At least the service provider is working (BOTH backup and backup’s backup). I don’t know who else is playing the music to my project grade but frankly, I don’t care to focus too much on it right now.

I’m getting ready for what I call ‘Internet Connection Hibernation’. It’s the time when I don’t have enough cash to access to the cyber cafes anymore AND I’m going to work on my pixel characters.

These are my old stuff but just to give you an idea. I have nine of these guys to art out, and all nine have about 4 or 5 semi-custom poses to design. It’s going to take a while to do them and I work better if I don’t get tempted to drive back and forth between PC and source of Internet.

Furthermost after my presentation today (just to remind myself incase I forgot), I’m going to do an outline of all my characters and then submit them to my artist. She’s doing character art for free but she hadn’t worked on mine at all.

So I’m going to pass her as much story spoilers as I could just to get her an idea of the game structure, and then let her decide if she still wants to do them.

Of course, considering if I may or may not still be alive after this surprise presentation today. It’s 9:30am on the Monday before Aidil Ad’ha and I’m the one feeling like a cow to her execution.

Whoops, there goes my ‘ding-dong’ SMS again. With any luck, it’s an AhLong giving me a Christmas special offer.

My Things-To-Do List

Due to the fact that my concentration, motivation and common sense are all having a drunken party in my brain (and not inviting me), I’ve made a list of all the things I need to get done for this week before my memory gets dragged into the cough-syrup fray.

Things to do:

01-Get assignments done.
02-Study for SE exams.
03-Take medicine.
04-Submit second thesis application form.
05-Finish the rest of December’s Dream story.
06-Outline the endings for game project.
07-Take medicine.
08-Zip and upload Christmas presents for IRC pals.
09-Post more messages in GW and Guiltforge forums.
10-Take medicine.
11-Update Sony Ericsson phone.
12-Clean room (also include vacuuming the mattress).
13-Arrange own lunch.
14-Take medicine.
15-Make time to finish Aveyond game.
16-Harass Nessiah for her novella.
17-Harass self to take medicine.
18-Keep up to date with news.
19-Browse FSM site for new material.
20-Eat that salami.
21-Stay away from homicidal baby nephew.
22-Take medicine.
23-Finish up Mom’s tandoori chicken.
24-Get to GW IRC chatroom ASAP!
25-Download new mp3 songs.
26-Take medicine.
27-Buy shampoo.
28-Get back the Dresden Files series from cousin.
29-Check the car for tyres, radiator, etc.
30-Take the damn medicine.

Most of the things in the list I don’t think I’ll go ahead to do it urgently (when I could think at all), but at least I know that I got my priorities laid out.

I don’t like it that my head still feels woozy, maybe doubly than most normal people because I have had low-blood pressure all my life and is prone to faints.

Oh crap.
Now where the hell did I put my freaking medicine?

Better late than... okay, no excuse.

It’s the mental grinding time. I got 3 days including today to submit my assignments and my second thesis application and work up a schedule for next semester AND try not to fail any subjects this time. I’m running out of money as it is. Not that I’ve haven’t been running out of money anyway. Money, money, money. The root of all stomach-aches.

So it’s to my surprise that a week had already passed since I gifted you fellows the eye-candy for your desktop. I could say that I had to rush around the various Image Galleries, Personal Galleries, Hosting Galleries and the Galleries R’ Us sites to look for something you guys might drool over.

But actually, I had a back-up of supplies.

Oleg Karrasev, copyright 2001, from his/her private gallery. I found this in the distant past when I was a member of a writing group that tags other members to continue their stories. It’s still there but since I’m no longer a member, I won’t advertise (I’m a b**ch that way).

But the nature of the writing group had intrigued, thus the idea of surfing for images that would visually inspire to aid in story development. This flower by artist Karrasev (by the way, Google thinks ‘Oleg Karrasev’ is a virus. Heh) was for a story of which a ‘jewel of the forest was the secret to a saviour’s powers’. I’ll let you fill in the blanks.

For my own story of what this image represents... nothing. Nah, I didn’t really have anything to pin it to my Imaginary-World-Ideas. Maybe a piece or two to one of the more magical realms of the World but really, I just post this picture here just to share.

After all, sharing doesn’t cost money and I had time to spare. Well, yeeeeeeah I was suppose to post this image up yesterday but better late than... okay, no excuse.

Now go decorate your desktop or something (hahaha!).