A Semi-Literate Walk through the Edo Period and Expensive Pokemon

Edo Museum day. Another museum that would have been informative if I could actually read. They did have a little more English than the Natural Museum, (which was none at all, over there) but I found myself drifting off anyway, as everything I found myself deeply interested had no subtitle, and the things I was only somewhat into had a paragraph or two.

They had a lot of scale dioramas of Tokyo in different time periods. They were absolutely great for reference on my Animation in Tokyo project. I’m hoping to involve ravens, and the main problem with all the reference I’ve been taking is it’s from human eye level. Finally, I could get reference pictures from a birds eye view.

There were also a lot of scrolls and original woodblock prints that we weren’t allowed to take photos of, though I adored them. I wanted a book of their selection but couldn’t find much in the gift shop.

Another important thing to mention is at the beginning of the day, we were told to have one good drawing by the end of our time there to turn in to the visiting artists. Three students would be picked (one sequential and one animation) to have a goodbye dinner with them. I won’t lie, I got anxious about it. It ruined any groove I had to draw that day, but I talked to a friend and kind of get myself set straight. In the end I got a really good drawing out of it after relaxing. For now, here’s only a photo of the boat I drew. I loved this thing.

Ah, and in the end, said friend got to go to the dinner, and I got to go shopping instead, so it all worked out for the better eh?

And shopping to where? But the Pokemon Center of course!

Alas, it was actually very disappointing. I’m one of those oldbies that only likes the first 151, and most of what they sold was Diamond and Pearl characters. What a letdown.

But they had these awesome shirts I wanted more than anything, but were ridiculously expensive. They were all designer-like- where you had to double take to see it was a Pokemon shirt at all. Example being a coat of arms with the animals holding the shield being a pair of Mewtwo. But, only at the Pokemon Center would you have to buy a shirt for $45. Maybe they’re just converting prices from the game, where prices are so inflated that a bike costs 1,000,000 poke-dollars.

I’m a geek. We’ve come to terms with this.

After this, we went to Shibuya, so I got to see a little more of that- a different part than Ayumi had shown me. We went to one of the many Mandarake’s, a manga/book/geekery-paraphernalia kind of store, which I thoroughly enjoyed despite not spending too much there. Then later went to “Tokyo Hands” which seems to be an everything store. And everything as in more variety than Wal-Mart. I walked in thinking it was a Japanese version of Micheals, or JoAnn Fabrics… then went upstairs to find everything else from jewelry to furniture to art supplies to camping equipment. Downstairs even had a woodshop not unlike Home Depot.

It was really confusing. Didn’t help that not only did it have about 8 floors, but each floor had an a, b, and c, floor.

Everything’s built up, rather than out here, but that just felt like walking through an Escher drawing.

In Which There is Collaboration

I've been thinking lately... how incredibly cool it is to be at a school where collaboration is so encouraged.... or maybe it's just my major.

I got to be a werewolf in a friend's Vis. Effects film. Dressed up in this awesomely bad costume and run around in a graveyard. Then another friend who's in Interactive Something-Or-Other Game Design is creating a game (on paper) and was encouraged by his teacher to get friends to do some concept art.

Despite thinking I had absolutely no time, I did some anyway. I like this kind of thing. There isn't much pressure so I can just draw whatever. I even convinced myself I didn't have to take time looking for reference. True enough it doesn't make for a good drawing, but it helps to loosen up a bit. I need some time to draw for myself during project crunch time.
Since the game is based on Dante's Inferno, and there was no specification on what I should do, I had to draw Lucifer (Final Boss? Heck yes.). Of course, I spent no time on research so I didn't really remember what the 9th Circle of Hell looked like other than ice and Lucifer halfway encased in ice. So I just made a Biblical kind of Lucifer, like a pretty angel with horns or something. Nothing very creative.

He told me later about Dante's Satan having three faces and six wings that beat the air to get free and constantly re-freeze the area over.

So here's a more appropriate vicious dragon sort of boss. I don't really like the drawing though, so it's smaller.

Then a character design of Dante, based on said friend because he asked for it. I'm trying to get more stylized with my imagined figures, but this is ridiculous. So much for practice.