I Survived?

No. Not officially yet since my lecturer just gave me an additional week to improve it.

Just feel so relief now that the presentation is over. Some burdens that I've been feeling for the last couple of months had just been loaded off. The sleepless nights. The boring weekends spend stuck in the room vectoring and animating. The fear that lecturers won't like my work...

But now its over :D receive some good comments so I AM HAPPY and RELIEF!

And today, I found out that my lecturer(s) actually read my blog. So if you are reading this, HI Miss! Hi Sir!

Okay, i am going off for an early night tonight as I have to wake up in 6 hours for my morning class later. See you soon....

Showreel 2010

Here's the first version of my showreel (one of my professional studies assignment). Will be updating another version soon since this current one is without my final project...

Anyway, do feel free to drop me a line or two of your thoughts and comment about this showreel so I can improve on my next version. :D

Hello Mr Tumour

14 days to death row...... (probably my death row)

one of my characters for my motion graphic animation

At the Brink of Losing It All

Week 12 is coming to an end. I am on the brink of losing all of it already - the passion and motivation to complete my work ..... HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A Good Laugh

did you have a good laugh over the weekend?

I did not. I was practically emo-ing through the whole 2 days.

But last night, I was working on one of the character for my final project when I notice something humourous I did. It really made me LOL and then I feel, all my stress taken away.... (a little) :D

Didn't they say, "Laughter is the best medicine"? Hope this is a great start to a new week for everyone!

Let's keep the positive spirit and hope I don't stress myself out *fingers crossed*

Feeling Lucky

I felt so lucky as if I've just strike a lottery!

Last Friday I was late for my 11am entrepreneurshit (oops! its entrepreneurship) class. But despite that when I reach the campus it is already 11.15am, I did not care and decide to screw the class and went to cash out money from the ATM instead to pay my monthly utility bills.

My uni now have 2 units of ATM machine compare to the time when I first came to the uni, there's only one miserable machine cater to thousands of students. So imagine the queue everyday.... But that morning, there wasn't much difference as one machine was not functioning well cos there's a window error message appearing on the screen. So everyone was queuing up at one machine while leave the error-message machine unattended. Then one girl decide to go there to try her luck and when I saw her successfully manage to cash out money, I switched lane and went to the error-message machine.

And guess what, the money that came out from the machine is actually worth more than the amount I cash out from the account!!!

Yes! I AM SERIOUS! NO JOKE!

Well you see, the RM50 notes that came out from the machine is actually the limited edition notes which value more than RM50. I check online and some websites are even auctioning it out at RM100 and RM200 for each note and some blog say it is value at RM75 each if you bring it back to the bank to change.

Spot the difference?

There's a 50 years Independence Day logo at the top right corner. Rm50 bank note with this logo is supposed to worth more than its value stated as there's only a few thousands copies printed. It has now become a collectors' item.

Ain't I lucky? I really feel I've just strike a consolation prize lottery :D So next time when you cash out money, do check it before you spend, you might never know when is your lucky day :D

My First Interview

Okay... it is not my first work interview but definitely my first work interview for this year and my second interview in this creative industry. This interview is actually part of my class assignment where we will be assessed by the industry guest as well as the lecturer.

I was really nervously-excited over this golden opportunity to be interview by one of the most prestigious agency in this country and not to mention the interviewer happens to be someone who is well respected and super duper experience. So because I was nervous and excited at the same time, I didn't really sleep well the night before so yea...I guess I sort of screw up a bit here and there during the interview.

She asked me questions which I was not prepared for ... and for all the questions that I've prepared and ready for, was not even asked. So imagine ... eileen on her not-enough-sleep state talking.... you will know if you can picture it...My brain wasn't functioning at the speed it is supposed to be and worst of all, I forgot to give her my name card which I spend nearly an hour at the print shop just to get the printing alignment right (not to mention the amount of money there) and I also forgot the common manners of shaking her hands after the interview. sigh :( So yea..I really have no idea how well I did in the interview. Now that I think back, I think I could have done much better.... but well lets hope she keeps me in view.

But at least she likes my CV and some of my designs from my portfolio. Maybe I should take comfort in that and strive to be better in my next interview. Hopefully there will be other new opportunities coming knocking on my door soon ...... *fingers crossed*

the front cover of my CV

the content design layout for my CV

My Lamborghino

After 4-5 days of intense vectoring, finally i've completed the design for the competition......

Front side view

Back side view

Front view

Back view

Top view

I kinda feel i've gayified the car but well....almost 5 days of hardwork there and not to mention the sleepless nights....

In Loving Memories : Aizati Aziz

I stared long and hard at my screen - my desktop.

I couldn't believe what I've just read. 

I re-read the whole twit message, again and again...

Then slowly it sunk in that my favourite, coolest, spunkiest, loving, caring, and humble lecturer have left us... forever....

The lady in the middle is our dear Ms Aizati Aziz. She's petite in size, but don't be fooled by that - she's BIG at heart, a rocker and she rides a Ducati. coolness right? She's the lecturer that love by most, hate by none in my class. 

It was sad enough (for me) when she message a few of us over facebook last week that she's no longer teaching us next semester and her last words  to us were "Rock the world with your talent". My friend and I were even planning to have a farewell dinner/party together for her before the next semester begins. But now, she's gone, forever, to return to her creator. How ironic life can be at times.

She had taught me so much and encourage me to be the person I want to be. She had dared me to dream and go to places I've never thought I could. She continue to give me hope and strength whenever I feel down with my work. She would spend her time to teach me the little things. She never stop injecting her creativity into all of us. She was never selfish in sharing. She was the most humble, kind and down to earth person I've ever met. 

I remember the day I attended a conference with her at KLCC, we talked over meals, shared so many small talks and opinions. I shared with her so many little dreams of mine where she encouraged me and turn those small dreams into bigger dreams - goals in life. She snapped a picture of me with her handphone and told me that she loves taking pics of her students so she could keep them for memories. All these memories seems like it was just yesterday....

I will always remember her for all the fun we had together at KL. The crazy things we did at National Art Gallery such as 

stepping on names....

posing playfully with the boys from the class

and cam whoring with the girls for 2 days....

Thank you Ms Aizati for all the "Eureka" thoughts that you've shared with us. Thank you for being our lecturer for the past 3 semester (how I wish you will be here with us till we graduate). Thank you for all the encouragement you gave us. Thank you for always being so nice and understanding. Thank you for the knowledge. Thank you for your wisdom and creativity. Thank you for taking us out on trips and make our learning experience worthwhile and filled with fun. Thank you for inspiring us in so many different ways. Thank you for being just more than a lecturer to us. 

Last but not least, thank you for all the memories. May you rest in peace Ms Aizati. You will forever be remembered and deeply miss by everyone from BACM5A 2009. (soon to be Class of July 2010) 

My deepest condolence goes to Mr Luqman and family. 

A Smile For Every Moment

I just realize i have not update the blog with assignments from my previous semester. 

So here it is, I am gonna share with you the first project that my group members and I presented to a whole group of special guest who are prominent people from local motion graphics / advertising industry. (*Remember my previous post, 29 hours to go... where I wrote about how anxious, nervous and excited I was for my first presentation of the semester)

For this project, I've team up with under18carbon and pop to form Lucid. Teaming up with both of them is indeed a blessing. Working together on the project has been indeed fun and I really really miss pop's jokes session!

For this project, we are required to rebrand any "Buatan Malaysia" (Malaysian Products) products of our own choice. After a few meetings and discussions, the group finally decide to brand Cupcake Chic because of many reason and the potential for cupcakes to grow among local consumers. Based on our interview with the co-founder of Cupcake Chic and based on our market research on the products, 3 of us came out with a branding solution and a TVC (television commercial).

So here it is :

A Smile For Every Moment from eileen k on Vimeo.

Doing the Impossible

My 5th semester is about to come to an end.. but before that there's the FINALE!

As of from now, I have less than 60hours to create a whole working website from ZERO for a client as my final assignment of this semester!!!

I am starting to feel the impossible since I am still sick since I came back from my short trip back to Penang. 

Nonetheless, since I've promised my lecturer that I will definitely finish the website and present it to the client on Monday, I guess I have no choice but to pour all out till the very last energy I have. 

I meant what I say and promise SO I AM DEFINITELY going to try my very best to accomplish it!

COME ON EILEEN! 60 more hours of hardwork!!!!

FIGHTING!

29 hours to go...

29 hours to go to Lucid's first ever TVC (television commercial) presentation...

anxious, nervous, excited... basically it is a mix of emotions.

Anxious because this assignment is super duper IMPORTANT for this semester. If fail this assignment means fail two subjects out of four subjects. 

Nervous because I am not sure who is(are) our guest judge(s) yet. We might have people from the industry coming in to judge us or we might have a whole group of lecturers from the faculty, we might not.. so... it's pretty scary....

Excited  because one assignment is about to end ... and 2 more to go.... so yea... that's something worth looking forward to.

Wish us luck!!!

Btw, here's a teaser poster :D

1st Presentation

Today is our first presentation to our client - National Kidney Foundation. (we are building a website for them)

Pop and I didn't prepare any speech prior to our presentation....

notice our similarity? our eye-bagS? 

Clients quite like our initial ideas and designs... so there's more work to do now....

HORROR!!

so that are our horrid faces. we only have 4 weeks to complete the whole website.... not to mention there's a 6k words of thesis and a 30sec television commercials too.

Wish us luck!

A Green Dinner

One of my resolution for this semester is to stay healthy and eat more health benefit food. So for today's dinner, these are my ingredients. 

1 green capsicum

Benefits of capsicum 

1. good for the eyesight and smooth skin
2. helps the body ward off infections
3. has antioxidant properties 
4. reduce cholesterol - prevent strokes and heart attacks
5. improves stomach digestion
6. help to speed up metabolism and help burn more calories - good for losing weight (i don't need this. I need to gain weight and add more body fats because i think curves are sexeyyyy)

18-20 lady fingers

Benefits of lady fingers (aka Okra)

1. superior fiber found in Okra helps to stabilize blood sugar
2. helps prevent and improve constipation
3. help to feed the good bacteria (probiotics) - similar to yoghurt
4. good for summer heat treatment - for those feeling weak, exhausted and suffering from depression
5. help to heal ulcer and keep joints limber
6. ideal vegetable for weight loss (again, i don't need this benefit :P)

I add in some garlic, an egg and oyster sauce. Stir friend it and below is the end results. This is my dish for tonight that i ate together with white rice (which is also home cook!)

I just feel so healthy!

The Malaysian Coke Side of Life

Finally I finish my web design 2 final assignment!! That means I am done with Year 2!!! 

WOOHOOO!!

Time really flies. It was as if it was just yesterday that I first step into this university and in just a blink of an eye, I finish my 2nd year of my bachelor programme. :D 

Let's pray I don't fail any of my subject this semester and that means I still have 1 more year to go before I graduate for the second time!

Anyway, here are the print screen of my website. I am not really happy with the whole design but then again, with the time given and the limited ActionScript knowledge, I am just happy that it is done now. The requirements for this assignment is to create a website for a product that incorporates batik designs into it. So I've decide to create a Malaysian coke side of story with some international and a touch of local content and influence. Feedback appreciated. 

This is the main page 

The Malaysian coke design page where it showcase the limited edition design bottles with batik design on it.

This is an upclose of one of the 3 designs I've created. Check out my DeviantArt for more. 

The music page. Very last minute content idea....maybe i should have change it to some local singers... ahahhaa

This is the football page where it has links to the clubs in the Coca-cola Championship UK. 

This is the sequence of the animation for the preloader for the site which i forgot to present to my lecturers during my presentation last Thursday. :(

p/s: the red in the pictures above are a little out of Coke's red because of the image quality I save in. 

Heavenly Delights

For this weekend, I'll be working on my 3d character ChunLi which is slowly driving me insane!!!! (which means more stress and more sugar intake!!)

And Thanks to my brother, my sugar supply for the weekend has been saved by the heaven!!! 

Why? 

Because he sent me a box of heavenly delights!

YES IT'S THE JCO DONUTS!!

He dropped by my university yesterday morning to pass me 10 pieces of donuts and also the mouse that he help me to get from Low Yat! :D

LOVE YOU BRO!!!

Remember the ChunLi that's I've been ranting in my previous post?? Where I mention that I am about to fail? I think I am still at the brink of failing considering the amount of time I have left as well as how slow I model and not to mention applying the texture, skeleton, and animating the walk cycle as well as creating animated expressions! Anyway, here's a few screenshots of my  work-in-progress of it. 

that's the head of the botak Chun Li. She looks like an alien to me :P 

the ear itself has taken me 5 - 6 hours to model it.... 

 

and here's the wireframe of the whole body and the costume. 

I wanted to share with you the model of the body but fear that I might be flag for pornography. =P  So.. its just the wireframe for now ok? 

Hi Ms Gilen

As mention in my previous post, "The Green Devil", I was working on my first CGI movie and today is D-day! The presentation day. It is really all hard work for both Lollipop and I for the whole weekend editing it, and not just that 2 days, those other days spend on filming the green screen has been an uphill task as well. Keying out colours, creating animation and effects, stitching the video, composing and syncing audio are all very hard but in the end, both of us had fun - even when we have to stay up late in front of the computer half asleep editing them. Anyway, I will share the video with you 2 weeks from now after I make a few changes to them as instructed by the lecturers today. 

After the presentation, Lollipop and I decide that we should give ourselves a little reward for all the hard work, so we decide to go to Domino's for pizza - it is the nearest restaurant here in Cyber and both of us were craving for something cheesy. 

I placed my order and the cashier ask for my name and after I pay, they gave me a tag as the receipt - with my name on it. Look below. 

I am Ms Gilen for 45mins today at Domino's Pizza! lol!

The Green Devil

It's Friday night, and the weekends is here once again. Everyone should be rejoicing because its the weekend - no school and no work and that means P-A-R-T-Y!!!! but for me (for the next 3 weeks), weekends are my nightmares! It is not the time to rest, but the time to work, work, and work! 

So here's a sneak peak of what I'm working on tonight, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow!

My first ever CGI movie. 

Thanks to Mr Awe-so-me for being the main cast! You are just simple awesome!!!

Don't expect it to be of Hollywood standard cos I am really running out of time working on so many assignments simultaneously. But I hope, the end product won't be a disappointment like my Multimedia Imaging assignment - where i totally screw up the whole thing in the end. :(

Crossing my fingers and praying and hoping i could stay awake and motivated to finish my work. 

Why you'll love a Mac

Few days ago, I was having a group meeting with my group mates and as usual, we discuss about the progression, the work, the designs and task allocation for each one. 

So, one of my group member wanted to show me the sample files he have downloaded via the internet. So I plug in his pendrive to my mac and open the folder and turn to look at him (as a notion to ask him which file to open). 

friend : "All the files in the folder"

As I was very blur since i have not slept the night before, I have no idea how many files were there in the folder and decide to hit CMD+A+O.

Then right after pressing the O button on the keyboard, I then realise that there were 100+ eps files in the folder!!!!!!!! GOOODNESS GRACIOUS!! 109 files to be exact! and they are not picture files, but .eps files. (if some of you have no idea what eps file formats, they are actually Adobe file formats of vector art specially save for printing and copyright purposes.)

I was no longer sleepy nor blur and i screamed, "WTH? 100 eps FILES??!!! "

 

4 members out of 5 other members in my group who are PC user and supporter had a wicked smile and wide grin spread across their face and was so eagerly waiting to see my Mac crash as my mac opens up Adobe Illustrator (a heavy application just like photoshop) so that we could view the files. 

and to their dismay, my mac manage to open up all the 109 files and I can even do an expose of all the files and we were able to view 100 files in small thumbnails and it makes them go "WOW!"

WICKED! 

Anyway its Monday again, and I am 4 weeks shy from freedom ( initially its supposed to be 3 more weeks, but since the lecturer decide to extend another week of my semester, I still have 4 more weeks to go)

So everyone, remember to drink more water, stay away from public places if you can and wash your hands more often as swine flu is already here in Malaysia. Take care and may you have a good and productive week!

just another tear drops

dilemma...

I've been told by my lecturer that there will be a Nokia mobile app competition and she would like to know if I am interested to join. At first, I am quite excited about it, since its Nokia and a few coursemates of mine are selected by the lecturers as well. I thought it is going to be interesting to work with them, then she said, "I would prefer you guys (I am the only girl there) to work in pairs and one programmer from the IT faculty will be assign to each group." 

me: -.- (joy fades a little)

Then the lecturer continues, "This competition will be due in July. So all of you will need to stay back here during the semester break. If you wan to go back hometown, you still can - on weekends or depending on the project.. but you have to be here to work on the project since this is a group thing"

me: -.-  (joy totally fades away..................)

I am NOT a Nokia fan and I hate Nokia phones but working on a project for Nokia sounds tempting, and it will be real good opportunity and good for portfolio. But then when I think about my mom, I am really reluctant to join. I've been thinking over it for 2 nights over this matter, and wondering should I talk to her about it,and how do I talk to her about it or should i just forget about this.

Then she called me just as I am blogging this. So in the end, I decided to talk to her about it since I have to let the lecturer know about my decision by tomorrow. And I regret for telling her about it. 

So I told her about the competition and that I might not be able to go back in June til late July or I might not be able to go back at all and I am still not sure about all this - if i am joining anot. Then she sounded real sad and disappointed. And she said something that makes me feel really bad and my heart aches so much, "A lot of relative came all the way from Ipoh for a day to visit me. But I don't know about my daughter. Does she loves me? She don't miss me wan meh?"

GOd! that's the last thing i want to hear from her and it is making me emo more considering the amount of work I am stressing over right now. I am as heartbroken as she is hearing her say that to me. If i don't care about her, I wouldn't even talk to her about it in the first place and wanting to hear her thoughts about it. If i don't love her, I wouldn't be feeling so bad about not going back to Penang during my semester break and would have decide to join the competition without second thoughts.... If you know me well, you will know that when I set my heart to something, nothing can stop me but this time around, I did consider about her and her thoughts. 

Don't get me wrong, I am not angry of my mom. I am just angry of myself for telling her and even considering not to go back for holidays that makes her sad. I am an unfilial daughter.  

So i guess, it's been decided then.... I AM NOT JOINING.............