Travel: Japan, pt.1 (blast from the past)

Three years ago, I went to Japan on a business trip. It was all market research, which basically meant I went shopping for three days. With the release on Ponyo, I've been thinking about that trip a lot, because I got to take a single afternoon away from the craziness that is Tokyo and all the shop-shop-shop-hopping, and visit the Ghibli Museum. I thought it might be fun to share some of my thoughts from old emails I wrote to friends and family at the time with some pictures. It was such an amazing and inspiring trip, and feeling nostalgic about it just makes me want to share:

Tokyo at last! | 2006-05-01
And now I can fully relate to “Lost in Translation“. Maybe it’s because I haven’t really traveled on my own in a while (my co-worker doesn’t count, he’s never been here before either), or the fact that whenever I’ve come to Asia for work before there was always someone to take us around - but it’s tough here. Far less people speak english. Oh, and our hotel! While being beautiful and luxurious - it’s in the middle of NO WHERE. I got a Tokyo travel book and its blurb says ”Luxury hotels don’t come more luxurious than this... The only real drawback is it’s location: Odaiba is great for a day out, but as a base for touring Tokyo it’s inconvenient.“ There’s a fantastic view of the Tokyo skyline from the top floor (along with $80 - $100 a meal dining options), but there’s no quick way into the city. To top it off - we started looking up all the stores on our list of places to go - they’re all on the opposite side of the city! Anyway, this should be an adventure - cause we have to take the trains and subways and the map is the most complex thing I’ve ever seen. I’m excited though, it’ll be a challenge and I love maps! I feel really isolated in this hotel, there doesn’t seem to be many foreigners here - I’m really looking forward to getting out and about!
There’s a huge mall across the street, so we went out for Sushi dinner (of course!). It was a local place too, they didn’t speak a word of english, we had to point at pictures on the menu - but it was all good. I also got miso soup - unlike I’ve ever had before, and some sura-mame (gigantic bean, kind of like edamame). We also found a Cinnabon and Starbucks for dessert. ;)
I’m a little exhausted. I must admit, my legs are KILLING me. Walking for two days straight in Hong Kong and then sitting on a plane for 5 hours DID NOT help. ;) I would LOVE to get a massage before I leave. :) I’m aching!!! Ouch.

Update: An Effort to Blog more

This is hard. With so much work do to, it's very difficult to find the time to blog with any regularity… unless I schedule it in. So I'm going to try this approach. We'll see if it works, but as most working freelancers know - the first things to get cut when time runs short are the things you aren't getting paid for. ;)

Lately I've been drawing everyday. Unfortunately none of it has been for fun or personal expression. It's been work, work, work. Work which I cannot share as of right now because it's all concept & development work. :(

So, I'm going to start sharing examples of some of my older work, that's already been released (hopefully on a semi-weekly basis). I'm going to start with examples of a few projects that were released this past Spring. These are dimensional stickers. I was given various themes to interpret and sketched out my concepts for icons that would work within those themes. Here are side-by-side comparisons of my sketches next to the final product.

Baby Toys

New Artist / Preschool

Best Mom / Mother's Day

Unfortunately I don't get to have anything to do with the actual product development and sampling beyond the sketches - but in this respect it's like getting a surprise present every time I see a new design released!

Sketch Crawl at the Zoo

So, although I live just three blocks from the zoo, this past Saturday was only my third visit and my first time actually drawing there. I find it difficult to sketch from life because I'm either in a rush to see more, and I can't draw fast enough to capture anything -- and I'm a perfectionist, I focus on details, so it's very hard for me to draw fast and loose. When I do, I feel I'm just drawing badly, and reinforcing the experience of drawing badly by continuing the practice. But I know there is something to it, and I was happily rewarded for my efforts on Saturday.

I'm quite happy with a few of the sketches I got. I particularly like my loose expressive gorilla (although I really have no idea if it was a lady gorilla or if she was actually pregnant - it could have just been a very fat bellied gorilla!), it is just SO hard for me to work that fast and actually have it look like something. And I actually made myself pull out the watercolors as well, something I always hesitate to do while out and about - in my head, before I start it feels like so much 'work' up set up, so I usually stop myself before I begin. But this really wasn't all that bad. Very quick set up and clean up, and most time spent painting!

It was a really fun day - and bonus: it was FREE. And not just because I'm a member of the zoo - they were closing at noon for a charity gala, so they were letting everyone in for free in the morning. I was also thankful that I had the time limit (we arrived at 10am) to help focus on sketching.

New Work: Bella Sara ROYALTY

Bella Sara has just released their new card series called "Royalty". This was my second time working on Bella Sara with Hidden City Games. I only did one card this series, but what a card?! This is Anemone, Queen of House Airistos! I was so happy with how this turned out, I feel I'm finally nailing down & getting comfortable with this digital style.

Illustration Friday: CRACKED

Meant to post this days ago. Just a little drawing I did, inspired by this week's theme. :)

Illustration Friday: CONTAGIOUS

It would be nice if I could post to my blog everyday, but I'm lucky if I get something new up once a week. Thankfully, I've been getting better with free-time doodling, due in part to the inspiring Dani Jones and her amazing ability to record and share almost everything she does.

Today she posted to her own doodle blog, Dani 's Doodles, which gave me the bug… and since i would never draw a robot of my own accord, I thought it a pretty appropriate post for this week's theme. :) Of course, my little robot doesn't seem to be invading anything - he seems more curious than anything else.

Illustration Friday: PARADE

You ever notice that parades are a lot of standing around and creating a big mess? They're no fun unless you're actually IN one, doing something... in my opinion. And maybe for the ants and insects that reap the garbage benefits.

In an effort just to doodle and draw more, just cuz, I post my image for Parade: a rough sketch, with pen & gouache. I'm not really paying attention to quality yet, I'm just trying to draw more. I mean, I draw almost everyday for work. But that's work. I find that I'm losing the ability to create anything of my own, out of my head - which used to be my strong suit, and it's really been getting me down. Haven't really painted in years - so this is just to experiment and try something a little different for a change.

I also journaled a little parade memory above this image in my sketchbook, it's actually kind of a good one - something I had completely forgotten about until I went to write something. Ironically, this picture doesn't really go with it.