30.9.10

452# Gundam Fix Figuration Metal Composite #1004 RX-78-2 Gundam

Ebony dressed for Sunset

Number 3 of the holiday learning outcome! Actually there is no number 4 onwards to write about so I guess this is it.

David John never fail to organise some easy competitions to win some gundam prizes. I have so far won a Revoltech and a small gundam from him. That was twice. I wanted to hit for the third time so I joined another photo taking contest held by him during the holiday

The rules were simple. One model, one shot, with photo descriptions.

I decided to take my favourite model, the Gundam Fix Figuration Metal Composite RX-78-2 Gundam which I have bought during early of the year for the photo taking.



During then only I realised that I had yet to take any serious photo of it although it was my all time favourite among all my close to hundred models collection. It was my first metal composite and I have to love the weight of the die cast metal parts, and the perfect painting.



Trying to imitate the view of the 1/1 scale 18m tall Gundam statue in Japan, with the aid of sunset I took a few shots and selected one of it to submit.




In the end I have chosen the low angle photo (below) for submission. The light of the sunset was just nice and the angle was good as if the observer was looking up onto the 18m tall Gundam statue.



Photo Description = Stood still on the land of the mortals, ebony dressed for sunset, guarding the lives of thousands in the dark...
*Captured with Canon S5IS - Auto - 1/30 - F/3.5 - ISO 200 - 16mm


I was shortlisted in the final 7 out of the 30 entries with the lowest mark of 81% among the finalists...

John's comment - The photo from Mike, I think it's just plain lovely, the old fart RX-78 Gundam is not my favorite but that photo seems to be lovely.

Old fart.. haha. The design of RX-78-2 Gundam was born during year 1979, way before us.

Anyway, although I didn't win the contest but at least I got do take some photos with my father's camera during the holiday, it's been awhile since I last touched the camera.

PS: Have just bought 3 more Gundam Fix Figurations this week, that marked the 10th GFF I have in my collection! RM650 gone...

451# In the waves of sorrow

Continue with my learning outcomes during the one week break that I had this month, which were;

1. Make one guitar cover
2. Draw a drawing for university's art competition
3. Take photographs of the gundam to enter David John's competition
4. Panel line the RG RX-78-2, apply decals and top coat
5. Revise all 6 episodes of SAW movies
6. Meet up with friends from college and bukit jalil, seremban



Now, the second one.

I took part in our university's art competition for a few times and I have never win any. I just realised that I have joined during year 2006 and 2007. Once I went to Seremban I have totally lost touch with the competition and missed year 2008 and 2009.

So, this time my youngest sister was part of the committee and according to her, the art competition this year themed "Emotion Unleashed", and under the "Drawing" category the participation was not great.

The committee members would need to get at least one entry per person so she asked me for the favour. I, was totally upset with the competitions, did not intend to join since my artworks were never been appreciated before during the past competitions, decided to give it a try. And I came out with this;




Looked familiar? It's Bassist Doris Yeh (above) from Chthonic. The photo was taken for her endorsement for ESP F-series bass guitar.

Spent one night for the sketching and I got some feed backs from people.

Le Min: shes fat! (;

Tuck Lam: This is good Mike, but not up to your standards the last time I saw! Must go mountain and meditate train a bit.

Ying Ying: nice! Glad to know you're back at trying a hand at art, don't give it up mike!!

William: yes you do man~!!! you always do...which is the motivation for you to even draw them,,go check your art album, and see if there are any guy pictures there? or girls that wear plenty of clothes~?! ahahahahah rahsia bocor

Vanessa: I am impressed. Mike can draw! And here is one hell of a reason I won't be summiting mine to the competition. lol

Jin: yes mike... i fully agree with u! clothes mar the essence of a woman's beauty :P



Yes, I only draw girls, and must be either gory or gothic. Too much of influence from gothic metal since college days I think.

And hence, another night I moved on with the inking, inked until the next morning and this is how it turned out to be.



The number mistakes done was way beyond my expectation. I totally miscalculated that it was physically to draw lace by hand, so i screwed it up. Put aside the minor mistakes, I think overall it was still acceptable for me.

And for the caption, on the same night I came out with a few lines but I was not satisfy with it.

"Temper flares, silence heats,
Five strings and throbbing heartbeats,
Grieving piece, harmonised in A minor,
Lying in peace and sink in further..."

A few days after that I wrote a few new lines and got my housemate to correct my grammar and vocabulary, and ultimately it turned into;

"Dressed in grieve,
Under the sky, she lied,
Gazes into endless horizon,
In envy she writhes,
Eyes drowned in emotions,
With 5-string heartbeat,
Throbs, unleashing the buried
In the waves of sorrow..."


Even more complicated! And most of the people could not get the idea on what I was trying to convey. But it's ok. Would rather let the people to have their own interpretation.

With the last line I titled this artwork as "In the waves of sorrow". Sound very melancholic, as my style, always.

In the end, I did not win the competition, because the judge dislike sketches. Yes, he dislikes sketches, and that was why I got a very low mark.

As usual, the art competitions held in the university never fail to disappoint me. I don't mind not being picked, but I totally disapprove the reason of losing was just because it was not a painting but a sketch. Hey, two of my batchmates had won with pencil sketches back in 2006!

I thought inked drawing was way more technical than pencil sketching, because it is not erasable. And what for I spent hours of drawing the hair with a new set of French curve, and the super hard to draw bass guitar?

This marks the final time of me joining and losing the art competition in our university. That's all, stop degrading my hard work, really.

But as long as the condition allows me, I will never stop drawing...

25.9.10

450# Chthonic - 49 Theurgy Chains cover

I didn't really feel the last semester has started, because we had so many holidays during the previous few weeks back.

We had a one week break so I went home with a few things in my to-do-list.

1. Make one guitar cover
2. Draw a drawing for university's art competition
3. Take photographs of the gundam to enter David John's competition
4. Panel line the RG RX-78-2, apply decals and top coat
5. Revise all 6 episodes of SAW movies
6. Meet up with friends from college and bukit jalil, seremban.


Notice the academic part was missing?

I had a very taxing CFCS report to complete and I somewhat did it until certain extend. I spent 2 hours typing it, and the rest of the 5 hours was on the guitar...

So the whole holiday was spent for my hobbies. That was when I noticed how much the studies had taken away what I used to like.

Anyway I fulfilled most of the things that I wanted to do, except the gundam part, which I didn't have time with, and couldn't do it because of my left hand being traumatised, by 3 days of extreme guitar playing.

I played a few new songs, including Chthonic's 49 Theurgy Chains, Onset of Tragedy, as well as Dimmu Borgir's Verdesbyrd. But somehow only the first song was easier to complete since the other 2 songs' solo were kind of hard and need more time.

And here you go, the first outcome during my 1 week holiday;


Chthonic 閃靈 - Forty Nine Theurgy Chains 鬼縛 (cover)



That's one of the fastest song (195bpm) that I had came across so far. The song structure was surprisingly simple, but the riffs were hard to remember and the fingers had to run across strings swiftly, with the pinched harmonies... All these I found them to be difficult.

The first part wasn't that good and slowly the second part was better. I recorded this after 3 days of practicing. It was recorded after like 20+ times of practicing, so basically I was drained while playing it.

Constructive comments are welcomed :)


PS: One of my electric guitar's output cables got detached and I need to solder it back. Wonder if it would be cheaper for me to buy a solder set or send it to a guitar shop to repair? Hmm. Gonna do it fast because I'm guitarless now...

16.9.10

449# Goodbye Seremban

For a place which we have stayed for the past 2 years, Seremban was not too bad afterall.

Of course it took me months to get used to stay there, since that was the first time of me staying outside home, living outside my comfort zone.

It is such a small place and I guess I have finished discovering the place, except the hill outside my house - I have not go for the hill hiking although I have stayed there for so long!



After taking our End of Semester 9 result, we went home to enjoy our short break. Most of the people moved their stuffs to Batu Pahat straight after exams. But I think that was quite time consuming. Therefore 3 days before the commence of Semester 10, we went back to Seremban to pack, and move out on the next day. Go south straight and start our new semester straight away there.

I thought packing was easy since I had little stuffs with me, and I always keep my items organised. But there were bits and bits of stuffs here and there and when they added up it could really be time consuming.



I literally emptied my room. I brought along my exercutive chair and mattress, which took up most of the space of my car. Thankfully my car space was huge enough, I even carried my stand fan, stand lamp, plenty of buckets, mops, broom, dust pans, and all other stuffs from the house which other cars could not fit.

One bad thing was that I have brought my electric guitar and amplifier back to hometown. If I didn't do that I wouldn't have fit them into my car. Therefore when I was in Batu Pahat last week, I was forced to perform with my wrecked, 11 years old acoustic guitar.



Talk about cleaning, we didn't throw those we regarded recycle-able. Within these period the number of bottles outside the room practically filled up the whole space in there. We spent sometime to crush the bottles one by one so that it's easier to pack them up and carry them away.



And throw them into the recycle station outside our house.

But somehow the rubbish bag that I bought which contained those crushed bottles burst, though.



The study table and book shelf which I bought from Tesco were given to my ex-landlord at next door. With only the wardrobe left, I walked out from my four walled room and say goodbye to the place which I have lived for the past 2 years, the place I studied in order to see multiple patients and cases.

Goodbye Seremban.

PS: Will be going to Seremban again on Friday to visit my patient. Just when I thought it was over...

448# Jeg skal gå videre

Looking back Semester 9, how much we have learnt?

Academically, we are almost done as for an undergraduate. Apart from this, there are still some other minor parts that make up a person. And these minor things are feelings which make a person a human.

Stress is inevitable when studying. I think I could more or less handle the stress of exams, since I have been through so many exams in the past like the rest of us.

However, there were still things which I failed to handle.



I would say semester 9 was the most extreme part of my life so far for the past 24 years. I have been through the happiest moment in my life during this period, and in the other hand, the most depressive period ever.

If the stress was from exams then it would be much easier to handle. But that time I experienced something that I had not face in the past of my life. In short I was mentally traumatised.

I was traumatised so badly and I failed to function as a person. There were multiple times I broke down and significant amount of time was wasted because I could not study due to the stress.

Inside of me, was totally burnt, charred, and crushed into pieces. I would not blame anyone over this since I was responsible for the matter at the same time. But no matter what, it was too hard for me to handle, on how cruel reality would be.



If I were to think things positively, I would not say that I did not gain anything from this pain. At least I get to know more about the world and more about pain.

"It was so painful til it doesn't hurt anymore"

I numbed myself so badly with alcohol but it only gave me more grief and a bad hang over the next day. Through out the exam study break I still had to constantly fuel myself with the substance to push me forward and I found it difficult to control, and even significant amount of money was wasted for that.

I know it was really bad for me to do this but thankfully, there were a few people around me who were there for me, talked to me and occupied my idle time from thinking unnecessary things.



I was glad that I was not alone, and these people supported me emotionally to get through our final exam. Although they did not directly help me in my problems but what they did was just being there for me, and that was more than enough.

Being through so many depressive episodes and I would say that was the worst one, ever. But unlike the past, although it was caused by a different type of stress, at least I cherish my own life better this time.

However, every time when I was studying, I could not help myself from thinking about the mistake that I had made again. It was haunting, exhausting and traumatising. Two months worth of extreme stress, luckily I managed to pass the final exam.

There is nothing to be done to avoid the same tragedy from happening again but at least I will be more cautious and stronger next time.



"And everything finishes and dies tonight".


- farvel og lykke til, jeg vil gå videre.

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