Final Fantasy Creatures Vol 3

While in Japan I picked up Final Fantasy creatures Kai Volume 3, a pack of 5 figurines for about 40 dollars. For figurines this size they have a lot of details on them. It makes me really want to collect the other volumes, when I get more shelf space… They seem reasonably easy to collect, (maybe except for the secret figurines like Bahamut which I’m missing from this collection). Not like my Final Fantasy 8 Kotobukiya figurines which I’ve been collecting on and off for the last 10 years (2 to go! Woot). Why did I have to pick up such an expensive collecting hobby…

Here’s my favourite figure The Shiva Sisters which is about palm sized

Hecatoncheir (he was a bit of a struggle putting together)

Alexander

Brynhildr

and lastly Odin! Who is super cool and detailed. Can’t really see his awesome sword in this picture and he’s standing on green swirly stuff… It was hard getting him all in frame without taking a picture of everything behind him.

I really like these figures and I’m hoping to get more of the Volumes in the near future. I’m going to have to look into another method of storing them though because I’m running out of shelves in my studio and around the house and the amount of dust these things collect is amazing. I’ll post my Final Fantasy 8 collection soon because I just received Rinoa Heartilly for my birthday and its pretty amazing.

Here are some closeups of my Rei Ayanami figure that I briefly showed in my last post

Hoping to collect some more Neon Genesis Evangelion figures in the future, they have some really well made figures for their prices.

A wedding post!

Just thought I’d share a post on my own wedding that my sister wrote! She took many photos on the day with her trusty Iphone camera that was safely stored in her dress. She has a wonderful blog which everyone should check out! ^_^

A wedding post!.

Japan trip! (picture heavy warning)

A day after I flew home from my honeymoon to Thailand, I ditched the new husband and went to Japan with my twin sister! We had been looking forward to this trip since we were born I think! It was our first trip to Japan and won’t be our last. Japan was absolutely amazing! We were only there for about 4 days (6 if you include travel) and we flew straight into Nagoya so we missed out on seeing Tokyo. We soon got over that because Nagoya is absolutely beautiful! There are amazing parks everywhere and these amazing twisty looking trees all along the streets. We were there for our friends wedding which was such an experience. We both didn’t know much Japanese so it was a bit hard at times but I really enjoyed myself regardless and Japanese people are such kind and generous beings. The atmosphere there was very happy and relaxing.

Day 1:

The first day we were there we went to a sushi train restaurant with our friends Mika and Kengo (we called him Ken-san) and then to Karaoke afterwards. The sushi restaurant was great, so oishi (delicious) and me and Lulu had biiru’s (beers). I don’t drink beer often so I didn’t go much on mine but Lulu loved it (most photos taken from lulu_belles instagram)

Karaoke was super fun, I was so nervous during my first song it was a bit of a mess. But I got a tiny bit better and then after that it was just a lot of fun. Lulu and I sang Bohemian Rhapsody together and we rocked it! Haha

Us at karaoke before we went in, I was super nervous about singing argh… Mika is on the left, Lulu in the middle, me on the right

photo of me at the karaoke place taken by Lulu.

Me and Lulu playing with Mika’s Jackie bear back at her house after karaoke. We had such a great day and was definitely the best day we had there besides the wedding day.

Me relaxing at the hotel and view of Nagoya from the hotel room window. We stayed at the Hilton and it was amazing

Day 2:

On this day we decided to visit Atsuta Shrine which was absolutely beautiful and situated in the middle of a very large park. It was so amazing. We explored and bought charms and a little old lady came up and gave us presento’s of handmade bookmarks and postcards. I could easily have stayed there all day it was so great.

One of the entrances

Lulu posing for the camera

Me after buying some charms, we weren’t sure what we bought cause they were in Japanese but I’m pretty sure my pink one was for love.

Lulu’s picture taking of my face way too close… (I look a bit sad but I was actually very very happy)

Some of the bookmarks and postcards the very nice old lady gave us from the park

A Japanese couple having wedding photos taken in the park, she was so beautiful!

Lulu after leaving the park, this is the outside and it went on for ages

We walked around for half and hour until we found a shopping complex called Aeon Mall. We stumbled across a games place and found this particular catcha/gacha game.

I couldn’t leave until we got it and we ended up using all our money and not having money for a cab back to the hotel.

But we managed to get back in the end and I gave this to Lulu to keep.

One of the hauls from the local supermarket

Me at a Korean restaurant (i know its silly we ate Korean in Japan but it was so yum) having dinner with Lulu, we had beers again which I didn’t go much on

Day 3:

The day of Mika and Ken-san’s Wedding! This was such a great experience and I really don’t know how to describe how absolutely amazing the ceremony/reception was and how absolutely breathtaking Mika looked. I got teary everytime I looked at her! Haha!

We were very lucky to have seats right up the front near the wedding table. Mika checked on us a lot. Hehe

Her dress was so amazing. It had these white flowers on it that had petals coming out of them down her dress and this massive big bow on the back the reached to the floor. It was soooooo stunning! I had a bit of dress envy haha!

Mika and Ken-sans second wedding outfits! Just as amazing and stunning as her first! It had this purple flower underlay or something on the bottom so the flowers just peeped through the top layer of material. So amazing!

Day 4:

We went to visit Nagoya Castle on this day and it was sooo cool! It was damaged/destroyed in world war 2 and reconstructed later so what we see inside is just a museum really and not a reflection of what is used to be. A lot of artwork and screens were saved and are now displayed inside along with how it was built and the work that went into it. If you want to know more about it, heres a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagoya_Castle

Photo of me taken by Lulu just before we went into the grounds. I took a photo of Lulu but she didn’t like it much so I won’t post it here. I look a bit strange here, it was bright out

Me in front of the castle before we went in

Lulu posing too

All the charms we bought from the shop at the top of the Castle

Gold dolphin, which can be found inside and outside of Nagoya Castle (it was huge)

Model replica of Nagoya Castle

Photo of me back at the game place after Nagoya Castle. We went back for Rei

Won! I wanted to have matching figurines with Lulu

Ohzu shopping place we went to later

just a random street which I thought was cool

Lulu at dinner after our exploring

Me at dinner too (there’s a lot of photos of me because Lulu snaps a lot)

And that was our last full day there. There are so many things I miss about Japan now that I’m back home. Like their awesome supermarkets, Korokke (food), riceballs, the culture, the amazingly friendly people, the game places and most of all I miss our friend Mika and her new husband Kengo.

Thanks to Lulu ( lulu_belles at instagram ) for providing most of these photos

Events, life and the future

It’s been a long time since I last posted on here but I have had a very busy past year planning my wedding, which I dare say was pretty amazing. My sister made a post all about it on her blog http://redagapeblog.com/2013/04/14/a-wedding-post/ if you would like to read it. It has a lot of photos of the preparation and the day.

So I took a very long break from art or drawing in general but I am hoping to get back into it soon. Also my computer hard drive died and I lost all my art that was not backed up (which was all of it) and now I’m itching to make some new art to try to sell as prints.

If anyone has any requests on characters, people, animals or whatever they would like to see me draw just leave a note in the comments and I’ll try to give it a go. Open for requests at the moment! ^_^

Here are some pictures from my wedding, stolen from my twin sisters instagram: lulu_belles

 

 

 

 

Hope you enjoyed this post and hoping to write many more in the very soon future ^_^

Practice, practice and practice

are the best ways to improve your own art.

I’ve been doing a bit of sketching and study lately but haven’t actually completed any art but i guess atleast I’m still practicing at getting better. Art is hard sometimes because I feel like I have to be in a certain mood to do it, especially painting. Anyways here are some sketches and stuff I’ve been working on lately.

First one is lyrics from Perfume’s Dream Fighter, I was happy with it until I printed it out. I think if I created my own text for these they would come out a bit better. The second one is a motivational I made for my twin sister of a quote from The Alchemist. There is so many great quotes to choose from, from that book. Such a great book with a powerful message or messages.

First image is a study of hands that I did so I could work out the best pose for an artwork that I am creating. It will be a series of scenes from a dream I had a long time ago which I have never forgotten. It had a pretty inspiring message which I sometimes forget. In the dream I am drowning and I can’t reach the top of the water, like something is pulling me down. My hand starts becoming pixellated and then starts disappearing until someone reaches into the water and pulls me out. The hand that pulled me out was strong and somehow I am completely dry but the person who saved me is nowhere to be seen. I’m on an island and there is a cliff with a person standing at the edge. The person is beautiful, strong, confident and happy. I walk towards her but I suddenly get lifted off the ground by the wind, then I become the wind flowing closer to her and around her to see her face.

I’m way too embarressed to write the rest, sorry folks. :S

Plasma re-design

Currently in the progress of re-designing my character Plasma. I want her to really stand out as a unique character and I want her outfit/costume to be very intricate and something that anyone would consider as a great design. I’ve never been very good at designing so this is a chance for me to really step up and create something I can be proud of and not look back on later and think “I could have done better”.
My tablet is currently on the fritz again, so when I get it working properly again I will be inking and coloring my newest sketch of Plasma.

Progress shots

A different color a day, a nail art challenge!

Okay for some reason I decided I would do a different color or design on my nails for everyday of this week, which turned out a lot harder than you would think. I think I challenged myself to this because I wanted to see if I could do it and not be lazy and quit for one day. I usually quit a lot of things so I guess I wanted to prove to myself I could complete something. I almost quit when I got to friday but I received encouragement to go the extra two days. My hands got extremely dry towards the end of the week due to work and the nail polish remover I suspect. Also not putting enough cream on my hands, so some of the photos look a bit horrible. Eeek!

Monday

Tried the new Maybelline mini colorama nail polishes. So far I have only bought 5 of them, cause they were the colors that stood out to me and well because of my budget. I think they were about 5 dollars each, which isn’t too bad. From left to right the first is no.110 Urban Coral, no.9 Icing sugar, No. 95 green park, no. 96 Party blue and no. 100 Urban Lemon. They are really good to use but need a couple of coats for an opaque effect.

Nail polish used here is no. 95 Green Park

Tuesday

Tried colors no.110 Urban coral and no.9 Icing sugar to make a jelly bean look. I think it’s kinda cute, my nails look pretty terrible at this point though.

Wednesday

I used all of the colors here to make the sailor scouts! Venus is more orange but lets use our imaginations here. I enjoyed wearing these colors because they are bright and they lifted my spirits a bit.

Thursday

My sister suggested I do pink with white lace today as I was going to be wedding dress shopping in the arvo. I really enjoy making white lace on my nails because it makes a french tip kinda look. Also makes me feel like my nails are longer for some reason. Colors used here are Sally Hensen’s Xtreme wear no.83 First blush and no.21 White on. Original white lace design by cutepolish, who you can find on youtube.

Friday

My fingers were really dry at this point and I almost gave up painting my nails because I had waited for them to dry for 2 hours and then ruined them making dinner. So when I finally started again I was royally sick of painting them and waiting for them to dry. Because I really like the whole splash of color of the ends I tried to make a candy themed design. Not sure it was achieved but I enjoyed the colors anyways. Used the previous Sally Hensen colors mentioned and a Revlon Top Speed no.220 Bubble.

Saturday

Another suggestion from my sister, galaxy nails or Nebula Nails! I thought this one might be hard but it turned out being lots of fun and also it dries quite fast so no sitting around trying not to touch anything. Basically for this design you can choose whatever colors you like and dab them on with a sponge after you have done a base coat of black or dark blue or whatever color for whatever color scheme you would like to create. I used a blue glitter nail polish by NYC, then a lighter blue nail polish dabbed on top. Then a little bit of yellow and red dabbed here and there. I used a very small dotting tool for the stars, for those who don’t have dotting tools a tooth pick can also be used. Also a clear glitter nail polish can be put on top for more a starry effect but I didn’t have any. So many tutorials can be found for this particular design, just search on youtube. I’m not a professional, I just do this for fun so it is a little messy around the edges.

Sunday

This day was hard because I really wanted to leave the galaxy nails on cause I liked them so much, also it took ages to wipe off. Anyways I decided to do rainbow/cloud nails today because it’s sunday and it is a more wearable design to wear to work on a monday. Tutorials for this design can be found on youtube also.

 

So, that is my week in nails, I’m pretty proud of myself for completing it. People may think “it’s only painting your nails each day” but I didn’t have much time on my hands and most of these were painted really late at night before bed. So I’m pretty happy with myself :D.

To anyone who is reading this who likes painting nails and is up for a challenge, try this 7 day challenge and see if you can do something different on your nails each day for a week. I’d love to see what people can do, so leave a link to your blog in the comments below. 🙂 Good Luck everyone!

Meet Plasma

Hi, welcome to my blog.

I will be posting images of my completed art and sketches, concepts and designs. It’s more of a way to keep myself motivated in completing art and ideas I have been thinking about. I’ll also be posting random stuff so not all posts will be about art.

Firstly I want to introduce a character I developed for one of my previous art assignments. The idea was to just create the character but once you start designing the character, it’s hard to stop there. I created her world, background story, the town she lives in, the house she lives in, a story plot and even her pet. Her name is Plasma and I’ll will be letting everyone get to know her and her world bit by bit.