Yeah I haven't really done anything for myself in terms of art lately so I decided to draw Lee again for the first time in a while. You can say I have trouble drawing Lee (I know he's my trademark as ASM1 and all), why you might ask. Uh let me list it out.

-Never really drew Lee from anything other than a 3/4 view, front view of him turns out weird cause I have trouble drawing his hair in the view.

-Eyes are never consistent with each other, I've been having trouble finding the right balance of getting the young sort of look in his eyes and keeping them male eyes (I mean I hate to admit he does look girly... *insert image of Lee flying kick ASM1* )

-Style changes that I keep having keep crushing the way I see Lee in my head when it translates into a drawing, see the 2 above...

Yeah I mean, lead to me trying to mess with his hair and trying to create something that works, couldn't get one. ): Messed with eyes but I seem to do well with doing straight out narrow scary eyes for male or female, or straight out kinda large eyes that are for females. When I see characters like Naruto and characters that are generally the young male that isn't serious in the same way as a character like uh Sephiroth for example, characters like them seem to have that right balance that isn't too narrow nor to large. Ugh I should experiment with that more but, man its like a big root I just can't pull out, Lee has this established image with the people I've had him shared with and stuff so changing him all the sudden makes it hard on me too. :E Generally you can say I'm not quite sure where I want to cut the tree so to say, cause I want to save the branches on it too.

Sooo yeahhh, if you guys remember sometime back I was talking about how I was having a hard time in art class, turns out I was actually doing better than I thought in the class. I think the art teacher was more surprised by the fact that my style isn't very dependent on manga/anime styled drawing, cause one friend in the class was a little too bound to that and lost points to getting a good score on one project. Dunno if that means that I keep underestimating myself or I dunno really. /: I did learn a thing or 2 in the class, collages are freaking annoying to do if you have to do it weekly >.< , and thumbnail sketches really save your butt for brainstorming art ideas.

Yeah so I mean I'd like to upload a few things but, darn finals and crap like that. >< Yeah the manga idea is going slow, writers blocks sucks.

Pretty much there was a bug in my photoshop, was avoidable, then I open it today, the whole thing is bugged... I can't use Photoshop till I can get rid of it or reinstall Photoshop back on my comp... man I can't finish what I was working on nor do I think I can scan in more things and adjust the contrast as needed either...


EDIT:Holy crap, I did what suggested and that fixed Photoshop, alright that means crap is back to normal, well sort of I guess.

Well to start, I'd like to thank the people that have read the journal entry I had made and placed the effort to reply to it.

You can say pretty much after some more thinking and sudden strange new ideas spawning in my head. I think I'm gonna try and take things up a notch. I'm tried of myself pretty much, annoying you guys with my sudden vent/emo mood journal entries. I think I might start taking the steps to actually (and not half assing) try and really create a short one chapter manga, now that I've had a few practice runs, and had a slight inspiration from reading the start of One Piece (The Romance Dawn thing), I think I'm gonna go for something thats a little more closer to what has been going on in my head for years, yes I'm gonna start revealing a part of my story I've had. But before I do that, I should really finish them cosplays I was gonna do. :E Yeah reason for that, uh during the weekend, it was the Preview for the next Yugioh pack so I spent the weekend going to that, entering the tournament for the first time, did alright, had a lot of close matches that I lost in the end though (only one of them I won easy, and one other was really bad. :E ) and in the process a stupid brat stole my 50 dollar card that I pulled out of a pack with luck alone (we know the culprit and I will hunt him down). Anyway that aside, yes aiming for the manga short this time without the half assing part, I'll attempt to try and have a written version of it kind of to maybe get ideas going. For the most part I'm gonna try and aim for that and take my art class a little more seriously then I did in the past, I realized why I was hating them, a part of me was still closing my eyes to my surroundings, I didn't really allow myself to, watch those with more experience and try and learn bit by bit from just from that. Yea so pretty much I think I will be able to manage it better from now on.

As for the manga idea this is kind of 3 ideas I want to start with but you guys pick but first a little background info on my idea of this story as a whole, this is kind of the general idea of the beginning of it.

Pretty much Lee has quite a troubled childhood, a victim between a war between the living mortals of humans, and the realm of the demons(name still pending for something that sounds cooler). As it is Lee has no memory of his family, yet still knows his full name being Lee Song. Ok ok I know the whole cliche of no memory of his past crap but thats not it this time, I thought that factor through already ;D, his memory starts at the age 8, where he has a companion (not revealing who at this point), due to the way that demons (in my story) have a strong influence over the weak, many people caught in between went from good people, into thieves or formed bandit groups and raided the homes of many others. Even after the end of that war, like battle scars, demon influences still remained in the hearts of many people. Because of those factors Lee and his pal (we shall call the companion that for now) where always barely able to protect there so called home, or territory perhaps is one way to put it, from such types of people. It wasn't till when Lee was away that his pal was dead and he returned, he went out for vengeance against the bandits that brought his pal's death (or supposed death maybe d: ). Odds against Lee, nearly loosing his life in the process, a lone swordsman holding a sword in his left hand (kind of the key part here) saves Lee, just barely. This lone swordsman ended up taking Lee back to the village/town he was from, and ended up learning swordsmanship from this lone swordman's master (that name is still pending too, still trying to figure out how he will look like too..). Who was the lone swordsman? If you have been keeping up with my stuff I think it shouldn't be too hard to figure out. ;D Because of that event in Lee's life, he pretty much sees all human life to be very valuable, good or evil, he won't kill a human. Right so, since then Lee has been living there and became close with 2 people, Veronica and Ron (Ron has a special back story I don't want to reveal yet). Soooooo speeding up to the current time, Getsushin isn't at the village very often (at this points its been about 4 years since he was last seen by anyone), Veronica goes missing, Lee gets called out by his master and the leader of the village (aka Veronica's gramps) and asks Lee to find Veronica, they find a letter basically saying she has left for a "certain reason". Lee's master a little uncertain with sending Lee due to the fact he wasn't done with his training, sends him off anyway, to yes find Veronica but for Lee to see the world as it is now, but the finding Veronica part is kind of an excuse, cause he knows Lee isn't going to bring her back so easy anyway. d: So as it is Lee travels the world with 2 things in mind basically, see the world and be better as a swordsman. Sooooo speeding up some more, eventually Ron and Veronica join Lee in his kind odd job/ mercenary like life with the traveling, which later on turns in to something else.

-Lee and starting members (that would be like Ron and Veronica, and maybe Luna at that point) are asked to exterminate a vampire in the local mansion. One would think Garlic is the answer. d: (I've ha this idea for years) Pick this one if you want to see a bit of Lee's low intelligence in a funny way. d:

-Lee ends up being caught up in a fight with a masked swordsman ready to take the life of a man that had committed a crime of a kind, and this man is unarmed. Lee rushing in basically to save the man, what happens afterward? and who is the masked man? Pick this one if yea wanna know

-Lee and Ron are starting to run low on traveling money and go to a fight tournament to start racking up some money. One of the contestants is acting a little funny with the huge cloak and hood, though Lee seems to keep chucking to himself for some reason, and Ron is confused why. And hooded person gets revealed at the end of it, in an interesting way. d: Pick this one if you want a bit of laughs.

Lately, well I dunno, with the art class I'm taking and stuff I, well its more like I'm questioning myself a lot. I mean as it is with the class, its pretty clear I'm the one person in class that doesn't really have a true artistic background, nor do I see that I have the creativity for the class. The sum it up really, its kinda making me question why they heck do I even draw, I mean the majority of the things I've learned outside of self teaching are really techniques of a comic artist, things like inking techs and stuff. At times it also feels like I'm the only one truly struggling with assignments in that class, nor can I really get the ball rolling for ideas for projects so well either. When comparing my work with others, I can clearly see that they thought everything through really well, able to, well, express themselves and I sit and keep thinking to myself, "why am I not capable of being able to express myself? How is is they are able to get ideas going even if it is something they dislike?" I mean at times it feels like a mental warfare with my halves of being human in general, and my half of having my human selfishness of being part of this generation. I may have might of made that more extreme then I intended (just saying that cause I'm not having artist emo right now). Really its been hard to stay motivated, sure I hear the typical, "take a break" but its hard to put it down really, its kinda like in bowling when you send the ball rolling, you can't stop it till it reaches the other side. For me, I don't know what my "otherside" is, and I do think my natural human desires to be the best at the things I like are starting to bite my rear end back. I could list off a crap load of stuff I've taken time to learn, and also explain just how much of a waste of time it was at the same time.

I mean I've had ideas of stories and such but never did had the guts to roll out the carpet for them, just cause I never know how people will take em, nor do I want write a novel (seriously, I hate English grammar with a passion), more like do things in more of a manga sort of fashion, then again I always hear from my mom "you don't even know if your gonna go that route" so to many factors, or perhaps excuses I make for myself just to place a shield in front of me and try to be in my own sort of comfort zone, perhaps I feel comfortable when I bash myself and want someone to have sympathy for me. Heck I don't understand myself too well, I feel a lot of times that if I don't shine, then I'm just another someone, just nothing special, the one that watches from the shadows as people I was once peers with stand to triumph while I agonize my defeat and can't stand back on my feet and try again. At times I feel that excepting your mistakes, flaws, are something that make you better as a person, often I find myself wondering, is that simply a lack of confidence? I remember my eldest cousin (my dad's side of the family, the majority of the "cousins" kinda grew up together so we do know each other quite well), well he labeled me as the "unconfident cousin" (also should mention that he's about 8-9 years older than I am), at times, sure I know what he says he has the best of intentions but I can't help but feel, even though I know it, that, well the best way to put it, its kinda like he's trying to scare me into doing something, or trying to sway from me away from the things I do. He told me basically he was gonna go into photography, and he took a lot of crap like the Professor called his work (a more extreme version of this) Crap, even though he didn't look at his work. I remember clearly his words of, "are you gonna be able to take that? Will you be able to be in the position to defend yourself? Talented or not you have to take that stand, or how will you survive?" which ends up leading to another thing he said to me that I remember that he said "I've asked on instructor, but what if that person is truly talented and isn't able to take it?" he said something of the lines of the instructor said "then how will they survive when it comes to having a job?"

I mean a lot of things like that keep bouncing in my mind, but when I see people, like one other relative I have, sure he has a good life, I mean you can tell he is enjoying life as it is for him, but he mentions a lot he doesn't like his job, and thats why its called "work" (he's like is in his forties so not to get it confused with my cousin type of person), when I think of it like that, I always have felt, just from what I hear from my mom's cousin that is a professional artist (He works for Pixar, I like to mention this to people, I guess you can call it bragging) that he enjoys the stuff he does, I mean yes he has had is share of kinda sitting down and talking about how he loves his job and what kind of schools his colleagues have came from. I mean when I compare these 2 people, yes they enjoy their life, but one loves his job as an artist, while one simply works an office job that he has to earn a living from. I always felt I should head towards that something that I would like to wake every morning too and do what I do best and love, yet I can't help but think "is this childish thinking?" I mean I know I say a lot I still feel like I'm 15 and such, but there are times, I guess my age starts to catch up with the way I think when I think about these kind of things.

Yeah if you have taken the time to read this, thanks, really, as it is for me right now, I truly don't know who I am.