Katie broke up with me last month. She said she just wasn't feeling like we were right and she didn't want to be with me. I won't lie, it kinda blindsided me and I was an emotional mess. She really broke my heart but I never stopped loving her and I don't think I ever will. I had to grow up a lot for that relationship and I was ready to spend my life with her. I can't believe I almost got married. But she's made up her mind. All I ever really wanted was for her to be happy. I feel so selfish for thinking that I could be her happiness. And now I'm just trying my best to move on too. I have come to realize that I am a complete person on my own. She let me see that I had it in me to love and care for someone so deeply and I thank her for that. Though I can't help but feel like damaged goods now.

My artwork has taken a big hit since I'm just totally demotivated and uninspired. I've decided to resume grad school and re-enrolled after a 2 year hiatus. I only have 12 credits left I believe, so I should be done in two or three semesters. But I'm getting sick of computer science and engineering and I think I want to try my hand at law or criminal justice. So many of my friends have gotten their law degrees, it really makes me want to pursue that avenue as well. Part of me also wants to try opening my own business so I should probably do an MBA, but I also want to go to culinary school. Oh man I feel like I'm gonna be in school forever if I don't focus on something.

I'm getting back into dude stuff again, playing sports and doing martial arts. My friend Kelly and I are taking kickboxing for the summer. I personally wanted to do BJJ but she's not too into it, so I'll take those after she leaves in the fall for Europe. I'm also going to Europe with her in the fall but only for a week or two while she does grad school there. I've always wanted to go across the Atlantic so I should take advantage of things while I'm still young. I'm really just looking for stuff to keep me occupied and keep my mind off of things. I've been hitting the gym hardcore and got back down to a size 30 pants and my shoulders are getting too big again. Time for new clothes = shopping spree!

My coworkers got me into e-trading on Zecco. I tried to jump on the Visa IPO but couldn't get any shares for $80, so I rashly did some options trading. Let me just say that options trading is an EASY way to lose thousands in a matter of minutes :< Epic fail. I was hoping to make enough money to get contractors to redo my backyard. I want a brick patio where I can have grilling parties throughout summer. Now I think I will need to go traffic blow to make that much.

I think an annual beach week is necessary from now on. A few of my friends have said they'll do it too, so we're going to try to rent a beach house in South Beach. As long as we can avoid hurricanes, it'll be cool. Anyone gonna be in Miami late July/early August? I haven't road tripped in years.

I'm not sure what to do with myself these days. Facebook is an awesome tool for finding events to go to in DC. But I find myself mindlessly wandering bars and clubs. I know there's something missing in my life now but I won't find it anytime soon. Maybe I do lead quite a dull uneventful life, going to work each day, doing the same routine... rinse and repeat. But I guess that's everyday life and it needs to be done.

Every year since I've met her, I've spent Valentine's Day in Canada with Katie. And it is always soooo cold there for me D: And inevitably, every year I get sick during Valentine's Day. But the past few years I've always just caught the cold, this year I got the flu. Katie too. I'm actually feeling better now but I still have a cough and no appetite. I don't have chills or fevers anymore, they only lasted for 2 nights, but poor Katie is suffering through her feverish chills now. So yea, I took a nice week off from work to spend with my sweetheart and got sick lol. Hopefully I'll recover enough to go back to work on Tuesday.

So do you starve a fever? I've read conflicting answers on the internet about that old addage. I guess I don't have a fever anymore, but what's the best thing for a flu? I ate a lot of chicken soup when I had a cold, and had eaten a lot of chicken soup at the beginning of this flu too, but I don't know if that helps. We're getting lots of liquids and juice... wish we had some ginger ale for Katie though.

Did everyone have a good Valentine's? I guess our's didn't turn out as I had hoped given that we both got sick, but I just love being with her. We watched every episode of Arrested Development over the course of the week. If you haven't watched that show, you should.

It seems like everyone at my office is going on vacation. Half of them left this week and come Monday it will be myself and 2 others left in the office. I've been working extra long days and nights at the office to try to make a deadline with the new software, but it feels like I'm just being pulled in too many directions all the time by everyone else. I guess in an effort for them to get their work done before they leave for vacation, people have been getting me to help them all the time. That's all nice and great for them, but now I'm behind on my project and no one is going to help me out. I have to finish my coding and testing my new software by the end of next week so that the first week of the year can be spent installing and integrating the software at the customer site. Luckily for me, the week that I go on a cruise is the same week that the demo to the customer takes place.

So what does all this hard work actually afford me? Besides a lack of sleep and an utter drain in creativity (I really haven't felt up to doing any artwork, commissions or personal) when I get home from work, everyone was rewarded with what we call the annual "suit bonus" on Wednesday. For the past 2 years now, the suit bonus has consisted of my boss has given us each a large amount of money in American Express gift cards to spend on our business attire. This is a step up from the other years when we were just sent to a specific fashion store and told we could pick a certain number of shirts, ties, and maybe 1 or 2 suits that would all be tailored. The gift card approach has given us more freedom in what we can purchase. This can range from full suits, pants, ties, and such. For the guys who've been with the company a while and have quite enough suits, we're allowed to purchase other things as well. Since I already own around 7 or so suits, last year I ended up buying some pajamas and casual wear as well.

So since I've gotten my gift cards, I haven't had any time to use them until just this morning. I got a $25 Express gift card for my bday and all Express stores were having a sale of 20% off everything before 11 AM so I hit the mall with my parents bright and early. The herringbone vest I've had my eye on since October was to be mine... except that they were sold out of mediums. It wasn't just the herringbone vest, but all the style vests were in short supply. Christmas really snuck up on me this year. Given the ludicrous amount of workaholic habits I've been building, I totally let it slip my mind that Christmas shopping is in full effect. Banana Republic, the only place that sells suits that fit me without any tailoring, was out of anything in my size. I tried going to Macy's to find some more cologne. I had a sample of Signature by Kenneth Cole from last year that both Katie and I really find pleasing. What wasn't pleasing was that both Macy's stores in my mall stopped carrying Signature. Or maybe Ken Cole stopped making it. The girl behind the fragrance counter asked me try out RSVP by Ken Cole instead. IT SMELLS TERRIBLE, like bottled ass. Well not that bad, but definitely not Signature. I've gotten really jaded to Kenneth Cole products too. I'm not really one to buy things by product labels. And fancy brands are not necessarily better. Kenneth Cole's fragrances I can stand, but everything else he makes has not scored high with me. My Kenneth Cole belt fell apart. My KC shoes are separating at the rubber soles, and the soles are cracked in half. My friend Bryan had a KC laptop bag he got for Christmas one year and the buckle broke. I swore I would never again buy KC products except his fragrances.

Those Kenneth Cole shoes I bought back in 2004 from Bostonian. I bought a black pair of wide-toe leather oxford shoes by KC as well as a pair of Bostonian Andover in burgundy. I swear to you the Bostonian shoes are THE most comfortable dress shoes I have ever worn. I've stood for 8+ hours in a cold server room in both the KC and the Bostonians before. The KC shoes had my feet hurting within 2-3 hours but the Bostonians felt great throughout the whole day. So I found a coupon at zappos for a free pair of cedar shoe trees from Bostonian stores. Armed with my coupon and utterly disappointed at all the other stores I've been thus far, I headed to the Bostonian. I ended up buying two pairs of shoes, some shoe cream polish, 3 pairs of socks, a belt and another cedar shoe tree in addition to the free one.

I got a black pair to replace the broken down KC shoes. It's called the Bostonian Houghton I think:


The pair I absolutely love are these brown dual leather ones called the Ritz. It's got both calfskin and deerskin Italian leather and looks extremely slick with either wool suit pants or boot cut denim jeans. I'm definitely gonna wear these the most:


While I'm at it, here are my burgundy Bostonian Andover ones from 3 years ago:


I now understand why women love their shoes. If I didn't have these suit bonuses, I really would never buy any shoes this expensive. But you really get what you pay for with these. I highly recommend getting a pair of nice shoes if you ever have to dress to impress. And tailor your suits too. Unless you're built like the suit model, you will probably not look as good in an untailored suit.

So the last journal was not only to post my commission rates, but also because I said that that I would make a CSS journal. I decided to use the all so popular Simple & Clean one that everyone else has too. Thanks again to ~evikted for the subscription donation! So... I noticed a lot of people were getting those secret santa notes. I got one but have decided to opt out, simply for the reason that Katie and I have our own secret project to work on and it really excites me because it highlights both of our talents. That and I still owe people Christmas cards from last year. Yes, I'm talking about you *Daimida

I started an artblog too, the link to which you can find on the right-hand side of the journal, though there aren't really any entries in there. It's also pretty barren of design aesthetics too, just the default stuff. Though if you look hard enough, there's a link to my Amazon wishlist [cough]xmas anyone?[/cough] I guess the reason for the artblog is because I told myself I would find the time to do more speedpaintings and concept sketches, but so far I haven't. I am dead serious about doing it though, given the massive amount of inspiration I've had lately and my ever burning desire to make a game of some sort. I also plan to upload photos of all the figures I've been collecting once I finally set up some sort of photoshooting setup with a light diffuser and such. Or just wait to borrow Katie's camera ^_^ She's coming over this weekend for my company's annual Holiday dinner.

So what's really been consuming my time lately? Besides decorating my house and setting up a tree, work had gotten increasingly busy and I had a huge workload slammed on my desk the other day. However, on Friday my boss tells me that I don't need to do most of what was discussed in our last meeting and my workload got really easy again. Guess I can scrap all that code I wrote though the week. Oh well. It also looks like I'll be going back to San Diego sometime in January, probably after Katie and I get back from our Hawaiian cruise. Is there much left of San Diego after the fires? Particularly the Rancho Bernardo area?

I've also been working slowly but surely on commissions. The plus side of having an easier time at work is that I won't pass out when I get home, which means I can do commissions at last. I'm trying not to stick with my dull coloring styles in my attempts to make my art look more vibrant. I definitely need to work on backgrounds too. So for everyone who has commissioned me thus far and asked for backgrounds, you're probably going to get more effort in the backgrounds than I have been doing in the past. Commission slots are still available btw. I will probably stop at 10 until I finish then reopen again. I wish I wasn't so slow at art so people can have their commissions in time for Christmas or at least New Years.

So lately a lot of my friends have really starting getting into Asian ball-joint dolls. Katie's been into them for a while now and has a gorgeous collection of 3 dolls (the 4th is on the way in the mail!) and she also offers face-up and body aethetics services using her pwnsome hand painting skills and her amazing airbrushing, evidenced on her doll site Pretty Resin. Kat a.k.a. ~superkatchan has started making doll clothing. If you thought her cosplay costumes were cool, imagine what you can commission her to make. So besides plugging my friends, I've really started getting into these dolls too. Not that I own any of them or ever really plan to, but I appreciate the sculpts for these dolls. I'd really love to learn sculpting one day and maybe even eventually make some doll sculpts. I've always been a big collector of action figures and bishoujo figures, and have recently come to really appreciate 12 inch (1/6 scale) ball jointed action figures. My cat Thomas bought me this amazing Medicom made Jack Sparrow off of eBay for my Christmas gift this year:


He's such a good kitty X3 I'm also considering getting a Urika Gagarin like the one here:


But what I've REALLY got my eye on is Batman.


Yes BATMAN... from Batman Begins. Particularly, the one made by Takara, not Medicom or Hot Toys. Besides the likeness to the cool guy Christian Bale (he voices Howl), he's got a shatload of accessories, including tiny batarangs! So yea, lately I've started gaining such a bizarre interest in dolls. Who'da thunk it.

Because so many people have asked me, I decided to publish my current commission rates. I am not a professional artist and have a demanding full-time job. Therefore I have very little free-time for art and other projects, so if you need a commission done with a close deadline, I probably won't be able to meet your deadline. If you need to commission me, either leave me a note on DA or send me an email here.

Anyway, my rates are all in USD$ as follows:

For CGed character with simple background:
Headshot: $50.00 (additional characters around $10.00 each)
Bust: $75.00 (additional characters around $25.00 each)
Full body: $100.00-$125.00 (additional characters around $50.00 each)

Add on complex background $25.00+ (depends how complex)

If you want to commission me for sketches or lineart just email me about it. Prices for all commissions may be higher based on complexity and amount of detail.

There are also some things I will NOT draw.
-pornography (artistic nudity is ok)
-extreme gore (blood and some violence is fine by me though)
-anything else I may find offensive (racist artwork, child porn, etc)

Please send me all the info you can on the character(s): text descriptions, reference pictures, etc. Concerning copyrights of the commissioned artwork... I retain full copyright as the artist of the work, but you get full copyright for reproduction (i.e. you can make your own prints if you want) as long as you don't sell any reproductions.

As for payment, I PREFER PayPal <minh.a.do@gmail.com>, but I will also take money orders, personal checks, or cash (I wouldn't recommend sending cash via mail, but Western Union might work). Checks must clear the bank before I consider it as a "received" payment. I must receive at least 50% of the payment beforehand. I will show you a resized watermarked version of the completed commission, then when I receive the last half of the payment I will send you the full image. If you wish to just send 100% of the payment before hand, that works too.