Add Another To The Herd

Well, add yet another Puella Magi to the growing cast stampede, this time Oriko Mikuni, the eponymous title character of the sidestory Puella Magi Oriko Magica. Let me tell you, drawing that full dress of hers was difficult for me, not for the design itself, but the messiness that preceded the finished sketch. All those pleats… Let’s just say that my trusty eraser got worn out more than usual as I tried to figure out the proper way her skirts pleats would react if I made her run. I’m not entirely sure I succeeded at it, even after the fact.

While I was sketching this, I idly thought on her design. Obviously the outfit was supposed to give a high-class or I daresay even ‘noble’ impression (which is ironic, given Oriko’s own role in her miniseries), but I couldn’t help but wonder of the practicality of it in Witch battles, especially from what we’ve seen in the anime as well as Oriko’s sister spin-off Kazumi Magica. Not only does the dress feature a full and fluffy skirt (probably braced by a crinoline too), it also has a long trailing veil on top of that.

Oh well, I suppose that, given how Oriko seems more like a Support-Type Puella Magi (unlike say Sayaka or Kyouko from Madoka Magica) and obviously wouldn’t spend time in melee, getting grabbed on all those trailing edges won’t be too much of an issue… Unless the nasty witch manages to close the distance, that is. I guess that’s where Kirika comes in.

Speaking of Kirika, she’s up next. I’ll probably draw her in an almost headlong lunge. Ah.

On to non-hobby matters… I’m a little relieved that the pain in my left foot seems to be going away. The combination of rest and the medication I’m taking probably helped in that regard. At this rate I should be able to go back to my usual afternoon jog by tomorrow, which is something I welcome to be able to do again. Unless I get rained in in the process of course, but these days unless it’s a real hard downpour I just ignore the rain and continue running anyway.

So that’s pretty much it. Oh, and not really much to share about work, aside from it being surprisingly relaxing for my usual midweek. I really hope this goes on for some time to come…

Baselining

In the end, I settled for Yuma Chitose, Kyouko’s sister-replacement from Puella Magi Oriko Magica. I was a little worried, as I don’t have experience drawing kids. Her design was surprisingly easy to emulate though, and I think this one will need little clean-up when the time for giving it the line-art treatment comes. As for scaling though… Yeah, I can see that needing some work, as Yuma due to her age is probably the shortest Puella Magi (so far).

Okay, who’s next? Well, I suppose I better get the eponymous Oriko out of the way while I can (yeah, one supplement after the other will do). I think her design will give me headaches though. Long formal-type dress, high heels… It’s a nightmare waiting to happen, really. Though drawing her holding up that long skirt of hers while sprinting will be funny, I suppose.

What? A Puella Magi a Day? Don’t count on it. I think I was only able to do this because I wasn’t as stressed out as I usually am for a Tueday. Maybe the fact that it was a holiday helped.

As for non-hobby matters… I finally went to the family doctor to have my foot checked, as it’s been three straight days since the pain in my left foot started. While nothing conclusive, it looks like it might have been caused by an increase in my uric acid level, but why it struck the joint of my big toe instead of the obvious places (like my knee for example) is another question entirely. In the end I was written a prescription, and will have to take some medication for about seven days, and avoid any running for at least three days. Boo.

Oh well, I suppose going back to low-impact exercise will have to do for the time being.

Not As Promised

There really isn’t much I could share about my day, aside from the fact that the pain in my left foot only bothered me slightly less than it did yesterday. The siesta I had this afternoon helped a bit, and it’s possible that it’ll be okay by mid-week. I hope that’ll be the case, as I’d like to try jogging nearly nonstop again like I did the other day.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, the preliminary sketch of Mami for my planned Puella Magi stampede. No cleanup or line-art yet, as usual, and at this rate I’ll likely just do the line-art in one go after I’ve gotten a respectable number of Puella running.

Maybe tomorrow I can do Yuma. One magical girl sketch per day? Possible, but I wouldn’t push my luck, given that I’m not as prolific (and as such don’t have much practice) as all the other amateur artists out there.

Move Along Please

It’s a little funny. The inner arch of my left foot had been aching since early this morning, to the point where it made me wince every time I placed my weight on it (which was every other step)… And yet I was till able to do a (very late afternoon) jog. In fact, this was the first circuit I’ve done in a long time where I didn’t experience any kind of cramp or tightening of my chest (my weight remained unchanged though, but I blame that on three straight days of unmonitored eating). Aside from the fact that I got rained on (funny how that’s becoming more common these days), the run was almost painless.

As I’m typing this, the pain is slowly starting up again, so whatever natural high I was on (endorphins I suppose) is probably wearing off. I’m even feeling bone-tired (no surprise, since I didn’t get much sleep last night either), so I guess it’s early bed again for yours truly. So no posting of that Mami sketch, for now (don’t expect anything jaw-dropping, as it IS a preliminary sketch).

Hmm, you know, I think this is going to be the first time in a while where I’d actually go to bed on time. That has to count for something.

Rained In Again

Since I already mailed my final project last night, I didn’t have to go to school today… Which was just as well, as it was raining almost nonstop since early this morning. This is normal for the season though, but this pretty much meant that wasn’t able to go running during the afternoon. Yes, I vegged out for the second time this week. Ugh, I’d hate to see what my weight would be tomorrow.

Over-eating aside, I was able to get some drawing done, but I have to admit that I spent more time on gaming than any actual sketching. This time around it was Sayaka and Kyouko, but as one can see no cleanup was done yet, and they’re not even scaled properly. I’ll just have to fix that once the line art process is finished, aside from obviously giving them their missing weapons.

Hmm, I suppose Mami is next, then we start filling in the spaces with the Supplemental Material Puella Magi. Kazumi’s cohorts seem to be the obvious choice, but I think Yuma Chitose (from Oriko Magica) would be much better, asunlike most of the Pleiades, she actually has a color scheme. After that I guess it’s Kaoru and Misaki (again, from Kazumi Magica), then the mob Puella Magi from episode 12 of Madoka Magica. Then… Some guesswork with regards to color schemes for the Pleiades, Oriko, Kirika, as well as the pre-witch Puella Magi they fight.

Oh and maybe Yuri and… Yuuri.

If and when I finish this, well, one could say I’m going to have quite a stampede on my hands, ahaha. 

One Less Worry

I just sent an email to my professor with my Translation project attached. That means that I no longer have to actually come to school tomorrow to turn in a physical copy. Hmm, which means I literally have tomorrow free to do whatever I want. Neat. Now all I have to do is decide which hobby of mine to devote each part of the day to. Decisions, decisions…

I’ve pretty much caught up to my seasonal anime backlog, so I suppose it’s either writing or drawing again. I’m probably going to do the latter though. I want to finish that pack of running Puella Magi before the next semester comes in. Who was next up again? Ah yes, Sayaka…

Can I finish all the Puella Magi who actually have official color schemes before October? We’ll see.

Hmm… I wanted to talk more about one of the shows that I’m watching this season (Ikoku Meiro no Croisee), but I’m having a hard time properly gathering my thoughts. Kind of hard to talk about 19th-century class conflict and gender expectations in bourgeois families within the context of the series (the Blanches vs. the tenants of the Gallery du Roy, and by extension the Claudels and the Blanches themselves), when I’m neither a historian nor a sociologist. Maybe another day, perhaps.

Fleeting Freedom

As of this writing I’ve completed my final project for my Literary Translation class. All I need to do now is email it to my professor and I’m pretty much done for the term. It’s not as polished as I’d hoped, but then again this wasn’t an ambitious effort to begin, so it all works out in the end.  No more worries for me until the next term starts again, but that’s still a few weeks away, so it’s a load off my mind.

As with these situations though, I seem to have loaded up on food over the past few days while I worked on the project, so I suppose it’s back to square one with regards to my weight-watching/exercise regimen. I’ll have to see about some running tomorrow, so hopefully it doesn’t rain that hard in the afternoon.

Fun fact: this was one of the least-stressful Thursday shifts I’ve had in… forever, actually. Like yesterday, I wasn’t swamped with calls (at one point I went up to an hour and a half without a call), but this is likely to end by next week. Still, it was quite enjoyable, though with the new hirees on the floor I have to watch myself more.

So, with the project taken care of, what’s my agenda for the weekend? Hmm, I suppose catching up on my usual hobbies would be nice again. For example, I’m currently downloading the Warhammer 40000: Space Marine demo, but as is the usual case for Steam-based downloads, that ’2 hours left’ counter was very misleading, considering the fact that I went to sleep around two in the afternoon, and yet when I woke up around six it still wasn’t finished. Heck, it’s past ten-fifteen now, and it still isn’t done. Oi.

Oh well, judging by the opinions from the folk in B&C, as well as the people who I follow in Twitter, it should be worth the wait. Now, if I just had enough cash to spare for the full version.

Speaking of cash, it was payday again for me today. However since I spent the afternoon sleeping, I wasn’t able to withdraw from my payroll ATM account until early in the evening. Once again it’s pretty meager, compared to what I used to receive, but no matter. Pay is pay. Now to deposit it into my savings first thing tomorrow morning…

Ah, so tempted to purchase the Land Raider Crusader upgrade for my extra Land Raider right now. But I have to hold on any purchases for a bit, as the heavy-hitting bills haven’t arrived yet.

Decisions, decisions. Still it’s nice that I don’t have to worry (much) about the project anymore, and could go back to what I’ve normally been doing on my weekends: that is, goofing off.

Midweek Shuffle

It’s Wednesday again, but after all those nights I’m this close to formally finishing my translation project. All that’s missing are the footnotes for the actual translated text — that’ll take some work, but probably won’t take a whole evening — and the bibliography/references.  After that, I can just email the thing to my professor, and spend the weekend no longer having to worry about it constantly. Finally.

Now if I can only forget that my submission probably won’t hold a candle to some of my classmates’ projects, and I’ll be good for a while.

Speaking of good… My shift today was uncharacteristically relaxed. Instead of being swamped by calls as usual, there were huge intervals in between calls, but that was easily explained by the fact that we have new hires on the floor.  I’m guessing that, as they’re technically in their nesting period (and as such under active surveillance), they were given a higher priority on the call queue.  That said, the fact that I was able to take in calls at a leisurely pace really helped, as far as my temper is concerned that is.

Might as well enjoy things while they last though. Experience tells me that it’ll back to the usual next week, but with the added warm bodies on the floor for the morning shift, at least the tail end of my workweek will become somewhat bearable again.

Wandering Eyes

Well that was certainly a mess of a day. I wasn’t able to finish anything even remotely-related to my final project today. Ugh. Don’t you just hate it when you get nothing productive done?

I blame Blood Reaver. Truly I do.

Fear and Panicking

I should be writing the most important part of my project today, but I’m not. As with the usual case with me, I’m experiencing difficulty in actually phrasing my thoughts, nevermind doing so in a way that actually makes sense. Call it theoretical indigestion I suppose.

What’s actually annoying about this is the fact that the reference materials I read on both Nabokov and Borges were incredibly lucid… Which makes all this trouble baffling.

Ugh. Four more days and counting. I hope that I get my thoughts sorted out by tomorrow.