The ramblings of ‘Satoshii’

Hey everyone, sorry there’s been no activity in the last few months. I’ve been rather busy with a lot of work. Firstly, finishing and graduating (yes, graduating! a 2-2) my animation degree and moving back down to the south of England. Secondly, i’ve been working on the new Watermelon Studios website, which I do say, looks rather spiffy. Although you can’t see it yet, you’ll have to wait a little longer. The reason you have to wait is… Thirdly, I’ve been working (aside from doing odd graphic commissions) on my debut comic, which is still unnamed. If I have to sum the whole story up in one word, it would be… ‘Perspicacity’. This, and other short stories/webcomics will be coming to the website, hence the delay. The pic above is one of the initial concept works for my comic.

Until then, you’ll have to wait a little longer until i’ve got that done before the website is up. The good news is, after that, i’ll have lot of art goodies to show you! Tata for now.

Just thought i’d wish you a Merry Christmas for 2007, and an early new year as we wish on 2008!! (drawing not done by me)

We should be doing our first day at the Laserquest thing tomorrow, but i’m not sure because we haven’t requested the paint we need yet because the payment hasn’t been settled. Doesn’t make much difference, we’ll start when the paint comes. In the mean time, we’ve been working on stencils and testing them out. I’ve also been contributing my own, and doing some stencil art for downstairs. As you can see i’ve done a few memorable characters, this one above is of course Solid Snake. Hopefully i’ll get to do them because they’ll look pretty sweet :P.

I’ve just come up with the new cover girl for Watermelon Studios. It’s actually a caricature of a friend of mine, but I was so happy with the picture and the way I had done the character. I’m not sure what, it just has a kind of, spark for me. Cheers Zoe for being a great model! So, i’m gonna do a character sheet and do some more pics of the same character. I’m not sure what to name her yet though.

  On a separate note, I’ve been looking up the six degrees of separation, which I stumbled upon accidentally today as is usual for me. It’s a funny little concept, its basically that if we call a relationship between two friends a ’step’, and say a friends friend is ‘two steps’, then apparently we’re only six steps (six degrees) away from anyone in the world.Ok, so an example is needed. Lets say, between me and Dave Grohl, there’s five degrees or five steps as they’re called. Maybe I know someone called Jim, who is friends with Gary who is in a band. Gary is recording his new album with his friend and sound tech Johnathon, who used to date Becky, who is Dave Grohl’s manager. (This is all made up btw)

Me -> Jim -> Gary -> Johnathon -> Becky -> Dave Grohl

This gives us five clear connections between these two people.

This applies to anyone in the world (apparently), and has had vigourous testing applied to it. I suppose it’s a small world after all.

Another test called ‘Find Satoshi‘ (no relation ^_^) is under way too. It’s seeing if you can find someone in the world with only their first name and photograph, using the six degrees of separation. Go have a looksies, it’s quite interesting, like a giant game of hide and seek ^_^!

I haven’t got any money at the moment, but that doesn’t stop me from already planning how i’m going to spend it once i get it. I get money in on the 30th of this month, with that I have to pay bills, food, etc. But i’m also going to indulge for a change, heck its nearly Christmas after all. I’m gonna head down to my local overpriced comic book store and buy some new manga. Whilst I may be seduced into getting anime from less that reputable sources, I like to get my manga in it’s most physical form.

So, I’m going to have a browse around and see what I can get. I’m not sure what i’m after really. I know one series I might get, which is Gunslinger Girl. I saw it when I was out in Japan, but as fate would have it I didn’t buy them at the time because of weight restrictions on the journey back (damn Japan and their 300 yen manga!!!). I also looked at Death Note when I was down last (everyone keeps raving about it, nearly as much as Bleach and Naruto), but the art style keeps putting me off.

You see, I have a thing about manga, maybe its a flaw and probably denies me some awesome literature, but I can’t sit and read something that I don’t like the style of. Its the same with books, I’ll pick up on an authors style and if I like it, i’ll read on, if not, then I don’t. I can read most things, but for me, art comes before anything else.

That’s not to say that I don’t worry about story, characters, pacing, etc. After all, i’m a comic book artist myself, but for my own personal consumption, it has to past my taste test first.

So I usually browse through some stuff, maybe get some recommendations, and look to see what catches my eye. I am a sucker for cute moe style art, I’m not the kind of guy who goes out looking for the next bloodfest. I can pick them up at times, if i’m in the mood, but usually i’ll go for something a little less violent or dark. I’ll happily buy some CLAMP work, maybe an art book by Kenichi Sonoda (ooo, I need one of them:), consequently Gunsmith Cats is one of my favourite series), or yet another harem manga. I like manga with girls and guns too ^_^. Speaking of art books, Jake has ‘Der Mond’ by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto (of Neon Genesis Evangelion fame) and its exquisite, full of watercolour and digital pin-up art in A3)

I’ve also been drawing like a madman too. I’ve been drawing manga caricatures/portraits for people. I’ve even done one of Rolf Harris (we’re trying to get him to come do life drawing with us). Although my art is improving a little, i’m still in that self doubt stage that every artist goes though, and secretly I don’t like any work I do myself. I did an awesome pin-up of Rally Vincent (from Gunsmith Cats) for a t-shirt design for myself, and I inked it and coloured it myself (note that it was traced from an original though), but I can’t seem to draw anything to come out like that, or ink it properly. The colouring’s getting better, I am pleased with that, especially since i’m trying out new techniques and they’re working well. It’s not high class colouring, but it’s effective in making pictures stand out. I’d prefer to do watercolours like Sadamoto… But hey, i’ll keep on trying. I’m glad to be drawing more anyhow, and it gives me some up to date work to put in my portfolio (and on the website once that’s done). I don’t like to put much work into my portfolio that isn’t up to date because it doesn’t show what I can do at the moment.

Oh yeah, I managed to find Rozen Maiden (God bless the internet!). It’s pretty good so far. I’m only four episodes in, and we’ve already been introduced to Suiseiseki (~Desu!). There are a few girls in it (mostly dolls), but i’m glad to see it isn’t another harem ‘oh no, we’re naked in front of the main character’ fan service anime alla Love Hina. It seems to be going ok (although the animation is the most basic i’ve seen in any anime), each character has their own little quirks and they’re not that stereotypical either. Plus the intro song is creepy but catchy as hell!

I’ve been looking for a good anime to get my teeth into recently. I usually go for the manga first, and then take a look at the anime (if there is one) if that was any good. I’ve got enough anime on DVD to last me for a while, but there’s nothing really ‘moe‘. I’ve got the classics, Akira, Appleseed, and a lot of things like Vampire Hunter D, Ninja Scroll, Evangelion, etc., but they’re all a bit too serious. I need something a little cuter. It’s a little hard to find something ‘cute’ nowadays in anime and manga that doesn’t borderline ‘lolicon’ (or just plain plows through that line). I want to find something that has that cute appeal, without making me look like i want to drool over barely legal anime girls.

Enter ‘Rozen Maiden’, stage left. I know some of the characters purely on a visual basis, but i’ve not watched the series yet. I tracked it down from a character called ‘Suiseiseki’, who is slowly becoming one of my favourite characters (despite the fact I haven’t watched any of the anime).

Suiseiseki is one of the Rozen Maidens, a group of dolls with strange powers. Or thats what I gather. I don’t want to look it up too much or i’ll spoil it for when I get it. She has a funny little quirk in the Japanese language version, as she adds the word ‘desu’ (です - to be) to the end of every sentance (or anything really). I think it makes her speech a little more honorable in Japanese, but it provides a cute little idiosyncrasy for us.

Evidently, the picture you can see is of Suiseiseki, and she has another trait (which she shares with her sister Souseiseki); her eyes are two different colours. Now I looked into this and found out it’s called “Heterochromia“. Its a fascinating little condition that is usually hereditary. I also found to my surprise that I have the condition, or partially as it may be, called “Sectoral Heterochromia“. My eyes aren’t different colours to each other, instead, each eye has two separate colours in them (green and blue). Its got something to do with partial lack of pigment in the iris.

It might also be added that Suiseiseki was voted most ‘moe’ character in the Saimoe Tournament (最萌トーナメン) in 2006. I’ll have to see if I can find Rozen Maiden somewhere, as I have no money whatsoever.

And that makes me sad. Desu.

So Flock seems to be going well for me. I haven’t delved deep into what it can do, but its doing what I want it too; its not crashing my computer. It may look slightly different (In a kind of post-modern Mac kinda way), but it still feels like firefox. Unfortunately, it still doesn’t like CSS code that much either, just like firefox, which is making it a real pain for me to make sure that the Watermelon Studios website is complient to both browsers. I haven’t even passed it through the W3 validator yet (and i’m probably not gonna), because it will probably give me a looooong list of what i’m doing wrong and its too much to take on at the moment.

Things are moving ahead though. I’ve purposefully put my drawing on hiatus this weekend (and probably for a good few days afterwards) so I can get all these things sorted as well. I’ve even started blitzing the house, ’spring’ cleaning everything I see.

I’ve got a lot of J-pop to keep me busy while I do it though (J-pop = Japanese pop). I’ve stumbled across a cool little site called JpopAsia.com. Its got a list of Japanese video charts and has many J-pop videos for loads of artists to view. It’s nice to be able to keep up with Ayumi Hamazaki (浜崎あゆみ) and Orange Range’s (オレンジ　レーンジ) stuff that I was into when I was in Japan from 2004-2005.

I’ve also found another band recently call Mihimaru GT (ミヒ丸GT) who are a J-pop/J-urban crossover (see above). Their stuff is very catchy (especially one of their more recent singles, Gazen Yeah! (俄然Yeah!) which has a cool 60’s style guitar and a bouncy drum beat. It even has it’s own dance (which, yes, I do attempt when its on!) They’ve even done their own version of Kylie Minogue’s “I Should Be So Lucky”, which isn’t actually that bad. Orange Range coincidently also did a 80’s Kylie cover in the form of “Locamotion” (actually, it was titled Localotion, and had a man dressed up as a bottle of lotion being ‘pleasured’ by a bunch of semi-naked females).

Anyways here’s the Gazen Yeah! video if you want to check it out:

Mihimaru GT - Gazen Yeah! Anyways, I’m still getting on with cleaning and generally moving stuff around my room. Once i’ve finished the Watermelon Studios site, I will finally be free to do my own personal ‘portfolio site’, haha. Oh, and the Japanese quote in the title is the opening line from Orange Range’s ‘Asterisk‘ which i’m currently listening to, and its the only part I can sing along to :).

Recently, myself and my room-mate (and close friend) Jake Bale have started designing t-shirts. It’s nothing spectacularly extraordinary or particularly professional, we’re just making artwork and then printing the images onto transfer paper, ironing them onto plain t-shirts afterwards. It’s a fun little activity and it seems to have sparked a little creativity in me, because i’m drawing a whole lot more again.

I suppose I hit a kind of ‘artistic’ hurdle, as every artist has done many-a-times, so its a relief to be over that.

We’re designing custom t-shirts at the moment and they’re pretty durable (we do strive to get good “raw materials”, in a manner of speaking). The last one I did has lasted nearly three years, albeit it’s cracked a bit. [Update: Jake has ruined the first shirt he printed. Kids, don’t wash your printed shirts in a 95 degree wash!] If you want a shirt done, or just want a browse, go check out Jake’s MySpace page and look in the pictures section under ‘tshirts’.

  On a nearly completely different note, I’ve had a lot of problems with my computer. It keeps randomly crashing, which is a real pain, especially when you’re working on some art in firefox and you haven’t saved for a while (oh dear god, the colouring, the inking, gone!). First I thought it was a virus, then mallware and spyware, then registry problems. It was none of them.

The culprit?                     Firefox!

Ok, so its not as scary as I first thought. My computer is pretty new, so to have it mess up already was a little worrying. What the actual problem is, is that Firefox seems to have picked up a trait from Windows Vista, namely that it needs a never-ending supply of memory. Apparently it’s been a real problem ever since they switched to version 2.0, but I mean, it was using 150,000+K and about 40% of my cpu.

I have since switched to Flock. It’s a reasonably new web browser (actually based on Firefox code, haha), and it seems to work well with a lot less memory-hugging usage. It has a lot of cool built-in stuff for social networking and RSS feeds (which may be clutter to some, but it’s still a neat idea). I’m gonna give it a trial run and see how it goes.

Oh, and don’t even think about suggesting I use Windows Internet Explorer. Yuk!

If you are reading this, then you have stumbled upon the creative blog of Dave Smith, noteworthy peon and creator of Watermelon Studios.

What follows this post are my rants and feelings on what may or may not inspire me creatively, insights into my personal view on the world, artistic updates and general rambling; to name a few. Pretty much whatever I want really.

Feel free to comment and discuss with me, or join the Watermelon Studio Forums to divulge a little further.

The title of this post is ‘Irasshaimase’ and literally means ‘welcome’ in Japanese. I thought it appropriate for a first post and it fits in with my rather “Japan” fan-boyish nature.