As title says so.

It's half past five in the morning now, and today's the day I leave Hatfield for good.

Will be gone to Aunt's place @ Colchester, Essex for 1 week, before coming back to Malaysia - I'll be leaving Heathrow on the 28th by noon (well, the night flights for that date were fully booked ;_; ) and be home on Malaysian soil on the 29 July 2009, touching down at KLIA at 7:25am.

And because Aunt is Scrooge's sister, I will be Internet-less for a week - unless I managed to sneak off to the nearest Starbucks in town to go Wi-Fi for as long as I could. It's either that, or it's to use the library's service - though it's only free for the first 2 hours.



Yesterday Monday - I've said my goodbyes to 2 of my closest mates in the UK.

I never knew [goodbye] is the hardest word to say.

Coz even though I'll be back in Malaysia, I am not sure when I'll be coming back to the UK - my second home. Rather, it feels more home here than back home.

I had an inkling that when I returned to Malaysia, I'll get homesick of the UK - instead of the other way round.

I'll miss the tranquility of St Albans - the last drink at Mokoko Bar with dear Katya is the last memory I had of the quaint little town. I dearly love its cathedral, and even more its grounds and the Verulamium Gardens.

I'll NOT miss Hatfield that much - dead town it was - but I'll miss Rainbow @ the Chinese restaurant. Thanks for all the lovely meals.

I'll miss all my London haunts.

I'll miss Westminster, Leicester Square, and that damnable Kensington, even.

I'll miss the whole of London Southbank that has been my home for the past 10 months wherever I hit London.

I'll miss the bridges. Most of all, the iconic Tower Bridge - pride of the English, though her own people never saw and understood her beauty and history.




I'll miss London. Terribly.

And when I leave the UK, I'll miss England. Even more.





Ah well.

If Fate is kind, there'll be a chance I'll return someday.

But I will DEFINITELY find a way to come back.

It's home. After all.





I do know one thing that

when I return to my family

Things will never be the same again.



Thanks for the memories, London, England.
Take care.



Till we meet again,
-L

Relax - I'm not moving from DA, but I am moving in real life.

Today's my last day at my current accommodation at DeHavilland (DeHav for short).

And because they can't get my room ready at the other campus, they're letting me stay here for one more night before they officially kick me out of DeHav for good.



As of now while typing this, I'm probably the last sole surviving resident of Aldenham Hall.
Everyone else's gone by 10am this morning.
Most were gone by the beginning of this week already.


And for some strange reason, I ain't scared living alone in this empty building.

Oh well. I'll think of it as some survival horror RPG I'm stuck in (haha Resident Evil-style!), I'm alone in a bleedin' empty building, with a trashed kitchen, not much food left, not many weapons either, and.........several zombies @ people leftover e.g. guards walking around.

And this, is my last entry for the time being.

Adieu, Net and adieu, DeHav,
-L

FINALLY FREE!!!

5 bloody months of the same project is enough to kill me literally. No, seriously. You have NO IDEA the amount of pressure and daily mental battle(s) I have to face in order not to go insane and start screaming over the huge amount of workload that threatens to tip my unstable mind straight into the abyss and never see the light again.

The first two months was fine, the third month the lecturer was trashing my hard work (three times, last count), and the last 2 months is just pure hell when everyone has to rush not only to finalize the design, but to do our 100-page degree book as well, detailing everything about the project from the beginning till the very end.

And after I got into a fight with some shitty bookbinders (if you're in the UK, NEVER EVER GO TO BLISSETTS to get your books bound - they give it late and they make it bad, not to mention lousy treatment - all probably just because what, I'm a goddamn Chinese?! UGH!! I'm NOT FROM BLOODY MAINLAND CHINA GODDAMNIT I'm from MALAYSIA!!!), I managed to finally submit everything right on time - and all that after a few breakdowns, screaming sessions in public (a fellow classmate who was with me was scared shitless, I had to apologize and reassure her that I am still sane), and as mentioned, daily mental battles.

Thank. God. It's. Over. FINALLY.

Now I'm scared of the results =.=; It's like, I poured more than my blood, sweat and tears into it, and if I don't get the grade I expect, I think I'm gonna break and howl.

But that's a matter to deal with later. *fingers crossed that no weird shit's gonna happen*



FAIRYTALE = LOVE!
My Russian mate and good friend Aleks showed me her idea of combining water with my light + shadows concept for our upcoming Truman exhibition. After showing me the Water Show of Eurovision 2009 (which is really really AWESOME!!! ZAZHIGAI, MOSKVA! ), she showed me the video of the winning entry for this year's Eurovision.

The song immediately caught on to me, and I'm immediately hooked to the boyish charm of Alexander Rybak It's a simple song really, almost like a folk-song in beat, but the violin riffs are just plain wicked (heck, his bowstring broke while halfway performing! But he still kept on playing! That's how cool he is!) and the song...is very, very addictive.

So addictive, I actually sat down to transcribe them by ear. Because the Net wouldn't cough up a single complete music sheet for me to play it, I had to write them out by hand - yeap, I'm scoring [Fairytale] for the keyboard (since now I only have a keyboard, and it's loaned to me from a fellow classmate/musician).
Sure, I'm doing it slooowly, but at least I'm halfway there now.



What Mischief Am I Up to Next
Seeing I'm officially off uni work (still need to handle the exhibition, but it's a class effort so it's ok), and my Japanese classmate's gonna leave the UK for good (NOOOOO! Don't go!!~~), she had a special request from me.

Which is to see me in cosplay - in real life - for her. All she ever saw was my photographs I'd posted online, but never in real person. So she wants to see me cosplay in real life - donning my Victorian gear @ cosplay as Zails Abigails, before she goes back to Japan.

So I'm doing it for her, sort of as a farewell gift + good memories + fun times for the last time while we're all still here. Normally I would not do it - I cosplay to blend in with the crowd, and usually only during conventions e.g. Comics Fiesta back home, London Expo here in the UK. Heck, I wouldn't dare to walk in broad daylight in full cosplay - people always give me the stares, and back home, I've seen my own people called me a freak ("orang gila") under their breaths.

Call me crazy, but I'll still do it NOW. This time. And all for her.
And therefore, a photoshoot (my first actually) is in order.

BELOVED LONDON!!! I'm COMING FOR YA!
Since Zails Abigails is the Dark Magician / EGA (elegant gothic aristocrat), all I need is the Victorian-era settings - which is, well, London itself I have my haunts in the city, and I know the perfect place(s) to go ^_________^

The story - no exact storyline, until I get to the place and trace my journey around. But 3 pretty Gothic Lolita ladies' tagging along for the ride , so expect much hilarious ongoings, mischief-making and probably some..."special" moments? (according to one of them...I think she had something planned in mind, but I hope I don't get into too much trouble - you know how it is with girls )

And yeap - I'll post all of it up here on dA. ^_________^

If you've done photoshoots before (I'm thinking along the lines of ), feel free to share some of your experience I hope this photoshoot'll be a BLAST!

Other than that, hope you have a great day, and keep on rockin'!

-L

Still busy, but I thought I ought to have my say on this issue.

It's about the Critique feature that Oh-so-puts-me-off, because I, for one, CANNOT understand the logic behind this - that in order to give a constructive criticism feedback to someone, you have to PAY for it.

And I thought we're an art community where we Share our artworks and Get feedback on it, in order to improve and become better artists next time. Probably, IMHO, DA's pretty much forgotten its main aim/purpose to EXIST as a diverse art community that caters to all.

But anyway.

I find that giving critiques' fun - NOT in the sadistic or downtrodden manner, but it helps to build each other confidences - you as the artist to be able to take crits from others and improve your skills/work, and me as the critic to improve my design sense and judgement, as well as to communicate my opinions to others. It's a good process, I should say.

And (haha) being the nature I am, I only relish in doing so.

So...just a note. That if you happen to find me going around delivering two cents' worth of advice or a penny for your thoughts (especially when you DO see those words), that can only be yours truly It's part of me trying to establish myself as one who CAN give worthy feedback - and I am only more than happy to even give more, if my feedback was considered and the best was when it was taken, and used. I actually felt glad and happy that after so many years as a learning student/artist, what I've learnt and experience, I dispense as advice to others, which people could use

This...phenomenon, sort of occured due to having spent a few years on DA, where not only I see endless HUGE flood of "spam" a.k.a. all those "Oh I love it!" "Great work!" "Awesome!" "EPIC!!!" "Nice" etc. the blardy list goes on - on the artist's artwork's page, the page gets ridiculously long with the SAME repeated message. Build-up of Net clutter, I should say. Not that I'm against commenting or anything, but at the very least, make it a worthy comment, y'know?


Make a comment that lets the artists know how you personally feel about his/her artwork.

If you like the artwork, tell them what bits have interested you, why you are drawn to it, what does it remind you (it's a grey zone, sometimes it's okay and sometimes it pisses me off, it depends), etc.

If you find the artwork needs a bit more work, by all means, state it.

BUT If you find the artwork sucks, it does NOT permit you to go around bashing people. You're given the choice to either not comment, or give a constructive feedback - but DON'T EVER SAY "Your artwork sucks" and leave it at that. It'll leave the impression to others that either you hate the artist, you have no design sense, or you're just plain spiteful.


Which explains why I RARELY give out comments. All this time.

If I like someone's work, I just fav it, so that if ever the need arises for me to look for references (for my work) or I wanna share YOUR work with someone, I say "Hey I got him/her somewhere in my fav section, go look him/her up" and that's that. I do not go around spamming great artists with "LOL NICE!" - I think they would already know. Just that they want to share their great stuff with the world, and be happy.

(this, 'course, does NOT include certain pesky ones who WANTS all that spam - attention whores, I call them. Sorry, but it's true.
And there's two types of these people - the people wanting all that attention in the form of spam-comments (I'll never know the stupid reason why), and the people who GIVES mindless/useless comments/critiques to any Dick and Harry just so to get, again, attention. Again, I don't see the logic in this - and sorry I just can't empathize with these sort of people.)

But when I DO give comments, I make sure they're worthwhile.

And if a person requests a critique/serious feedback, I make sure they're even worth more - honest feelings, no biased judgements (there's some where just because they like the artist, they make a not-so-serious review just so not to hurt the other party's feeling - little did they know that by doing so, you're not helping the artist at all), fairness, etc. So if sometimes my words sounded a bit hard, I do it for your own good, and because I like you as an artist, and would like you to see how far you can go.

Hence, this is the story behind my "two cents' worth" and "penny for your thoughts".



So...you've got any change to spare?

This is probably my last update for the time being, as Easter's pretty much over, and I seriously need to get my ass back to my degree project whose deadline's pretty much at the end of May 2009 (and the project is SO big, I'm surprised it hasn't sprouted teeth to consume me =.= )

...and THEN I can come back to do what I like to do best
(I'll still check back for new updates, just that I won't be uploading any new works until I'm done by end of May 2009 )

Until then, it's been great fun, and I do hope you enjoyed my new works. Thanks again for viewing them, and have a great day ahead! ^_______^

-L



Incubation Stage
Matantei Loki Ragnarok kiriban (???) - if I hit the number, that is. And there's been a lack of some decent MLR works lately...
(no title as of yet) - DMC Tribute, Sparda x Eva, comic-based

On Ice - not working on it until further notice
Angel vs Devil Pt.2
Maelstrom - OC render
~~~~~~