Happy.

I thought I'd do another post now before I get too busy again with everything. I remembered yesterday that I was going to post about something Amoena posted about me in her blog, way back in time. I just never got round to post about it, being busy and all. It's such a nice excuse.

I was in a pretty bad mood when I read it. I'd just had a discussion with my professor, and once again, he'd had a 5-minute giggling fit after I'd reminded him that I'm not going to graduate just yet, even though I'm finished with my first subject studies, plus my master's thesis. I mean, I can see how that might be amusing the first time you hear it, but when he started giggling about it for God knows how manyth time (since a writer for New York Times has used that expression, it must be legit), I just couldn't be ok about it. I just sat there silent, rolling my eyes.

Sooo, it has been established that I was a little bit pissed. But I felt better after reading what Amoena considers my most valuable characteristics. She had tried to pick one or two properties of each of her friends, in trying to describe her perfect best friend. Now isn't that adorable. But let me quote her here:

"Elina was a bit of an harder piece of cake, but I did figure it out: I would take her wisdom so he could make me smarter and her good spirit to keep me optimistic."

Apart from the slight confusion with my sex (I'm female if you didn't know already ;)), I thought it was a really nice thing to say. But I totally did not expect either of those points. My "wisdom"? I certainly don't consider myself completely stupid, but I'm not the most intelligent person to walk this earth, let alone the wisest. It's easy to have an inferiority complex about your intelligence when you're studying at university level, surrounded by hundreds of clever people. However, I suppose it must be that I have as much as three years more of life experience behind me than her. ;) You can grow a lot in that time, but I'm not so sure whether that necessarily makes you any wiser...

As for the "good spirit", then? Like, what?? I've always thought of myself as more pessimistic rather than optimistic. Most of the time I'm moody, and often feel depressed. I can be very cynical, hopeless and sarcastic at times. But I do have a solution to this one, as well: I tend not to mope when I'm with friends. I just see no point - why not have fun, since nobody really can laugh and have fun when they're alone? You can enjoy your lone time, but I rarely laugh when I'm alone (only the Friends and Conan O'Brien with his sophisticated beard can make me do that). It's a social thing. So, I try to make light of everything around friends, within reason of course. Especially when I notice that a friend of mine is feeling a bit down, I try to make them at least smile. So I guess that attitude can come off as a good spirit.

Ok, now onto the painting of the day. For once, I really, really like this one. I gave it to my mum for Christmas two years ago, and she really liked it, too.

The original model is actually Asian, or Asian-American, for all I know (an NPC from the game Half Life 2, rightmost at the bottom; God I love that game), but I don't know how much of her is left here. I'm quite happy with the linearistic style and the smooth shading, even if the features of that woman aren't quite natural. I still can't make it look right when I paint faces a little from the side, especially the mouth area. Yet, it is the most common pose used in portraits! Maybe it makes anyone's face look thinner? It's also supposed to be easier than, say, painting a face staring straight at the viewer. Silhouettes, for their part, can be easy, but are also dull.

I'd love to do more Half Life -inspired paintings, and as a matter of fact I have made another female NPC painting, but I think I could expand to male characters, as well. As much as I want to, I don't think I'm ready to mimic any of the wonderful environmental and architectural scenery that is so compelling and beautiful in the game. Hey, here's an idea: if you haven't played HL2, you should play it, if only for the sake of its amazing art.

Which reminds me of a book that I got for Christmas in '06: Video Game Art. Can't find a link or remember the name of the author, but it was a good book. The pictures were really inspiring, and the author had some pretty good points about how to give credibility to video game art. This is only my hunch, but I don't feel like video games are appreciated as pieces of art. For sure, they are appreciated occasionally when it comes to a good narrative, but the visual experience is praised only in game reviews. Which don't exactly reach the whole population. I hope this author will contribute more to his cause in the future.