Last month, I landed myself a pretty exciting job at a local design studio in Oakland! I feverishly trained for several weeks, getting to know the ins and outs of my responsibilities. I spend a lot of time maintaining our client’s sites (content and design updates), have worked on brainstorming new designs for new clients, putting together print pieces, and just trying to keep my head up above the water. Barely, it seems!

When I get a new job/position, I usually go into MIA mode for a month or two to get used to the big schedule change. Which also means I’ve been maxing out in GRANDMA mode! Get to bed by 10, get up around 7:30.

I had to drop most of my classes this semester so I wouldn’t completely kill myself. I’m only taking one class now, which I absolutely LOVE–Intro to Animation Principles! I’m really enjoying the experience of creating animations. The problem is that I spend about 9 hours staring at a monitor for work, and I’m usually exhausted by the time it’s time for class. It’s so difficult to make it out, but when I get there, I always feel so thrilled about new ideas, and seeing what my classmates have created too! Unfortunately, I’ve been utterly behind on my animation work because I just don’t want to kill my eyes.

Since my eyes have been taking a beating, my weekends have just trying to chill out at home, relaxing, not straining at my computer. Just spending some good time with Brent, and occasional friends that may come over. (This weekend was the first time I saw my friends in a month! Yayayayay!!!)

I’m learning lots and am extremely fortunate to get to do things I love right now! But, as usual, the perfectionism in me just doesn’t want to fuck anything up. It’s just one of those situations where the stress that is created comes mostly from within.

Oh well… gotta HUSTLE, right?

I’ve got tons of personal projects in the queue…. just don’t know when I’ll have the energy to do everything at once again. :)

• How to Make a Dharma “Namaste New Recruits” Banner
• How to Make Oceanic Air Invitations (Boarding Passes and Ticket Jackets)
• LOST Party Recap!
• Resources
• More LOST Party Pics on Picasa

Pre-Party Prep: Dharma “Namaste New Recruits” Banner

Modeled off of this infamous Season 5 banner (SERIOUS SPOILER WARNING: don’t look if you’re not done with Season 5), it only seemed appropriate for me to make one for the party!

This was a 100% DIY poster I made. If you’d like to make one too, this is what I did:

• Buy a roll of poster paper from any art store. I used 24in x 25yd roll of Canson bond layout paper. It was a little thin for my preference, but definitely did the job! (~$14)
• Banner is 2 ft x 13 ft
• Center points of Dharma symbols are about 15 inches from the edges of the poster paper, and halfway down from the top of the paper (at 12in mark)
• Dharma circle centers have a 6½in – 6¾in diameter
  (I used the top of my rice-jar cover, which worked out PERFECTLY, apparently!!)
• From the rim of the circle diameter border, measure out the symbol’s thick-lines that make the surrounding Dharma border lines. Not really sure what to call the lines–image below should make the most sense:
  • Space between circle and innermost “thick-line”: 1 inch
  • Thickness of each “inner thick-line:” 0.75 inches
  • Space between each “inner thick-line:” 0.5 inches
  • Space between outmost Dharma symbol border and “inner thick-line:” 1.25 inches
  • Thickness of outmost Dharma symbol border: 1 inch
  

  Dharma circle center is at the very bottom. Measure 1 inch up to begin the "inner thick-line" borders that surround the Dharma circle center

• Repeat measurement for all other sides of the circle
  
  

  NOTICE the style of the inner thick-lines change throughout every side of the Dharma symbol!

• Trick to measuring the diagonal sets of lines: the center of the set should be at a 45 degree angle from the horizontal line that runs thru the center of the symbol. (Estella used MATH for this?! Let alone a PROTRACTOR?! GASP!!!)
• To duplicate the Dharma sign again: you can use some tracing paper + transfer/carbon paper instead of re-measuring another symbol. You can also use this to recreate a few other Dharma signs around the party ;D

Measuring the banner text:

• Center of the WHOLE poster is at 6.5ft
• Lettering has 3.5 inch margin from top and bottom edges of poster paper
• Font-weight (width of each letter’s stroke) is 1 inch thick
• Kerning (space between each letter) is about 2 inches. Exceptions: less kerning around round letters (o, c, e) and more for stick-ish letters (i, l)
• Leading/line-spacing (space between the row “Namaste” and the row “New Recruits”) is 3 inches
• Letter height: 7 inches
• Letter width of each letter is about 6 inches. Exceptions: M and W are bigger, measuring 7 inches.
  
  

  Breakdown of measurements of letters and spacing

• NOTE: You may notice that the kerning/letter-spacing is different for the top “NAMASTE” line. That was my bad. ^_^ I prefer using the 2inch kerning as I did for the bottom row of text. :)
• Then, hire a minion to paint it all in for you:
  
  

  <3! Thanks for all your help, Janelle! :D

The result?

Pre-Party Prep: Oceanic Air Invitations

The Boarding Passes

As mentioned in my previous post, Jon Griffith’s site was extremely awesome in posting a boarding pass mock-up for printing! I made a few tweaks to match the Oceanic dates/times, but it served to be a GREAT starting point! Here are some notes for the boarding passes:

• Griffith’s original boarding pass printed out (for me?) as a 11 x 4.6 inch boarding pass, which is way too big, compared to actual boarding passes. To print smaller, changed the size of the boarding pass images to 500 x 208 pixels (6.94 x 2.89 in). (Actually, the size I altered mine to is slightly too small, for those that care!)
• Print them out on 65lb. (or heavier) cardstock paper. You can copy/paste multiple boarding pass images onto one 8.5 x 11in canvas in Photoshop so you can print three at a time.
• Use a corner rounder to punch out the corners of the boarding passes! :D You can get a round corner punch at Michael’s or any other craft store.
  

  Round-cornered OA815 boarding passes!

Oceanic Airlines Ticket Jacket

Gotta go all the way, right? (Guys? … Guys?????)

I spent some time studying this image of Claire’s Oceanic ticket, staring at the ticket jacket in the background.

But then I stumbled upon Catchpenny’s LOST party photos, where one of their friends (a graphic designer) had created their own Oceanic ticket jackets! AH-HAH! This is TOTALLY doable! So I got to workin’!

Not much time left before the party, I threw together a few of the Oceanic logos, and trial-errored with a few print outs. Here’s what I came up with:

DOWNLOAD the Oceanic Air Ticket Jacket (PDF). Feel free to use! Please link back to this post--thx! :)

Folding the Oceanic Ticket Jacket
Here’s how the Oceanic ticket jacket looks. I’ll walkthru how to fold, cut, and paste the way I did it!

The Ticket Jacket is a trifold of a standard 8.5x11in paper. Flap A has the small Oceanic logo at the bottom center. Flap B has the large words of "Oceanic Airlines." And Flap C is the plain blue, inner envelope flap of the jacket.

• Position the paper in front of you so that the underside/white side of the paper is facing up, and so that the white underside of Flap A (with tiny Oceanic logo) is on your right side.
  
• From the left side of the paper (which is the white underside of Flap C), measure 3.25 inches towards the center of the paper. This is where you will fold Flap C over, towards the center. This will create the inner envelope of the jacket! :)
  
• Take the right side of the paper (Flap A) and fold it over, towards the center and over the previously-folded Flap C. Tah-dah! Half way there! :D
  
• Open up the envelope and cut between the top Flap C and B borders so you can stylize the inner jacket fold however you’d like~ I cut 3 inches from the top, and just did a diagonal cut. Then, I just rounded off that diagonal cut corner with scissors.
  
• Next, glue the bottoms of Flap C and B together. This will create the envelope for your ticket jacket! :)
  
• Tah-dah! Oceanic 815 boarding pass ticket holder! :D Happy crashing!
  

Puh-puh-puh-PARTY TIME!

Much to my surprise, everyone went ALL. OUT. for the party! It made me sooo happy and proud!

Most memorable moments:

• Norvelle coming over at 11PM the night before, cutting up labels until 3AM(!!!)
  
• Shultsy came as Dr. Jack! I’ve missed my sugar-parent-husband!! <3
  
• Craig’s MR. CLUCK’S CHICKEN was put together so well! Even matching bowl colors! (Plus Janelle’s waffles to go with the chicken! mmmm!)
  
• The ever-original Christine came as BAD ROBOT! What a GREAT choice, knowing that no one else would come dressed as… that? it? ze??!
  
• An AWESOME Custom LOST Orientation Video by Brent!
• Little Walt. (No. You cannot have any of our tampered, generic-looking Dharma soda at our cultish-looking party without your parent’s consent.)
  
• I guess the trivia crossword was kinda hard huh??
  
• Grant as Dr. Artz: “Do you KNOW what happens to nitro glycerin when it’s been sitting in the sun?! You have to be CAREFUL! *whips off scarf*” lololol
  
• Gilbert’s stupid costume-winning streak: “End of Season 3 Jack”
  
• Savina’s uber delicious BOAR stew!
  
• Glow-in-the-dark LOCKDOWN painting–oops… how many ppl did I scare with this? Don’t worry. Me and Norvelle saw something totally creepy before I finished the painting. Not talking about it…. (Forgot to take a pic of it on the back of our bathroom’s sliding door :( Did anyone get a snapshot of this in action?? :D)
  
• Sofa turned First Class seats! Complete with oxygen masks, little vodka bottles, airplane seatbelts, airplane snacks, pillows and blankets! I tried to get airplane seats… couldn’t get em… hahhah (Thanks, dad! hahahah)
  
• The GREAT company of friends, old and new!

Yay! THANKS for such an awesome LOST Party, everyone, and for celebrating with me!! Don’t forget to enroll at LOSTUniversity! Only THREE more months until the last season of LOST. We’re almost there!

Resources

Here are the sites I used and reference to bring all these ideas together! THANKS so much for posting your party pics, ideas, and creations to inspire the success of mine! :D

• Oceanic Boarding Passes – http://www.jongriffith.com/boardingpass/
• Oceanic Ticket Jacket ideas – http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=lost&w=89714698@N00.  These Flickr pics helped me a lot in creating my ticket jackets! Click here to download my ticket jacket PDF (Please link back to this post! ^_^).
• The motherload site for ALL your Dharma label needs (no exaggeration) – http://maxpictures.com/weblog/2007/04/10/lost-labels-for-your-dharma-initiative-needs/
• Hatch countdown timer for your computer – http://www.cagriaksay.com/?p=19 More can be found here: http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Fan-made_countdown_timers
• Squidoo.com – Hosting a LOST/DHARMA Party
• KungFoodie.com – Love is a Lost Fish Biscuit Cookie (Instructions and Recipe for making Fish Biscuits!)
• Neatorama.com -  15 Details to Help You Throw a LOST Party
• Dharma fonts: http://www.dafont.com/lost-font.font and http://www.dafont.com/dharma-initiative-logos.fontseafood
• JonGriffith.com – How to Throw a LOST TV Show Theme Party
• Fun-Theme-Party-Ideas.com – ABC Lost Party Theme
• And SUPER special thanks to Brent, Janelle, Jo, Craig, Norvelle, and Damian for all your help with the party! It wouldn’t have been so fun and successful without all of your help! <3

Na.ma.ste!

MORE PARTY PICS ON PICASA – Feel free to comment and “Like” the photos! ^_^

Oh, what?
Sept 22 is on a Tuesday!?! Damnit!
Bleh… okay fine, we’ll have it on Sept 19 since it’s the Saturday before the 22nd -_- *mutter mutter mutter*

Anyway, I’m planning a LOST party and I wanted to share my resources and finds with everyone!

Why a LOST party? Well, especially since it’s LOST’s last season in 2010, I’m taking extensive measures to fully take on the LOST experience to the max! I love the show, how it’s educated me on a lot of topics, and how it’s the first tv show to make me THINK on a completely new level.

Last year, Brent and I went on an all-out LOST tour on Oahu, driving around to the various spots where they’ve filmed the show. This year, we’re hosting an all-out LOST-themed party!

Also, I think it’ll be nice to celebrate LOST while we’re patiently waiting for its return in 2010. Gotta keep ourselves busy and entertained!

What have I found already for planning a LOST party? I did some thorough research for websites that give some tips for fellow LOSTies and, man, they’ve come up with some really GREAT ideas!

• Neatorama’s “15 details to help you throw a Lost party”
• Fun-Theme-Party-Ideas.com’s LOST Party ideas
• Jon Griffith’s “How to Throw a LOST TV Show Theme Party”
• Squidoo’s “Hosting a LOST/DHARMA Party”

I’m LOVING this party idea (if even just for myself to celebrate on my own!) because it’s proving to be a combination of things I love: creativity, LOST, arts and crafts, food, and event planning!

The Boarding Pass Invites

Boarding Pass template provided by the awesome JonGriffith.com!

NOTE: Editing his files requires a .png file editor (i.e. Fireworks). Griffith doesn’t have instructions yet for folks that don’t know how to edit the file. Here’s what I did! (No idea if this is most effective, but it worked for me!)

How to Edit Jon Griffith’s .png Boarding Pass File:

1. Download and install the 30-day trial version of Fireworks CS4 here: http://www.adobe.com/go/tryfireworks
2. Open the extracted “Custom Boarding Pass.png” file from Griffith’s .zip, provided in his email response. FILE > OPEN > wherever you extracted the .png file.
3. Click once on the text that says “THIS BOARDING PASS WAS DESIGNED WITH…” Press “Delete” on your keyboard.Yay! White text should now be gone!
4. Click once on the dark shaded box that remains. Press “Delete” on your keyboard.Yay! Now we can see the actual boarding pass!
5. In Fireworks’ tools menu, click on the “Type Tool” icon. Looks something like this: Then double-click on the “LASTNAME/FIRST” portion of the boarding pass. You should be able to type and edit those words to enter your own name.
6. Do the same for the second instance of “LAST/FIRST” on the right side of the boarding pass.
7. Feel free to edit whatever else in the same fashion!
8. When you’re done, you can save the file as a .png again. If you’re more familiar with Photoshop, you can also save the file as a .psd file to edit later too. Just some options~!

Two small details to note when editing the boarding pass (that I cared about, at least!):

• The boarding pass doesn’t list the flight date as September 22, and the flight time should be 2:15PM–thaaannkkk yoouu Lostpedia for that info! (Though, a screencap of Claire’s ticket lists the flight as departing at 2:55PM. Hmmmm!)
• Also, the “Date of Issue” should be a date before September 22, 2004. It’s currently noted as “26JAN06.”

Also another thing to note: the Oceanic Airlines boarding pass is a different style. Here’s what Claire’s looked like:

Screencap of Claire's boarding pass

Those that know me know that I’m a HUGE LOST fan. It should not be a surprise that I went to Comic-con this year primarily for LOST’s final panel at Comic-con, in preparation for their last season. [Insert uber sad face here!!!] It should also not be surprising that I also woke up at 5AM on Saturday morning to get in line for the 11:00 LOST panel.

Of course, I duly bow-down to those hardcore fans that really go the distance: some folks began camping out at 7PM on Friday night with sleeping bags and tent. For their true dedication and love for the show, the campers definitely deserved the closest seats at the front that they diligently earned. At that, I know that I can only self-identify as a “medium-core” LOSTie fan. Much props and respect to the TRUE hardcore fans! <3

Here is my summary of the LOST panel at Comic-con 2009 with the help of various videos that I’ve been able to find and compile from the net. Hope you enjoy it!

Standing In Line

Brent and I got to the line by 5:45AM, where there were at most 300 folks already lined up for the Hall H panel. Hall H has a 6700 person capacity, but with factors like front seats and spot-holding, I was more than willing to try to get a decent seat!

Around 6:45AM, JOpinionated started giving away some LOST paraphernalia by asking some TOUGH LOST trivia questions:

1. Who broke their leg while skiing?
2. Who is Maggie Ryan?
3. Who are the 3 Flight 815 passengers (that are on the island) that know that Locke was in a wheelchair before?

Do you remember the other trivia questions asked while in line, or who asked the questions? Please let me know!!

We sat, napped, and waited with some pretty chill people, a lot of whom were single fans without friends to accompany them–TRUE dedication, see? Friends or not, the LOST panel MUST be experienced! Someone from Nashville, someone from Ontario (Canada), we sat and chatted to pass the time.

Going Into Hall H

Around 9:30AM, they started letting folks into Hall H–w00t! We got in around 9:45AM and got pretty good seats near the front, center (relatively speaking since Hall H is HUGE?).

While coming into the Hall, we got some sweet LOST freebies, advertising the new ARG (alternate reality game, aka official game for LOSTies to pass the time to research more between seasons). The new ARG is LOST University!

The LOST Panel

Shortly after 11AM, the Hall’s lights dimmed and this ad for LOST University was shown:

How cute! Polar bear as the school mascot! Be sure to go to http://lostuniversity.org/ to find out more info! Enrollment begins on September 22, 2009–the day of Flight 815’s crash!

And then, an interesting clip from “Mysteries of the Universe”(?) with an intro that read: “The following is an episode of a short-lived television series from the 1980s. The topics explored may be of particular interest to fans of ‘LOST.’”

(Source: http://abc.go.com/primetime/lost/index?pn=lostmysteries&cmp=09_Lost_DharmaDoc_CO1)

Then, the final Season 6 banner is revealed in suspense!

Here is a video of how all the characters appeared:

(Courtesy of ODI: http://the-odi.blogspot.com/2009/07/lost-sdcc09-panel-opening.html)

:O Locke was the only one with his back turned! Audience kinda went crazy over this!

Finally! Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse come out with Europe’s awesome “Final Countdown” as their intro song!

Thanks to Tostie14 for posting the panel for us!

LOST Panel in HD Part 1:

Per 2:04 in the above video, Lindelof and Cuse gave props to some of their favorite, HILARIOUSLY awesome fan videos in this montage!

Btw, if you’re looking for the original fan videos included in the montage, here they are in order of appearance:

• SNL ‘Dear Sister” Parody (LOST Fans) by shawngendreau
• LOST Babies – Relations by elbarto643
• Jack is having troubles with his XBOX 360 by hfctorch
• Lost Rhapsody 2: Electric Boogaloo by CapnBob
• LOST Parody #8 – The Yankees (S2, E3) by JustForLaughsTV
• Brokeback Island- ORIGINAL (LOST) by crazymol4588

Continuing with the panel, Lindelof and Cuse address the question of “Are they making up the story as they go along.” They take out the two pages of the LOST finale, and lock them up in a chest with keys only they can open. They also announce that the night of the finale, they will read the 2 pages on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Awesome!!

Q&A Highlights:

• We’ll be seeing characters that we haven’t seen since Season 1! Awesome!
• Paul Scheer is hilarious and gives Lindelof and Carlton a velvet painting of the two with a polar bear (http://damoncarltonandapolarbear.com hahahha) – “Is that on velvet?” “It IS on velvet! Because you guys make us feel with our eyes and our head.” hahahahah
• Yes! We WILL see Faraday again!
• “The time travel season is over, the flash-forward season is over. We have something different planned.” What will the style of Season 6 be??

Lost Comic Con 2009 Panel – Part 2 HD:

Cuse performs the current LOST opener: “Wooooaaaaaaaaa” hahahah! Per 4:20 in the above video, they play the winning song of the new LOST theme (with some visuals that they put together). Hmmm can’t find a video of the clips they showed, but here’s a link to hear the new song: http://www.myspace.com/randomgibberish

After that, they showed us these three clips from their “sponsors:”

What the heck?? Ummm… I guess this is a preview of what Season 6 will be like if Jack was successful and undoing the plane crash. Oceanic doesn’t have any casualties, Hurley wins the lottery and runs Mr. Cluck’s Chicken successfully, and Kate is still on the run for killing a plumber and NOT her step-father?! Talk about alternate realities!!

Lindelof and Cuse acknowledge the clips we just saw: “Interesting, I always thought that Kate KILLED her father.” They take some more Q&A questions from the line and–who is it?! JORGE GARCIA at the Q&A mic!! hahahahah

“Jorge? You know you could have just called us if you had a question. You didn’t have to come all the way to Comic-con to ask us!”
“Yeah, I did call. You guys haven’t called me back.” hahahah

“Jorge, you just have to trust us.”
“Okay yeah, the last time I trusted you guys, you said that Nikki and Paolo were gonna be awesome.” waaaahahahha

“Okay, so this is the last season, so that means everything’s gonna be answered, right?”
“Yeah, everything that matters.”
“Yeah, cuz like, Season 1, Confidence Man… Sayid tortures Sawyer to get Shannon’s inhaler, right? But… Sawyer didn’t have the inhaler… So what happened to the inhaler? We never found out about that one…”
[ENTER GREATEST ENTRANCE EVAARRR!!]
Voice from somewhere: “Oh for cryin’ out loud, Jorge, what happened to one question per person?!”

MICHAEL EMERSON‘S SOMEWHERE!!! My favorite LOST character!!!! <3

Jorge accuses Michael of being jealous that he didn’t get the part of Hurley, of which Emerson responds: “What a sad fantasy.” hahahha!! Hurley queues up some evidence!

Michael Emerson’s “Hurley” Audition:

lol he looks so insecure, hahahha “Maybe that was… a little too much?”

Lost Comic Con 2009 Panel – Part 3 HD:

Some more Q&A highlights:

• Lindelof and Cuse note this as a very good question: If we’ll see a Richard flashback and if it has to do with the Black Rock being in the middle of the island. We WILL be seeing Richard a lot in Season 6 and we’ll see his background too!
• “I need to know that [Juliet's] okay… and if she’s not, can you make her okay?” Yessss! We WILL be seeing Juliet again!
• Bob Stencil shows up and asks about time paradoxes and ends up getting a nose bleed, noting that he needs his constant, Dharma beer, hahahaha And he gets a Bob Stencil Dharma tshirt! hahahah
• “Is Jacob’s friend named Esau?” – Michael Emerson doesn’t answer it at all. hahahah
• “Does Nestor [Richard Alpert] wear eyeliner before he comes on set?” hahaha w00t! NESTOR CARBONELL comes out as the next guest!
• “Where do the food drops come from?” Jorge Garcia answers this question: “Oh, it comes from planes.” Lindelof and Cuse let us know that food drops WILL be answered in Season 6! Yes!
• Dharma won’t be around much in Season 6. :O
• “Has Jacob ever appeared to our LOST castaways as any other image other than himself, such as Claire or any other another characters?” (”Claire” is the secret word! Prize = the original note from Par Avion that Claire sent off) The answer is NO for the Jacob question! :O

Lost Comic Con 2009 Panel – Part 4 HD:

Per 3:00 in the above video, Lindelof and Cuse roll a clip for the next surprise guest:

JOSH HOLLOWAY enters as one of the guest stars!!! (AHHHHHHHH!!!) He tases Lindelof and steals his key for the Season 6 finale chest, threatening Cuse to give up the key or he’ll tase “J.J.Abrams” again, hahahah Holloway gets his hands on the papers and stares at it. Emerson says: “Oh my god. You don’t know how to read, do you?”

Emerson takes over and reads out the script. It turns out to be from HEROES! “Sy-lar” hahahahha For their last minutes, Lindelof and Cuse give one last thank you to all the fans, and start a clip of all the people that couldn’t be with us today: a montage of all the characters that died on LOST.

[UPDATE 8/6/09] I found the last video montage!! (Thanks JOpinionated!)

The lights dim and we hear Boyz II Men’s “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” playing with clips of our characters (I only remember some of the many!): the guy who got sucked into the plane engine in Episode 1 (Gary Troup), Pilot Seth Norris, Dr. Artz, Frogurt, Ethan, Shannon, Boone, Ana Lucia, Libby, Mr. Tom Friendly, Nikki & Paolo (haaahahha), Michael, Mr. Eko, Charlotte, Danielle, Karl, Alex, Faraday :(( The music changes to “Win One for the Reaper” and we see Charlie’s whole final scene! Sooo sad!!

When the lights come up, and Dominic Monaghan is the final guest of the panel! He waves hello, and supposedly he had the words “Am I Alive?” written on his hand. (Thanks YuBlog.org for the photo!)

Lindelof and Cuse say thanks and “See you some other show!”

Conclusion

So sad for the panel to go so quickly!! Of course, it was much worth the wait, and I’m glad I got to be there for LOST’s last panel at Comic-con! :(

Being at the Con with the LOST fans felt like we all had a mutual understanding that we all came together because of a SUCH an amazing show. Yes, it’s “just a show,” but it’s one that inspires critical thinking, intelligence, and is incredibly full of CULTURE: religious, popular, musical, literature, artistic, and ethnic cultures!

I think the first fan dressed as Hurley put it in words really well:

I can’t even begin to articulate what a positive influence LOST has had on my life, how many fond memories I have attached to so many scenes from so many different episodes, or how many awesome people I’ve met. I’m sure a lot of people in this room have a real shared passion and camaraderie for the materials you guys produce. I just wanted to thank you for being part of that experience and help you guys tell what I think is one of the greatest stories that have ever been told….

Oh, and thank you for making Hurley, so someone like me can finally have someone to identify with on television.

I just love that last part soooo much!

LOST: Thank you sooo much for all the great times you’ve brought for all your fans! We await patiently for your return in 2010! We <3 you!!

Here are some of my pics from the panel!

Thanks again for everyone that posted up videos from the panel! These sites were also helpful for me in compiling this post:

• Zap 2 It: ‘Lost’: Summary of the 2009 Comic-Con panel
• CinemaBlend.com: Comic Con: Liveblogging The Lost Panel

And thanks to Brent, Norvelle, and Damian for being awesome buddies for the many hours we spent together in line and in Hall H! <3

Most of my life, I’ve always been thought to be one of those always-happy people. Lately, I haven’t felt very happy.

Not that I’ve felt mostly sad or depressed, but I don’t have the HIGH on life that I used to have in my day-to-day life.

Is the effect of my living in limbo, right now? Is this because of my many insecurities? of myself?

Whatever it may be, I’ve been stuck here for the last few months. I don’t seem to laugh as much, don’t seem to smile as much, don’t seem to enjoy my time as much. A shame, really. I WANT to live every day up, but it’s become fairly mundane and…. un-exhilarating. Unchallenged, every day a slight variation of the past, I’m living the cycle of what I criticized most from the corporate, day-to-day jobs that I disliked. Ironic, since now I have all the freedom to do whatever I want.

I guess it has a lot to do with my expectations of what I envisioned myself doing if I had all the time in the world, and comparing it to the pressures and duties of what I actually need to accomplish for I-dunno-what goals.

Yes, I’m lost.
Yes, I don’t know what I want at all.
Yes, I’ve become more and more bipolar, moody, judgmental, and discontent with most things.
Yes, ‘Ol Stelly has become an ‘ol grouch.

I’m typing this all now, even though I’ve spent the last 3 days living up the San Diego/La Jolla weather in all its perfection. As calming and gratifying it feels to have my skin and toes in the summer sand again (reminiscent of awesome LA days), I lack something within.

I feel something dark in me, I feel unsatisfied, I feel disappointment. Maybe in myself, even. Trapped, and restricted.

I don’t know what I WANT, I don’t know what to communicate, and I don’t even understand the levels of all these feelings and how it can affect the littlest of interactions.

Hi, my name is Estella. I used to the be the Happiest Littlest Elf, and I want to be again. But I don’t know how.

It’s amazing that we even all worked together. I mean, seriously? Who would ever believe that we got all our work done when they see us all go out together, singing, chanting, and playing the way we do? My favorite thing of all is that we’re like a huge group of kids.

Last Thursday, Janelle and Christine organized a reunion at Koh Samui & The Monkey. Our table for 20 stretched the whole width of the restaurant. It was also Patson’s last day after 10 years at Embark, which is kindofa really big deal! To hype the event up even more, there was a public warning sent out: “Oh god! Warning to Embarkers: Adam Park will be there tonight! WARNING!”

Needless to say, every one of us enjoyed the time reunited together. I think the bonds we’ve formed, spending every day together for years–and I really mean EVERY day, including weekend outings–is proof that we all understood how important it is to build a strong friendship with those you work with. We embraced our day-to-day relationships and we built a family! I guess that’s how we’re able to always smile, joke, and celebrate the good times even when someone leaves the company. I guess that’s how we’re able to break out the “Happy Last Day To You” with every shot.

We all went through shitty times earlier this year, but it makes me SOOO happy to know that we can all get together so often to play just like we used to. And I can say without a doubt that doing so brings out SUCH a strong feeling of pure happiness!

I mean, just LOOK at these smiles!!

Click here to see the other many pics from this night.

I <3 you all!

To be frank, after watching several video submission, I got the impression that most folks didn’t put as much time and thought into their videos.

PRESENTATION. A lot of the videos have horrible sound quality, or there’s too many visual things happening, making the video seem like an infomercial. Yes, sell yourself, but do it with CLASS! Craig worked hard to ensure that the sound and video quality wouldn’t compromise the presentation of his message.

For a job application where your video is your submission, I’m glad Craig’s is clean, tidy, and went through drafts. You would NOT submit a messy resume for a job, right?

ORIGINALITY + HUMOR. Most of the videos are simply the applicants talking about their experiences, why they should be fit for the job, with a cheesy clip of them sipping some Murphy Goode wine. Since most of the videos are like this, they really lack personality.

Okay, I’m biased, but I honestly think Craig’s video is very different from the other submissions. Even the CURRENT Murphy Goode Lifestyle Coorespondent gave props to Craig’s video and blog post: Andy’s Goode Life Blog – How to Make a Killer Job Application Video.

The best part is that Craig transparently shares his video-making process, and provides an extensive “Murphy-Goode Job Applicants Video Fail Guide” for other applicants to learn from. Craig’s Video Notes + Video Application “FAIL” list.

Do you agree with me, that his video blows the others outta the water?
PLEASE vote for Craig’s video here: http://tr.im/goode by next Friday, June 19th!

Assignment: Anomaly and Bridge Tones

Part 1: Create 3-like compositions, using a tightly unified color field. e.g. complementary tones, analogous or monochromatic tones, limited value range.

Part 3: Change two of the existing colors to create bridge tones that will soften the starkness of the anomaly.

I wanted to do something simple, since I had to do 3 iterations of the same composition. What better to do than a tribute to the Super Mushroom?

Here’s what I came up with:

Final Product: Mario Mushrooms

Alllrriiiggght, so I didn’t really follow the assignment! I added a bunch of white to the bridge tones for fear of the mushroom looking too toxic! I changed the golden yellow sun streaks in the background to a yellow-greenish tone (but with LOTS of white), and the mushroom spots from red to a very slight purple (tho it looks blue next to the blue mushroom base color).

I had a LOT of fun working on this project! I might go back and redo the same composition with more popular Mario mushroom colors: the new super mushroom (red base, white spots), the 1-up (neon green base, white spots)

Assignment: Proportional Inventory Study

Part 1: Make a proportional inventory of an image that has an easily countable number of tones.

Part 2: Create a composition of your own using the colors and proportions of the inventory.

This is my FAVORITE piece at the moment!
For Part 1, a few days earlier, I had stumbled upon this image by strongstuff

Optimus Prime Commission by strongstuff

I just thought this Optimus Prime image was AMAZING: blocky style, and minimal colors used to denote the curves and shadows around Optimus’ form. I decided to use this piece for my study.

Here is my Proportional Inventory, breaking down the proportions of how many colors there are in the Optimus Prime piece, and also how MUCH of it exists in the piece all together. (Ex: 20% white, 5% light gray, etc.)

NOTE: Depending on your computer monitor’s settings, the colors might not match. My desktop monitor’s colors are all kinds of whack so I used to my new laptop to view the Optimus Prime pic. From there, I spent a while mixing the colors on my palette until it matched closely the colors on my laptop screen.

Then came the fun part!! I needed to figure out what Nintendo character was mostly blue and red… At first thought, of course I thought of Mario! But I had a few problems: Mario is mostly red with blue overalls, plus he has skin tones, which was not part of the Optimus Prime color inventory! I texted Norvelle, Brent, and Greg in class and we came up with a few options: Mario, Yoshis, Sonic(!!). As much as I wanted to do a piece on Sonic <3 <3 <3, I realized that I could do something with Megaman. Megaman has very minimal skin so it would be a nice experiment!

But what could off-set Megaman’s mostly blue body with red?

Here’s what I came up with ;)

Final product: Megaman+Protoman

Protoman’s red base served as a perfect balance for Megaman’s blue. Being Megaman’s brother, I found it appropriate to do a split down the middle between the two. The ultimate battle between Good and Evil!

Result? Bubbling New Ideas For Future Pieces!

After I started taking on the assignments with subjects that were more of my style (illustrations, more graphic/character-based), I concentrated and spent more time working on my pieces. I noticed that I enjoyed it x100 more doing fan art! Soooo…

My new project will be to create a series of classic videogame fan art!

Have any ideas or requests? Please comment and let me know what characters or game you would like to see!

Oh, and if I’m not already familiar with the game, I promise to play it to learn the ridiculous intricacies of it. (ex: Ninja Gaiden’s CHEATER birds. BULL.SHIT.)

We’ve all heard it since the day we were born. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: As children, we’re asked the grand question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” From that moment on, we’re taught the idea that we can do ANY and EVERYthing that we want, so long as we want it and work hard enough. I long realized that these ideas and dreams usually dissipate by the time we reach our adult lives.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. I know a handful of people that knew EXACTLY what they’ve wanted to be since childhood, and they’ve worked hard from day one to achieve it. To name a few: Steven H, Sarah, Cotroneo. They’ve always had their vision on their dreams, and they stuck to it.

This is something I highly respect and highly admire, mostly because this comes so rarely in the lives that I know. It also hits home in my own life, reflecting how long it’s taken me to pursue my own dreams.

My Dislike for Financial Dependence

When we’re children, when we answer the question of what we want to be, we don’t understand the social and financial implications of what those careers entail. We also don’t know that a few years later, we’ll soon come to learn and become familiar with the rigid conforms of our American society.

Eventually, someone comes along and tells you that your dream job isn’t right, it doesn’t pay enough, and that it’s not PRESTIGIOUS enough. Your immigrant parents will tell you that they came to America for you to live your dream… as a doctor or lawyer only, of course.

All through life, people will reinforce the idea that you’re supposed to be on a track to success. That is, FINANCIAL success. You should have a job with reasonable pay; if you don’t, you should be trying to look for a higher paying position. If you’re unemployed, you should be looking for a job.

But what of our dreams? So many of us are raised with parents that told us, “Go to school, study hard, get good grades so you can have a good paying job. Then, you can be happy and rest carefree during retirement.” RETIREMENT? Really? THAT late in life? Assuming I’ll even LIVE to reach retirement?

Pushing Away the Dream

Anyway… my American Dream.

I’ve been lucky growing up. My Chinese immigrant parents never shunned me from doing art. Luckily, I’ve always had their support for any subject I wanted to study. (Maybe it’s because I’m the 3rd child and my older brothers were well on their way to making sufficient moneys?) In fact, my mom tells me that I should have majored in art in college since it’s what I’m ultimately best at.

So, why didn’t I?

To be honest, I’ve pushed art away for most of my life. I was too frightened. Of what? I guess the idea that you put SO much time into a piece, and people stand around and critique it (negative connotation), with me needing to know how to TALK about my own piece. I used to be extremely introverted and the idea of this critique process was beyond scary.

As a result, I mostly kept my art to myself. Practicing perfection by copying drawings and photos, I did this as my own private hobby. I would only show people finished work, PERFECTED work.

Finding a Place in the American Dream as an Artist

Over and over, my mom’s words repeat in my mind as a form of self-encouragement and confidence: you should have pursued art a long time ago.

As of recently, I’ve learned to embrace my skills and love for art. And I’m loving art classes, where I receive a lot of positive feedback and different advice from my instructors and peers.

However, I’ve also come to a point where I’m unsure of what to do with my life. It’s nothing big, but it’s something to think about. As always, it’s the challenge of finding a balance between my dreams and the financial implications of this pursuit.

I want to stay in school, continue taking art classes, spend the time to develop my skills and technique, maybe go for an art degree.

But I STRONGLY feel the pressures of society (which are self-imposed, of course), that tell me to go get a full-time job, which would take time away from my schooling.

If I look for a job, I would ideally look for a job that would help enhance my knowledge and skills in my art development, but I feel like the only opportunities right now are for people who have a lot more experience in the realm.

Ideally, I’d like to just stay in school and concentrate on at least getting an Associates of Art degree. Maybe later I can take that and transfer to a 4-year college. I’d try to find a part-time job for some income to fund myself.

Financially, though, will it be enough? I need to find ways to support myself while staying on track with my goals as much as possible.

As much as I dislike basing my life around money, I think this moment of unemployment is CRUCIAL for me to budget myself properly, and to truly watch my spending. I need to figure out how to meet more local artists, I need to figure out how to sell my work, and I need to figure out how else I can get funding for my schooling.

I need to reach my goal!

After 20-something years of pushing it off, I’m glad to be in a place where I’m comfortable and KNOW I want to pursue art. Now, I need to find the means to do it.

Do you have suggestions, resources, ideas? I’m 100% open to anything you can share to help me out. I have a long way to go and I’m open to all the help I can get! :)

Additionally, I know I’m fortunate enough to even HAVE this option. I hope and wish everyone could strive for their dreams and actually invest their time in the things they’re most passionate about. But I’m beginning to understand more and more this dance of balancing one’s dreams with the necessity of money in order to achieve those dreams. As much as I hate the interdependency of the two, this has become fervently apparent lately.

This class is led by Anna Vaughn, and focuses on the interaction of color as developed by Josef Albers. The studies that we’ve experimented with, learned from, and gained immense knowledge from are skills and techniques that I’ve really come to value.

I have to say that I’ve missed out on a lot, not knowing or understanding, or even being comfortable with color!  Only a few months ago, I was the person that said: “Wooowww! It’s SUCH a nice day out! ….. I think I’ll wear GRAY!” (Okay, I admit that it was only a few weeks ago, and I actually still really love my plain black, white, and gray colored clothes.)

Nevertheless, this class has taught me a lot about how to utilize color in my art pieces, which was always a challenge for me in the past without any formal training. Ever spend weeks on an awesome outline drawing, only to mess it up when you plop down some color you realize doesn’t work at all? Yeah, that was me. This class has taught me a lot about how to use and how to MAKE colors work to enhance your composition, and how to create the feel and mood of your piece.

But I think the greatest lesson this class has taught me is how to be COMFORTABLE with color. Now, even if I “mess up” and use a color I wasn’t originally intending, I’m not afraid to experiment and explore different mixtures to create a completely different composition than expected.

Below are several lessons I’ve learned that I’d like to share with you, along with the works I created to complete these experiments. I’m proud of my pieces, and I hope you enjoy them too!

Make One Color Appear As Two

This was one of our first lessons that shocks me even now! For me, this was the phenomenon that got me fascinated about our perception and understanding of color, and how much it exists in our everyday world (yet we know so little about)!

The exercise is to make one color look like two completely different colors. This is done by changing the background colors. Here’s an example:

Assignment: Make one color appear as two different colors (by changing the background colors)

Notice the small, olive-green square in the middle of these two bigger green and blue squares. Because of the contrast in hue, value, and saturation of the green and blue background squares, it makes the smaller, olive-green squares look like two different colors.

(Don’t trust me? If you’re using Firefox, download the Colorzilla plugin and use the eyedropper to see if the colors are the same.)

Isn’t that AWESOME!?

Transparency

The illusion of transparency was a very fun project for me! Maybe it’s the challenge of having detailed, precise lines and borders in order to successfully create the illusion, or maybe it’s just because it looks so cool!

The illusion of transparency is created by slightly altering the tone of your colors to make it appear like there’s a transparent sheet (like a photo gel) on top. Here’s what I did:

The Illusion of Transparency (03-26-09)

I first laid down the main brighter yellow ochre and purple, then laid down the darker yellow ochre and darker purple tones (the circlular and triangular dark shades).

For the gouache paints that we’re using, it’s really important to lay down each tone separately. Otherwise, the color/tone on the bottom might come up and the illusion won’t work. Each have to be laid down separately, and you have to make sure the lines and borders are precise in matching up.

I also learned the illusion of transparency and space. That is, creating the illusion of a transparency behind or in front of an object. Here, I created an illusion of a red ribbon flowing behind and in front of a few white transparent lines:

The Illusion of Transparency and Space (03-26-09)

To create this illusion, follow the same technique as the above Illusion of Transparency exercise: lay down each tone separately, and make sure your lines are precise.

Additionally, to make the ribbon look like it’s flowing BEHIND the white transparent lines, mix the two together and add a little more of the foreground object’s color. So, I mixed red and white (making a pinkish color), and added a little more WHITE since that’s in front.

Similarly, to make the ribbon look like it’s flowing IN FRONT of the white transparent lines, mix the two together and add a little more of the foreground object’s color. So, I mixed the red and white, and added a little more of the RED since the ribbon is in front of the white.

Pretty simple, eh? :)

Developing a Palette

Here’s another fun project I’ve really enjoyed: Create 3 pieces with the same composition, and use different reds, yellows, blues for each one. (For any greens, purples, oranges that you use for each piece, you must mix the primaries that you’ve chosen to use for that piece to create those greens, purples, oranges, etc).

Ready, Set, Go -- 3 Primaries Palette (04-27-09)

Left: I used yellow ochre, crimson red, ultramarine blue
Middle: Lemon yellow, brilliant red, gray
Right: Medium yellow, burnt sienna, sky blue

Each piece is 3×4 inches and was very fun to patiently work in all the details, and slight shading. I had no idea that the colors would come out so differently for each piece, so it was definitely a great surprise! Each came out very special and unique in its own way.

Which one do you like more? I’m drawn towards the middle one the most!

Altering Palette

I just completed this today! Create 2 pieces with the same composition. Paint the first piece normally. For the second piece, use an additive color for each color used. The result will make the colors in the piece look more unified.

The additive color I used was a blueish gray.

Boxer (04-29-09)

Teehee! Isn’t my boxer guy cute? I couldn’t stop giggling when I was painting this!

Have any feedback about any of these pieces? Let me know what you think!
Want to see more of my previous work? Feel free to visit my Portfolio!