Strange Games (As If Your Life Is Not Strange Enough)

Several weeks ago (Wait, WEEKS?) I accidentally met one of my colleagues from my early years in this company.  We haven't met for like, four years since our on-the-job-training and not much changes except I recognize on of his friends (that was actually ALSO MY acquaintance) was forgot my name *sad face*. So after small talks like, how are you doing, where are you placed now, etc., etc., he then said:

"Btw I still read your blog, and I noticed that sometimes you seems disturbed (Actually the Indonesian word for this is "alay" lol), why was that?"

I just laughed. Okay the good news is people still read my blog lol and he blogged, too, so we kind of follow each other blog although he's been dormant till now. I was quite surprised because it's been too long. Thanks loyal reader! Lol. And the bad news is, as a blogger, your life becomes more and more predictive. Like, when you are disturbed, people can see it in your writing. You tried to hide it once or twice but it's not always successful. I no longer care now actually. I can just laugh it off lol.

Life Is Strange is my current favorite game. Really love the gameplay and ambience. Dark enough to be my thing. If only The Sims has this kind features lol. Illustration by me.

Anyway, I've been playing games again for several days now. I am a seasonal gamer and when I play, I spend hours and hours. Since I rarely go out and I've been paying my fasting debt (I know, it's a shame because I'm such a procrastinator) so to kill the time I just play the games. They are mostly on PC. Mobile games are interesting, too. They are just too short to fulfill my interest.

Well to feed my satisfy, my game has to meet 80% of these criteria (lol):

1. ARTWORK

As seen on my post here, no matter how suck the game is I will still play it if the artwork took me fancy. Whimsical or fairy-tale-ish creature will be an additional value.

God(dess) of Cookery

Saya baru sadar bahwa saya suka banget sama tema-tema masak. Tau komik Cooking Master Boy atau Yakitate!! Japan? Itu lucu banget. Lebay-lebay gimana gitu. Memang resep-resepnya gak bisa dicontoh (orang aneh-aneh hehe) tapi seru aja gitu daripada liatin orang berantem memperebutkan bola naga misal (ups, no offense). Suka aja gitu gimana caranya bikin orang tergiur dan menikmati cerita tentang masak-masak padahal visually doang. Suka tema kayak gitu padahal saya gak jago masak. -_-"

Ngomong-ngomong, salah satu masakan andalan saya baru-baru ini adalah pancake (yang instan sih lol). Enak dan gampang soalnya hehehe.

Resep Pancake (instan) dengan gaya TDAC hehe.

Memasak pernah menjadi salah satu hobby saya pas masih di Padang (karena, I got nothing else to do lol). Sayangnya waktu itu saya gak banyak eksplor. Masak gitu-gitu aja dan tak terdokumentasikan. Zaman sekarang yang bisa dibilang zamannya narsis ini, apa-apa kan didokumentasiin gitu. Minimal masuk Instagram atau Path. Tapi karena saya sukanya menggambar, hmm sepertinya ada jalan lain.

Current Instagram Fixation

Sebagai seorang blogger, butuh waktu lama bagi saya untuk menyadari bahwa sebenarnya saya lebih suka gambar daripada tulisan (sedih hiks). Jadi aktivitas blog walking saya lebih condong kepada pencarian gambar yang menarik mata saja. Hingga akhirnya saya pikir instagram adalah benda yang cocok buat memuaskan mata saya.

Penampakan IG saya. Silakan diliat-liat *malus*

Saya udah punya IG alias Instagram dari beberapa taun lalu. Sejak punya Android sih tepatnya. Hmm taun 2012 kayaknya. Tapi waktu itu bikin akun cuma biar nama @tweedledew gak ada yang make aja sih (padahal siapa juga yang bakalan make ya 'gak). Dulu saya gak tertarik sih. Pas baru lulus kuliah pas IG lagi rame diomongin orang, saya baru maenan Twitter. IG gak pake. Apalah daya HP saya cuma No*kia C3 yang buat FB-an aja lemah lunglai. Yah intinya gak bisa dipake IG-an. Terus pas saya udah punya HP lain, eh saya gak tertarik karena saya emang gak suka motret-motret. Bagi saya, motret terus difilterin sok-sok fotografer gitu dulu malesin. Moto buku di samping gelas, makanan, apalah apalah, terus difilterin. Semacam jadi profesional made gitu. Udah gitu hashtag bejibun bikin mata sepet. Huft. Saya gak anti membebek sih jadi waktu itu ya udahlah saya bikin, tapi ya cuma biar punya ajah. Gak dipake.

Bertahun-tahun kemudian saya tinggalin itu akun dan bingung mau saya apakan (karena saya juga lupa password-nya). Ngepost juga sepi likers. Eh taunya ternyata IG itu menarik sekali. Awalnya cuma dipake stalk akun artis (yailah padahal mau stalk siapa, waktu itu Ben Barnes gak punya IG hiks), terus follow-follow-an sama temen. Sekalian belajar bikin foto yang instagram-able haha. Lama-lama follow hijabers dan akun-akun modis. Sempet follow banyak akun olshop juga. Terus bangkrut gara-gara kebanyakan beli hijab huhuhu. *oke itu lebay*

Eh sampe sekarang jadi keranjingan karena hey, IG itu sangat informatif. Jadi buat orang yang suka ngetawain karena following saya lebih banyak dari followers saya, saya cuma mau nyinyirin aja, eh situ pake IG buat apa? Buat temenan? -_- Sorry kita beda prinsip. Hehe becanda. Bebas kok mau dipake apa. Buat saya, IG itu tempat nyari inspirasi, informasi, dan tempat curcol (for temporary posts sih haha). Jadi wajar sekali kalau followers saya jauh lebih dikit ketimbang following. Di samping itu, saya bukan selebgram apalagi seleb beneran. Bear with me. Got it, honey?

So, still about IG. Saya punya IG fixation sendiri. Beberapa akun di bawah ini adalah akun IG yang saya follow dan saya tunggu-tunggu banget postingannya. Here they are.

Sketching The Way You Sketch

Lately I saw the artworks of Thomas Chian in Doodlers Anonymous web and suddenly have this de ja vu feeling. I also love to draw something like that while I'm bored. I compiled them somewhere I forgot but I still have one or two. I must tell you that I really love the water color illustration because I haven't mastered the technique yet! And let me introduce you some of the artworks of Thomas Chian, my newest favourite inspiration.

Here's what I've made (but this one is a little unfinished):

The Tough-ing Theory

In the middle of anything-I've-been-currently-doing, I watched movies a lot. I think it's a way to distract me from my endless routine on my work place. Here I don't make friends a lot, even after 8 months, everyone is just acquaintances (a hint! you don't really make friends in the office, mostly you'll just make plain "relations"). Uh, the melancholic side of me.

Liebster Award: Pass It On!

This is new for me: I've got a "Liebster Award" from one of my blogger friend.

She's Juriko Kosaka from Japan. You can see her simple yet amazing blog here. We even did an "artwork-barter" last year and I'm so happy I want to do some more! Haha. Check her artwork for me here and mine for her here.

I feel so honored to get this award for I rarely post anything because of my business! Duh! So thank you again Juri! As you mentioned in your post about this award, now I'm passing this award to 5 of my favorite illustration-bloggers that I make her/him my muse. :) Btw, this is a hard decision since I have so many blogger-idols but I have to choose only FIVE!

1
Constanze Von Kitzing
http://constanzevonkitzing.blogspot.com

She's an incredibly talented artist from Germany. Actually she's a pro and has done a lot of international illustration works. What I love is, she does a lot of children illustrations but the whimsical side is always emphasized. I really overjoyed seeing them.

2
Heidi Alamanda
http://heidilovespainting.blogspot.com/

An Indonesian born blogger but now she lives in US. She's really a PRO! I adore anyone who use oil-paint for their artworks because I myself couldn't use one and also never try it. Paint is really hard to handle and I love the way Mbak Heidi apply it to her artworks.

Influential Visual Science Book

When I was a kid, I was so in love with kids drawn-science books. It was because there were so many amazing pictures in it, making science became so fun to read even if you just looking at the picture. I couldn't name all of them because I read a lot, but my favorite books are came from a German kids books author and illustrator, Hans Jὓrgen Press. His work are amazing and so fun to stare at since he was also a mystery book author and you need to stare at the illustration to solve the mystery. You know "The Black Hand Gang"? It's a mystery book, about a detective group. Unfortunately, it didn't published in my country so I wouldn't tell much about it but from what I heard, that book is so fun to read (and stare).

  

Okay so I've read several titles of his works but my favorite was "Melacak Alam" (means Nature Tracing), an ecology book which was published in 1970's, but I found it when I was in middle school. I read it like, hundred times and did almost every experiments written there and also even re-wrote my favorite parts along with the picture. So if you wonder where did I get the science-drawing enthusiasm, now you know the answer.

I totally adore his fun illustration technique. It's just simple but full of details. And you know what, his work is one of my influence in making my own illustrations.

A peak of his book titled Simple Science Experiments.

From the book "The Black Hand Gang series".

Here are some sketches by me, taken from "Melacak Alam" (pardon me, they are a little blurry).

Right now I'm looking forward to gaining every pieces of his books, even if I have to search the used books since they are so old. Several science books are still available to order in my country. Well, from a little search, I heard that Mr. Julian Press, Hans' son is also a kids book author and his illustrator is similar with his father's. I guess I'll do some search for his work later.

Depression turns into doodles

This is kind of funny story (like the title of the movie itself), because when a 16 years old boy admitted that he was depressed and asked to get into a kinda mental hospital, he finally knew what his big potential was, doodling. So the story, in short, is about that boy, who's so depressed so he tried to commit suicide. The problem is, that boy didn't really understand what exactly his problem. He didn't know what really bothered him so he was depressed. He said it was about her girl crush, who was stolen by his own bestfriend. But in the other chance, he said it was about his confusion to get or not to a summer school (sorta) which was said will decide how his future is gonna be. FYI, this movie is based on a novel by Ned Vizzini with the same title.

This image borrowed from the IMDB website.

I won't talk too much about the story but it gave a kinda nostalgic feeling. Back then, I was only 16 and also a little depressed, because I didn't know how to decide which college did I had to enter. You know I love drawing. I love arts, very much. But there are not many parents approve their kids who want to enter that kind of college. Neither is mine. They said, being an artist won't make you rich. I gave up that time. So here I am, suddenly realized that I am graduated from chemistry department (I don't remember exactly who told me to choose this department?) and a little regret about how things happened.

What I learn from this irreversible moment is, you have choices, but when you feel like you make a wrong decision, it'll be up to you whether to give up with many regrets, or survive and try to chase your it-should-be-chosen-back-then dream from the very beginning. It'll never be too late to start anything over - you still own your life after all.

Here are some artworks - doodles - the boy from the film has made. They are very adorable.

He used water color and pencil. Finally I learn how to color your doodles by using water color lol. I made an update for this post, you know I was very curious about this man behind the gorgeous artwork, and so I found this blog, thanks to her I finally found that Brian Ducker is the masterpiece! So adorable pieces.

Unhidden Artworks in a Hidden Object Game

I love hidden object games, especially the ones provided from the Big Fish game company and others - yeah, Gamehouses. I play like, tons of hidden object games, and most of them are very addictive. Okay, some people maybe don't like playing a game in which they have to stare so much at the screen to find the objects on the list so their eyes might hurt and a little headache. Or they say it's boring. But different person has different fondness, and I'm a big fan of this kind of game. It's because, I love puzzles and most importantly, I love the artworks which can be seen on the game. They painted the scenery manually and then re-touched it digitally. So stunning. You know, I envy for every artist who's able to make a beautiful game's scenery like that.

Well, these are some of my favorite hidden object games all the time, with emphasize on their artsy scenery in the snapshots. Note that the list isn't ordered, it's just numbered:

1

Alice in Wonderland

I'm a big fan of Alice in Wonderland stuff, so to be able to play a game with Alice in it, it's a huge pleasure. The scenery is pretty whimsical with anime-like characters in it.

Alice in Wonderland.

2

Mortimer Beckett Series

The main character is Mortimer Beckett, we won't only find object in the list but also solve the puzzles. Pretty interesting.

Mortimer Beckett

3

Deadtime Stories

I love horrors, so this one is pretty lovely for me.

Deadtime stories.

4

Sleepy Hollow

I watched the Johnny Depp's version of movie and totally frightened. Headless ghosts are always the creepiest ever.

Sleepy Hollow

5

Dream Chronicles

This is a very interactive hidden object game, and the artworks is very whimsical, with fairy-tales feeling on it.

Dream chronicles

6

Dreamday Wedding

So girly and since I love anything about wedding, so I love it. The artworks here is very beautiful.

7

Vampireville

The characters are made in 3D, so it's quite lively. The artworks is very retro because the game story took place in a haunted (or vampire-ed) manor.

Vampireville

8

Madame Fate

I must say that THIS is the most amazing hidden object game I've ever played. I always love the whimsical, creepy, with a twist artworks there. And if you happen to know, this game is one of the famous Mystery Case Files Series. I've played Madame fate, Mystery of Ravenhearst Manor, etc. And still crave for more. Ah maybe I should blab about them later.

Madame Fate

So, what's yours?

Drawing Evolution

The last time I posted my artwork, it was about my wedding present for my best friend. Suddenly I remember about my drawing collections I put in my file holder and contains a bunch of my own drawings since I was a junior. So then I decided to re-peak them all. It was kinda interesting because I could compare anything I made from my old days with anything I make all these days. Unfortunately, my childhood drawings were lost - maybe my parents threw it all away - but okay, I still have some.

My drawing books

1

Junior Age

My junior drawing style 1

My junior drawing style 2

My junior drawing style 3

On that time I was a big fan of manga and anime and so that influenced my drawing style as much.

2

Senior

My senior drawing style 1

My senior drawing style 2

My senior drawing style 3

All right so back then when I was a high school student, I still influenced by manga. But I think the body proportions I made was better than one from my junior age.

3

College

My college drawing style 1

My college drawing style 2

My college drawing style 3

At the time I didn't make drawing very much because I was so busy doing stuff. I went to a science department and I hadn't have much chance to improve my skill. But my involvement in campus organization, as (always) a publication staff, influenced my drawing style so much. It made me tried to use computer to refine my drawing, but I thought that's not really worked. And I also introduced to this person, a real graphic design who gave me critics so that I tried to improve though it was so hard.

4

Recently

My recent drawing style 1

My recent drawing style 2

My recent drawing style 3

Okay so today I try to out of the box. You know there are so many inspirations I can find in only one click (on the internet) away. And since I'm a magazines junkie, I get my inspirations from there. No, I don't forget my 'manga-ish' style, but I just want to improve, and explore so that I could find my own style. So last words from me,

Never stop open your eyes and open your ears. Explore, and find anything interesting to color your art style. Always practice what you found and you'd be improved.

Reckless Snapshots

When u find something that catch ur eyes, u might want to snap it so u would share it to everyone. And here some of mine:

 

Nuff for now.

Talking Inspirations

Talking about inspirations, there are sooo many things that influence me in every part of my life. I could say, the religion, attitude, art, even how do I look. Cz you know, we couldn't be genuine unless we mix and match the experience in our head to be something new, something that genuinely describes ourself. So here are some of my inspiring stuffs:

Prophet Mohammad SAW

So proud to be his ummat. And I really wish that I and another Moslem in the world could share the same inspiration. Amen.

My Mother's artworks

These are what my mother has drawn in her booknotes. I fell in love in sketching and drawing since then. And up until now, I love to sketch waaaaaaaaaay more and more. Thanks to my mother. :)

The internet!

I imagine if only I didn't open my eyes at this stuff. There are waaaaaay many netizens that inspired me. here are some of them:
diana rikasari
deviant art
who what wear
style-arena
and many more..... yes I love style!

Soon I will add more of the links. Just wait up. :)