Happy New Year from Gabe's Blog! It's 2014!

Merry Christmas from Gabe's Blog!

Quick Review of 'Rise of the Guardians'

Last night, I watched the Blu-ray 3D disc of DreamWorks' Rise of the Guardians at my house. Like Disney's Frozen, this was the perfect time to see it during the holidays. I remember the one time that I watched it with my dad in Florida last year during Thanksgiving. It was the most beautiful animated film I've ever seen! Definitely in line with Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, and How to Train Your Dragon! The visuals are amazing, especially in 3-D! The part that almost made me cry a little was when there were some breathtaking sand-like objects coming to life which represents what children are dreaming of. I love the moral theme of believing, that involves children having hopes and dreams that the Guardians like Jack Frost, Santa Claus (North), the Easter Bunny (Bunnymund), the Tooth Fairy (Tooth), and the Sandman (Sandy) are more than just "figments of imaginations." But the funniest part ever was the "tooth competition" that has the Guardians competing over to get the most teeth to help regain the children's belief in the Tooth Fairy. As well as the running gag that has the yeti trying to start over by repainting the large number of toys or eggs with the alternative color suggested by Santa or Bunny! "I don't like it. Paint it red!" ;"Too Christmas-y, mate. Paint em blue." LOL Plus, Bunnymund looked SOOOOO CUTE when he was reduced to a tiny, little bunny due to losing the children's belief in him.
I think Jamie Bennett, the kid who still believes in the Guardians, reminds me so much of me because I also think that some of my favorite heroes are more than just fictional characters. Say, like when Optimus Prime and the Autobots in the Transformers movies are considered to be just CGI-animated characters and/or visual props, I still see them as real-life, actual characters who really deserves a large amount of screentime to dominate the unnecessary human scenes. I like the part when Jamie finally sees Jack for the first time after being convinced that the Easter Bunny is truly real. The most beautiful thing I ever saw is the soundtrack, provided by Alexandre Desplat, and the song "Still Dream" sung by Renee Fleming that was played during the ending credits. Sad, yet emotionally well-done. (; But I never knew that this movie is based on a series of children's books by William Joyce (Rolie Polie Olie, Meet the Robinsons). May her daughter Mary Katherine Joyce rest in peace. I even saw the memoriam of her name that calls M.K. a "Guardian Fierce and True." T_T Overall, Rise of the Guardians is a DreamWorks animated movie worth seeing again and again for kids to enjoy!
I think Rise of the Guardians deserves better than just ending up a "box office disappointment" (only $103 million domestically on a $145 million budget) like most other financial duds (such as John Carter ($73.1 million), Battleship ($65.4 million), and Cloud Atlas ($27.1 million)). Most people, even the little kids, love it! Perhaps it only didn't do well except in other international countries was because it had difficulty competing against other Thanksgiving films like Life of Pi, Breaking Dawn - Part 2, Skyfall, and Lincoln. Or maybe because of the target audience, in which children of either, preschool, kindergarten or elementary schools is what ROTG is best viewed by. *gasps* Unless this was Pitch Black the Boogeyman's doing to prevent the majority of children from watching the movie, thus causing their belief in the Guardians to decline. LOL I hope that over $300 million worldwide is worth it. Also, it should've been nominated an Academy Award for Best Animated Film (now won by Disney/Pixar's Brave) instead of The Pirates! Band of Misfits.

NOVA Fall Semester of 2013 is Finished!

I did it! This year's fall semester is finally over! I got an all A's in Biology 102 (Lab: 94; Lecture: 90-100), Art History II (93), Swimming (96), and Computer Graphics II (90)!

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #16

First of all, I would like to give my thanks to my beloved Computer Graphics II teacher for all of the things she has offered me this semester. I think that it was a good idea for me to do my own work while the other students are doing the assigned work only for the CG I section (which I have already completed last year). Writing up my blog entries and posting them to Blackboard daily was the most fun time for me outside of class. Ms. Sowa has allowed me to come up with my proposals about the type of artwork that I would like to create for the entire semester. She was kind enough to provide me some helpful assistance in one of my assignments. Especially when she agreed to choose one of my 3 horror movie DVDs for viewing on post-Halloween day. The best thing that has happened to me towards the end of this semester is that I was able to get my video project done without any difficult data storage problems like I have before. I would believe that the final project is my favorite CG II assignment. Because despite not having a proper Adobe After Effects program at home, I used my experienced video editing skills to assemble my iPhone-shot video clips in the correct order and successfully compress it into a 2-minute video. But I am proud to have completed all 8 assignments in the entire class, despite that I already created my own blog in my previous CG class. It has been a real pleasure for having me around in computer graphics as I will be moving on to the other art classes next semester.

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #15

My update on my final project: I have put like over 37 scenes to match with the expected 2-minute time length! I think that it will be an amazing video project this week. Now I will have enough time tomorrow to compress it into a full-length video without having to wait for at least an hour each time before being dismissed from class. But I can only hope that it will not have a lot of data before converting it into a movie file like mine has last year.
Above this paragraph is a brief clip of my video that I was planning to make. Just a reminder that this is a work in progress as it does not have a background music.

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #14

This is a photo from last February

For this Thanksgiving weekend, I want to give an update on my final project for Ms. Sowa's Computer Graphics II class. As of this Tuesday, I have finished recording the video clips for me to use Adobe After Effects to put them together in a 2-minute long video. Depending on the amount of data storage each footage (either from a handheld Sony camcorder or from my iPhone) contains.
Three weeks ago, I made a proposal that I would like to make a video featuring my eight Transformers movie Autobot figures presented as the "Chicago heroes," which is based on my vision of the Chicago Battle aftermath. I was disappointed with the abrupt ending of 2011's Transformers: Dark of the Moon, in which I feel like making a message to remind Michael Bay and the moviemakers of how I would have expected the third TF movie to end when a huge Avengers-style battle in a populated city was over. The heroic background music playing is from last summer's Battleship movie, provided by fellow music composer from the Transformers movie franchise Steve Jablonsky. My video would later end with my Optimus Prime and Bumblebee action figures holding a paper to announce the anticipated fourth movie Transformers: Age of Extinction, expected to be in theaters next summer.

Speaking of "abrupt ending," I also made a video (last recorded on 11/21/2011) of my Optimus Prime toy with an ending speech that includes an EXTRA line to really make the TF movie threequel "go out with a bang" (though, not literally). His "voice" is my impersonated voice for Optimus, actually. While this is not for my final art project, I just want to conclude this post by making a joking suggestion of what would've made the Transformers: Dark of the Moon ending more "fresh-like" and really going back to the roots of his previous ending speeches of the first two (his first ending speech is my favorite).

"In any war, there are calms between storms. There will be days when we lose faith, days when our allies turn against us. But the day will never come that we forsake this planet and its people. I am Optimus Prime, and I send this message to the universe: We are here, we are home."

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #13

This is one of my final projects for Computer Graphics II. It is a redesigned version of my own popcorn product of "Norville Bluendocker's Popcorn," parodying the particular popcorn-related food item Orville Redenbocher's. This is done by Adobe Illustrator. Norville resembles to that of Blu from the 2011 animated movie Rio. I modeled this after my old hand-drawn, box-shaped Norville Bluendocker's popcorn product at drawing class during my final year of IFTA.

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #12

Last week on Sunday, my mom and I went to the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. for my art history museum project of Dr. Barbara Lash's Art 102 class. The certain types of artwork (painting or sculpture) that we were supposed to find are Italian Renaissance, Northern Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, Romantic, Neoclassic, Impressionistic, Post-Impressionistic, Surrealistic, Cubic, Dada, Pop, and an artwork from the last 20 years.
It wasn't a bit easy to find a work of art from a specific period even with a map or guide. But with the help of my mom's iPad, I was able to research the art style that matches with the gallery section somewhere in the building. We have already found the paintings of Impressionism, Neoclassic, Baroque, and Renaissance. Around 4 PM, dad came along searching for me and mom. Later, we started having difficulty looking for the last remaining artworks in the East Building. However, my parents and I finally found the paintings of the Dadatic, Expressionistic, and Cubic periods. We were unfortunately not able to find another specific example of Surrealism except finding one in Spain of our recent summer vacation from last year. It was decided that I would use the Salvadore Dali painting of last year as an example for my museum project paper, with permission from my art history teacher.

These are the works of art that I found in the National Gallery of Sunday the 10th:

          

                                The Japanese Footbridge (1899),                             The Feast of the Gods (1514-1529), 

                                             Claude Monet                                                         Giovanni Bellini & Titian

          

                                     Organization (1933-1936),                                  Painting with Statue of Liberty (1983), 

                                             Arshile Gorky                                                                 Roy Lichenstein

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #11

Inspired by the clever concept of the recent Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, I began my sixth project on my own loosely-designed "foodimal." This particular food-like animal will resemble a ground-digging mole with a lemon as its head. I used various objects (including the fake lemon, the Belt plush toy from the Blu-ray 3D pack of The Croods, the Bionicle claws, and a pink eraser) to assemble my own imaginative animal. I scan them with the Epson scanner at my house and the other scanner at Ms. Sowa's classroom to convert them into graphic images for me to edit them on Adobe Photoshop. I dub it, a "Lemole" -- a mole with a lemon head.
After opening these object images on the Photoshop program in separate layers, I used the wand and eraser tools to delete the extra backgrounds while I change their sizes with the transformation tool. The closed eye and a mouth were drawn in by a pencil tool, with many different types of strokes. I even drawn in some furry details at the tip of a pink eraser to make up a small tail. Once I have finished putting them together to form the shape of a mole, I started to make up an underground setting with the paint bucket tool (ex., a completely brown background) and a paintbrush tool (ex., thin lines or big dots). Though I felt that creating a colorful background works better on Illustrator, something that I did not propose. Especially when I could have put the details in individual layers to make it less difficult when using Photoshop. But the best thing I did to make the finishing touch is by using the burn tool to put some shadows all over the tunnel created by a Lemole to make up a three-dimensional texture. If one could move away and see this picture above by focusing his/her eyes carefully, he/she could probably tell that the digging tunnel looked like it was round-shaped.
I think my parents will love this project that I had made. I give my special thanks to the makers of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 for reminding me that I could come up with my own ideas when inspired by something, which I have stated before in my sixth blog of this year's fall semester of NOVA.

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #10

Halloween is coming up! Time for some scares, everyone! Speaking of scares, I have just seen at least 2 of the "scariest" animated movies this week! Hint: Both are Disney-animated films!


The Nightmare Before Christmas has the most impressive stop-motion animation that I have ever seen. Most of the character designs were amazingly quirky and weird-looking. An example of how even artists can come up with their own visions like Tim Burton has despite serving as the producer only for this 1993 flick. As for the stop-motion animation process, I am impressed with how this kind of technology really works. Initially, I never heard of the word "stop-motion" before when I first watched the original 3 short Wallace & Gromit films. But now I realize that there's more to it than just calling it "clay animation." Stop-motion animating also works for non-clay figures like the figures in The Nightmare Before Christmas. Never will I understand how long it would take to create every scene with a lot of camera shots and then convert them into a major flipbook-like sequence. I doubt that I might want to sign up practicing this type of animation. But I believe that while there are other stop-motion non-clay animated films like James and the Giant Peach and Corpse Bride, I think that the most beautifully stop-motion animated film is Coraline.



Onto the subject of CGI or Computer Graphic Imagery. For a while, I have been dreaming of working as an artist at an animation studio. Maybe an animation studio like Pixar, known for the brilliant masterpieces like Toy Story.
Having bought the new Blu-ray pack of Disney/Pixar's Monsters University on the day it was first released after it was in theaters this summer, I could never forget how impressed I am with not only the breathtaking CGI-animation, but the well-written story for this latest prequel to our highly-acclaimed Monsters, Inc. At first, I was little skeptical with the story and how the characters were animated, but I became surprised once I saw it on the big screen this summer. It's good that the texture in the CGI characters appear to be well-improved, thus remaining consistent with the animation in the other Pixar films and its predecessor Monsters, Inc. Though I felt that the texture in both Mike and Sulley were much better in the first film. Some of the monsters have been made loveable and enjoyable for the audience to grasp with thanks to their clever unique designs. For the story, it sure feels how it can be very challenging to come up with a decent story. But the storyboards are the most logical way in displaying out the ideas from the written script before the animation process would begin. Much like how I think up and design my own creative works to help display my artistic skills. The best option that I might suggest in order to avoid continuity issues is to keep track with the chronology in the number of films of the same franchise. Computer animation is something that I might like to sign up for, once I have completed my computer graphic arts class this semester. Some of the monster designs in both films reminded me that I could come up with my own designs, even if they are already taken no matter how I envision them. I might just even play around with the monster details to either make them funny or scary.

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #9

Greetings, programs! On Sunday afternoon last week, I was playing an online game called Space Paranoids. It is based on the fictional arcade video game created by Kevin Flynn (played by Jeff Bridges) from the 1982 Disney cult-classic film TRON, which spawned in a 2010 sequel TRON: Legacy and last year's short-lived Disney XD animated TV series TRON: Uprising. I began playing this since I was at Oakton High School during my post-graduate year, usually during free time at a computer class.

In case the computer artists haven't noticed, I like the vintage style of the graphics in Space Paranoids, which in retrospect is how computer animation was like before it was officially used in the mid-1990s (see Disney/Pixar's Toy Story of 1995). After all, TRON is set in the 1980s, hence the outdated look at the CGI-animation before what we have right now.

This online game has 15 levels and allows one or two players to enter the game via hitting the C (continue game) or N (new game) on the keyboard. To move the Game Tank's cannon around is through the computer mouse while using the arrow keys helps it move, whereas hitting the space bar allows the tank to revolve around in a straight formation. Clicking the mouse 3 times would be to take down a flying Recognizer, clicking 2 times to fire at the enemy Game Tank, and clicking once on the laser post (HARDEST enemy to beat!) via sneak attack and proper target accuracy. The Game Tank only has 5 lives, making it challenging to keep it alive before it's GAME OVER should I lose all of them. On the right side is a map that displays the presence of the tank and the enemies (represented by red), as well as the yellow area that recharges the tank's ammo depending on the amount of the tank's time length over the "charging station."

If I recall the one time that we watched a video about the making of a popular video game during class while working, you might wonder how Space Paranoids was created to be the most addicting online game ever! Even though I used to successfully create the handmade online games at Oakton during every 7th period! Imagine what this game might be like if it was fully-animated an updated CGI-animation from TRON: Legacy, which came out in theaters 28 years after the 1st TRON. It's too bad I couldn't beat Flynn's high scores (his highest score is 999,000!). But as Flynn would say on how he finished the game at once... "It's all in the wrist!"

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #8

Ever read The Host, a novel by Twilight author Stephenie Meyer? Well, I have decided to work on my project of creating a watercolor drawing version of the lovely 19-year-old Irish actress Saoirse Ronan (The Lovely Bones, Hanna) as Melanie Stryder/Wanda from The Host film adaptation. Here is my finished project that I have been working on for at least 2 weeks until now. The one below the original image of Wanda herself was done by Adobe Illustrator.

It was very difficult for me to make the shadowy and bright-light facial details as accurate as the real Saoirse Ronan image above. I had to draw a lot of random black and brown lines with the pencil tool to make up the wavy hairlines of Melanie/Wanda. Then, I use the brush stroke tool to paint over the hairlines with a huge black blob to make up a big shadow underneath her hair. The details that I thought were easy are those glowy light-blue eyes which represents that the parasitic alien is controlling Melanie's human body. The background with the linear gradient colors in this Illustrator image is, I would say, the color background that I came up with as if to differentiate it from the other image it was based off from.

Overall, I am proud to have completed this watercolor drawing of a movie celebrity with the Illustrator program. It felt like the one time that I created a watercolor drawing of my sister, Christine Mayuga, with the same Adobe program last year. I picked Saoirse Ronan because I thought she was one of the most beautiful girls I have ever seen next to Emma Watson.

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #7

On Display at the Westover Branch Library, March and April 2013

Having seen the beautifully-colored paintings along the hallway at Spring Hill Center, I thought perhaps that for people who are into art painting might love to come visit the McLean Art Society. I noticed that name on the label beneath the painting. Guess this is probably why I was so good at painting after taking the Painting classes at IFTA during every summer. Maybe Painting I will be one of next year's Spring Semester classes at NOVA!


http://www.mcleanartsociety.org

Transformers Prime: Predacons Rising on TV Now!

"This is how it ends?" That's right, Bulkhead. The Autobots may have won the battle in the final Beast Hunters episode "Deadlock," but the journey is just beginning! As they are about to face the return of their old enemy... Unicron! Along with the fully-resurrected Megatron, and the undead Predacon army rising from the depths of Cybertron! This may indeed be the final battle that will determine the fate of not only the Cybertronians' beloved home planet, but the entire universe! In the words of Primus, "'til all are one"!
Featuring two brand new Predacons: Darksteel and Skylynx!

UPDATE: I have finished watching Predacons Rising! The most tragic ending ever! :'(

As of now (**SPOILERS**),...

- Megatron, having been freed from Unicron's possession, now left Cybertron to parts unknown.
- Knock Out switched sides to join Team Prime.
- It is unclear of what became of Starscream and Shockwave. Was Starscream "offlined" by Predaking, Skylynx, and Darksteel? Or just simply beaten up? And where is Shockwave right now? Thank goodness he wasn't eaten by the "Predazombies."
- Optimus Prime, while thankfully not killed by Unicron or Megatron, gives up his life to restore Cybertron by becoming one with the AllSpark. He exists now as a spirit, in the hearts of all Cybertronians (and humans on Earth). I believe that this is what Optimus truly deserves, besides being killed in a most severe way like in the 1986 G1 movie which is considered "controversial" to most fans back then. May Optimus Prime be forever remembered, no matter what incarnation he is in. But I will see him again in next summer's blockbuster movie, Transformers: Age of Extinction!

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #6

Last night, I watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 at the AMC theater inside the Tysons Corner mall. I must say how easily clever it was to come up with the concept that has these "foodimals" (created by Flint Lockwood's food-making FLDSMDFR invention) roaming all over Swallow Falls after the 1st film from 4 years ago. I thought the food names were very creative. The Shrimpanzees, the Cheespider, Tacodile Supreme, Fruit Cockatiels, Hippotatomus, Bananostrich, Watermelophant, Peanut Butter & Jellyfishes, Mosquitoasts, Buffaloaves, Flamangoes, Apple Piethon, Wildebeets, etc., you name it! It's almost as though they could be done by children for their art school projects. If I were me, I would come up with my own Foodimal! For example, I think it should be a "Carrotbou" (a caribou made out of carrots) or the "Grizzly Pear" (a huge bear made of pears, with the stalks as its claws). While I still think the 1st Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is more meaningful than the 2nd, I thought this would be like an inspiration to allow kids into making any kind of animal out of fruits, vegetables, or other types of food for their art classes. Although I am actually taking an art class that only uses computers, this might be an excellent opportunity to come up with my own ideas of food-animal names and design. I should probably thank author Judi Barrett and illustrator Ron Barrett, whose 1978 book was loosely-adapted into two Cloudy films, for pushing the animators at Sony Pictures Animation into coming up with this imaginative concept.

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #5

This is my first Computer Graphics II art project at Ms. Jocelyn Sowa's class of this year's Fall Semester of 2013. Ms. Sowa has reminded me that I am free to make up a proposal of whichever type of project I would like to make each week, rather than work on what the other students are assigned with. This is due to the fact that I have already completed my Computer Graphics I class last year. I am thankfully relieved to hear about this.

During the second week of Ms. Sowa's computer art class, I was preparing to work on my own proposal for the next assignment. I thought about reinterpreting one of the famous art works as a handmade version of my own, with a little tweaking from one of the Adobe programs. I chose to use Adobe Illustrator to add in some colorful details to match with the accuracy and texture of "Starry Night," a beautiful art vintage painting by Vincent Van Gogh. The picture above this paragraph is the final version of my Illustrator-made Starry Night painting, completed as of September 7-8th, 2013.

This is the Starry Night painting before I reimagined it as an Adobe Illustrator drawing. It was actually from the Gerhard Gruitrooy book Van Gogh: An Appreciation of His Art, scanned by the Epson scanner at my house. The main differences between these two images above were the colors. Particularly, the lighter blue replacing the light-dark blue wavy lines on this original painting of Van Gogh. The Illustrator version has a lot of radial yellow-blue lines, made by the Gradient tool. The church-like building and other miscellaneous houses were loosely modeled after the buildings in the scanned image of Starry Night. I did not drew in some more houses, as all I drew in the Illustrator program are the floating shapes and green bushes. But I doubt the students or Ms. Sowa will mind. It took me like a while to get them to correctly match exactly as they were, compared to Vincent's work. All in all, I had a neat experience working on my first computer art project in the past 2 weeks.

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #4

In two days, it will be my 22nd birthday this week! Presenting my "birthday blog post," students will see just how creative I am with anything that is art-related besides just drawings and computer graphic stuff. And this is one of the moments that I will never forget after graduating from high school and moving into college.
These were made at Oakton High School during my 9th grade year. Ms. Rogers, my old art teacher, lets me and the other students to make things out of clay. I made the five square shapes into a simple box, with the sixth square as a cover. On each side, there was a clown face, a star, a crescent-shaped moon, and a lightning bolt. After it was cooked in the oven, I painted the clay box with a variety of colors, including blue and yellow. But my experience working with clay art made me want to create a character from one of the works of Aardman, a British stop-motion clay animation studio that was known for Wallace & Gromit. I made a green slug from Flushed Away, the first ever CGI-animated film at Aardman, which came out in theaters during the first week of November 2006. My teacher thought it was cute. But do please disregard the mistake on the slug's left eye; it might've been stuck with my other clay art product while it was in the clay oven. It feels sad that Aardman is no longer in partnership with DreamWorks Animation after producing Chicken Run and the Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit.
But best of all, making things out of clay is one of the creative techniques that I have done when it comes to art. However, I wouldn't want to make everything a "messy week," since I am now more into computer art.

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #3

Prepared to be amazed by another one of my art masterpieces. Just like the pastel drawing from my last post two weeks ago, this was done in the same classroom during my summer school year of 2009 at IFTA. The ancient Egyptian pyramids in this drawing reminds me of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a Michael Bay-directed blockbuster sequel to the 2007 live-action Transformers movie. I have used a lot of charcoal to make some dark, shadowy details to match with the sunset over the pyramids. This is apparently my favorite artwork of IFTA 2009 at Robinson Secondary School. The orange sky is what made this the most beautiful pastel drawing that I have ever made.
I thought of the pyramids as my next pastel drawing assignment after completing the previous projects. My teacher doesn't seem to mind, apparently. First, I lightly drew the blueprint designs on a large construction paper with my regular pencil. To make the pyramids more realistic and three-dimensional, I used my finger to rub off the charcoal dust and then use the pastels to color the details. Drawing the pyramids was very easy for me; it is as though I seem to have remembered where they are placed in. The charcoal part is very challenging, because I use as many charcoal sticks as possible to make the ground completely black. Later, I drew a local person riding on a camel, looking at the three pyramids standing next to each other.
The Egyptian pyramid drawing is currently picture-framed on the wall of the family room in my house. My parents were always impressed with my amount of work when I took IFTA every summer from 2007-2011. Egypt is where I wish to go visit there someday, as it was used as a major filming location for the final scenes of Transformers 2. It seems too bad that I might not go there, probably due to international problems.

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #2

One of the best, and my favorite, artworks that I have ever done at IFTA during the summer about 7 years ago. This is a painting with a portion of the famous 1884 French painting by Georges-Pierre Seurat, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. It is from a magazine page for my classwork assignment at painting class. I have struggled hard to get this painting as accurate as the original painting, regarding the details and the amount of space. It must be a wonderful experience for me to demonstrate my painting skills at summer school.
I was given a large canvas by my painting teacher to work on the painting that will resemble the magazine part that I have selected, using some duct tape to confirm my choice. Next, I received a box of acrylic paint tubes for any possible colors that I might need for the Seurat painting. By using any kind of paintbrush, I carefully brush the details and frequently wash them off with water for a new paint color. The most challenging part of my own painting is probably the umbrella, due to the difficulty of trying to get the pole-stick object correspond with the big, black umbrella that was supposed to be placed over the trees as seen in the original painting. I used a lot of black and white colors to create some shadowy details. My favorite part is the optical perspective, specifically a three-dimensional view of the lake that looked like it was seen faraway in real life. It took me about a few days to get this painting done before I leave painting class towards the end of my summer school year at IFTA in Robinson Secondary School. This painting was soon brought to the display area with the other paintings and art projects for students to see along the hallway near the cafeteria.
This painting is in the living room of my family's house, which should really surprise the guests during the parties. My mom is very happy with how excellent I am with my art skills as a painter. I used to love painting when I was little, but not this kind of painting that requires complex techniques to make a more realistic painting.

My Favorite Summer Movies of 2013

My Top 10 favorite movies of Summer 2013:

1. Pacific Rim - 71% (CinemaScore: A-)
2. Despicable Me 2 - 74% (CinemaScore: A)
3. Fast & Furious 6 - 69% (CinemaScore: A)
4. Man of Steel - 55% (CinemaScore: A-)
5. Star Trek Into Darkness - 85% (CinemaScore: A)
6. Elysium - 66% (CinemaScore: B)
7. Monsters University - 79% (CinemaScore: A)
8. Kick-Ass 2 - 33% (CinemaScore: B+)
9. Epic - 65% (CinemaScore: A)
10. Turbo - 67% (CinemaScore: A)


Note: These percentages indicate how positive the critical reviews are, according to rottentomatoes.com. To learn more about CinemaScore, enter http://www.cinemascore.com/.

Fall 2013 Blog Entry #1

This is a picture of the basket of bread rolls, a piece of lemon, and the beautiful flowers lying on a white tablecloth. It is drawn in the mix of mostly color pastels and charcoal sticks. I drew this at IFTA (Institute for the Arts) of Robinson Secondary School during the summer of 2009. This is like one of my best artwork that I have ever done at summer school. Using the color pastels to make an art masterpiece was the hardest work that I had experienced.
The dark-purple blue background with the yellow layer as a floor for my "imaginary table" that I drew to help hold the abstract objects, has made a perfect color balance between light and dark colors. The lighter colors have allowed these items to fill out the negative space of the pastel drawing. I made some shadowy parts with my charcoal stick. I think that the lemon and the bread roll have the best texture in this drawing. I used my finger to rub any of the darker lines to help make the details more three-dimensional. Although, I could have drawn in a shadowy part on the table to match with the tablecloth's presence. For the red and white flowers, I was struggling hard to carefully draw the lines in a lighter fashion. There is pattern of marked or unmarked petals and leaves, which I probably would need to make them stand out a bit more with my charcoal stick or black pencil. For the "imaginary table," I may have to draw a much bigger table even if it does not match with the real-life table in the color pastel art classroom.
My parents were most pleased with my hard work on this pastel drawing. It is currently hanging on the wall of the living room in my house. I was proud to have the artistic skills of a drawing expert, whether in pencil, painting, pastel, or charcoal.

NOVA Summer Semester 2013 is Finished!

At long last! I have completed my summer semester at both the Manassas and the Reston campuses of NOVA this year!
So far, my overall grades in Art History 101 (Lash), Psychology 101 (Hagen), and Online Class English 250 Children's Literature (Kastens) were A (100+), A (97), and A (97)!

Transformers: Prime is OVER!!! Well, at least for now.

It is done! I watched Episode 65: "Deadlock" last night (after my dad and I watched The Wolverine at Fairfax Corner), and... wow! What a finale! Although, we still have a TV movie (or direct-to-DVD/Blu-ray, if not shown on television afterwards) "Predacons Rising" coming up 'til this Fall. But at least we know how this episode ends prior to an epilogue movie! Spoilers to those who haven't seen it.

- Megatron is KILLED BY BUMBLEBEE, who was thought to have been shot to death but instead had his voice (provided by Will Friedle!) restored by the Omega Lock's Cyber Matter! However, in "Predacons Rising,"... his corpse will be taken over by... UNICRON (who was put into stasis by Optimus' Matrix of Leadership at the end of Season 1)!
- Soundwave is now trapped in the Shadowzone, the same dimension where the Dark Energon-zombified Skyquake is currently in.
- Starscream and Shockwave, left without a leader, retreated from the captured Nemesis through an escape pod. They have landed on Cybertron.
- Knock Out is now supposedly an Autobot prisoner onboard the Decepticon warship.
- Predaking is still out there, after being exiled by the Decepticons. He is set to return in "Predacons Rising."
- Disregarding 'Bee's "death" by Megatron's Fusion Cannon blast, NONE (except Cliffjumper since Ep. 1) of the main Autobots died in this show. Ratchet decided to stay behind on Earth to work with Unit: E. The rest of Team Prime bade their farewell to Jack, Miko, Raf, Fowler, and June before making their departure to the partially-restored Cybertron.
- However, Airachnid and the Insecticons are still at large. They are now residing on one of Cybertron's moons, where they are now breeding among each other... as Energon vampires/zombies! **see Episode 60: "Thirst"**

Team Prime 2.0 Toy Collection COMPLETE!

I did it! Not only did I finally get a Beast Hunters Voyager Class Ultra Magnus toy through Amazon (thanks to my mom) after desperately looking for it (and the Voyager Class Shockwave figure as well) in many stores, but I was, at long last, able to complete the ENTIRE TF PRIME AUTOBOT COLLECTION! Team Prime is now complete!
However, having dealt with some updated changes for Optimus (now "robust" and totally "rad" (in the words of Miko) with a little help from the last remaining energy of the Forge of Solus Prime) and Bumblebee (coated with a black and yellow paint job as of Episode 53: "Darkmount, NV"), all I need now is a BLUE REPAINT OF A DELUXE CLASS SMOKESCREEN FIGURE! That is if Hasbro CAN MAKE IT before TF: Prime wraps up by the end of this year. Just hope that the tiny Cyberverse figure is not the only toy version for the blue Smokescreen (which was paired with the Sky Claw ship) that I bought from Target.

During the Project Predacon episode debut,... A new Transformers: Prime - Beast Hunters Opening!

Click on this link for a first look at this newly-updated opening of Transformers: Prime - Beast Hunters following the major Autobot victory in the previous episode "Rebellion" from last month!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lHnD5V_cLOc

NOVA Spring Semester 2013 is Finished!

It is done! I have completed my spring semester at NOVA Loudon Campus this year!
So far, my overall grades in English 112 (Parra), History 101 (Porter), and Biology 101 (class (Glick) and lab (Marino)) were A (98), A (90), and B (88)!

The 2013 Academy Award Winners!

The winners of my "favorite categories" at the 85th Academy Awards ceremony from last night are...!


Best Picture

• Amour
• Argo
• Beasts of the Southern Wild
• Django Unchained
• Les Misérables
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Silver Linings Playbook
• Zero Dark Thirty

Best Director

• Amour (Michael Haneke)
• Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin)
• Life of Pi (Ang Lee)
• Lincoln (Steven Spielberg)
• Silver Linings Playbook (David O. Russell)

Best Actor

• Silver Linings Playbook (Bradley Cooper)
• Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis)
• Les Misérables (Hugh Jackman)
• The Master (Joaquin Phoenix)
• Flight (Denzel Washington)

Best Actress

• Zero Dark Thirty (Jessica Chastain)
• Silver Linings Playbook (Jennifer Lawrence)
• Amour (Emmanuelle Riva)
• Beasts of the Southern Wild (Quvenzhané Wallis)
• The Impossible (Naomi Watts)

Best Supporting Actor

• Argo (Alan Arkin)
• Silver Linings Playbook (Robert De Niro)
• The Master (Philip Seymour Hoffman)
• Lincoln (Tommy Lee Jones)
• Django Unchained (Christoph Waltz)

Best Supporting Actress

• The Master (Amy Adams)
• Lincoln (Sally Field)
• Les Misérables (Anne Hathaway)
• The Sessions (Helen Hunt)
• Silver Linings Playbook (Jacki Weaver)

Best Original Screenplay

• Amour
• Django Unchained
• Flight
• Moonrise Kingdom
• Zero Dark Thirty

Best Adapted Screenplay

• Argo
• Beasts of the Southern Wild
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Silver Linings Playbook

Best Animated Film

• Brave (Mark Andrews and Brenda Chapman)
• Frankenweenie (Tim Burton)
• ParaNorman (Sam Fell and Chris Butler)
• The Pirates! Band of Misfits (Peter Lord)
• Wreck-It Ralph (Rich Moore)

Best Production Design

• Anna Karenina
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Les Misérables
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln

Best Costume Design

• Anna Karenina
• Les Misérables
• Lincoln
• Mirror Mirror
• Snow White and the Huntsman

Best Cinematography

• Anna Karenina
• Django Unchained
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Skyfall

Best Film Editing

• Argo
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Silver Linings Playbook
• Zero Dark Thirty

Best Makeup

• Hitchcock
• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Les Misérables

Best Original Score

• Anna Karenina (Dario Marianelli)
• Argo (Alexandre Desplat)
• Life of Pi (Mychael Danna)
• Lincoln (John Williams)
• Skyfall (Thomas Newman)

Best Original Song

• Chasing Ice ("Before My Time")
• Ted ("Everybody Needs a Best Friend")
• Life of Pi ("Pi's Lullaby")
• Skyfall ("Skyfall")
• Les Misérables ("Suddenly")

Best Visual Effects

• The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
• Life of Pi
• Marvel's The Avengers
• Prometheus
• Snow White and the Huntsman

Best Sound Mixing

• Argo
• Les Misérables
• Life of Pi
• Lincoln
• Skyfall

Best Sound Editing

• Argo
• Django Unchained
• Life of Pi
• Skyfall
• Zero Dark Thirty