Last night my sis and I went to emily-chans house for a little get-together we had planned sort of last minute. Thats usually the way it works, much to my mothers dismay lol. Anyway, we made onigiri (spelling?), which is basically rice balls. They were wonderful! Well, emily-chan's was because she had made them before. You see in order to make onigiri you have to cook the rice and then make it into a ball (or any shape you prefer) when the rice is still very very VERY hot. First you dip your hands in salt water so the rice doesn't stick to your hands. That would have been fine except for I had shaved some skin off of my finger two days ago in an attempt to stuff two floor mats into my work's dishwasher. Yes, I cut myself on a dishwasher. That's how prone to injury I am. So anyway, after 30 seconds or so, the cut began to sting from the salt water. Then the hot-as-hades rice added to the pain as it burned my hand. I ended up doing more tossing with the rice rather than rolling it lol, yelling "HOT HOT HOT!" as I did. I got hot rice everywhere. I'm sure you can imagine the spectacle. Emily-chan and my sis sure got a giggle out of that one. They laughed even harder when they saw my finished product: a sorry excuse for a lump of rice spread all over the plate lol. Oh well, I had a lot of fun eating it, and I chuckle inside when I think about how I must have looked making my sad little rice ball lol. Onigiri is now one of my new favorite foods, but I think I'll leave it up to someone else to make it next time. .
On a different note, I also looked at some of emily-chan's art books. She somehow acquires all of these amazing art books that not only show you how the pros color their pictures, but also a lot of pictures by different and random artists from Japan (mostly). They are really quite inspiring. I found myself liking all the odd and more simple ones. Don't get me wrong, the detailed ones and colorful ones are incredible, I envy the artists who can draw and color like that. However, to me, most of them are just a pretty picture. What my eyes really got attracted to were the weird ones. Not the weird, dark ones, but just the weird ones. Pictures that were something more than the skanky elf princess fighter or the innocent little angel with the blonde/pink hair. One of the artists that really popped out was one named Shunpei. He is extremely hard for me to find, but I am in love with his art. It's incredibly unique.
The art is very inspiring to me because I want to aspire to make original and unique art with the very "cliche" style of drawing characters that I have. I have been considering this for a while, and hopefully I can come out with some of my attempts soon. The first one was my Psalm 1:1-3 picture I think, anywhoo, most of my inspiration is coming from fashion magazines (surprise surprise), Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Hana Kimi, and now Shunpei. I'll be on the lookout for other artists though.
Sorry to put you all through such a long post! Here's a Shunpei picture that I managed to find enjoy!
[The uploader won't upload the Shunpei pic I found for you guys, so I'll try to post it on my Humorists section.
Have fun Otaku-ing!!!!!