My randoms of randomness:

• 01:02 pipa.jp/tegaki/299605/12748988.html This was too ambitious for an inexperienced doujin and tegaki artist like myself... #
• 01:04 ...and should've been doing homework...But I don't regret it!!! (●´Д｀●)♡ dat's the closest to doujin I'll get, haha.. #
• 12:16 Only the first week of school and the trapezius muscle aching already... How to survive!! #
• 14:25 日夜同隻波波怪獸(aka. Gigi)玩波我做唔到功課咖.... doesn't help corgi smile is so effective ;口;!! #
• 14:28 opening Maya again and working on internship... wahh ;w; nostalgic again! #
• 17:42 ...the bad thing about Tegaki is that I can't change my grammar mistakes once submitted =w=; I need a giant FOREIGNER banner on my page. #

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Just like that the winter break's almost over... to be frank, I'm having a hard time getting back on LJ, dA, and many other accounts. I'm finding a hard time trying to pick up where I left off.. guess you can kind of call it going through an existential moment...

Straight to the point: the reality of the animation/illust industry. It's no brainer that you as the artist have to promote yourself with your work and personality, but what I learned in the past year is that it is in fact a very specialized, small industry. And word travels fast. Long story short is that I feel the way I've been executing stuff online has been so unprofessional ~_~ It feels like now I have to be careful on any potential "bad decorum" displayed. I'm having a hard time finding a compromise between the persona I left off at and the one I need to change to. And if I want to use dA as a potential gallery, I'm not sure how to clean it up, because some history's attached.

On the bright side! Rewatching an old-school anime called Jungle no Ou Taachan. Oh God 8D So much good crack!! And... I got a 3D internship at a local game studio x3!! Many of the 3D classmates are there too, and considering how much fun I had this semester with the class, I think the same party would make it more fun (but 某 comrade is missing!! you know who you are!) Plus as much as I wanna get into the viz dev industry, it's SO competitive, and my illustration skills are not up to par at all... so will do 3D on the side while trying to polish the skills up. It's about time to get some real resume material!

And some pchat goodness couple days ago! It's been a while to just have fun. Apparently the Ultraman heat was still burning hot 8DDD;; so much crack, and 某S draws the cutest mini nii-san!


Finally, I've lately been trying out Tegaki, and it's awesomeeeeeee. (●´Д｀●)♡ I love being able to just do spontaneous doodles and not be tempted to make 'masterpieces'. Has nothing to do with forgoting how to render on PS. Hopefully this will help me loosening up more.

Happy New Year!

As mentioned before, I did a lot of research for the Ultraman project, not only to get visual reference, but also in order to understand Taro as a character the best I can. Frankly, more research than necessary for just a mere modeling project, reading from English to Chinese and Japanese sources.. Reflecting back the whole process, the research part was a really huge part of the fun. ♥ I would never have thought of knowing the franchise as well as now... from hardly know the family members to recognizing almost all of them up to date |D; My parents even bought me the series from HK~~

Since there's scarce information about Taro himself in English, and (for now) I'm lazy to edit the English Wiki, I'll make a compilation based on all the research here so future Ultra fans can refer to it. All images are official.

So here we go... Man this makes me wanna do coding again O_O

Ultraman Mebius ep. 29 (2006)

Ultraman Taro (1973) Alt. Names: ウルトラマンタロウ, 超人太郎, 泰罗奥特曼 Height: 53 meters Age: 12,000 Earth years Weight: 55,000 tons Flight Speed: Mach 20 Running Speed: 1200 kilometers per hour Home Planet: The Land of Light, Nebula M78 Human Form: Kotaro Higashi Transformation Item: Ultra Badge

Overview: A red tribe member like Ultra Seven, Taro is the youngest of the original Six Ultra brothers as well as the only true son of Mother and Father of Ultra. His Ultra horns indicate that he is potentially one of the most powerful Ultramans, but he depended a lot on his brothers and parents before maturing as an Ultra warrior. Currently the lead instructor of the Space Garrison, he had personally trained Ultraman Mebius when Mebius was younger.

• Weapons (Attacks)
• Relationship with Other Ultras
• About his human host: Higashi Kotaro
• Themes throughout the series
• Taro's history (Ultraman Story, Childhood Timeline)
• Appearance in other Media (Movies, Manga)
• FAQs:
1. Is Kotaro and Taro separated at the end of the series?
2. Is Ultraman Story considered an alternate universe (AU) or is this a potential history of Taro’s?
3. How/When is Taro born then?

( More about Taro below )

Feel free to comment if you have anything to contribute, may it be information, fanworks, or simply commentary on the post.

Search keywords: Ultraman Taro, information

My randoms of randomness:

• 11:07 I love my parents' reaction at last night's ep.. "又係你兩隻野" XDD #
• 11:09 huge headache right now as my body tries really hard to adjust back to normal sleep. It's getting there...slept at 10PM, which is too early. #
• 15:17 Nuuuu the VCD skipped the ゾフィーの事はなんかいいよ part ;___;!! #
• 15:34 The brothers tossed Taro up in the air in victory 8D!!!! #
• 15:36 Z: 我地由細到大太寵太郎啦 |D;;; #

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☃ Merry Christmas! ☃

Currently spending my Xmas with the electricity out and my laptop at the brim of its life LOL. Hope you all had a well spent evening!

It's been over a month since I bought the CD, and over three months since its release. I didn't even do a proper review on it other than Twittering it, so... will make a short review.



Score: 4.4/5

My first impression: I love the classical music influence, and despite the mix reviews that the album received, I still think it has a very Muse flare to the songs. Maybe not as original sounding as their previous releases, but still very ambitious and catchy. It just takes a while for the album to grow on you :D Prior to the release of the album, we've already been told by the band that it was very different from what they did before; yet fans are keep expecting another Black Holes and Revelations. Will say it now: this album is much more mellow than Black Holes. The songs are slightly slower and less rocky than their previous stuff.

Highlights of the album:
Resistance, United States of Eurasia, Guiding Lights, Exogenesis: Symphony I~III.

In my opinion, the weakness of the album is not because the more mellow direction they're going. I think it just lacks the unity that the other albums had. The Resistance didn't flow as well as them. It takes around the magic number of 3 tracks to really reel someone into an album. We have Uprising as the upbeat opener, then the very serious Resistance, and suddenly we hear the pop-influenced Undisclosed Desires for track 3. I don't think Undisclosed Desires transitions well after the first two because the listener doesn't have enough time to be prepared for the emotional change. The song itself is okay, but I felt it being very disruptive within the album. It might've been better as a track 4.

On the other hand, the Exogenesis: Symphony tracks are simply epic. It was extremely ambitious of them to have written an orchestral score, and Bellamy's vocals just blend beautifully with the grand sound. Part II's climax is soooo amazing ♥ The only problem now is that I always feel inconsistent when I put the playlist on shuffle. ;)

Two weeks ago, I finally was able to see Muse live locally!! I uploaded their opener Resistance. They are remarkable live.

My randoms of randomness:

• 19:47 Wahhhh still so unsettling ；w；） #
• 21:35 watching ウルトラマンメビウス&ウルトラ兄弟! ；w；）9 #
• 21:58 超人們（向Mebius):「原來你就是***佐菲和太郎***的學生」// 爸媽:（笑）// 我都笑 XDDDDD #
• 22:42 ゾフィーとタロウ来た━( ﾟ ∀ ﾟ )━━━!! #
• 22:44 他們的粵語聲unexpectedly年輕XDD #
• 22:56 now that I think about it, can't believe it's been a week already....wow... #
• 23:17 他們兩個送徒弟行XDD! 哎呀，太搞笑.... #
• 23:24 爸媽：大哥和太郎遲到出現是因爲他們在跳舞嘛 // 我：XDDD;;;;;; #
• 00:48 let's hope tomorrow will be a more productive day. #
• 08:45 I woke up at 8AM again... stay awake or fall back asleep (if I even will)...... so chilly today. And wow, only 3 days until Christmas WUT? #
• 09:08 期待メビウス外伝STAGE02~~ 昨天release了! #
• 09:48 man........ too laz--- I mean, chilly to get out of bed to go restroom =A= #

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I want to apologize for spamming your FList with Twits instead of real posts... this semester was so time-consuming that Twit was so much more convenient. You can find some of the projects on my blogspot. But this I have to plug here... Originally, the project merely brought back some nostalgia of the Ultraman series, but after doing way more research than necessary, we got so into poking fun at the characters out of love, these two have been our muse for the whole semester. Would never have expected to have so much fun with this project.

Brief introduction (just in case):
Ultraman Taro （タロウ）: ┗(｀ﾟДﾟ´)┛ youngest of the original Six Ultra brothers as well as the only true son of Mother and Father of Ultra (does that make him prince of M78? 8D). Depended a lot on his brothers and parents before maturing in his series. Currently the lead instructor of the Space Garrison, Ultraman Mebius' over-protective 教官 (kyoukan).
Ultraman Zoffy（ゾフィー兄さん）: ( ○ ω ○ )) the oldest of the original Six Ultra brothers and also the commander (taichou) of the Space Garrison. He cares for his brothers very much. There's been several scenes where he traveled all the way to Earth just to rescue if one of them is in danger. And because of Taro, he...uh... kinda became hetare nii-san 8D;;;;;

Copyrights go to Tsuburaya Productions and Shuuchishin. This is a student project only and is not affiliated with the company. No profits were made from it.

Ultraman Taro by me (某Asa or TV), Ultraman Zoffy by 某S.
Song: 羞恥心 (Shuuchishin) by 羞恥心 (our team's called Team羞恥 cuz we're missing one person)

Youtube:

Complimentary Nico:
【ニコニコ動画】【３Ｄ】ウルトラマンの「羞恥心」ダンス（ゾフィーとタロウ）
(It was rank 92/1000 on the first day!! The responses are SO hilarious 8DDD )

It's done! It's really done!!! !(●´Д｀●)♥

The Ultraman model I mentioned 3 months ago? Not only is it done, but animated as well!! My classmate 某S and I have started working on this since Thanksgiving along with finals. Since we did not have time to animate our models as a class, Gustlin made "dancing Ultraman" one of the extra credit options for final. Dude, we so couldn't pass up the opportunity. It didn't even matter whether it was extra credit or not, for we just wanted to animate our Ultramans!

We've reached our physical limit because of the project, but after seeing Gustlin's and the class' as well as the audience's great laughters during the A/I screening in the Washington Square Hall as the last surprise item to show (the giant screen!!!), the whole week of full-pilot animating non-stop was SO worth it!! 100% satisfactory (●´Д｀●)!! I mean... from laptop screen >>> class projector screen >>> AUDITORIUM SIZE (+ STEREO)!!!

The whole process was so surreal... I know if it's actually scrutinized for its animation, it isn't very good, but don't care! I mean, a total of 2688 frames animated, done with no instructions and zero experience on 3D animating. Plus, we started from scratch: searching for references, drawing blueprint, modeling, UV mapping, rigging, painting weight, and finally, animating... It was a miracle we finished it.

We just want to keep screaming, as words can't come close to describing our hype. I think this type of passion will be hard to come by a second time. But because of 129A, this semester was truly lots of fun.

First omake drawn by me. (Drooling corgi = me. Blue cat = 某S.)

タロウ: We did it!! ┗( ≧∇≦ )┛
某Asa+某S: Oh Yeahhhhhh-------!!!!
ゾフィー: ......(= _ = ))
(某S請原諒我都用那幾句X3;）

( OMAKE Part 2 & 3 by 某S! )

Some in-progress shots of many. Preview:


( PIKAPIKA DRAMA!!!! Warning of some crack, I guess. )

So sorry for the giant post... but... waah... just reflecting back on the whole process, it really feels amazing. So hard to rant the feeling to people. Honestly, I'm sad that it's really over, but I don't regret one bit of the effort, may it be editing the geometry even in rigging stage, or pulling a full 60-hours non-stop to finish, to put into making this whole project work.

Thank you 某S for putting up with me!! ♥ ；ω；)9 我們200%成功了！！！（涙）

My randoms of randomness:

• 21:39 Happy Birthday, Mom!! #
• 00:20 The past week was so surreal... I can't believe it's really the end now. Man, the 'ends' always feel so unsettling ._.; #
• 04:22 @bitstupid I received ur card!! Thank you~~ Loved the sketch too ♥ #
• 04:37 其實我對義呆利不是太大興趣，不過在朋友面前就無法開口 (炸) = =;;; #
• 05:36 ウルトラ映画に赤ちゃんがいるなら、ウルトラ兄弟たちも赤ちゃんとして生まれた事だね！じゃあ「ウルトラマン物語」のこタロウも公式だよな！！ｗ #

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My randoms of randomness:

• 00:12 tmr's screening is at Washington Square Hall OvO;;;;;; *nervous* #
• 00:48 @vejiicakes Gonna upload it tomorrow after the screening! We're gonna see if Craig's gonna show it first before publicizing it XD #
• 01:06 @vejiicakes ＠gem2niki probably for the demand of production speed.. but yeah, there's just a grandness to traditional BG that digital lacks. #
• 14:34 ...They showed it on the giant screen. They really showed it. KYAA. #
• 14:44 ...And OMG the audience reaction is... priceless 8D;;;;; Surely we "..." many people. #

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My randoms of randomness:

• 20:30 @gem2niki Credits, maybe? #
• 20:31 The next couple days, I'll be catching up sleep and hopefully be in contact w/ the world again! Again our Ultramans are fuckin awesome!!! #

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My randoms of randomness:

• 21:15 YES. The 8 hours of sleep within three days on the Ultraman dance + omake was /all/ worth Dave Gustlin's reaction 8D!!! Now art history..... #
• 21:32 ...though I feel I'm at my limit of sleep depriviation. *skims art history notes and cringes* #

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My randoms of randomness:

• 01:40 Up for practically 48 hours & still going!! Can't wait to see Gustlin's reaction tomorrow at our epic surprise. ┗(｀ﾟДﾟ´)┛ ( ○ ω ○ )) #

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My randoms of randomness:

• 03:45 Muse live. Is FUCKIN epic. #
• 13:04 ウルトラ新作映画を見たい！！！！！！；＿；*continues to 羞恥* #

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My randoms of randomness:

• 19:12 My sack pantomime animation: bit.ly/4n9zRU should've been a bit more aggressive... ah well, it's OVERRRRRrr. #
• 19:19 @Jaeninha *haven't uploaded anything for some time too...* it's fun to lurk the high hands there for sure... XD #
• 23:34 @gem2niki Shave 7 seconds off for beginning & end titles LOL! XD Thanks~ can't wait to see the kickass 115 stuff. Gd luck on Japanese too! #
• 23:48 @gem2niki What happened to your classes registration? D: #
• 23:49 @vejiicakes don't forget to *save* in midst of all that!! @D@ #
• 23:55 「羞恥」進行得比我地想象中慢 >____<; #
• 04:21 With my final just 5 hours away, I should be sleeping right now, but... Argh, bioclock is all screwy. #
• 12:37 gonna go see Muse tonight *______________________* And then full-pilot hermit on 「羞恥」!!!! #

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My randoms of randomness:

• 02:13 Someone emailed me about being impressed with my Thunderhawk 3D model and asked to see the file. Uhm.... ::question marks:: #
• 02:15 Good luck on the animation!!! *sneakpeeked one of the versions(?) in one of the lab comps...* #
• 02:25 @Jaeninha Wah I'm gonna wait a day or something. Search not found yet for some reason @D@ #
• 02:25 @gem2niki I call it done, haha... will add music last minute if I feel like it. =v= #
• 02:59 @Jaeninha nickname is サチ, username is this. :D #
• 18:06 @Jaeninha Found you too~~ sent you a my-pick (マイピク) request XD~ Ah, the upload is the second button on the top blue menu! #
• 18:33 @Jaeninha At the same time it's a little liberating too cuz now it's like upload whenever you want to with a new start 8D; #

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My randoms of randomness:

• 14:49 @Jaeninha Here: www.pixiv.net/entry01.php x3 Lemme know ur ID when you get an account!! #
• 14:50 I will sleep at sunrise for the next couple days like today. YOSH. Get those energy drinks ready! #
• 16:39 @Jaeninha o.o I'm using firefox to browse it too tho... anyways, sending my-pick invitation! #
• 16:40 @Jaeninha oh, I need your nickname (diff from username) to search for you XD;; #

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My randoms of randomness:

• 16:18 changed from 116 to 117 for next semester. *crack joints* #
• 16:19 @gem2niki I saw the snow too! And there's also snow in Roseville. #
• 16:25 Tonight's gonna be 8'C (36F).... I don't recall when has it been this cold in the Bay Area for a long time. #
• 16:36 @bitstupid Wah, was it that period when it rained for almost a month straight XD;? I only remember last winter was pretty dry.. #

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My randoms of randomness:

• 02:26 dammit, I wanna cut my hair short-short (how about bald?) so I have an excuse to just make short hair on my Maya model. #

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My randoms of randomness:

• 21:39 @Jaeninha Ditto that. We all must be "daijoubu"!! LOL #
• 00:59 已經努力加速ing.........= = 依然覺得進行得好慢... #
• 17:51 so behind schedule............................... #

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