https://www.instagram.com/p/B_B2O4bFiZC/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_Eea2AFWpy/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_kb9LGJJjb/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
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https://www.instagram.com/p/B9A7C7YldgJ/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
https://www.instagram.com/p/B8pf_f2Frn9/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
Since I left New York so suddenly, I didn’t get to say proper goodbye. During the past week quarantined at home in Taiwan, I thought back a lot on my life in New York and decided to make a bunch of art reflecting those time.
This is where I lived for 4 years in Brooklyn:
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_Eea2AFWpy/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
https://www.instagram.com/p/B_B2O4bFiZC/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
WebToon is like comic or manga, but its format is very specific to how we scroll images across screens (computers, phones, tablets).
The project is actually going to be a continuation of a previous project. I had the intention of publishing on WebToon a couple years ago but school work and other work got in the way so I had to put the project on hold. I had the characters, settings and plot completely planned out and had the pencil draft of at least one season done. There are about 25 episodes and the entire season took up about three sketchbooks.
All I need to do now is refine those pencil drafts and turn them into fully colored digital drawings (lighting, shadows, special effects, speech bubbles. etc.) for publishing on WebToon. To publish one episode on a weekly basis, I’ll have to finish 3 episodes in advance before I publish the first one. To actually earn money on WebToon, I need to have 1000 subscribers before I can apply for an ad revenue sharing program (https://www.webtoons.com/en/creators101/makemoney (連結到外部網站。)) . I already have a small fan base on Instagram so I will start advertising about this upcoming WebToon on my Instagram while working on it.
This project shouldn’t cost me a lot of money because I don’t need to purchase any equipment or art supply. However, it will take up a lot of my time and energy, as I will be doing this in my spare time (outside of school and work). Estimating how much time it would take for me to finish one episode according to how fast I work, I would say it may take about 2 to 3 days to finish 1 episode – that includes eating, sleeping, resting and slacking off every once in a while, which should be plenty of time if I am publishing on a weekly basis. Therefore, If I was doing this for someone else, I would say the project costs at least $500 for each episode.
Besides the drawing, since I have both Chinese-speaking and English-speaking readers, I will have to translate the comic by myself and publish the two versions separately. Again, if I was doing this for someone else, the translation and editing itself would cost another $100 per episode.
If I get to finish the first three episodes and publish the first episode before May, I can start working on the rest 22 episodes. And if I can publish one episode every week, the last episode of the season should be published before September.
Also, I ended the season with a cliffhanger that is satisfying enough as an ending but also keeps the reader look forward to a second season, so I can always go back to this WebToon series after I finish publishing the first season.
https://www.instagram.com/p/B-6gmgZl7gh/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link
You can see why I want neon orange
The 2018 exhibition of the Costume Institue was held at The Met, featuring the connection between modern fashion and medieval arts and Catholic elements. The exhibition is up for around 5 months from May 10th, 2018 to October 8th, 2018.
As the introduction at the entrance to the exhibition says, most of the designers of the costumes displayed were raised with Catholic backgrounds. Even though “their current relationships to Catholicism vary”, I found a very obvious consistency across the costumes, in terms of the style. All of the costumes, at least the ones I saw, have this very Catholic feeling to them. From this, I could tell how influential their religious backgrounds were to these designers.
The more casual costumes are all rather conservative, they do define the contour of the wearers’ bodies very well – most of them are rather tight and fit, but there isn’t much exposing of the wearers’ skin.
Then there were the more cermonial ones, like bridal dresses.
This one shown below is an autumn/winter wedding dress.
“The three pilasters depicting trumpet-blowing angels by the workshop of Giovanni Pisano provide the context for this wedding dress by Yves Saint Laurent. It’s angelic ‘wings’ echo those of the John Galliano wedding ensemble also in this gallery. Like Galliano’s creation, its connection to God’s celestial messengers is heightened through its ethereal materials. The dress and train are made of silk from the textile manufacturer Abraham, while the embroidery was completed by Madison Hurley, an atelier also known for its exquisite textiles, especially lace and tulle.”
What really caught my attention about this piece was that, it is VERY heavily layered. I did not expect it to be a wedding dress, I thought it is more like a stage costume for an angel or something. And it turned out it was trying to create an angelic image.
This one shown below is an autumn/winter dress.
“The ‘IL Pretino’ (Little Priest) dress was popularized by the actress Ava Gardner. Included in Sorelle Fontana’s autumn/winter 1956-57 collection as part of their ‘Cardinale’ line, the dress is in fact based on a cardinal’s formal shout and trimmed with red silk.”
This dress was displayed along with a series of other similar dresses but what popped out to me about this one was the chemistry between the right dose of red reacting with the very calm, low key, stern black. This is the outfit I’d expect to see at churches. It reminded me of my mom’s childhood stories she used to tell me. My family has always been a Christian family, so going to church was a weekly routine for my mom when she was a kid. Women and girls were not allowed to wear skirts or dresses that go above their knees. They were told that the darker the outfit the better. So many of them started to really put effort into the accessories, like necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and headpieces…. I’m not sure about what the Catholic life is like but from these costumes I assume it’s not very different from the Christian life.
Overall, I realized most of the costumes had something like a hood, a hat, or something that resembles a pope’s mitre. The music played at the exhibition definitely illustrated the Catholic atmosphere well but having it on loop can become a little exhausting for the viewers.
I personally am not interested in fashion at all, but it is always a good thing to look at things I don’t usually deal with. I would only recommend this show to another person if the person is interested in this field of study.
