Here's a sketch of Kupcake, a character created by grandmaster Budjette Tan under Alamat Comics.

She originally looked Natalie Mechant-ish, although I think she was patterned after Cooky Chua. So I tried to give Kupcake a more fun and modern look and, in contrast to her origins, a lot of colors.

As part of my research work I had to trudge along to Cubao, to Mowelfund and watch a lot of movies, particularly the old action flicks with Fernando Poe Jr, Paquito Diaz and some bold actress who is obviously old enough to be FPJ's daughter.


Friday -- March 18
I didn't know where Mowelfund is, so my brother instructed me to go to the PETA office, where one of his colleagues would direct me there. So I had Uri come along and feel the joys of getting lost. That's exactly what happened, I'm not sure how we ended up in Marikina, but we did and we had to go back to Cubao.

We finally got into the damn compound. We almost froze when we got into the building; the hallways were so deserted and there was an eerie chill, we half expected FPJ walk into the room. Damn, even the toilets were creepy that I had to piss with the toilet door open.

After all the huffing ang puffing our way back to Cubao, we went home with five VHS casette movies in tow. I knew it was gonna be a long night.


Monday -- March 21I went back to Mowelfund to return the VHS tapes and watch a few more films in their viewing room. It turns out their "viewing room" was part Exective Office and half stockroom. I watch a gazillion movies. I kinda remember mentioning before about me wanting to watch a plethora of films in one sitting, I just didn't think I'd actually do it within a foreseeable timeframe...and not to mention that the quality of he films ranged from the utterly bizarre pumping scenes to the ho-hum cliches.

Batang Quiapo. Pusakal. Birador.Burlesk Queen. And Lalaki Sa Buhay Ni Selya. Pitong Gatang. Sibak. Alyas Baby Tsina. Pieta. Hagedorn. Resbak.

I was so disoriented after that I still don't know how I got back to our office without tossing the cookies.


Tuesday --March 22I went back to borrow more tapes. The limit was five tapes per rental, so I got them and I'm expecting a headache any minute now.

This is another sketch of IAN.

Too bad I can't find any PCs with Photoshop installed so I could color it.

Anyway, I'm planning to redraw it...
-Very awkward gun handling
-Awkward stance
-He looks like he's got diarrhea
-Crappy lines in the pants
-It doesn't look like he's wearing a pair of baggy pants
-His legs are gonna detach

MRT: Embarrassing

A couple of weeks ago I had to meet someone over at Glorietta. The jeepney I took ended up in Crossing so the easiest –and fastest- way to get to Makati was the MRT. So I endured the long queue to purchase a ticket and queued some more just to get into the train.

I forgot what I was thinking of at that time, but whatever it was it got my head all busied up. I got on the train and waited patiently, surrounded by sweaty passengers to get to Makati. There was one particular guy who brandished a Palm Pilot. With stylus in hand he surveyed the people surrounding him, obviously looking dubious at one suspicious-looking guy to another.

General Rule: Never, use any expensive-looking gizmo in public. Even if that area boasted of high security. Fight your urge to boast about your cellphone/camera/MP3 player/palm pilot until you’ve reached your destination. I looked at the sniveling idiot and then at the window to find a bigger idiot…I found myself staring at the Araneta Coliseum.

HOLY CRAP! I got on the wrong train. I traveled several miles to the wrong direction. Apparently I have just been inflicted with maladies characterized among single, brown males: not paying attention and not asking for directions.

So I finally got to Glorietta and went on with my day. I eventually had to go home. So I figured I stand a bigger chance at getting home if I went to Crossing; otherwise I’d have to engage in battle with the Monster called Ayala Rush Hour Traffic.

I boarded an MRT train (but not before standing in a ridiculously long line at the station) and was contently waiting to get off at the Boni station.

Regular MRT passengers are aware that there is an announcer declaring over the PA system exactly where the train is. Regular MRT passengers are used to how badly the PA system is and they fully understand where they are no matter how grounded the audio sounded. Unfortunately I am not a regular MRT passenger. I heard the announcer mutter “Boni Station.” I crawled out of the station and then my mind got numb, my throat followed. And all I could do was muster a half-wondering, half-angry question: “WHY AM I IN BUENDIA???”

Evidently I queued for almost 15 minutes before I could board a train and ended up in the wrong station, miles from the destination. Again not paying attention.

GIMIK WEEK

Last week was such a busy week, which involved with my work and a lot of gimik after hours. But who wants to hear about work, eh?

JARS OF CLAY

First off, Janice and I attended the Jars of Clay concert over at Araneta Coliseum. I won a pair of ticket from RX and we headed for the venue. I honestly didn't expect to be there. I was even depressed that I waited for eight years for them to come to Manila but I couldn't go because the tickets weren't cheap. So imagine my joy when I got the tickets from the station. Even if they were General Admission tickets, I was still overjoyed.

Around 8pm, Janice and I were queued up for the Gen Admin area, when one of the MArshalls announced that not all the tickets were sold and so we could move over to the Upper Box. I was all smiles.

As we huddled into the coliseum there was some kind of confusion. I just followed Janice blindly and then I found myself standing eight rows from the stage. It was all so surreal.

Bo Sanchez introduced the event and the opening act, Barbie's Cradle, who did a quick slew of 4-5 songs. And then Jars of Clay was onstage. I was awestruck. I felt numb from head to toe.

They did an incredible set, which included Show You Love, Sunny Day,Flood, Unforgetful You, Tea and Sympathy and when the guitarist strummed the first few chords for Five Candles, I thought I was in heaven. It was as though I was floating and I was in tears...and then I realized I wasn't when I heard all the member of the jolog republic sitting behind us snigger and laugh out loud.

You do not laugh at a Jars of Clay gig, especially in the middle of Five Candle.

Goth Night

Janice is really becoming my Gimik Buddy. The following night I found myself with her walking through Ayala all the way to Underground to watch the Video Launch by My Favorite Things by The LAte ISabel. I honestly had expected to be in the middle of blackness that is the crowd, but it was all good. Dominion and two other bands opened the show.

And then they showd the video. It was a completely dark parody of the Julie Andrew song sequence in The Sound of Music. And then The Late Isabel played, complete with decapitated dolls onstage.

I'll buy their album!

Foreign Film with Teresa

Again, Janice grabbed me, along with Teresa all the way to Instituto Cervantes in Buendia to watch a Spanish film titled, Sexo por Compassion. It was easily a funny film focusing on the perils of being excessively altruistic - to the point of providing sexual gratification in the name of charity. We shot some pics. Teresa forgot her umbrella in by bag.

Company Party

Thanks to Jinx I got to attend the company party, even after I've resigned. I was under the impression that it was also gonna be a reunion of sorts for our original team, but no. Only Marilou and Em showed up. I had four bottles of beer and got drunk with food.

- Email I sent last week to the Alamat Mailing List


Message: 1
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2005 22:18:21 -0800 (PST)
From: Luis Anthony Oliveros
Subject: PLEASE...favor naman...


People of the Almighty Comics Field, here is a drawing I did of a teen spy character I created a week back. I did the line art and the colors.

Could you please give me suggestions, and advice on which area I should improve on? Any help would be much appreciated. Please be as merciless and give it to me straight (but also consider the fact that I have no Comics-related background).

Thanks!
greyweed



-And their replies:

From: "Wilson Tortosa"

Ey Luis!

I think it looks professional, considering you have no comics-related background. ;) Some points I notice is that the character's pose looks a little stiff, and his limbs look a bit thick, or is that he's supposed to be stocky in the first place? Also his feet look small in proportion to his legs. You can fix that by either slimming down his legs or making his shoes bigger.

The colors are great, although the green color of the gun doesn't look metallic, or is that a non-metallic pistol..he's a spy anyway. ;)

Hope that helped!

-Wilson


-Actually yes, IAN's a stocky Filipino kid (around 5'4 - 5'5 in height). But his legs aren't that huge, he's just wearing a pair of baggy pants. I am so in awe, this is an artist who is in charge of doing pencils for the Tomb Raider comics and he also handled the Battle of the Planets comic (starring the Gatchaman- or G-Force to us Filipinos).



From: antonio_abad@------------.com

I like it! He's got a gruffiness that makes him appealing and approachable as a character for readers to relate with. Yah I agree the gun doesn't look metallic. I liked how you approached the tattoos. The way the colors work made them really look like pigment on skin. I'm not sure what the green thing on the bag strap is.

Lastly, there's that part between the beard and the ears that i'm not sure what to make of it. Is it the jawbone? Or is it something else.

tobie


-Wow. He likes it. "Appealing and approachable." The gun is plastic so as not to tick off the metal detectors at the mall. The green thing on the strap is a button pin with a tiny microphone/camera in it. And yes, it's the jaw bone.



From: Marco Dimaano

I would advise honing your basic anatomy drawing skills (basics! Basics!) in order to make drawing poses and playing with proportions better. If your anatomy is solid, it would be no problem to make the character as stylized as possible- making hands and feet bigger, the character lankier, etc- yet still making it look 'correct'.
Also, think about the design of the character that will make him look appealing- this is more of your tastes. Giving him a sneaky expression, playing with color combinations or having him with one eye winking or in a cool pose would go a long way with making anyone seeing the pic for the first time get the impression that this is a cool character.

Keep it up, Luis! Planning to put out your own comic?

^_^


-Oh yeah, he found my greatest weakness, anatomy.


I am so humbled. Their's enough praises here to last me a lifetime, and of course the best are the constructive criticism I got.


WHOOOO!

Jobbing around.

Early last week I passed a resume to RX 93.1, applying for their Graphic Artist opening. I'm still waiting and I do hope that they'd call me up one of these days for an interview or something. RX has always been a dream workplace. I wanted to be a DJ for the station before, and it'd be swell if I could work the graphics too.

Late last week I was partially forced into applying for the Date Encoder position at AsiaPro, by my mom and my sister. The tests were a clear that my brain still works, even finished the basic math exam in less than 15 minutes. Wait...me...math...the equation isn't exactly logical.

And yesterday Janice contacted me regarding a raket as a Research Assistant. I got the job because she had recommended me. The company was set up basically by old Flame members. And I realized that this was the same raket Beth mentioned before, and back then they needed Researchers. The company's project now is a coffee table book for a wine comppany and so I'm starting tomorrow, with an interview with the wine company's chief chemist. This is gonna be fun, I think.

Digicam DAY
I grabbed my brother's digicam and began shooting...see what got caught between me and the lens...scrool down and click on the pics for a closer look!





The kid's got my look! Nyaha!



It's only 10:00 am...too early to get up!



And because i'm now awake...i will look at you. LABO!



Yeah, that's how dark, damp any messy my room is. Don't worry, I'm so used to it.



And now that you've seen a the study area of my room, here's my dark, gloomy bed...CLUTTER!



And here's my CD/VCD collection...all original. You can see Amelie, K-Pax, 2 Twisted Halo, Marty McFly, two Squid9, the Pin-up Girls, Boldstar and Therapy.



The digicam taking a shot of a webcam. Yes, that is a webcam. With a special cameo of our printer and wireless mouse.



This is what our house looks like in the morning, after all my neices and nephews have left for school and my brother and sister gone for work. And all that mess is left for me to clean up.



This is Me and Maxine. Geez, I kinda look 15 yo here.



Crookshanks, our cat. My brother visited two days ago and was surprised that we actually owned a cat, considering that 30% of the household has asthma. She is pictured here, wearing her ROCKER collar -- leather with small metal spikes.



A shot of the street sign. Molave St on a clear sky (except for a tiny clump of clouds). And the banana leaves add an urban feel to the shot...

Yesterday I attended the Annual Music & Arts Festival in Megamall. I got to the venue around 1:00PM so I could attend the Basic Sketching ang Drawing workshop but was totally disappointed that it had been moved up to 3:00PM and was replaced by the Li'l Hands workshop by AMSPEC. Damn kids.

So I sat down tro watch this band performing onstage. It was an unknown band who had been playing inspirational rock. And just my luck they started to play Switchfoot's Meant To Live by the time I found a seat. That should be a good sign...plus the fact that I was wearing my favorite shirt that day.

So I had to wait for the workshop to start. I had also signed up for the Anime Wokshop that came next. The sketching Workshop was so bitin. The lecturer is a member of the Saturday Group and did more jokes and stories than the actual lecture. It was, however, effective because I roused the napping artist in me (the because I have given up the prospect of actually doing artworks and settled for writing scripts and coloring for comics). I may try to get into pencilling in the within the next few weeks/months.

Then came the Anime workshop, handled by a bespectacled college junior who wasn't really sure of himself. He kept on saying "um" and was undoubtedly shaking. But as the discussion went on he kinda eased and I learned loads. First was the basic shapes and the most important thing I learned that day: proportion. I have been drawing Filipino characters that are stocky, with small, pango noses and dark skins (because I wanted to maintain the very Filipino look) too long that I've disregarded the basic superhero proportions.

And in the middle of the workshop Donna started calling me in my cell. Although it was set on Silent, something that vibrated in your pocket next to your groin area is something really annoying. So I kept on rejecting the call as respect to the lecturer. In between lectures she called again ang I answered. Donna was asking if I could go to Gilligan's in Makati because she and Cherry were hanging out because it was Cherry's Birthday.

I was speechless and mindless for a while. I forgot about Cherry's birthday. Probably because the past few days were so nondescript that I never noticed the days pass by. I didn't even know it was Feb 26. CRAP!

I told Donna that I just want to finish one last workshop before I go and meet them but apparently Cherry doesn't want to see me. So since the meet was out the window I decided to stay in Megamall to watch a few bands that were slated to play that night...but not before I had to endure a few song numbers from the Ryan Cayabyab The Music School.

First up was Twisted Halo. It was arguably one of their best performances to date. They played extra loud and the energy level was high. But the crowd was less enthusiastic, probably too tired to move after watching Ryan Cayabyab. Then came Valley of Chrome who received a better crowd response- adding a small moshpit and sending one monoblock chair flying; much to the horror of the old geezers and the security people. And then Typecast roared into view, same crowd reaction. The Mongols announced that they had dropped their original bassist, replacing him with Doc , originally from Teeth, as anyone would know. Chicosci came and you know it wasn't gonna be a quiet night. Of course I stayed away from the moshpit but I could still feel the floor swaying from all the jumping and thrashing. Yep, it didn't feel like Megamall anymore. And to ease up the crowd The Chongkeys came and loosened up with a series of their brand of reggae. I loved their songs. I left when Jeepney Joyride.

One good NP picture, deserves another! So here it is.

Notice that I still wore that blasphemous Benneton wristwatch (I no longer wear watches).
Notice that JHAI is still with us.
Notice that ELAD is SO F@#!CKING THIN.
Notice that KENNETH looks so clean.
Notice thet TUA looks so innocent.

Yep, the idiosyncrasies brought by remeniscing.