"Change is hard at first, messy in the middle, and gorgeous at the end." — Jim Rohn

I did a lot of deep thinking last year regarding the future of art and design, my artistry, and how I will cope or move forward with the rapid changes. I want to unpack all of my thoughts in this post, and perhaps it would help me navigate what I should do moving forward.

Rise and Grind

Strategize, Focus and Commit. These 3 simple words got me through the whole month of November and I feel fulfilled that I managed to move past the initial stage of re-establishing myself as an artist and designer professionally.

I’ve been reading Get Your Sh*t Together by Sarah Knight, and it was a great guide about mental decluttering to start doing what you want to do and then finish them eventually. I have so many ideas in mind and I know what I want in life yet it was a struggle to understand what step should I do first.

 

One of the things that I had to change is my distractions. The number one on the list is playing video games and I had to go offline so I won’t succumb to peer pressure. For so long, I would just say “okay, just one game guys” and then, later on, hours already passed. I also minimized my social media activity and just use it when I have important folks to respond to. Doing these 2 simple things has improved my productivity level in ways I couldn’t imagine.

Website Update

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working on my own brand identity and doing design templates from scratch. I want to prioritize my design work and concluded to transition my site Artrospective to my name for a more professional feel.

I was still in my early years as a student when I started this site and it feels like it was only yesterday. I wrote about the reason for my hiatus almost a year ago and looking back now, the journey wasn’t easy. I managed to slowly and steadily establish my confidence again as an artist and designer, gain social media presence, and expanded my portfolio.

 

 

 

 

Not sure if I mentioned it but I had a hard time coming up with a website name before. I wanted something related to art so I combined Art & Retrospective. That is the birth of Artrospective, which means a compilation of artwork., like an exhibit. I didn’t see that word in any Google search way back but now I’m surprised some folks adapted it. I’m gonna say, I am a self-proclaimed pioneer of that word hahaha! This word is so special to me and I will surely use this term whenever I can.

As I write this, I thought I will be a bit emotional since it’s like closing a chapter of my life yet I feel enthusiastic. I had a wake-up call 2 weeks ago and it was the trigger I needed to start the grind. Also huge thanks to my twin for giving me a long encouragement message which I badly needed to hear from someone dear to me. I guess just like my very first post here, I will embark on new beginnings.

Children of Bodom Live in Manila 2014

       

They're back! Children Of Bodom Live in Manila this May 12, 2014 to promote their latest album "HALO OF BLOOD". Wooooooh! 1 month to go, can't wait. I'm still not sure if I'll be there :( 

I fvcking need to go on their concert, I already missed their show back in '11 and if I fail this year's concert also I'll commit suicide (joke!) but you know if you're a huge fan, you'll probably feel miserable.

The reason of my uncertainty is Pat's birthday celebration that day and he'll kill me if I'm not present (hahaha good friend right?) I'm planning to go in advance on his place so that I'll be on the concert. I hope Pat's celebration date will be moved (ohhh please!) It's still a month left and lot of things may change. 

That's all everyone and if ever I'll be on the concert, you'll see some concert moments here on my blog. Let's all hope for the best COBHC!

{DISCLAIMER: I don't own any photos of [Children Of Bodom] credits to the owners}

First Featured

Featuring of Against All Odds on ArtFavorite

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I never expected that my work will be featured this fast in any Art Groups in deviantART. First, I only started this week, and there are lots of awesome artworks made by different classes of artists from beginners to pros submitted daily in Art Groups. That's why I'm pretty flattered about my work's featuring. I received number of faves and comments also.

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  Status As Of 

(11:06 a.m. 4/11/14)

Just imagine out of 32,000+ members and innumerable submissions, my artwork is chosen. It's really an honor for me especially I'm a new member and as an artist, it's an inspiration to do much better work that'll inspire others. I give thanks to the administrators for giving my work a chance.

Maybe for some it's not a big deal, but for me it is. I hope that my other works will get notice as well as my upcoming works on ArtFavorite again and other Art Groups. Of course I would like to thank those inspiring comments and the faves.

Just WOW!

Alexi 'Wildchild' Laiho (Children of Bodom)

The hottest front man in present time Alexi Laiho.

I've been a huge fan of Children of Bodom since '10. I'm a metal fan so I came across their music back then and I just fell in love with their music. They're like metal gods in Finland or maybe not just there haha. Well they're just "KINGS OF MELODEATH" anyway (woohoo).

Kawaii not? LOL 

(L-R) Janne, Jaska, Alexi, Henkka and Roope 

FYI this blog post is about the birthday celebrant Alexi hahaha. I just gave a brief intro about the band if others are not familiar though (I hope you do)

Ok so he's now 35

Still friggin' HOT on his mid 30's

 

PHOTOMANIPULATION

 Alexi Laiho Concept

 

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I first subtracted the images and then properly arranged them into this. I'm too lazy to post the complete process, well it's just basics anyway and I'm not into tutorials ('cause I think I'm not yet fit to be doing one, I hope someday)

The result after the post-processing

 

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Final image :)

 

After hours of working at last I'm done hahaha. I did quite soften the image and focus on Alexi haha. I've been doing lots of revisions in the concept that's why it took me so long just to finish and finally I can rest now.

Hope you like my photomanipulation guys.  It's my first long post hahaha.

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN TO MARKKU UULA ALEKSI LAIHO!!!!!!!!

 

(DISCLAIMER: I don't own any images of {Children Of Bodom} and {Alexi Laiho} credits to the owners)

Artrospective "New Beginnings"

Hello everyone! This is my first post in my new blog Artrospective and I'll give you some insights about it. Hope you'll read it 'til the last word.

Well first I'll give you a little background about myself. I started blogging in 2009 and due to my busy schedule and of course school (oh come on! I'm just lazy though) I seldom to update my blog that's why I can't keep on track and fail to update my readers. But don't worry guys, I decided to be more productive as an artist and share my works to the world.

Now I'll explain to you why I chose Artrospective as my blog's name. It is a combination of Art and Retrospective that means display or presentation of artworks. You can see different works of art here in my blog like Photography, Vector Arts, Illustrations and the like. That's why I encourage you to read or just visit my blog. I'll do my very best to update as much as possible for everyone.

You can also view my works at:

Flickr

Tumblr

deviantART

You can follow me on Twitter

Please note that I'm back to start and all of my old posts in my previous sites were permanently deleted.