i too have seen this eclipse! first one i ever saw! i was at work and stood outside with half the rest of the staff and watched. then some guests came out too, and the whole lot of us puffed away on our cigarettes and 'ooooo-ed' and 'aaaawed' during the whole thing. it was hot. i took crappy pictures with my cell phone!

GAAH!! 2 in 1 day? Maybe 3!!

eeep! i have been working on this gosh darn picture of Izumi for THREE WEEKS!!!! She just would not let me draw her! i tried and i tried to make a pen and ink like the rest but she was all "Whatever you, I should be in color!" So i fixed her little red wagon. I made her REALLY colorful. Izumi would mostly likely never be caught dead in such colors, but the clothes work. She is difficult to draw because her style is all over the place. I thought she'd be easy, she came to me before the Gyaru did, but she appeared with dark skin and white blonde hair. This is because she is dark and menacing and is very much on the Visual Kei scene, which is another music scene/fashion trend in Japan. It's what Miyavi was before he went solo, it's what Blood, that goth/industrial band i saw in Boston, is. Visual Kei is usually a style reserved for androgenous men, and when girls dress like it it's generally considered Goth Lolita. But they too, bleach their hair and wear insanely elaborate costumes that are goth mixed with punk. So usually Izumi would wear more black and if there were a color involved, let it be red. But here Izumi's gonna go half gyaru because as i stated earlier today, i can't get them outta my head.

So Izumi is the bitch of the pack. She isn't mean, really, she just doesn't care at all what you think of her or about your opinions. She will argue with you at the drop of a hat, but her arguements are very frustrating because you know right away, you can never win this. Izumi is studying to become a lawyer. She is very anti-social and a huge RPG nerd, when she is emersed in one of these games, the other girls may go for weeks without hearing from her. But when she comes out to play, she can get them into any club and she is a great singer so karaoke is one of her favorite past times. She also can drink most of the other girls (save Sachi, that darn westerner) under the table. Sachi is terrified of Izumi for the most part and thinks Izumi doesn't like her because she is not Japanese. This is false, Izumi doesn't dislike Sachi at all, she doesn't care either way. Aside from disappearing into video games, Izumi frequents the countryside to visit her Grandmother and sing enka songs for her. Izumi is a skilled cook and will make you a 3 course meal (at least) if you catch her at home when she's not playing video games.

i apologize for the color pencil. it's all i have till i get a decent paint program.

These are some examples of Visual Kei, it's Mana,an innovator of the style (visual kei means Visual Style). Then Vidoll, a band that's way better than Vidoll....They got a lot better over time, but have always looked awesome. Then my new Mana, Hizaki, HE rules the metal/industrial side of the visual kei fence right now. and look at him, isn't he pretty?

GAL REVO-TRANCE

Big smile now! This is my Halloween costume. It's February now, but i want to share these pics and the influences for them because the 'Gyaru' is on my mind all the time lately. Gyaru is a Japanese fashion trend amongst teenage to early 20's girls, they have very dark tans (Ganguro= very dark tan & usually pastel or white make-up down the nose and under the eyes, these girls are...somethin'!) and dye their hair to more Western colors like blonde or auburn. Gals often put colored streaks in their hair to symbolize their moods and some wear colored contacts or these super weird ones which make their whole iris black, this is to make them appear more cartoonish. The Gal is attempting to look like an over-the-top California girl. And right now in Japan this craze is pretty big, i saw these girls more frequently than any other of the stand out trends in Japan (ie: Goth-Lolita)

Before I went to Japan, i had discovered the J-pop artist Sifow. She has this hilarious video that opens with her in a tanning bed and she goes on to sing of 'LOVE & PEACE' (the name of the song) with the help of her body guards, two giant black body builders in little gold speed-o's(sorry for bad spelling!). So i became obsessed with her and music like her's and realized all this fashion and style, and the sped up euro-beats were all the language of the wonderful and very not mysterious Gyaru, which is simply the word 'Gal' phonetically sounded out in Japanese. The pic on the top is Sifow with the para-para pop group Gyaruru, which i came to find out Sifow actually put together and produced, she really is quite talented.

While in Japan, much to my friend's horror, I set out on a mission to find out more about Gyaru Nation. Now, my friend is horrified because these Gals aren't exactly model citizens. They are percieved as frivelous twits who'll do whatever it takes to get those label clothes and bags. They live to shop,dance and look good, and hope to marry wealthy so they can live this sort of anti-Japanese life style for all their days. But as an outsider, i think it's easier for me to think that these are just kids having fun and most of them grow out of it, and some of them are awesomely successful music producers, fashion designers and singers or models, or all of the above, like Sifow. All over Tokyo there are these 3 story New & Used entertainment shops, called 'Book Off'. These stores sell new & used CD's,DVD's,Manga and magazines. I began to find Gyaru specific magazines, such as Ranzuki, Agenda & Es Possh!. My favorite is Ranzuki but I gathered information and inspiration from all of them.

I couldn't make my hair quite that large.....

but thanks to my sister's make-up talents, i got the 'Blue Face' i was hoping for! and you can make yourself uber tanned without risking your skin through many wonderful lotions and foundations. I used L'oreal Paris' True Match C7 cool nut brown foundation for my face and their Sublime Bronze Tinted Self-Tanning lotion in Medium Natural Tan. Both of these coupled with some stage tanning powder give fair skin a very deep and frightening tan. For my eyes, my sister used liquid eye liner from Cover Girl and various white and blue powder shadows. So all in all my Gal costume was a complete success, except I'm.like,SO not Japanese so i kind of ended up looking like a Jersey house wife and i happened to unvail this costume IN New Jersey sooo...I was definitely a hit with those Jersey boys. No one knew what i was but I knew i looked exactly like i wanted and those that know Gyaru seem to agree.



For more pics and Gyaru awesome-ness, stay tuned as I am working on my two Gyaru characters AND you should go to the sight CherryPop.Over because they are totally on top of Gyaru culture and the best source for pics and music. The sight is in French or Japanese but it doesn't really matter! dozo!

BLOOD-ing

MU-ah-ah-aaaaaah!!! This weekend i went to see the Japanese goth/metal extravaganza known as Blood at the Middle East upstairs in Boston. Having lived in Boston for so very long and having now been away from Boston for so very long makes every visit there super special, but specialness overfloweth when you include something as mind boggling as Japanese goth/metal show. Because this means the music AND the fans. Oh the fans. they dress up almost more than the band, so much so that some of them don't even look human anymore. it's amazing. Plus this band LOVES Boston so that makes us all feel so special. I bought a

bunch of stuff at the show and got their autographs and my friend got his bloody rabbit signed by the crazy DJ! The DJ who opened for them was this crazy looking dude who is what being on acid looks like. I swear he's actaully made of candy. and then of course, i got my picture taken with the band. sadly, i was too nervous to be standing next to such a perfect specimen of Japanese androgenous beauty to even try to look cool. plus i was severely underdressed, i just wasn't expecting this opportunity to present itself!! so embarrassing, but SO satisfying.

Also, i have to mention the other band that opened for Blood, called 'echostream'. They were an interesting little number, female vocals & percussion,then a guy on keyboards,electronic percussion and guitar. The sound was pretty shoe-gazie, but it was really nice, a nice change for an opener for one of these bands. Last year it was a horrendous goth/industrial band called Absynth(which is so bad we all blocked them out and it takes an hour to recall their name and then none of us actually can and we have to look it up online). So anyway, last year's unfortuante choice made echostream all the better. except they played 'creep' by Radiohead. a song i never needed to hear again. but oh well, a pretty Japanese girl with a great voice almost made the song tolerable! When echostream played, i had a much better spot, it was before the little blonde bitches pushed me out of the way and stepped on me with their giant platforms. i might add that the blondies stood where i was, they fought me tooth & nail for that spot and then they left when the headlining band started playing. and so i hate them. BUT, i did get some nice shots of echostream while i had that coveted spot.