I’m going to be attending the Tokyo Design Festa (English page here!) this weekend to scope out how much of a challenge it will be to get a booth there next time! If you are around and want to hang out, drop me a mail!
Because working full-time in Japan means I can’t easily attend all the big western comic conventions, I want to start building a reputation in the far east and see where it’ll take me. It’s like stepping into a whole new world, and I am really excited in seeing where Crazy Sunshine will end up in the future.
If and when the time comes, I would love to get some feedback on some of the merchandise I would like to show off.
If you have any experience of owning your own, personal online store (that specializes in webcomics and webcomic merchandise) or convention booth, know of any great places to print off business cards, banners, wall scrolls, posters and other convention goodies, or have any tips or tricks at attracting customers (or ultimately, what you would like to see from a Crazy Sunshine booth), let me know in the comments below or on the forum!
Thanks for always supporting the site, and if you are in Tokyo this weekend, let’s go grab some over-priced crushed ice and talk about how hot the weather will be!
All drawing and no play makes Jkun a little plump boy.
I am having a really hard time losing weight in Japan. It’s not something that has happened recently, either! So, I want to talk about how I am trying to fix it and get rid of my gut.
Location
The biggest problem is also the hardest to remedy; my location. Out in the sticks, 30 minutes drive from any big cities. Moving house is out of the question, so I tried to make the best of it by signing up to the nearest gym. It takes a good 2 hours out of my evening, and during that time, I only get 50 mins exercise from it! The travelling, especially after work and during rush hour, takes up more time than I spend plodding along a treadmill!
Then there is the cost of petrol, driving to and from the gym every day. That alone costs about 3,000 yen ($30) every 4-5 days, that’s just over $100 a month by only driving to the gym! Eek!
What I am trying to do is budget the cost of that, in addition to the incredibly expensive 8,000 yen ($80) a month membership fee. I am trying to keep positive, thinking that “$200 a month will get me slim!” but it just isn’t working. Maybe it’s got something to do with…
Calories
Japanese supermarkets, for the most part, have no laws regarding they display the amount of calories in their food. This makes ingredient and food shopping incredibly difficult, especially since 99% of the brands are not listed in online diet programs and calorie counters. Of course, I eat a lot of salad and make my own lunches and dinner, and try to avoid the prepackaged zombie food that Japan is notorious at shoving in their customer’s faces.
One of the hurdles I face in this department are Japanese staples, for example, rice, fish and seafood, all of which contain an incredible amount of calories and carbs and for the most part are still layered in fat and grease. I try to avoid them as much as I can.
Another is just the fact some foods have no nutritional facts listed at all. Especially regarding traditional food and restaurants. Even if you are confident what you are ordering looks healthy, you absolutely cannot gauge just how bad it really is for you.
Ramen noodles are a prime example of this. This specific dish is absolutely terrible, sometimes exceeding 1,000 calories per bowl, but looks and tastes just like soup with noodles. So, how I get around this is to visit many different restaurants and try to find at least a few with a calorie list for their food.
Then, I use those restaurants as benchmarks. So, for example, say one restaurant’s chicken fried rice is 500 calories for 100g, I would consider every other restaurant’s chicken fried rice is the same unless it’s stated otherwise then make an average. But in the end, it’s all eyeballing and incredibly annoying, especially when all they tell you is the calories, and not the amount of fat and carbs that are thrown in there too.
Cost
Then there is the cost of food. Back in the UK, healthy food is more expensive than pre-packaged TV dinners. Naturally, the same thing occurs in Japan. However, even the simplest of ingredients are sometimes triple the price of their western counterparts. Like $5 for 50g of chicken, $2 for a measly 500ml of milk, and upwards of $8 for 4 (four) strawberries. But as for rice and fish? Hella cheap. You can cop out and get over 10kg of rice for a measly $3, but then you’re stuck with 300+ calories per 100g, and a truckload of carbs to boot.
Considering I already spend $200 on gym membership, including travel, adding the expenses of daily healthy food shopping pushes my budget to $300 a month. All for the sake of losing weight.
But recently…
…it just isn’t working. I have spoken with two personal trainers, planned out a fairly decent yet incredibly expensive diet plan (forcing me to travel two towns over to get certain ingredients, some which make me vomit like fermented red beans and bananas) and doing a mix of upper/lower body muscle training with lots of cardio 4-5 days a week. Nothing has changed in the last 6 months.
It’s starting to really irritate me. I could have spent all that money on a Cintiq for starters, or maybe I am just not doing something right?
Or maybe…
I should just keep trying, and finding out new ways to shed this belly despite being put in a multitude of inconvenient positions. Looks like that big, shiny graphics tablet will have to wait, for now.
From what I am told, Japanese diets work for Japanese people and Japanese people alone. The majority of Japanese people have an incredible metabolism and a mere 20 mins of recommended walking a day means they can eat 2-3 bowls of rice at a time. On paper, that’s 900 calories for rice alone per meal, something that completely blows my mind!
So, tell me, what are you doing to get into shape, any hurdles you currently face, or if you have any tips or tricks that could work internationally!
Thanks for reading! Let’s keep doing our best, eh?
Finally I can reveal the second project I have been working on:
Now introducing Crazy Symposium! Crazy Sunshine’s official forum!
Registering an account is easy, and you can use this in tandem with each comic’s comment section to discuss the webcomic, the current ORIGIN story arc, or, well, anything!
Please read over the Getting Started guide here and General Rules here!
A lot of people have asked me about my hobbies and interests, so I’m gonna start posting more specific blog entries like things to do with Japan, Gaming, or other junk I like in addition to general ramblings about life. Feel free to skim over them if you like, or leave some comments!
So, Seekers of Adoulin. Where to begin.
Final Fantasy XI’s fifth expansion, released five years since it’s previous one, Wings of the Goddess. I’ve been playing XI since the EU release, but times have changed greatly since back then. The game got much easier with the introduction of Abyssea and the increased level cap from 75 to 99.
Well, Square Enix kind of caught on, and did everything they could to make Adoulin hard as shit.
Incredibly high level enemies, coupled with limited exploration and a handful of reported 4-5 hour boss fights, it looks like I’m going to need a whole bunch of new friends if I want to be able to continue my adventures!
The World
Adoulin is a beautiful place! The first major city to include “waypoints”; teleports that warp you around every nook and cranny of the city and more! You can even buy runes that allow a handy, albeit costly, method of travel to any of the starter and outpost cities, too!
As for the battlefields, I can’t exactly say I’ve experienced much of them. This is due to the “limited” exploration I mentioned earlier. While it is possible to get to areas much further away from the city, unless the world’s “colonization” rate increases and outposts are created, hiking there by foot is your only means of exploration. But with incredibly high level, true sight enemies everywhere, one slip up and you’re right back at square one.
There are shortcuts, though! In order to advance through the new areas quickly, you can team up with other players and demolish fallen trees, roots, walls of enemies, or cavern walls that uncover shortcuts. However, these “Rieves” respawn every 15~ mins or so, which means it’s completely possible to stuck without a way home unless you bring a method of warping!
Currently on Sylph, the colonization rate is about 25% for each of the starting areas around Adoulin, and waypoints are available at the outposts. This makes getting to the connecting areas a little easier. Unfortunately, it’s those connecting areas I want to explore! Even if I got there, without a map I would be completely lost!
So how the hell do I get maps?!
Coalitions
This is where Coalitions come in. Every few hours you are granted a ticket that allows you to participate in specific assignments. These mini-quests are much akin to Campaign Ops from Wings of the Goddess, and increase your standing within each Coalition. For example, accepting quests to “clear the way” from the Pioneer’s Coalition, then smacking those pesky roots and trees out of the way to make shortcuts for other players, grants you respect and rewards within that Coalition. Charting certain areas from the Scout’s Coalition, and delivering goods needed to build waypoints further away from the city through the Courier’s Coalition allows you to purchase new maps, and eventually the ability to warp to new areas without having to go there by foot.
Sounds fun, right? The only problem is, these new “perks” such as battlefield waypoints, maps, and more are calculated every earth week and are determined by how many players cooperate to raise the “Rank” of each Coalition per server. Currently on Sylph, absolutely nobody is working for the Scout’s or Courier’s Coalition, therefore no new maps or warps are available for anywhere except the starting areas. On other servers, they are. So get your fingers out, guys! For the sake of pioneering!
Enemies
No matter where you go, there will always be a bunny that can kick your ass. Solid advice over the years, and still holds true to this day. However, when tiny pink butterflies can also kick your ass, you know Square Enix aren’t fucking around.
Recently, SE have had a ton of fun giving every new enemy Area of Effect spells and abilities. From Voidwatch to Meeble Burrows, everything wanted not only you, but all your friends dead as well. They said they would calm down on giving enemies overpowered abilities with the release of Adoulin, but I have still to find an enemy that doesn’t tear me a new one upon engaging it. Even those pesky butterflies have this horrible move called “Black Out”, which inflicts AOE silence, paralyze, and blind!
Oh, and don’t get me started on the Umbril, pictured above. These night-only creatures can inflict a 90% paralyze rate effect and HP-crushing bio effect in addition to smacking around a light armored job for 180-200 a hit. Luckily you can just sneak right by them. If you get caught though, so long, it was nice knowing you.
Missions
What missions? None yet! Like Wings of the Goddess you were introduced to the city, the new protagonist, a bunch of comedic one-liners, and then thrown straight into the mini-quests through coalitions. The actual quests, however, are a ton of fun. The localization team were really on the ball with some of the translations, and as always, NPC dialogue is funny as heck. I’ve done about half of the new quests, and loved every second of them, despite how pointless and unrewarding most of them are!
Gear
There’s been a lot of controversy about the new gear in Adoulin. though a high-level dungeon event called “Skirmish”, it appears players can obtain augmentable weapons that flat out beat existing Legendary weapons. While I only own Apocalypse and Verethragna (if that even counts as a Legendary anymore!) it makes me kind of sad to see my efforts going to waste, especially considering (under good circumstances you can obtain these so-called “new Legendary” weapons a heck of a lot easier. But, we’ll just have to wait and see. Perhaps the old Legendaries will get a new coat of paint through updates, or perhaps these new weapons will get patched. Ah, the fun and grinding of an MMO never gets tiring, does it?
I guess I should mention the other gear you can buy straight off the bat from NPC is also very good and well needed after the flurry of situational side upgrades we’ve been feeding off of through Salvage II, Voidwatch and Meeble Burrows.
Jobs
Two new ones this time; Rune Fencer and Geomancer. An elemental resistant, evasive, and parrying tank that wields a Great Sword, and a cross between a Black Mage and a Bard.
I took Geomancer to 58 recently, and must admit it’s quite fun. You can cast AOE elemental spells on yourself that inflict damage on nearby enemies while not harming you, and cast an arrays of “auras” around yourself or at a fixed point on the battlefield that give bonuses to party members, or detrimental effects on the enemy.
As for Rune Fencer, I am staticing it with some friends from the UK! It’s currently at level 40 and so far…eh. It feels like a gimpy Dark Knight subbing Red Mage, and nothing at that low a level casts magic that can potentially hurt, nor do I have access to any ground breaking job abilities yet. The fun thing is, it’s a light armour job that has an A+ ranking in GREAT SWORD. What the fuck were SE smoking on that day, I wonder? Either way, I am looking forward to getting it to 99 purely to see my character swinging that giant thing around while wearing Thaumas gear. Since we are exping normally via Fields of Valor, it might take some time, though.
Conclusion
Eh. I dislike having to depend on everyone else to allow me to have fun, and the difficulty curve – especially coming straight from Abyssea, Meeble Burrows and Nyzul Isle Uncharted is just insane. For someone who plays casually and only with 2-3 other people, it’s not exactly the best expansion so far, but hey! These things take time. I said the same thing about Wings of the Goddess and it turned out to be a huge laugh! Campaign was fun as heck! The same goes for Abyssea. I was incredibly wary at first (a public timed event with crappy exp, poppable NMs and low drop rates, are you insane?!) but look how that turned out in the end! I go there almost every day now!
So yeah, not great, but not bad. It rekindled my desire to explore again, but I just wish there wasn’t so many methods of cock blocking me from doing so.
Thanks for reading!
You can find more information on FFXI over at my other blog here.
Hello! As mentioned in this comic, I’d like to take some time to discuss the future of Crazy Sunshine and what kind of developments are going to unfold over the course of the next year through a simple Q&A styled Devblog post.
Crazy Sunshine: ORIGINS
The big project that I have been working on for the last two months is going to start, simply titled “ORIGINS“.
Up until now, Crazy Sunshine has been a gag-per-strip webcomic, following the day to day lives of Lacie, Shelbie, Peppermint, Candy, Daifuku and Mochi in an alternate universe. However, there is muchmore to this universe than what I have shown throughout these simple, comedic strips. So, I would like the chance to expand and improve both my skills at writing and drawing by introducing character backstories, and how this band of misfits met.
Timescale
You might be thinking; “What the heck? Storytelling? Over the next year? Fuck that, dropping this garbage!” Well, before you do, all I ask is that you give me a chance. There will still be a lot of comedy throughout the story, and I am going to try my very hardest to get as much content out of each weekly update as I can, without scenes dragging on for weeks or months like a lot of other story-based webcomics.
So, it’ll be rushed, like your previous story arc, right?
No, not at all. I am hoping the week-long wait per strip and comment system will act as a great way to build up hype, while still trying to keep a good pace for readers who read multiple strips in one big chunk. Whichever category of reader you fall into, I hope you’ll enjoy every page.
Layout & Basis
“ORIGINS” will be released in chapters, through the current Crazy Sunshine Chronicles system, with the usual eyecatch pages being used as title cards. The number of pages per chapter is still unknown, but so far they are quite long (12+) per chapter, and I am hoping to release around 6 or 7 chapters throughout the year or so with some small breaks to recover inbetween.
The story is focused on how each of the six characters up until this point met each other, a history on their lives prior, a look at the world they live in, and the various races that inhabit it. There will be loads of new characters and faces, and hopefully, every question that has been asked that I couldn’t answer, will be answered.
Why exactly are you doing this again?
Crazy Sunshine is a very… strange gag-per-strip webcomic with very…unique characters. So unique that a lot of readers don’t “get” it straight away, and ask a lot of questions regarding the character’s history. I would like to address all of the questions over the course of the next year.
Why are you really doing it?
Crazy Sunshine and the gang have been on my mind since 2005. I have a story to tell, and I believe that if I don’t do it now, I never will. This is finally my chance to tell it while continuing to grow as an artist by getting it all out of my system.
So, what was the point of all these strips up until now?
A test. A test to see if I could meet my own deadlines, create comics and other content that readers would enjoy, and prepare myself for the story I have always wanted to tell.
What about the character designs? Why change them if you are going back in time?
The character designs were changed for the very purpose of this story. The old designs will not be making an appearance, the story will start with what the characters are currently wearing now.
Aww, but I liked the old designs!
You’ve still got 100+ pages of old content prior to this story arc, those previous comics aren’t going anywhere!
Lastly, will there be lots of Shelbie in this?
Not for a while. Each chapter isn’t focused on one specific character such as Treasures of Eastern Estuary, and Shelbie’s story is actually quite late in the timeline. However, when she does make an appearance, you’ll be quite surprised!
Thanks for reading! I hope I cleared some stuff up for you. The first chapter’s title card will be up next week! Look forward to it! As always, if you have any questions, please leave them below and I’ll do my best to answer them. No spoilers, though!
Two years ago today, on a Friday around 3pm, Japan experienced the largest earthquake to ever hit the country, and one of the biggest in recorded world history.
At the time, Crazy Sunshine was nothing but a bunch of sketches and storyboards, and I didn’t have an active blog to document what happened, so today, I’d like to retell what went down from a personal perspective.
For readers who are unfamiliar with the Touhoku Earthquake, here’s a quick summary from Wikipedia;
The 2011 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Tōhoku (東北地方太平洋沖地震 Tōhoku-chihō Taiheiyō Oki Jishin), often referred to in Japan as Higashi nihon daishinsai (東日本大震災) and also known as the 2011 Tohoku earthquake, the Great East Japan Earthquake, and the 3.11 Earthquake, was a magnitude 9.03 (Mw) undersea megathrust earthquake off the coast of Japan that occurred at 14:46 JST (05:46 UTC) on 11 March 2011, with the epicentre approximately 70 kilometres (43 mi) east of the Oshika Peninsula of Tōhoku and the hypocenter at an underwater depth of approximately 32 km (20 mi). It was the most powerful known earthquake ever to have hit Japan, and one of the five most powerful earthquakes in the world since modern record-keeping began in 1900. The earthquake triggered powerful tsunami waves that reached heights of up to 40.5 metres (133 ft) in Miyako in Tōhoku’s Iwate Prefecture, and which, in the Sendai area, travelled up to 10 km (6 mi) inland. The earthquake moved Honshu (the main island of Japan) 2.4 m (8 ft) east and shifted the Earth on its axis by estimates of between 10 cm (4 in) and 25 cm (10 in).
While the earthquake and tsunami devastated major points along the eastern coast, including entire towns and multiple nuclear reactors in Fukushima, the town I live in – which is located to the north-west of Aomori – went pretty much unscathed in terms of damage and casualties.
FRIDAY – Prelude
Before the earthquake, the students had already left school and the teachers were getting ready to head home too. Usually, work is until 4 or 5pm, but during the week of entrance examinations, students have half days off, and teachers have nothing but meetings to discuss the exams after lunch.
I had just packed up and was ready to put my coat on when I tripped over. The walls started shaking, and a couple of overhead lamps fell to the ground. A very strange sensation, almost as if I was drunk. However, when a bunch of teachers grabbed me by the arms and threw me under a desk, yelling ”you’ll be safe here”, it felt more like a very odd dream.
The teacher’s office is located on the third floor of a very old school. Most modern Japanese buildings in well populated areas are built to resist earthquakes with special suspension pillars, but not this school. Chunks of concrete snapped off the walls and fell on top of parked cars while the concrete ground split open as if Lacie has had opened a portal to hell!
The shock lasted about 30 seconds, with many aftershocks (smaller earthquakes) taking place over the course of the next three days.
As the teachers got back on their feet, the electricity cut out, and we all huddled around our cellphones trying to contact friends and family. One teacher used his phone to live stream the news. Initially, sighs of relief were heard as we were told that the epicentre was out at sea, and not inland. Those sighs became screams of worry, as the news predicted gigantic tsunami waves heading towards the eastern coast at incredible speeds.
We were ordered to go home at once. My girlfriend was staying over at my house, so I leapt into my car and drove home. This was my first large-scale natural disaster and I had absolutely no idea what to do.
On the way home I could only think of one thing; it’s still winter, which, if you read my last blog entry, is not exactly paradise when it comes to northern Japan. With heavy snow, high-speed winds, an incoming tsunami and hundreds of earthquake aftershocks, the weekend was off to great start, don’t you think?
I drove into a nearby convenience store to buy some essentials like candles, batteries for my flashlight, water, and whatever food there was that didn’t need electricity to eat.
Obviously, I was not the only one who thought this way. The line to the cashier stretched throughout every aisle within the store and around the back of the building itself. After grabbing what I needed I waited in line for two hours, as without electricity staff had to write down each customer’s order on paper by hand.
My girlfriend updated me on the status of my house while I was waiting. The only source of heat – a kerosene heater – was dead, naturally. The shower, boiler and electricity were also dead, pipes were beginning to freeze, and the snow outside was getting worse. However, the gas stove in the kitchen still worked, but needed something like a match to ignite the flame.
So, I began to think to myself; The only options left are to use bottled water and cup ramen. Cup ramen will never go bad or freeze. I have a steel kettle we can boil the water in if we get matches to light up the gas stove.. Oh look, they have some chilli tomato flavour, that’ll keep us warm.
After getting the supplies in the most painful shopping experience of my life, I headed home. My car was low on gas, but since it was the weekend, and neither me nor my girlfriend had work, I thought it would be fine, as I wouldn’t be driving.
After a while, our phones died. We couldn’t contact anyone. We couldn’t hear what was going on. We just cuddled up in the bed, trying to keep each other warm as the interior of the house froze up.
SATURDAY – Eye of the Storm
Friday turned to Saturday, but I couldn’t sleep. I was so worried that if we both fell asleep, we could potentially die from the coldness. So I stayed up and made sure that never happened.
We were updated on the status of the roads, the power outage, and the incoming tsunami through the town’s tannoy system, which was being powered by hand-driven batteries that the locals had placed around some of the speakers. What we were told was not pretty.
Saturday’s weather was warmer, and we spent most of the day shovelling snow. At night, we charged up our phones using my car’s battery, and watched live streams and updates of the tsunami, while also contacting our family and telling them not to worry. We also had to sign up to an emergency disaster website and register that we were okay along with our contact details, in the case of other people searching for a way to get in touch with us.
But the car’s gasoline had almost hit zero, so this snippet of paradise in a nice, warm environment was very short lived.
SUNDAY – Aftermath
The power was still out. The pipes had completely frozen. Major roads to and from Touhoku were reported as broken, or too dangerous to drive on, so food supplies from the south couldn’t reach us. Our rations were running low, so we decided to drive out to the supermarket.
The drive was long, depressing, and emotional. Traffic lights were pure black, there were no cars on the road, and no telling if there was any food left, or if we had enough gasoline to get home.
The first two smaller stores had completely sold out, and the windows were boarded up. The third store seemed open so we checked it out. There, we were given a number and told to wait in line. It seemed they were letting people into the store, 10 at a time, and allowing them to purchase 5 items each. Once those 10 people came out, another 10 went in. We waited for an hour before getting called. Since there was two of us, we decided to go in separately so we could get 10 items. We divided up what we needed during the wait, but our plan backfired as soon as we set foot indoors.
The shelves were empty. There was no water, and no cup ramen. At first we laughed at how everyone had the same plan as us, but then we panicked. We had to get our food and get out of the store as soon as possible so more people could come in. We ended up buying the strangest combination of ready-made meals, along with mouldy bread and Fanta. I felt sorry for whoever went in after us, there was absolutely nothing better to buy!
On the drive home the car started making odd noises. Of course, gasoline. How could I forget? We passed a huge line of cars, as if there was an accident ahead. In fact, the line stretched for over a mile, and ended at a gasoline stand. As we slowed down we saw staff were using hand powered batteries here too, and rationing out gasoline. We U-turned our way to the back of the line and waited for 3 hours, starting and stopping the car each time to save fuel. 2,000 yen (20 USD) for 1 litre of gasoline, and a story about how even the gasoline trucks couldn’t make it up north due to the terrible driving conditions.
We drove home, had a disgusting lunch, and curled up in bed again. By this time, the lack of sleep got to me and I passed out.
At 3pm, exactly 2 days after the initial earthquake, I woke up to my girlfriend jumping up and down on the bed. It was bright, there were loud noises everywhere. I thought to myself “It’s happened, I’m dead.”
Turned out I wasn’t dead, and my girlfriend was just ecstatic about the electricity finally being back on. The TV was on max volume, the heater was cranked up full, and my PC had successfully booted up into Safe Mode. The power outage was over! We were safe!
…For now. While we enjoyed every second of the warmth and the ability to finally check Facebook, we were issued warnings of potential radioactive gasses spreading across all of Japan, and were told to stay indoors at all costs. We were glued to the news all of Sunday as the death count rose, the tsunami waves got bigger, and the toxic gasses spread to crops and nearby cities. All we could do was wait.
The week that followed was painful stressful. In true Japanese fashion, work wasn’t cancelled for anyone, so I dropped my girlfriend off at her house and headed to school. That goodbye on Monday morning was one of the hardest things I have had to do, knowing that we wouldn’t be together all week if another earthquake was to strike.
But in time, at least on the west coast, everything calmed down. The radioactive gas passed, the roads got fixed, food returned to stores, and students returned to school for a few more classes before a relatively peaceful spring break.
If only I could say the same thing for the east coast, where buildings from the incident 2 years ago are still being repaired and rebuilt. Victims lost to the power of the tsunami will always be remembered, and in closing, I think I can safely say that not only Japan, but the entire world will never underestimate the catastrophic power of nature again.
Last week, Aomori witnessed the eye of the storm as it hailed balls of snow the size of walnuts, coupled with incredible wind speeds and the largest recorded snowfall in modern Japanese history.
If you read last week’s comic then it will come as no surprise why the next few weeks will be quite tough with being able to update Crazy Sunshine, as real life priorities need to take place in order for me to, well, not die.
I’m not even being dramatic, it’s true! Wanna see what it’s like living in a tiny, broken down village in northern Japan during winter? Now you can! A small news story was featured on the BBC homepage earlier last week. You can see it by clicking here!
During the report, they showcase the amazing 5 meters of snow that fell recently, and show shots of a small town similar to mine where houses are encased in mountains of snow.
Living alone has its perks, such as being able to stay up all night without the need for headphones while listening to music, but also means in winter I have to battle the snow 1 vs 1, shovel only, final destination.
I mentioned the pain of snow shovelling in a blog entry last year, but this year with the record breaking snowfall it’s gotten even worse! My day-to-day schedule is something like this:
5am: Wake up, strech, tea, shovel snow!
7am: Finish shovelling a tunnel to my car, dig my car out of the snow.
8am: Shower, head to work.
8:15am-5pm: Work work work.
5pm-7pm: After school activities, English club!
7pm-9pm: Return home, and either cook dinner or if it snowed while I was at work, get back to shovelling!
9pm-11pm: Draw comics/write scripts/reply to comics/fix the site/social media stuff!
tldr; winter sucks! This is why I am taking the week off to try to get a buffer up and not to let my house collapse underneath the massive amount of snow on my roof. I can already hear it creaking…!
From now on each week will be touch and go with updates and replying to comments. I want to do my very best to keep to the schedule and work especially hard on weekends, but please don’t get all mad if I can’t update on time. I wouldn’t wish this kind of weather on my worst enemy!
I also don’t want to start uploading guest strips as I am uninterested in them. Fan Art always brings a smile to my face, though!
Wish me luck! I hope you enjoy the update that’ll follow, it should be up the following Wednesday, along with a proper schedule change announcement.
Another year, another attempt at writing frequent blog posts, even if I have to literally slam my head on the desk to find an interesting subject.
Nope, I’ve got nothing.
Valentine’s Day was pretty relaxing this year, mainly because it landed slap bang in the middle of the end of semester tests, which means I had a ton of spare time at work to do all my errands and shopping without having to worry about going to school clubs or working overtime.
My girlfriend made this incredible Gears of War cake with a little chocolate Ticker as we’ve been trying to find all the collectables in the third instalment before Judgement comes out next month. Japanese releases will be slow so it looks like I’ll have to rely on importing if I want to play it spoiler-free!
So yea! How about them videogames, huh? It’s tough playing games with someone who can’t speak English. Recently we are working our way though both the Gears and Halo series, and most of the cutscenes involve me listening, translating, and then trying to add Japanese accents to each character to help enhance the experience. Even then, some words like heretic (異端者), ammo pack (弾薬/たま) or incendiary grenade (焼夷弾) always leave me drawing a blank, making it quite frustrating at times, especially since there is usually a lot of action going on.
“So why not just play Japanese games then?” is what you’re probably thinking. Well, we do! In addition to the hundreds of random Wii party games and my ever-expanding Vita collection, some of the latest and greatest games to hit the Japanese market aren’t on major consoles but are mere, free-to-play smartphone applications.
Unlike western smartphone games which are aimed at a younger and more casual audience, Japanese applications punish you for not logging in each day, and reward you for really grinding your ass off. Complete and utter time sinks, but gosh darn they are fun. If you want to get better without putting the effort in, you can buy your way to the top of the leaderboards with real money – but where’s the fun in that?
One of the bigger, mainstream releases, Puzzle & Dragons (パズドラ), has been released worldwide on both iPhone and Android. It’s free, so why not give it a go? Some gameplay footage from the English version since the Japanese commercial doesn’t show any actual gameplay:
Developed by Gungho, P&D combines puzzle solving with Columns in order to advance through turn based combat stages, peppered with RPG elements, collectible monsters, and even the ability to adventure with friends you make along the way. I was blown away with how much content and genres it takes on board, especially for being a free game, and it’s entirely possible to get really good at it without spending a single yen or cent. If you ever have a spare 10 minutes each day it’s a great little time waster. well, until you hit level 70 then you can play for up to 3 hours a day if you really want to!
I like talking about games. Maybe I’ll do this more often!
I am a strong believer in artistic evolution, and ever since the start of 2013 I have been working incredibly hard every day to redesign and improve the website, characters, and more. In this blog entry, I’d like to talk about changes to the cast of characters.
You can read about changes to the website in Part 1 here!
Lacie the Unlit
Lacie’s design hasn’t changed much over the years. That’s because I really like it! Personally, Lacie needed a much more naughtier vibe, so I decided to spice her clothes up with a little sex appeal.
Lacie’s dress now has an open area at the front revealing a panty and garter belt combo that keeps her traditional striped stockings in place as she sprints away from the police or a certain pink-haired beast.
However, it’s not all about being sexy, this change has deeper connotations too; I want to work on developing Lacie’s bold and confident side, expanding her ego even more than before, and showing that she doesn’t care about what the world thinks about her.
Lastly, as for main character Shelbie’s one-sided infatuation with Lacie, I feel that Shelbie needs more reasons to be madly in love with with our demonic protagonist, and nothing beats flashing some panties every now and then, right?
Shelbie the Lumia
Shelbie is an elite soldier who lost a bunch of memories and braincells after falling out of the heavenly Perfect Paradise. I wanted Shelbie’s new design to reflect her past, and remind readers that she wasn’t always a complete idiot.
Now, Shelbie sports a cream-coloured Lumian military uniform with long sleeves, a silky blue leotard, and a streamlined tights/high heels combo. Her hair has been parted to reveal her forehead, and as for her breasts? Well, they’re still pretty darn big.
As Crazy Sunshine’s universe evolved, so did each character’s race. Personally, Shelbie and Lacie’s outfits were too similar (long dresses with matching zippers), and considering their extreme difference in race, I felt like this visual gap needed to be widened.
Lastly, contrast! I want to be able to express Shelbie’s inability to do, well, anything purely through her silly facial expressions, body language, and speech.
Candy the Beast
Candy’s design was changed in the Crazy Sunshine Chronicle “Beastruction“! You already knew that though, right?
Once the Beastruction story arc was over, I began redesigning the site and the cast of characters. Since Candy’s design had already changed recently, I didn’t feel the need to improve her. She is still animal-like in appearance, and her new clothing changes will be explained in a couple of weeks through the comic itself.
Until then, look forward to it!
Peppermint the Prodigy
Ah, Peppermint. The brains of, well, every operation. A scientific mastermind and the creative force behind almost every mechanical invention within the comic. So, why was she wearing nothing but a fluffy pink coat until now?
I decided Peppermint needed to look smarter and have a colour palette which really complimented her hair. An off-white and teal lab coat should do the trick, right?
Peppermint is still as young and naive as she always was, which really contrasts with her slightly mature clothing. So I reused her oversized zipper and some nuts and bolt cuff links to give her outfit more of childish feel to it, like a child’s toy or action figure.
Peppermint’s skirt and shoes have also retained their original design, but the colours have been swapped around to give her a much more minty feel. Additionally, these colours will also be a prominent feature in all of her inventions from now on.
Daifuku & Mochi the Cursed
Daifuku’s previous outfit was a revealing red and gold china dress, which I have honestly never liked! I wanted Daifuku’s clothes to be inspired by Japanese culture, and replaced her china dress with a traditional kimono, and tied her hair up in a classic “mochi” style with chopsticks.
To compliment the demonic spirit possessing her belly, warning tape was used to express Mochi’s “lips”, and the pink splotches on Daifuku’s dress along with rice cake-shaped decorations on her kneesocks represent the Japanese confectionery that this odd couple were named after.
Like Daifuku’s hair, Mochi’s tongue also changed colour, as did the inside of his mout- I mean, Daifuku’s bell- wait, how does that even work?! Anyway, it’s a slightly redder, and matches the inside of her kimono’s sleeves.
Thanks for reading! If you have any feedback or questions, leave a comment and I will do my best to reply.
Also make sure to read Part 1 if you haven’t already! Thanks for all your support so far!
I am a strong believer in artistic evolution, and ever since the start of 2013 I have been working incredibly hard every day to redesign and improve the website, characters, and more. In this blog entry, I’d like to talk about changes to the website.
Title banner
The new title banner embeds the previous Crazy Sunshine logo onto a giant, mechanical tower that showcases a main character on each of its panels. The giant, golden “orb” in the centre represents the sun. I wanted to create a smaller banner that can be easily customized while still retaining the same “base” image. This way, I can change what is shown on the machine’s panels, or even add more!
Background
The previous background was a bird’s-eye view of two areas within the Crazy Sunshine universe; Solemn Skip and Massive Metropolis. Combined with the comic’s transparency in certain panels, this background would appear in the distance. However, due to the comic’s colour scheme changing every week, sometimes the site’s background would clash with the atmosphere I tried to create. I would like to use less of this effect, and keep the background unrelated to the comic as I try to improve my colouring skills. This new background compliments the title banner, keeping the site’s “mechanical” theme consistent.
Navigation Arrows
The navigation arrows have also been improved, with colours that match the title banner, and unlike the previous set of buttons, detailed shading to make them really stand out. They now have a depth rollover graphic to give the feel of pushing a physical button, and on the First and Latest pages of the comic, are shown with transparency instead of not showing up at all.
Theatre
There is a new page on the Menubar titled “Theatre”! Here, all the Crazy Sunshine Artcam videos and (in the near future) even more videos will be posted for you to watch. The Youtube page has also been updated so please, check it out!
Extras
Video links have been removed from the Extras page and put into the new Theatre page mentioned above.
New fan art has been added.
New CS: AGES timeline artwork has been added.
Links
Links have been cleaned up and sites that do not link back to Crazy Sunshine have been removed.
If you would like your site to be added, please return the favour!
New ad designs have been added. If you are an affiliate, I urge you to please replace your old ads with these new ones! Thanks!
Gallery
The old wardrobe images have been removed and replaced with new ones. Currently, new costumes are still a work in progress but old ones can still be seen on Deviantart or Tumblr!
Old illustrations have been removed.
Cast
The cast page has been updated, naturally! Now with even more stats!
Social Media Buttons
Redesigning the cast of Crazy Sunshine meant the site’s infamous social media rollovers also needed a change, but are still similar to their predecessors. Give them a try!
To be Continued…
Thanks for reading! In Part 2 I would like to talk about changes to the cast of characters. Please, give it a read and don’t forget to leave a comment!
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