Once Upon a Tokyo

... it's a double adventure... Tokyo AND teaching high school, too bad I don't care for seafood ...

Mr. Wall's Room

Spider-Man (aka Supaidaaman)

Here's a reason you have to be careful when you license your characters to overseas markets, and then don't really have any creative control...

CBRunway: McSherlock the P.I. Pup

Welcome to the Runway! The judges liked my initial designs, and I'm in! Yay! So this is what it feels like to be let in to Hollywood on American Idol. Uh, or on Project Runway. (Do they even go to Hollywood? Ulp! Don't show ignorance! Just draw!)

The first challenge is to "create and design an original and memorable non-powered, human, plain-clothes detective or private investigator."  

I thought long about this. To me, just having a trenchcoated, fedora-sporting guy would just be to wrong way to go. He'd need a gimmick. I came up with many intriguing ideas-- without boring you with details, let's just say that at various times the following were involved: a fat man, a giant eyeball, a Santa man, Roy G. Biv, and Reese Witherspoon. (That actually sounds like it would make for a great party.)

Instead, what I couldn't stay away from was the idea of a giant plush company mascot thrown into a world of film noir. Perhaps a company symbol engaging in corporate espionage? Or maybe a Magic Kingdom analogue? What I couldn't figure out is how would the guy actually get into the suit in the first place. Until I figured out the story behind the mask....

"He sniffs out the clues, and crooks get locked up! He saves the day, he's our own P.I. Pup!"
McSherlock the P.I. Pup, everyone's favorite public service announcement who encourages us to "Yip, Yip! Chomp Down on Crime!", is always available for parties and school assemblies-- or, at least, the three police officers who are tasked with public appearances that day will be available. Two in uniform, one in the Pup, that's how it goes.

Until Officers Kate, Lyle, and Arman went missing. They were supposed to perform at the birthday party for Congressman Vanko's li'l daughter, but something went horribly wrong. The Russian mob attacked the party, accusing Vanko of being a rival gang leader. The officers were caught in the middle, and believed to have died-- because no one saw any of them again.

That is, until McSherlock showed up at a similar crime scene a week later. McSherlock is helping the police uncover the truth about the Russian gangs, Vanko, and possible police corruption. But is McSherlock really Kate, Lyle, or Arman? Or all three at different times? One thing's for sure-- when your only safety in the world revolves around your anonymity behind a furry anthropomorphic dog suit, you know you're in trouble!

The McSherlock costume is based on the "walk-around characters" popular at theme parks. It's a full-body costume made of synthetic fur (body) and nylon (ears and clothing) with special padding to create the desired shape. The head, hands and feet are separate from the main costume, although the other elements like the deerskin cap, bowtie, and cape are sewn onto their respective parts. The nose is a special fine mesh that allows the wearer to look out while keeping his/her identity hidden. In the rare case when McSherlock actually speaks (he usually acts in pantomime), the wearer's voice is also sufficiently muffled, and the wearer also affects a mock-McSherlock cartoony voice. McSherlock's signature oversized magnifying glass is freely removeable. 

When you cross Lil Wayne with Paul Anka

I've gotten to watch some Japanese MTV-style channels for some background noise. Apparently, the top 41st video features the first African-American "enka" singer-- Jero. Here's his live performance---

The weird thing? His music video is all pop-style and flashy and After-Effectsy, but the song styling is pure 1940's country music, Japanese-style. As I said, imagine Lil Wayne meets Paul Anka. (with less impressive backup dancers, either way.)

Comic Book Runway

One of the things I've been looking forward to is the possibility of entering CBR's message board version of Project: Runway. It's redesigns of superheroes! How could I *not* do this?

Here's my audition entry.
The requirements for this audition entry were simply "superhero, superheroine." Nothing fancy, I'll admit, but I wanted to stay true to the pure essence of that idea-- the hero. I wanted a costume that a citizen in their world would look at with awe and respect and hope-- a costume that couldn't be construed as anything but a heroic champion's by visuals alone.

The lady's has some Greek overtones, with a cape coming from one shoulder and a motif of white and yellow (two-sided colors), accentuated by the headpiece and leg bands of gold. The black torso keeps a contrast and helps accentuate the golden velvet texture of her upper torso and the same color, but transparent, of the golden arms. Notice the silk leaves the shoulders bare and extends to the base of the fingers. Imagine a modern-day Artemis with long, flowing blonde hair.

The man's costume took a life of its own. I went through many variations, but wanted to keep a more iconic motif centered around a theme. In this case, an animal. Big, bold colors keep it classic, but some slight touches keep some modern touches-- a gradient in the cape, tapered stripes on the tips of his gloves and boots, simulating claws without being threatening. Similarly, the costume is classic spandex and synthetics but with a more "realistic" style that is more of a modern military costume. Most notable for this guy is the mylar eyes, shaped as a catseye, and the wild mane of snythetic hair. 

UPDATE:

Here's what the judges thought of my entry:

Quote: Originally Posted by atoningunifex
I am very torn on this one. I like the male design. I think the animal touches are fun without being overdone. I like that the "mane" is part of the collar of the cape and not a headpiece. I like the way it gives off a Thundercats-meets-Sky Captain kinda vibe.
I do not like the female design as much. It has too many things going on. It's very overdesigned.

Quote: Originally Posted by Dazzler
These are pretty busy designs, but I like busy designs. Love the man’s cape and the top/sleeves for the female. Nice colors.

Quote: Originally Posted by Pro
You’ve succeeded in capturing the royal aspect of a superhero as was your intent.

Quote: Originally Posted by Vegetarian Goat
Where is my son Akim? I am prepared to compensate.

Quote: Originally Posted by bakla
Very 70s Perez feel to the woman, very 70s Don Heck Villain to the man.

Trust me, bakla's comments make me feel very happy. And V-Goat's comments make me very confused.

Lemon Cakes

So, the big book club event went off fine. I prepared for many days so it wouldn't be a problem-- cooking up a big batch of spaghetti ahead of time, buying veggies, etc. All I had to do on the big day was to cut up some veggies for salad and crudités (love the way that word makes cut-up vegetables sound so elegant) and to make a lemon cake.

For some reason, I had it in my mind to make a lemon cake. It's one of the few things that I get a craving for and can't quite get the same thing over here. Now I guess I know why. It's a pain in the butt to make. Lemons aren't that expensive (compared to most produce around here), but it's still a hassle, and then I don't really have a zester or a juicer, so I have to make do. No buttermilk either, but I can use lemon juice and milk and fake it. Butter itself is super expensive, and cakes take a lot of it-- once you convert all your recipe stuff into metric and try to get the right measurements....

Anyway, I'm making a bigger deal of it. The real fun was putting it into the aluminium pans I bought from the 100-Yen shop. The package of tins came with 3, but the recipe said to divide it into two 8-inch loaf pans. (There's that darn U.S./non-metric stuff again.) So I filled the batter to the top of each. Can't fit both in my oven, so only one goes in for now. The recipe didn't say that the darn thing would rise, and rise and RISE, and keep on RISING! I thought I had created a slowly dripping volcano of lemon cake batter. The top was getting browned nicely, but batter still kept creeping forth from the side until a little mound of mutant side-cake grew next to it. Luckily, the oven uses a inner plate (like those mini-lazy-susans in a microwave), so the batter didn't go all over the oven itself. But it was funny, and made the first cake come out deformed.

Thank goodness there WAS three tins in the package, so I could divide the remaining batter between the two remaining tins in the mean time.

The cakes did taste amazing, I have to admit. Even the mutant one. 

Indulge me...

Sometimes I need to watch this video every now and again....

Captain America revamp

Here's another recent revamp of a classic comic character. I like to play "what if?" and here's a thought-- what if Captain America was a native American? I took a concept from another Marvel comics character, the Puma, and tweaked Captain America's normal design with to create something with a little more adobe, white, and turquoise.

Happy Groundhog Day, America!

Winter's not over yet-- let's order in.

Since it's been raining for about 30-some hours by now, I've resigned myself to the fact that winter is not over yet. Still, it could be worse. According to my lesson plans from last year, we had a "snow day" about this same time. Also-- thank goodness for my Playstation 3.

One of the first things I learned how to do in order to function in a new country is to learn how to order from Domino's pizza. I usually go for the traditional "Domino's Deluxe" which is the closest thing we can get to an American-style pizza, but it's also fun to look at the menu and see what new and exciting offerings there are.

The newest pizza in the line up is the Whole Cambert Cheese Fondue Pizza.Thanks to some rough translations, it's described as "Simmering-sticky whole Cambert cheese, that's this luxurious fondue sauce." In other words, as a topping, there is a WHOLE BLOCK OF CAMBERT CHEESE, plus potato, ham, shrimp, broccoli, and black pepper. A large, which serves about 4-5 Japanese people, will set you back about $35.

Six Degrees of Spider-Man

Wow. I can sure waste time, can't I?
I just invented a new game, called "Six Degrees of Spider-Man," in which you must answer the question-- Using only 6 links or less, can you get to "Spider-Man" on wikipedia from any random page?

Let's see, first we start with the random page, "List_of_colonial_governors_in_1917"
Really? I suppose some kid somewhere in the world is thankful that he doesn't have to look this up in a book somewhere. Let's see, there's not a lot to choose from here...

1st click--  let's choose 1917 -- Hmm. Lots here. Scroll, scroll, scroll.... Whoa, look who's born in 1917!
For my 2nd click, I'll take "Jack_Kirby" please. Then it's easy:
3rd-- Marvel_Comics
4th-- Spider-Man

Okay, that was almost too easy. How about another random page, "Zarzuela_del_Monte?"
1-- Spain
2-- Spanish_art
3-- Western_painting
4-- Pop_art
5-- Comic_books
6-- Spider-Man

Almost didn't make it that time. Next up? "Outpost_Harry"
1-- Times_Square
2-- Midtown_Manhattan
3-- Hell's_Kitchen,_Manhattan
4-- Marvel_Comics
5-- Spider-Man

And now, for my final trick, the random page of... dun, dun, duuuun! Internetowa_encyklopedia_PWN
Huh?
No problem--
1-- Encyclopedia
2-- Category:Greek_loanwords
3-- Scorpion
4-- Scorpion_(disambiguation)
5-- Mac_Gargan
6-- Spider-Man

There! It's easy, AND educational! Try it yourself and see!