Movie : The Lunchbox (2013) & Piku (2015)

While I was sick, Af found this awesome movie : Lunchbox (2013), directed and written by Ritesh Batra. He found out about the movie while researching on poster design and he shared me the link to the trailer. We watched the movie later that night.

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The main character is Irrfan Khan, the guy from Life of Pi :D
It was a good movie with quite a unique storyline between 2 strangers. I love how simple the story developed, in everyday life, life as a retiring accountant and life as a housewife, innocent friendship, realistic ending, every thing was just nice. I can definitely relate to this compared to any super-heroes-sci-fi-zombie-spacel-travel movies. 

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Things I like from this movie :

• The story - no superheroes, no aliens, zombies, elves, werewolves, other realms, dragons, superpowers, or anything else rather than what we really have here. Simple story.
• The innocent relationship development between those two
• The snail mails 
• No ridiculous running, dancing, singing moments
• The ending, when reality hits you

I highly recommend it.

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Update : Piku ( 2015 )

Anon recommended Piku after I posted this post, so we searched and found the movie. We just got the time to watch it last Saturday night :D 

Yes, it is mainly a story about father-daughter relationship : Amitabh Bachchan & Deepika Padukone added with Irrfan Khan as the taxi driver. The story somehow make me feel connected to both my parents : imagine if both my mom and dad combine into one person, it would be definitely like the father (Amitabh). The fussiness, the outspokenness, the stubbornness, the self-claimed 'critical-thinking' ness,  the dependency, the ridiculous arguments, all combined into one person. I imagined how hard can parents be, how ridiculous sometimes - the person who we should look above to, the title that they gave themselves and we had to accept it no matter what.

And all those little fussiness that make them so human, so flawed, so like us. 

Things I like :

• All Deepika Padukone's styles & attires during the whole movie. It looked so comfortable, decent and simple. She wore less makeups, effortless scarf over loose kurtis and comfy pants. I never thought I would notice this, but those clothes are inspiring enough for me !
• Coincidentally Irrhan Khan again ! 
• Those ridiculous arguments between all of them.
• No ridiculous running, dancing, singing moments.
• The ending, yes.

Review : Apple Machines - for a designer

I'm an avid Apple user, from my first iPod shuffle, to iPod Touch, to iPhone 4S, and also my first Macbook Pro to iMac *previous office and Macbook Air *current office. It's fair to say that I can roughly summarize the machines that I've been using in this post. Because I am still considering which machine to buy to replace my dying Macbook Pro.

I'm going to spend some money on this so I need to do a huge amount of research before making a decision. So the research begins ! :

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Macbook Pro :

Based on 2010 version, 2.4Ghz Intel Core i5, 15 inch, Snow Leopard OS

Pro - 

• Powerful - I have no problems on any designing softwares I used before.
• The 15-inch screen size is big enough for designing. 
• I just love it. 

Cons - 

• Ridiculously heavy - including the wires and adaptor might take around 4kg on your back. So it is not suitable for frequent travel. Not quite sure the latest one, that one time I tried to pick it up at the Apple store, the alarm went off =.=' 
• Super expensive - The one I used was is around RM6k in 2010, the latest one is much pricier. 
• After the 3rd year, I had a massive problem - the blue-screen death, so I changed my hard-drive, downgraded it and it was okay. This is the 5th year, it starts to go black almost all the time nowadays - for any reason. 
• Only 2 USB ports

The rationale in buying this :

Maybe I can afford to buy the 13-inch one because it is powerful enough for my freelance works, portable and easy to bring to places - *hello Japan! But it is around RM5k, quite small for any designing works. Maybe?

Current price range - RM 4, 999 to RM 11,299

Buy here.

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Macbook Air :

Based on 2014 version, 1.4Ghz Intel Core i5, 13 inch, Yosemite OS

Pro - 

• Really light, it's portable and easy to bring to places and meetings.
• The battery can be up to 9 hours :D - I don't have to bring back the wires and adaptor back home everyday to use at night after work

Cons - 

• Slow, especially when I do digital illustration on Photoshop, most of vector works on Illustrator works fine. Perhaps you might want to find a lighter substitute application for digital illustration on App Store. 
• Quite small, not quite suitable for designing except if you have extra extended monitor. 
• Only 2 USB ports

The rationale in buying this :
No, it's not for designing. It is too slow, too sluggish for my likings. Maybe one day I will decide to be a full-time writer and not do any designing anymore, I might buy one because it is so slim and light. It's great for everyday life, but definitely not for designing purpose.

Current price range -  RM 4,099 to RM 5,449

Buy here.

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iMac

Based on 2014 version, 1.4Ghz Intel Core i5, 21 inch, Yosemite OS

Pro - 

• The size, it's huge. I love designing on iMac, I can see everything and use many artboards for designing at once.
• Got 4 USB ports. 

Cons -

• Not portable.
• A bit slow on Maverick OS, haven't tried El Capitan yet. Ditto on Photoshop, and huge AI files. 

The rationale in buying this :
If I want to work as a full-time freelance designer and manage to find several long-term contacts with clients, I'll make a nice studio at home and having this machine would be great. But for now, I'm searching for something portable.

Current price range - RM 4,999 to RM 10,399 

Buy here.

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You might want to upgrade these :

• Apple Care for another 3 years : Around RM 850
• Time Capsule 2 TB : RM 1,329
• Wacom Tablet : RM 699 +
• Monthly Adobe CC : Annual plan , RM 155 per month for all app.

So yes, I know we need to spend some money on the machine and softwares before even starting to make our investment pay-off. But, that's the life of a designer lah, if you choose to be one. And perhaps you choose to use PC and windows, the powerful machine will usually cost some money as well. Did you checked the price for Alienware? - everything is RM5k ++

This, will make sense if you are an active freelance designer/illustrator and in need of a powerful  machine in making extra money rather than waiting for our monthly salary from the formal working job. But if you don't want to work outside of the working hours, you don't have to spend so much of personal machines lah, untuk apa kan, membazir.

What do you think?

Work Related : Vectober

Hey, hey, October ended fast!

Did you promised yourself to create something everyday in October for Inktober? Well, here is my version instead of using inks, I used vector because that's what I'm creating everyday. I hardly use pen these days. I posted it up in my Behance here.

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The Sailor Soldiers :

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My everyday items :

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Fitness, health, and random stuffs :

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How was your Inktober?

Work Related : Hello Kitty Gourmet Cafe, Grand Launch

Last Monday was the Hello Kitty Gourmet Cafe's grand launch ! 

At last, after a while. The project started around 10 months ago and the soft launch was held a month back when I was in Tokiyo. So I couldn't make it during that time and I didn't go to visit the cafe since it was opened. I've been waiting for the grand launch. Partly because I want free gourmet foods, partly because I want the free gifts. Hah. This is the invitation card :

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We waited at the Subway near my office, ordered a chicken slice sandwich and discussed about the illustration works for my latest freelance work. The event started around 7.30pm but we were stuck in the heavy rain until 8pm+. We were late, and missed the official ribbon-cutting ceremony and Kitty herself. But we both got in nonetheless. Yeay!

I saw Mandy, Nicole, and Ally afterwards. They were all dressed up and looked presentable. AF and I was drenched wearing our casual office attire. But oh-well. 

My phone's battery was slowly dying when I tried to take some pictures to bring back home. I saw stuffs that I designed and things that we all created together for so long. It is finally there T^T This picture was taken from their official Facebook account. Here is Kitty in front of the artwork that I did. Not to say that I'm fully proud of it - it won't even be in my portfolio because I feel like there are disturbing empty spaces in the artwork that I thought of filling later while designing it but got approved and I didn't managed to make any changes. I'm proud of the spaghetti though. It was really hard to illustrate it using that stroke :

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And I also designed the mascot for the grand launch : one in the kitchen suits and another one in a dress. The Sanrio HK did some changes a bit, they added things that they felt suited Kitty better. In any ways, I'm still a proud mama :

*pictures from HK Facebook

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It felt surreal for me to see all these things in real life. We've been looking at it on the monitor for almost a year, can you imagine the wait? I even forgot about some of the little things that I designed early in the process. This is such a great experience for me, other than Begadang Backpackers, I enjoyed this project. Can you see the Coffee chart poster on the wall? Well that was from me :D

*picture  from HK Facebook

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The buffet was all special and 'gourmet' as they mentioned. I wouldn't know the differences, I'm not a food appreciator in any way :D I ate minced fruits topped with salmon, spaghetti with mushroom and wild mushroom soups and several mini cupcakes. We were 2 very awkward peoples among all the pretty bloggers and celebrities. Oh, how I love AF for being as simple as we both are. 

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I was expecting more sweets and pastries buffet - it was a French themed cafe, and coffee perhaps? But there was none. I can't believe that I'm complaining about the free foods =.= But that's fine, I'm going to feed this random sugar-craving tonight.

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Amber Chia arrived when we were preparing to go home. *Did you heard about the chaos over the Hello Kitty's limo and Rajnikanth? Hah. I couldn't be bothered with all the crowds so we just went out afterwards. Oh yes, I also received 3 Kitty macarons, a small cake, HK water bottle and a paper bag as the gift :

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Congratulation Hello Kitty Team ! :D

Work Related : Dribbble

All digital art enthusiasts and designers might have heard about Dribbble :  a community of designers answering that question each day. Web designers, graphic designers, illustrators, icon artists, typographers, logo designers, and other creative types share small screenshots (shots) that show their work, process, and current projects.

I wanted to be a part of them. Although I have an account for several years, I only got to follow and like all the designers that I love but not post any shots or write any comments. I strongly feel that I need to keep my online portfolio updated to get more interesting projects and improve so I thought Dribbble is one of the great platform  available other than Behance. And Behance proved to be really useful in my career development.

So I've been waiting and trying. 

Last week I finally - finally got an invitation to be a player at Dribbble. 

I was invited by a local UI/UX designer : Razlan Hanafiah. At last ! Thank you ! T^T 

We get 48 shots every month, so every post matters. 

Here is my Dribbble portfolio at this moment. I uploaded my version of Sailor Soldiers because they are my latest works. I thought about posting stuffs from works as well but I know that I will get annoyed with the combination of illustration and vector work in my portfolio - there's no folder :( My OCD can't deal with the differences of my leisure work and my work-work. 

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Yeay for finally being accepted as a dribbbler of the world!

*jakunzist mode*

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Ohh, and I found a really interesting website on UX Designer Salary all over the world. Although the salary paid to UX designer in Malaysia varies from being really low to quite high in the survey - we can conclude that most of them still receive fairly low salary, but tiny bit higher than normal graphic designer *based on jobstreet posts. Unless I'm going to work in Eastern Europe, India or the US. So I'm still considering whether to pursue my next skill to UI/UX or focus on illustration and icon design. Hm hm hm. 

Based  on the survey, average UX designer's salary across 70 countries is around $57,117 or RM 243,705 per year or ( $4,760 or RM 20,308 per month ). Not bad. I should definitely consider to migrate elsewhere :F

Work Related : I'm a Backpacker by Halian Azurin

Months and months ago, I got a freelance job to do illustrations for upcoming Travelogue Korea by Halian Azurin. As this would be my third time working for a book company but first time to be finally on print, I am super excited :F 

The first one was with PTSone, but I only did the coloring part - they cancelled the whole finished illustrations due to the similarity of every characters T^T but I got full payment nonetheless so I got no complains just frustration. The second one was with Karangkraf, it was for a children book on traditional games in Malaysia - I hired my ex-collegue to do rough sketches for the whole scenes because he worked as a sketchboard artist and he did it super fast. But I never found the book at any the bookstores - it was printed but I just never found it at bookstores. So this is my third and official first time :D

The project started even before I got married, I've been keeping the excitement in secret and I finally got to see the physical copy after so long. Last week I just received the book from them :D Thank you Miss Jann ! It is a nicely detailed book on backpacking in Korea. If you are a fan of travelogue, or will be going to Korea soon, you should try this book.

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I only did some of the illustration parts like : map, clothes, seasons, foods and several more items. It's not much than what I think can be offered, but I'm still excited to combine two of my personal interests : illustration + travel in one project. Hope to get more of this in the future :)

Some examples :

PS : I got a whole lot copies of travelogues in my keeping and this is a nice addition.
Hope you guys will support them as well, you can go to these links to buy it :

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Wesite PTS | Putehpress

You can buy it here : Bookcafe

Buy the e-book here : Im a Backpacker - Korea

Run : Gym and Haze

A week after we bought a Groupon's voucher to unlimited 1-month passes to a gym, we both got sick. It started with 4 days of AF resting and 5 more days of mine. It was awful and I couldn't do anything much other than watching series and movies. 

Now we are both on track again, Tasy included - *because we mentioned to her about the special affordable offer. The haze's condition turned out really bad lately after we thought that it got much better last week. False alarm. All running events got cancelled and postponed. Yesterday : Putrajaya - 184, Bukit Damansara - 178. See, following my instinct on buying the gym's pass for a month instead on joining another running event turned out to be just right. For RM 58, I got to run as many times as I want. 

By now I reached 37 km 46km of running and 11 km 14km of walking in our 3rd week. Not bad, la kan? We got roughly around 10 more days and I'm aiming for reaching at least 50 km of running this month.

+ a week more to go ! should we extend our gym session for now? 

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I also met my ex-chief of editor while lunch 4 days ago. He's in his 50s, quite fit, lean healthy body, got a copy of "What we talk about when we talk about running", used to be an avid runner but got injured - like all avid long distance runners lah kan. He doesn't seem like he regrets his years of intense running, I just remember he said this : "Well, I no longer run these days. I can't.", in 'that' tone. But he goes to the gym now and got himself a trainer to build his muscle. He home-grilled chicken breasts for lunch and maintained his food intakes and he happily said to me; 

"You just need to be a little bit more disciplined with your self and you can. I no longer run, but I still can do other things to train my body."

And when he asked what we had for lunch, and we answered "another unhealthy foods, shame on us", he said :

"You need healthy foods. It's easy you know, just go to the supermarket and buy some chicken breasts, marinate it for a night and grill it in the morning before work. I can do it, you can too".

Since than, I started bringing home-cooked lunch from the previous night's leftovers. 

And put so many tidbits at my table in the office for snacks when I need distraction from my roaring stomach : nuts, raisins, banana, biscuits. Healthy kan? =,= 

Little Stories 209 : Phone Plans

I've been using Maxis since after school. 

I didn't think much about the service, plan or charges because I'm hardly connected pun. So yesterday I went to the Maxis Center to pay my bill. While waiting for her to process my fees, I munched my secret cashew nut supply from my bag and looked at the pamphlets next to me. I saw a 'Lite' plan pamphlet for light user : RM 48 (1 GB internet, 100 minutes talk, 100 sms).

"Can I change my plan?"
"Sure, are you on contract?"
"No".
"Then that's easy, you can just choose a plan and I can change it for you".

And I pointed at the pamphlet. I've been using RM 78 per month plan forever - it consisted of 200mb internet and what-ever it was ages ago. She was even surprised by the existence of the 200mb internet plan and I had to explain to her that it's been years since I look around the current offers. Ppfft, I feel old. 

So she asked for my IC and she clicked and typed things on her keyboard. Several minutes later, I got a notification stated that I changed my plan and also cut the previous broadband line that I subscribed to last year when I was living alone. So, from those 2 lines that I've been paying around RM 140 every months for so long, I finally did what I should do from the start, now I'm starting to pay only RM 48 per month -

Lesson :

1. Even if I'm not really attached with being connected, I should be aware of current plans that they are offering. It is so much cheaper than what I've been paying, I can save A LOT.

2. Ask. 

Tokiyo Trip 12.2 : Kichijyoji

Day 6 : Kichijoji ( Monday ) Part 2

After visiting Ghibli Museum, we walked towards the Inokashira Park right next to the museum. We picked a nice bench overlooking the park and set our lunch packs consisted of several onigiris and our random drink of the day. It was a nice cold breezy afternoon and we saw several young mothers strolling along with their young toddler - the nicest view so far.

There was a young mother following her child, both didn't wear any slippers beneath their feet, playfully spreading their hands taking in the clear air. They walked pass us, her child innocently pointed to the birds around us - those birds were waiting for our rice leftovers. Behind us, there was another young mother with her child. Both sitting on the pathway, pointing and examining little things beneath the beautiful sunlight that shone right at their spot among all the tree leaves roof.  I love those little intimate moments of  a mother-child relationship. 

I thought how refreshing it is, to go out for a short lunch in a park during working hour just to freshen things up after several hours of work. Instead of sitting in my table eating things I tapao from food stalls across the road filled with oil, MSG and god knows what. =.= Right at this point, I am determined to refill my healthy food grocery list. Boo. 

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Anyway, we continue our journey towards Kichijoji right after we cleaned up. There were signs along the pathways so it wasn't so hard to find the way. The park is really big. We found a beautiful secluded shrine on a lake, there was bridges that we can walk on to cross the lake, there were people kayaking and riding the Swan boat, some nice little food stalls, beautiful little dogs, people walking and jogging, random magic performance, a closed-for-the-day local zoo. Things were nice and beautiful, every one looked so serene and calm T^T

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We finally reached the other end of the park and went out to the little shops alley referring to the Tokyo Guide. I stopped by at one of the shop to buy little cat badges with "Tokyo" written on it. There are many arts-and-crafts independent shops in this area. Ohh yes, and we stopped by at Namaste Kathmandu, Nepalese Cuisine for a tea-break Naan Cheese and Mango juice :D

I aimed for Sublo 36 and Pack Mart. And because I was wildly inspired by all these little indie-shop, I took photos of it and illustrated them back. It is almost halfway done - but I can't do it faster lah, the Mac is dying. There are also interesting places like Hara Donuts, Hattifnatt, and Avril. The whole list is in the Tokyo Guide, still up for borrowing purposes :)

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We wished we got more days to explore the city, but the time flew fast. Morning in Mitaka, afternoon in Kichijyoji - it was a great day. We ended the day with taking some pictures in front of Izakaya area and headed back to Ikebukuro.

Ohh, and after we found out about ready-to-eat rice, we bought two packs of it at 7/11 and Lawson to make fried rice that night because the house we rented didn't provide rice cooker. Home made fried rice, fried eggs and a tempura fish from local market. We were that cheap :D 

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Illustration : Etsy, Big Stamp and New Stuffs

New things I ordered for items on my Etsy just arrived during the week I was sick :D 

It was like early christmas presents. 

I sold over 200 items in Etsy since I first open it in 2011, almost reached 500 admirers and 23k viewers all around the world. I never thought it would get that much hits :D The famous items sold in my Etsy are : my Vintage Camera Sticker Pack and Game Boy Sticker Pack that I illustrated some time ago and also Be Strong Sticker that I originally illustrated to help my brother's friend. I got bored with those old stickers and make some new ones but they never really got as many hit as the old ones.

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2 weeks ago I finally ordered custom-made big sized stamp. I thought it would be easy for me to chop-chop-chop all packages with my name on it compared to writing it one-by-one on each envelope/packaging =.= I've been doing that for years. I still personalize each package when I got the time and most of the time, it was out of rush-too-sleepy-too-exhausted-tomorrow-is-workday, so they will be as normal as usual enveloped letter. But now I got this :D

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I also ordered some new printed art-prints for "Be Strong" and "Explore" illustrations. I ran when I saw the Ta-Q-Bin lorry parked in front of my apartment, knowing that it must be those stuffs that I ordered. I really love the glossy printed paper compared to previous fine linen for all my postcards T^T The 'Explore' artprint didn't came as I planned, so I'll stick to my original plan : that is to give it away for people who buy "Explore : Totebag" and Tokiyo Trip Travelogue, if I managed to finish it =.=

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I am still working on completing all characters from Sailormoon series for my next Sailor Soldier Sticker Pack BUT, it might take longer than I hope it would be due to my Mac's condition. I should also consider doing fan-art stickers for : Kiki, Arriety and Chi from Studio Ghibli and also Sakura Kinamoto from Card Captor Sakura :D And to help me buy a new machine to support my never-ending learning process, do buy stuffs from my Etsy.