Gum paste!

As you all know, I have very very little experience with sweet foods, especially cakes and pies. The sweetness just... kills me. I guess I have very great sensitivity to sugar, but even then, I think US cakes are just over-sweetened.

The point is... I didn't know what fondant and gum paste were until some time early this semester. I didn't even know of the differences. All I know is that it's all sugar and ingredients that can kill a person with diabetes.

Cloud Strife's (FF7) head...?

I used yellow coloring for the hair, and orange for the face. That was my first time dealing with gel food coloring. I was surprised that I could get just the right amount of coloring for both the hair and the face. For the hair, all it took was one very quick dip into a drop of yellow gel, and for the face, it took one dot of orange using a toothpick.

Massage the gum paste with fingers greased with vegetable oil until the gum paste became smooth.

The trick is to handle everything very quickly. Once the gum paste goes dry, it will become very brittle and that's when things just go wrong.

For the hair, I rolled the gum paste to three sets of  sheet with 2mm thickness. And then I cut each sheet into oval shapes using a plastic knife. Once done, stack the three sheets on top of one another and align the hair based on your instinct (LOL).

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Another randomness pulled

Boredom. Yes. Well, not exactly. I just need something that is not related to school work or research or science. And here we go again!

I've been drafting this a long time ago, when I was waiting for my next class to start. I didn't think that I would actually draw it properly!

Aand.. I'm thinking of changing my blog title. Luzzy Central sounds lame. I mean, no one knows who Luzzy is. So after much thinking, I'm going to change it to "AB-type Randomness" simply because there is going to be more random stuffs coming up. I even think that the bentos I designed are part of my silly creativity that needs to be vented somehow, somewhere. LOL.

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Distant World Final Fantasy Concert @ Chicagoland

Back from Rosemont Theater!

The first Distant World concert I've attended was at Minneapolis, and it was a VIP seat. This time, it wasn't a VIP seat (it's too expensive!), but I feel that this concert was 100 times better than the concert at Minneapolis.

There are so many world premierre songs played at Rosemont Theater. Here's the program:

1st half:
Prelude (FF)
Fithos Lusec Wecos Vinosec (FF 8)
Winning Theme - World Premierre (FF)
At Zanarkand (FF 10)
Don't Be Afraid (FF 8)
Ron Faure (FF 11)
Distant World ~ Memoro de la Stono (FF 11)
Love Grows (FF 8)
Swing de Chocobo (FF)
Melodies of Life - World Premierre (FF 9)
Fisherman's Horizon (FF 8)
J-E-N-O-V-A Remix - World Premierre (FF 7)

Intermission

2nd part:
Bombing Mission (FF 7)
FF 7 Main Theme (FF 7)
Suteki da ne - World Premierre (FF 10)
Aerith's Theme (FF 7)
Dancing Mad - World Premierre (FF 6)
Kiss Me Goodbye - World Premierre (FF 12)
Theme of Love (FF 4)
The Man with the Machine Gun (FF 8)
Medley: .... Twilight, Beneath the Bloody Borders - World Premierre (FF 14)
Terra's Theme (FF 6)
One Winged Angel Advent Children version - World Premierre (FF 7 AC)
Winning Theme
ENCORE: One Winged Angel Advent Children version (FF 7 AC)


English version of Suteki Da Ne. Yes... that sounds really awkward. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of the English version. The phrase "suteki da ne" is kept in the song, but the rest of the lyric was translated. Well... they keep the meanings close, but it sounded really really weird after years listening to the original Japanese version of that song.

Melodies of Life and Kiss Me Goodbye (both are in English) wasn't well sung either. :(

And lastly J-E-N-O-V-A. I was very very very excited when Arnie announced that song, but as I hear the beginning of the song... it was horrendous. The remix didn't have the vibrancy - it didn't make you feel that you are in the middle of a battle. It gets much better in the middle, but I had been disappointed with how the song was started.

Of course, One Winged Angel blasted the whole concert. I didn't expect it to be in Advent Children's version - they have Chicago Mages, comprising of 2 electric guitarists, to hype up the song. Brilliant!

Another surprise Arnie and Nobuo told us at the end of the concert was that the second CD of Distant World is going to be recorded next January, and will be on sale next summer!

Distant World tour is going to continue even next year, and for sure, they will come back again to Chicago in July. Something to look forward to? Of course!

Photos (and perhaps videos?) will follow soon.

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Boredom during work

I managed to cram my lunch time working on this:


Okay, damn, it wasn't supposed to be like this. I only made the silhouette of Cloud's head up till the neck, and then suddenly I became too lazy to draw his torso. I wanted to create some borders around him, but ended up using the wrong preset brush because I was too lazy to draw it manually, and... Cloud's wearing a feathery Chocobo costume! =.=;

Cloud, I'm so sorry I turned you into a disgrace.


Well, it's supposed to be like this:


It's unfinished. But, yeah, it's supposed to be like this... In the end I used a normal brush to draw those details manually. My right index finger was kinda burned by my laptop's touch pad. My laptop gets heated pretty easily nowadays.

Oh well. It's quite fun to draw this without a tablet pen xD

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DISSIDIA potion

Last December I went to Japan on transit. Since I didn't dare to go as far as taking train to Shibuya or somewhere else, I went to Aeon Mall to kill time.



That was JUSCO, Japan's hypermart. It was a really really really good decision to land there :) I found lots of DISSIDIA potions!

Thanks to the new rules of not allowing liquids brought from outside into the airplane, I had to dig a hole in my stomach to finish 4 cans of the potions before entering Japan's immigration. Yup. Just for the sake of bringing them home.

So... how does the potion taste like?

As you probably know, there are two types of cans: Cosmos (the white cans) and Chaos (the black cans). Cosmos cans contain something like lemonade, while Chaos cans contain carbonated grape juice. I personally like Chaos ones better, since the Cosmos ones taste a little bland to me.


I managed to take a photo of what's inside the Chaos can. It should look a little more purplish than the one shown in the photo above.

For something that costs 198 yen, it's a rather expensive can of soda. As far as I remember, a normal can of soda costs only 98 yen. Thus, 198 yen is more than double of a normal soda can. What's obvious here is that any retarded Final Fantasy fans (like me) would buy it even though it's pretty expensive, just because the can has pictures of DISSIDIA characters.

But I think it's okay to spend a little more money to have a little more fun :P

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FF Distant Worlds at Minneapolis

I didn't buy the program booklet (costs $30), so I can't really remember the order, but as far as I can remember, here it is:

1st half:

Liberi Fatali - FF 8
Don't Be Afraid - FF 8
To Zanarkand - FF 10
Bombing Mission - FF 7
Ronfaure - FF 11
Fisherman's Horizon - FF 8
Aerith's Theme - FF 7
Medley - FF 1-3

2nd half:
Dear Friends - FF 5
Vamo' alla Flamenco - FF 9
Swing de Chocobo - FF Series
Memoro de la Stono Distant Worlds - FF 11
Opera "Maria and Draco" - FF 6
Terra's Theme - FF 6
One-Winged Angel - FF 7

Anyone who spots the mistake in the program list, please help me fix them! :)

Liberi Fatali was a really splendid choice as the opening song. Since I was sitting with my brother at the orchestra pit (the front most row), the sound quality was at the best. I could hear the slightest, softest tones produced. It was really awesome there! I could see Nobuo Uematsu and Annie Roth really closely, too! Well, only one thing I kinda regretted: I couldn't see the entire orchestra and the screen behind them.

These songs left the best impressions in me: Liberi Fatali, Don't Be Afraid, Swing de Chocobo, and Memoro de la Stono - Distant Worlds. I love FF 7 songs, but this time they were not as magnificent as I thought it would be. One-Winged-Angel and Bombing Mission are still my all-time favorites, but somehow they lacked the energy during the concert.

Also, this was the first time hearing the English version of Darkness and Starlight (which is the Opera "Maria and Draco"). They meanings are pretty similar to the Japanese version. It was pretty surprising. In fact, I like it. The trio who sang the opera had splendid voice. The one who sang Ralph's part has a really deep and enchanting voice. I love it!

The Final Fantasy Medley was also noticable, but since I have been hearing it a lot of times in my 2002:2002 Concert CD, I didn't really think it was that awesome. But still.. I love it :)

Other than the songs... I went to the Meet and Greet with Nobuo Uematsu! Paid extra $25 for the chance to take a photo and get his signature on my FF goods. A lot of people brought their game CDs and books. Some just bought the Distant Worlds CD ($20), the official T-shirts ($20) and the posters (I can't remember the price since I didn't really want to buy the poster) and had them signed.

I had my FF VI Piano Collection, FFVII AC Original Soundtrack and FF 2002:2002 Concert music CDs signed. I also had the official T-shirt signed at the back! Yay!

Will post some photos and videos soon :)

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