Tama

[tamaoldarchive]

Jellyfish prince 

[tamaoldarchive]

Precious boi

[tamaoldarchive]

Sorry for the inactivity. Last semester of my final year in school is more stressful than I thought... so here's to rushing out xmas gifts while juggling with projects @@"

[tamaoldarchive]

Let's dance~ My MU with Hinoka! I've been wanting to do a couple fan art of them together and I was doing some practise with dance poses, so why not?

[tamaoldarchive]

Getting back into trad art...

[tamaoldarchive]

Departures

It was time for the last postmortem where we pitch our progress/ prototype to our OIC. It was kinda stressful for me because I didn't prepare a lot to say, and I didn't have much to say either. I tried so hard to think of something positive to say but in the end I just forgot everything. Somehow I made it through and that was finally over @@"" The very final week of my stay! It has been a long journey of ups and downs, but I really amm gonna miss this place so much... Especially with my new found friends. A final outing to the cafe Went to grab lunch on my own, this was pretty ok Receipts for the past 12 weeks?! And a sweet looking mushroom which I know would kill me if I ate it... I doodled something to pass on to my dorm mate who would be coming back after her holidays, and also a message to new dormates haha! It was time to leave... goodbye! Kajaani was really great, tbh Reaching Helsinki! We had 9 hours to tour around Helsinki before our flight, so we had some lunch! Soooo good! I had a craving for ice cream and my friend probably did too Walking around... We tried some SG HotWok just to compare the quality! Not bad but there's so much bean sprouts that you can't really find the kuey teow :X Time to go back! Waiting on the floor because... there was no seats left to rest. AND SOON I WAS BACK IN SINGAPORE! WOOTS! CHOWDER!~~~ (neighbourhood cat) My friend came to visit too so we went out for dinner together. I also passed her a gift.... This concludes my exchange programme at Finland. I've learnt so much and I've experienced even more. I got closer with my friends and made new ones too. Time to take a break... and probably head down to the arcade again.

FIN

(WEEK 12) 22ND AUGUST - 28TH AUGUST 2016

[tamaoldarchive]

Running out of time

Back at Kajaani, I was finally assigned a task I knew I could do well in. GUI! I was really worried that they would not assign me this task earlier as the art director was too busy with the animations and the other artist had left already. Their plan was to work on te GUI in the last week... and I was deeply worried for the progress of the game project. The team was usually missing someone every week and havingthe whole team being together and communicating was quite seldom. Also, the school lunches opened again so we didn't have to prepare cold food anymore! yay! In town, there was an Italian fair, so we've decided to head down for a short while. We bought some toffee and chocolate chuuros. Pretty good~ One of the store managers and I conversed in french for a while because I thanked him in french. It was awkward because I could understand some words but not enough to form a full sentence to reply.So when he asked in french if I could speak, I immediately told him that I was pretty bad (un peu). Haha, really awkward conversation but I guess that french module paid off here I guess-- During the weekend, my friend and I went cafe hopping to taste all of the cakes and drinks in town (no regrets) One of my dorm mates was actually leaving for a holiday, so she wouldn't be able to send us off when we leave next week. So, my friend hosted a pancake party and it was greattttt~ That's all for this week, next blog will wrap up the whole trip hopefully!

END

(WEEK 11) 15th AUGUST - 21ST AUGUST 2016

[tamaoldarchive]

SANTAAAAAAA (PART TWO)

Day 2 of our trip to Rovaniemi, we woke up pretty early to grab our free breakfast buffet. Simple yet filling! We then took a cab down to Santa Claus Village as the bus services started quite late and we were short on time that day. When we reached, it was the best feeling ever!!! Tough there were a lot of construction in preparations for Winter, I think it still was amazing!! The drizzle felt like small pellets of snow, almost too light to even notice. Like mist :O We immediately went souvenir shopping, and we found bear meat!!! It was super expensive though so we didn't buy it in the end... After that, I noticed that there was a small path further into the shop, and it was so magical, I WAS SCREAMING ON THE INSIDE. I love this place so much already, and just when I thought it can't get any better, I MET SANTA CLAUSSSS!? I SAT RIGHT NEXT TO HIM AND WE HAD A GOOD CHAT ABOUT WHERE WE CAME FROM AND FINLAND LIFE STUFF. WE EVEN TOOK A PICTURE TOGETHER Me and my friends weren't willing to buy the photographs but the elf was nice enough to let us take a pic with our phones instead lol. Once we stepped outside, we noticed that there was this line on the ground? My dutch friend explained that that was the Artic Circle, and when we crossed it we would be in the North Pole! Not sure if it was just in my head, but when we crossed it, it did feel much colder than before :X Quiet town... Our "tour guide" lead us to a Husky Park! It was so exciting to be able to get close with some puppies and huskies!!! It was kinda disappointing to see them all in cages, and we didn't really hug them too but it was nice to pet them (secretly) After another long shopping spree, we went back to town to hunt for an indian food store we have been eyeing for a long time. I was really sad that they were closed when we arrived so we went to have chinese food instead.... We then went to the nearest shopping mall to look for some discounted items which we couldn't get the day before. And so we ended our trip there. It was really fun and we got to hang out more with the other international students as well! I would totally come back here again in the Winter...

END

(WEEK 10) 8th AUGUST - 14TH AUGUST 2016

[tamaoldarchive]

The real challenge (PART 1)

This week was a trip from hell and out, having to juggle 2 games at a go, there was definitely a lot of pressure. Me and two other friends from Singapore signed up for the Splash Awards for fun before we left, and soon we were close to the deadline of the submission of the actual prototype. Being a solo artist was hard, and it was stressful making all the visuals and decisions alone without much guidance. Nonetheless we pulled off a working prototye in about a week, after much restless nights. I thank that the sky doesn't set as early as in SG, I would have just fallen asleep once the moon was out... So, because of Splash Awards, I had to jeopardise some time during work for one day or two to finish it up. It was to the point I wasn't feeling well but had to continue doing work at home. I managed to pick up from where I left off and the tasks for the week was done. The Singaporean students planned t go out of town again, this time to Rovaniemi; the home of Santa Claus~ (We went to the same train station so I took the chance to show off the cool locked piano at the station~) We planned to stay there for a night, and hotel bookings would be cheaper in a large group. So, we decided to ask some of our dorm mates to follow us too! They were recent dorm mates who just moved in from Latvia and Netherlands. I got to know them pretty well before the trip so most of the time it wasn't too awkward. We had some troubles finding places to go and places to stay other than at the Santa Claus Village, but with some help from one of our friends all's well! So, we tanked through a 6 hour train ride to our destination~ Everyone sure was excited for the museum excursion lol The museum featured the history of Finland, Rovaniemi and the other towns. It illustrates the lifestyle and cultures of the people in the early 20th centuries, and even way back in the early 15th century where the alaskans and mongolians used to live. It dabbles into WWI~WWII, how people survived and how the livelihood evoulved. Exhibits on display We invaded a children's creativity corner, can you spot my doodle? :P Beautiful traditional mongolian costumes, such attention to details! After and insightful tour and some souvenir shopping, we had a pretty fancy dinner at a local sushi restaurant. Super fresh. We then checked into our "hotel" apartment. It was meant for the 7 of us! Super cozy to be honest, I was quite amazed~ That concludes our first day in Rovaniemi. More to come in the next post~

END

(WEEK 10) 8th AUGUST - 14TH AUGUST 2016

[tamaoldarchive]

Autumn is coming

It’s the first week of Autumn! Right off the bat, it feels wayyy colder than the week before. Progress at work is as usual, but I finally have better constructive feedback to work with. I'm pushing it this week so that I can wrap it up and move on to other components for the prototype. Also, another friend sent me some small gifts! I was so happy!! Look at the lovely wax stamp~ This week I went out for some alone time, so I got myself some pizza :p Also, a friend of mine contacted us and said that our group made it into Splash Awards Stage B! Time to look forward to a week without rest.

END

(WEEK 9) 29TH JULY - 4TH AUGUST 2016

[tamaoldarchive]

ADVENTURES

Woke up to a misty morning, looked like I just entered a zombie apocalypse of some sort.... The skies were also really pretty here, did I mention that before? The Singaporean students and I have been thinking for a while to head out of town to explore more parts of the country, and one of those places was Oulu! This was Kajaani's train station. The interior is so pretty! They even had a piano at the corner (I didn't take a good enough photo to show it here) We were a little early, so we've decided to take a break at the station cafe Train arriving~ Train cabin I totally see a llama in the clouds please tell me you see it too Oulu! Our first stop was to the market. The scenery is so differen from Kajaani, and there's definitely way more people here.

We had our lunch at one of the stalls, I had the triple meat combo (Reindeer, Moose and Pork). I loved everything except for Reindeer meat, it just tastes like fish??? After that, we went inside the Market Hall where we found more shops and cafes~ We had pretty good strawberry shortcakes, it was totally worth! After a bt of shopping, we headed towards Oulu castle. Unfortunately it did drizzle a little but we walked it off. Let's say.... Oulu Castle wasn't what we expected... We kinda ran out of time to do anything else, and most of the shops were closed too so we just walked around the town a bit more. Finally, we grabbed our tickets again and we headed back home~ Overall the trip to Oulu was great, seeing new places and spending time with friends was what made it so memorable. I'll end this off with me stalking a hare outside of my window.

END

(WEEK 7) 25TH JULY 2016 - 31ST JULY 2016

[tamaoldarchive]

Is it Christmas already?

A while back I complained to my friend about how I brought over two non-functional adaptors and she agreed to help me order one from home! My mum also arranged to send me stuff that I liked from home too and they all came in the same week ;w;///

I was also surprised with a card from home and a gift from another friend who sent it together with the adaptor. There was so much I don' think I could finish them haha!

Anyways, work was managable as usual, I've been doing the same task for almost 3 weeks now and there's not much complaints from the team. I hope what I am doing will be fine in the game as well.

Outside of school, our friends arranged a bowling session on the weekends! This was my second time playing bowling, so I was pretty unsure of what I was doing @@"""" I was reluctant to go because I also felt a little emotionally exhausted but I decided to go anyways. In the end, I did enjoy my time quite a bit, with a few embarassing moments here and there...

Oh, also they were broadcasting a documentary about the popularity of cat vines on the TV next to ours. HAHA!

Untill next time, cheers!

END

(WEEK 6) 18TH JULY 2016 - 24TH JULY 2016

[tamaoldarchive]

Taking it slow...

After being here for a while I do notice that my pace of living had kinda slowed...? I do enjoy what I do more and I feel that I have more freedom and time to savour the moments. The weather is starting to get cooler as well, so walks are so much more enjoyable these days.

So because of that, I felt like my focus on work has improved, but I feel more unmotivated as I continued to work with my team. They all look so tired and bored of their work and the unfriendliness of the environment made it even more uncomfortable in general. I really could do a beter job but the scope of the game and what the team planned to achieve at the end wasn't properly established, so I continued to force myself to push out decent works.

Don't get me wrong though, the past few weeks they have been working prety hard and paying attention to details a lot... and that's what I feel drags them away from looking at the whole scope as a whole. Everyone is just doing thei work for the sake of dong it to make it as polished as possible. Maybe I don't see what they see in the game, but I wished we could settle the production pipeline and schedule proper. I wanted to be able to hear truly what the producer wants out of this game and from us because I could tell she was holding back.

Le Sigh

END

(WEEK 5) 11TH JULY 2016 - 17TH JULY 2016

[tamaoldarchive]

RUINED

I forgot to mention! The school canteen closed after the 29th of June, so we had to prepare our own lunches. I had no idea we had a pantry... so for the past few days I had been eating cold food which I prepared in the morning ;w;"""

I stopped eating lunch with my team as they had their own plans, and it was more fun eating with friends whom I interacted with a lot more.

Work progress is pretty decent, I started on Armour designs for the main character... and it was problematic. I had no idea how the main character looked like as the art director decided to settle that after she was done with the animation roughs for the characters. It was pretty hard to design them to fit the environments as well since there was little reference as to how the actual environments looked like. The team was also quite slow on giving feedback, with some just glancing at my messages and not giving any reply. When I did get a reply though, there wasn't much contrusctive feedback, so I thought that it was ok. At the end of the week I would have done at least 12 designs and not have one confirmed for further production. I would have o just touch up on whatever I had at that week.

Besides that, the Singaporean students and I went around the Castle Ruins while they played Pokemon Go (LOL). I brought out my sketchbook to sketch for a while, but I underestimated the weather and it got way to uncomfortably cold to continue drawing.

That's all for now, 'till the next post!

END

(WEEK 4) 5TH JULY 2016 - 11TH JULY 2016

[tamaoldarchive]

Explorations

I’ve been assigned to a new task at work, which is to work on concepts and final profile shot of all the weapons to be featured in the playable prototype. At this point I still feel that the team has no idea what they want to achieve in this Summer period and I worry for the producer, who had little knowledge on how to lead the team and was unsure of what she wanted exactly out of the game, let alone what she wanted to show by the end of it all. In the end, I’ve just decided to dedicate as much passion and effort as I could so that they do not have to babysit me in any way.

Right then, I felt that the team has bit off more than they could chew, focusing on mechanics that might not be able to be pulled off, lack of communication and schedule. I felt as lost as them I don’t know where to start.

Besides that, I have a good time bonding with the other Singaporean students. We went around the town market and bought some awesome mini salmon to snack on with some Subway sandwiches~

We couldn’t finish it, so I took it home and heated it up for dinner.

A few months back, I’ve decided to join a July watercolour challenge! I had the time to do something detailed during the weekend.

July watercolour month Day 1! I rushed this out and it's only the first day 😂😂😂 I'm trying to get back to using watercolours so my methods are kinda rusty. Hope this month I can see more improvements! #watercolour

A photo posted by BaraBear (@tamachandraws) on Jul 1, 2016 at 1:34pm PDT

That's all for this week, I will try to experiment and learn more next week.

END

(WEEK 3) 29TH JUNE 2016 - 4TH JULY 2016

[tamaoldarchive]

Making New Friends

It's been a week, but nothing interesing or challenging happened yet in school. It was too laid back at work, I already miss the stressful busy life in NYP (does that sound realy weird? lol)OH but the workspace is pretty rad, but man is the ventilation poor >____>

The past 2 weeks I did participate in some student arranged parties, and to be honest they weren’t so bad. On Friday, we had a BBQ party, but we didn’t have any food to offer so we quickly ran down to the nearest supermarket to buy some biscuits and sausages, in case they prepared a lot of food before hand. In the end, we just sat around in a circle with 3 other Finnish students and chatted. It was really awkwar dto converse with the other students as they had their own clique and some don’t quite speak English very well, so it was hard to approach or converse with them. The Finnish students that we chatted with were super friendly, and soon we enjoyed talking and joking with each other while we found out more about each other’s cultures and educational systems. 

Ths week, my dormmate from a neighbouring apartment invited people over to her party. I’ve also decided to spend my Friday night there, to hopefully get my mind off how much I dread the lack of work to do. I’ve cooked up some fried rice, and I’m glad that they think it doesn’t taste weird :X

I met people from Thailand, Spain, Russia, Vietnam, Finland... it was a small party but it was pretty fun and we all had a great time! I felt emotionally exhausted still but being able to talk and open up about being a little homesick and hearing their experiences had made me feel better and put a positive light to the trip.

Ok, so I know I’m not supposed to drink a lot while I was here, but I felt kinda awkward and I guess I should try it out at least once. So I asked my new found friend how people should drink wine. That was when I found out it wasn’t y kind of thing... but it was an interesting experience nonetheless. 

So ye.... this week didn’t end up too bad I guess...

END

(WEEK 2) 20TH JUNE 2016 - 26TH JUNE 2016

[tamaoldarchive]

From HEL to KAJ

After such an exciting experience the day before to a just as exciting day the next day, we’ve made it to Kajaani! The plane there was short but definitely tiring. We grabbed our luggage and was greeted by Veli-Pekka, our Officer In-Charge of our participation in the exchange. We exchanged greetings and made our way to the campus dormitories. There, we were introduced to our new home. I loved how spacious the rooms were, the long study tables we had and that sweet, sweet personal fridge. (Hel yeah) Right after that, we were brought out to the school campus to meet our soon-to-be producers of our teams. We gathered in an auditorium where 4 other game producers came and pitched their game ideas to us. We were then allowed to chat with them and decide who to join. I’d say this was where my experience went downhill. I was pretty interested in two teams, but I’ve decided to go for a safer option. The game idea that convinced me to join their team was an unnamed solarpunk project; a 2D Strategy and Action game set in a dystopian future. A fight against a corrupt government and its people… Unique selling point being its visuals… Sounds cool, so that’s why I decided to join. Kinda. By then, I started to feel quite exhausted. Before we got to work though, one of the student tutors brought us to the cafeteria to have lunch. Finally, a break after such a long morning! The lunches are definitely different from home. They serve a buffet-style menu where you can take as much as you can for a base price. There were other vegetarian options and desserts you can buy separately too. Students get quite a discount compared to visitors. It is pretty affordable and worth it, really. After lunch, we head back to work. I had my first meeting with my team… And I was confident I knew what I was doing. So a few days passed and soon it was friday. I didn’t really make a good connection with my team, I tried to talk but I just can’t relate or think of anything to say. Besides, they seemed more interested in talking amongst themselves, so I didn’t bother to say anything most of the time. This caused me to feel homesick immediately. I couldn’t focus because I was so awkward among my finnish team AND my singaporean friends. I couldn’t find anyone to talk to or to relate to. I wanted to contact someone but I didn’t feel like affecting people with my negative feelings. So, I kept most of it to myself. Thankfully, I did get to know a few of my dormates. They were Thai students whom were familiar with the school and town so they helped to make the environment friendlier and living in Kajaani felt more managable. For the most part. I had some troubles in the weekend but I decided to share all of what happened with my good friend. I took her advice of trying to communicate better and keeping my mind busy with other positive things instead of the negative ones. So I did. The homesickness didn’t go away, it just became more managable. We had dinner with the Thai peeps! It was not bad. Sorry this blog became so personal and long winded. Hopefully more positive posts in the future.