Yoshitaka Amano @ New People

I'm finally done with all the current works, so I decided to visit San Jose. There is a Yoshitaka Amano Exhibit at SuperFrog Gallery in the "New People" building that just opened up in Japan Town San Jose. CP and I picked Phi up (she just came back from Japan :D), then we met up Laine, Derek, Alex, and a few other guys. Phi has a really cute Shinzi Katoh bag. I have one from the same series too. She said her kitchen is full of Shinzi Katoh stuff. I'm so jealous! hehe.



The building also has "Baby the Star Shine Bright" Elegant Gothic Lolita shop that brought a lot of cosplay fans. There was a fashion show in front of the building too!


"New People" building also has a shop that carries a lot of vinyl toys and shirts like Nucleus and Giant Robot, but there are also a lot of other goods like Blythe and Japanese Craft supplies. I saw a cute Junko Mizuno shirt, so I bought one for Carina who really likes Junko Mizuno stuff :).



Here are some more random pictures of the art on the walls and the kushidango cart outside of the building.


After that we met up with James and ate Curry at "On The Bridge". They are SO SLOW >_<. James Plate came out 15 min before mine. Phi and I ordered curry with raw eggs that were supposed to cook when you put them into the curry. Unfortunately, the curry was not hot when it came out. The raw eggs didn't cook, so it was really gross. Sophie's crepe was yummy as usual though :).

Gjelina & Venice

My lovely aunt and uncle took mom, Pailin, and me to Gjelina for an early b-day celebration. Well it's a celebration for me and my Aunt. My Birthday is on the 18th and my aunt's is on the 20th. They have been talking about this place for a long time, so I was really looking forward to this meal. Seriously, it's probably one of the best meal that I've ever had. It's light, so it doesn't make you feel grossly stuffed afterwards. The ingredients that they use seem so fresh. The Heirloom Tomato and Burrata cheese might be the best Tomato Dish that I've ever had >_<. Their Fries!! I almost finished the whole plate by myself. The salads are super tasty and I usually don't order Pizza at restaurants, but the pizza here was also super uber great. I was so happy I almost cried >_<. They also got me a very pretty black dress from Barneys. Now I just need a nice pair of black dressy shoes to go with it o^_^o. Did I tell you that I LOVVVEEEE my uncle and aunt? hehe <3



Then we went to walk around Abbot Kinney in Venice Beach. There are a lot of little shops there that reminds me of San Francisco.

Sweet Overload - Sprinkles & Jin's

My uncle brought the super Sprinkles Cupcakes for us. I like their red velvet cupcakes, but I think Sweet Lady Jane's velvet cupcakes are tastier :o. Sprinkles cupcakes are really really cute though.

I got some Macaroons from Jin's Patisserie and they were reallyyyy good. I especially liked the Yuzu and the Ume one. I think it's a japanese/french fusion pastry shop kind of like Amandine's in Santa Monica :). Now I know where to get my macaroons :D.

A while back we also went to Sweet Lady Jane's. It's a super famous bakery. The pics are on my iphone, and I still can't get them to upload though >_<. I guess I'll upload them when the iphone decides to cooperate with me.

Doodle - Flutter

I slept a lot today. Need to clean up and do laundry. I get distracted easily x_x.

Doodle -Trapped (not done)

Cropped the face. Maybe I'll finish the rest of the body tomorrow. sleepy now~

Shirts and Plushes

*yawn yawn* Making plush dolls of Cubilees and Two Giant ones for display:




I didn't get to take pics of the New Shirt designs, but I will put the pics up after I get them taken.

Need sleep badly x_x

Denmark & Lego

Pailin and I were invited to go to Denmark to work on a Lego project. We were really excited. Did you know that Denmark was voted the as the happiest country in the world? Lego headquarter is in Billund. It’s a corporate town. Even the airport in Billund was built by Lego.


We took KLM and had a layover at Amsterdam Airport. That airport has really tasty food! I kind of craved thai for some strange reason, so I ordered a thai fusion place which surprisingly wasn’t too bad. We ate the whole thing. (On the way back, we had sushi and Udon, those were amazingly good.)




Upon arriving in Denmark, the first thing i notice is that their power outlets are super cute. I mentioned that to the project manager in Denmark and she laughed. She said since they are so used to it, they never noticed that it looks like a happy face.

Lego is extremely strict about confidentiality, so I won’t put up the pics of their super cool office. It’s more like a toy store though. Everywhere you go, you see Lego models. They also had a wall with a collection of the Complete Star Wars minifigures. There is a giant room that has all the Lego parts. The designers there are so lucky. They get to play with Legos all day. That definitly seem like a fun job ;) There were a lot of prototype models and Kids would come by to test out their new ideas and products. The designers were really friendly. The team that we worked with were extremely nice. Other than a few Danish girls, the others came from different countries like France, England, Portugal. We also got to shop at the Lego Employee shop. Since the other designers went crazy by the Lego Architect series, Pailin and I bought a set too. They said it’s really hard to get a complete because each of them are sold at different places. The only place that they know that carry the whole series is the Employee shop (plus we also get a discount ^_~). It was fun filling our bags with those Lego Architecture series (top image) and tons of minifigure keychains.

They actually wanted us to stay for 3 weeks, but I could only stay for 1 week because I also have some work to do for MEG as well. On the last day, the team took us to Lego Land and ate at the castle there. The menu descriptions were funny. I got the salmon that was caught “from the sparkling water of the King’s own river” lol. Oh and Denmark has really good dairy product. I don’t know why the yogurt, icecream, milk taste extra great there.

Cleo

Cleo's ashes came in today :(. I didn't really go over the detail before, so here is what happened.

A day before comic con, I noticed that Cleo's hay and water didn't go down. She wasn't eating much of her food for about 2 days, so I took her to the vet. I thought it was probably a hairball problem or something that's not super serious. It ended up being something VERY serious.  She had torticollis. Her head was tilting to one side. She couldn't balance. Cleo loves to stand up on her two legs, so it must have been really hard on her. The doctor said it's a problem in the inner ear that is hard to cure. Even a surgery might not help. She was probably very dizzy. We were hoping that she might get better, but the doctor said that it's quite serious. The neurologic damage is often permanent, and we might have to permanently force feed her, then it'd be cruel to keep her alive.

This happened the day before comic con. I forcefed her with a syringe and gave her 3 syringes of medications that day. It was very hard to do. She was struggling. Everything happened so suddenly. She was fine 3 days before.

I had a show coming up at comic con.  Luckily, the W hotel allows animals with additional charge, so we took her to comic con with us. The car was packed with comic con things, and when I got to San Diego, I realized that the bag with all of Cleo's medication that I had prepared was left by the door. I grabbed the wrong bag.  So I immediately went back to LA and drove back to San Diego. By the time I got back there, it was too late though. I felt horrible. I was trying to do my best, but I messed up.  Maybe it was for the better though.  She was really suffering.  :(

I miss how she'd reach up when she sees me and then yawn.  She's the sweetest bunny and she was so smart.

James saved the day

James: what happened?
me: I don't know... it seems like the scroll down button is stuck. Every time a window is opened, it just scrolls to the bottom. I unplugged the keyboard, disabled the tablet, restarted the comp like 10 times and it's still doing it! What the heck is wrong?!?????
James: .... did you unplug the mouse?
me: I have a mouse? ._.

I couldn't print anything because the curser kept scrolling down the bottom and select the wrong printer. So after being frustrated for hours last night and this morning not knowing why my computer was acting really strange, it was the MOUSE. I had the cordless mouse plugged in, and never really used it. I only use the tablet pen for everything, so I forgot that I had a mouse *stupid stupid dummy! smack my self 50 times for being retarded. In the end, the source of my hours of frustration was from a Mouse that fell behind my desk. *sob, give me back my 5 hours!! ;_;

Tired x_x

I'm so tired x_x. It's been a long day of running around. My PC is not cooperating, so I'm ranting on my laptop. I hope it will magically work for me tomorrow.

Coco is not feeling well today. He was throwing up all day. Stupid emergency animal hospital only has ONE doctor working, and he was performing a surgery, so I couldn't take Coco in. He's sleeping, I hope he'll be okay. I'm taking him to the vet in the morning (few hours from now).

It feels like I have so much to do. I'm working on 3 different projects for 3 toy companies right now. I gotta finish 40 full colored art by the end of the month. I wish I can just sit down and finish all these works, but there are so many things that kept me from doing so (errands, meetings, Coco's illness, family matters, computer not cooperating, etc.) It's okay though. I can do it! >=[ MUST FOCUS!

Pailin came back from Japan today with a lot of Japanese cookies again. I'm trying to be good and resist the temptations... :o~~~

Charina Visits!

We have a guest this week. Pailin's best friend, Charina, came from Thailand. Sharina is a very talented singer. She has a lovely voice <3. She stopped by Las Vegas, and came back with us to LA. She's staying with us for a week. Because she's super pretty, I had a lot of fun taking her pictures :p. We also made sure that we dragged her to all our favorite restaurants. Oh! We also got her addicted to the the Godiva's Chocolixer xD.

LV Licensing Show

My friend, Mike Butkus, invited me to go to the Licensing show with him and his friend, Otto Sturcke. Mike is an amazing concept artist, and Otto is an amazing Portrait artist. We had a small booth, but I thought it was a quite cool booth with a LOT of amazing art :p. Last week had been hellish since there were so much that we needed to prepare for the show... brochures, posters, postcards, business cards, etc. With very little sleep, we made it, and I think it was a great show.


While I was working at the booth, Pailin and Charina were invading Smurf village.


It's pretty amazing to see that MEG's booth were filled with my artworks. My drawings were blown up super big for their banners, and they had a lot of the toys that I designed on display. I didn't even know that they made so many different merchandise from my illustrations xD. I want some of them!


I love Mike's daughters. They are so cute! Amelie (6 years old) said she wants to be my assistant xD. She was sitting at the booth copying all my drawings, and a man came by and said "I'm going to hire you!". She replied "Nooo! I'm gonna be Patara's assistant!", then hid behind my back. Awww~ she can have anything she wants from me. lol

Overall, we had a great time. We had a few issues on the way there like being late for our flights, and got a crazy taxi driver. The guy was named Sunny Kim (Sunny, if you're reading this, I'm so sorry that he has the same name as you). He's crazyyyy.

Lastly, we discovered a new yummy place. Rick Moonen's RM Seafood in Mandalay Bay offers many many delicious dishes. :D~


Bonus Pailin & Uglydoll Dancing