Tuesday, May 17, 2011, 2:44 AM

This is super cool: Dae Hoon Jung's Split is an innovative laptop design that allows users to split parts of the laptop as needed. It is a shortlisted entry for Designbloom's 'A life with Future Computing' competition. Read more here.

Recently, I reread the stories I wrote for fan-fiction as a means to de-stress from my movie poster photoshop assignment. Boy, I was practically cringing half the time. First thoughts on my mind was how the hell did I ever write something so lame and what the hell was I thinking? It is not flat out bad but I spotted all the purple prose and cliffhangers that I threw in in a bid to keep the plot going. You can tell that I had the initial idea but not the means on how to continue the story. I'll admit that I wrote it as it comes and there were many a times where I would think of a better plot but was too late by then. I had already posted it up for all those who have access to the internet. Dammit.

Of course, at the time, I was too overwhelmed by the rush writing and posting immediately (sometimes editing would happen after the posting and then I would have to retract and repost the chapter again) as well as my dying curiosity to see how well of a response I would get from other fanfic writers and fans. Would they like it as much as I did or find every fault in every sentence, down to the amount of apostrophe used. It is divided, actually. Some would sing songs of praise, complimenting on every single thing that you write and thus inflating the ego which eventually would give a somewhat distorted high view of the quality of my writing. The other would comment on what should have happened instead, the grammar used (the US-British English differences is something off-putting) and just hate the couple I was writing about. Basically, flamers. Then there are those in the agreeable middle ground with constructive criticism, but we don't have many of those around which is pretty sad.

I'm still working on chapter one and I am going crazy over how many times I have to rewrite it before allowing anyone to see it (with the exception of dictator of a sister who plays the role of the grammar nazi editor here) At last count, 5 times. Mind you, a chapter is about 2000 to 3000 words and imagine rewriting the whole damn thing x 5. Sure, I could just post it and forget about it but I don't want to look back and think 'WHY?!' Especially when it has my name embossed in it.

Being a perfectionist really sucks. You have two options: do whatever it is you are doing for the sake in it and just get over it OR dwell on it, sweat on it and have sleepless night on it and get it right to the tee. The thing is, for a (supposed) perfectionist, I suck at being one. I tried to halfheartedly do some of my time-sensitive assignments (wrong strategy, I know) but I always ended up redoing the whole thing again and ended up passing all of them up way pass deadline. How would I survive being a designer especially after hearing all the horror stories from my friends in the industry right now, I have no freaking idea. But then again, the real reason why I study graphics, upon rather recent realization, is so that I could design my own cover of my own book (when I get around writing it, after the current fanfic I'm working on). I read somewhere that authors don't get to have any say on their covers of their published intellectual property, all they can do is see it before it goes to the stores and shrug. The publishers are the one with that power of choosing the cover designer, the feel of the book (whether hard cover, soft cover or both), fonts, everything. So if you see a book with a lame cover, don't blame the author, blame the publishers. The only writer with that exception is possibly J.K Rowling. Unfair? Definitely but a sad reality, nonetheless.

Anyway, I am on my ends wit with my movie poster. I look up online photoshop tutorials and professional movie posters for inspiration. It ended up with me getting bored over the whole theme, like no allowances for special effects that I got excited to try. My 'movie' is like movies such as The Painted Veil, Atonement , An Education etc etc but when I edit it, it looks like some kind of emotional romance films such as Dear John or that depressing Rachel McAdam's Notebook.

Right now, I am feeling for fantasy but I have to check myself on my photoshop skills. Enthusiasm is not a good thing, sometimes. Also, I am not sure whether my lecturer would allow if I change the whole damn thing at the last minute, or at least, without consulting him first.

Alamak!

Out of topic but have you ever wondered how dinosaurs 'did it'? The idea popped up in my mind and won't go away until I googled it. Turns out, there are a fair number of people wondering the same thing. Well, now I know.

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Labels: all Bleach related, design-candy, Random Babbles, Slice of life