The Avengers and...Betaaaaa!

The other day I went to the cinema, and as you might understand from the film poster up here, I went to watch The Avengers (in IMAX 3D). I was waiting for it since when it was announced a few years ago, but what I didn't know was that it was the World's Premiere. Incredibly in fact, the movie came out the 25th of April in Italy, where worldwide (USA included) will be out the 4th of May. 

Almost all of the cast came to Italy to take part to the Premiere, and the red carpet was quite...unusual (look at the picture, with the platform raised by Hulk's hands).
Since it was the premiere before the movie started, it has been showed the "Making-of", some clips from the previous movies (Thor, Iron Man 1-2, Captain America, Hulk) and the interviews with the actors.
I won't do any spoiler, but it really was a great movie, I liked it a lot, it was filled with action and fun. My favourite hero was Tony Starrk (Iron Man) that in the movie teased every other hero, but according to the reviews I've read, Mark Buffalo starred the best Hulk seen on screen.
There were a lot of famous actors in the movie:

• Robert Downey Jr. - Tony Starrk / Iron Man
• Chris Evans - Steve Rogers / Captain America
• Chris Hemsworth - Thor
• Mark Ruffalo - Bruce Banner / Hulk
• Scarlett Johansson - Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow
• Jeremy Renner - Clint Barton / Hawkeye
• Tom Hiddleston - Loki
• Samuel L. Jackson - Nick Fury

What are you still waiting for? Go to watch it!

Save wearing 3D glasses

Considering the time I am posting this, it's friday already, and in less than 18 hours Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend will start. My client is ready (I managed to download it at a flippin' 2,5 Mb/s!!! Which is like the max I can download with my 20Mbits and that I never experienced before... If everything went that fast I'd be able to download an mp3 in 2 seconds and a movie in 4 minutes. Awesome!), I managed to make sure my weekend is free from any sort of bother and I got plenty of booze for the long sessions of PvE, PvP, PvAnything. And someone knows I won't be able to stay on the cellphone for long, so it's better not to call much, riiiiight?
When I bought my new toys I didn't feel really comfortable with the Naga because it was taller than my other mice. I thought "Oh fuck...", but the training paid off, and now it doesn't feel half bad. Rather, I got quite good at recognizing the keys on it. I trained hard, but it was worth it.

Also the login screen is awesome!!!

I'd like to remind to my guildmates and the allies of Dragons Of Dark Flame (DODF) that we've chosen KAINENG (NA) as our Home Server for this beta, chosen through a democratic vote when the server list was announced. If anyone has questions, doubts, or is in need of any kind of info, feel free to contact me through the usual guild communication channels.

See y'all soon (But after the weekend ahahah)!

A kiss under the rain... and my new toys :)

I am posting at an unusual time today, but I might not be home until late, considering I am going to the cinema to watch a movie, so I thought it was better to do it now.

When someone came to know I started drawing, she insisted and bugged me a lot so that I'd draw or at least sketched this scene, and by a lot, I mean a lot! >.<

Luckily I found a few tutorials I made use of to draw it. It came out something different from the other times. At first I wanted to color it, but I realized it also looked nice on gray tones. The hair was quite a pain to draw, it has a nice flow now, but I don't know if in color it would look as good. Some shades were done with vectorial shapes while others with hand brushes. There are still things to fix, even if I inked the most, like hand shape and shadows. I'll see what I can do when I have time.

As you can see my new little toys finally arrived! They really look great in the dark >=]

It takes a while to get used to them, and since I don't have any solid game to try them on, I had to resort to League Of Legends. The first attempt didn't go half bad:

Since the opening picture had to do with rain, I thought I'd update the blog's sound player with a new song and share its lyrics (credits to Ronky ;] )

Nadia Ali - When it Rains

What a mark carved on my heart
I was struck by cupid's darts
Hit so fast I did not see
Before I knew, love captured me


Believe me this was not my choice
I did my best to quite the noise
Will ever he know what he's done?
The depth in which this potion runs


When it rains, it pours down
It won't stop from coming now
When it rains there's a flood
I am all drowned in your love


Every dawn gives way to dusk
With each story endings come
With the ticking of the clock
I long for another touch


Could I have known this fate at all?
I did not know I'd get caught up
Every sunset brings forth light
And soon enough my sun will rise


Heaven knows this only the beginning
I can all ready see where this is heading

Beginning of the inking process
(with some details still not fixed)

Time to get ready to go out!

See y'all soon!

Little Angel...and a Diablo.

This blog post opens with a little angel (it's the character for the game I am currently working on, trying the smudge tool as Stephie suggested, maybe without much luck), but what I want to talk about is a devil, or better, a Diablo. Jokes aside, this weekend I took part in Diablo 3's beta. Let's leave aside all the issues about servers, queues, and errors on login that can somehow be expected on a beta.

I've been a big fan of Diablo serie, and I've played (and finished multiple times) Diablo1, Diablo2 and Diablo2 LoD, so I was considering about purchasing the game once it was out.

The class that I looked forward the most was the monk, so that was the one I tried first in the beta. Supposedly you can level up till lvl 13 in beta and beat the first Act boss. With my big surprise, this only took me about 35 minutes. It left me really dissatisfied. Not only about the length of the beta, that of course will be bigger at release, but about the gameplay. I thought the monk was a bad pick, so I retried with other classes...just to receive the same feeling.

D3 felt like a D2 with better graphics, but with even less freedom in the gameplay and customization of the character. I know that D2 had a big success for its hack 'n slash gameplay, but hei, 12 years have passed from D2, and players expect something more from a game they waited this much.

D3 striked me for its really simple gameplay, limitedness (click click click), and how I found D2 to be more fun than its successor.

Overall, it's not like D3 is a bad game,  but it wasn't something that hooked me and made me think "Oh wow I so want to see what there is past this point, Imma buy it!". I hope for those who will purchase it that past level 13 gets a lot better, but judging the skill system there isn't much variety. All in all imho it isn't worth the price (and that comes from someone who was waiting it because he liked the previous chapters!).

Tonight I had a multilayered Piadina (a thin italian flatbread: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piadina) for dinner. I added on it Emmenthal Cheese, Salame, Olive oil, Tomatoes, Fresh Garlic and Tomatoes. Delicious! :)

I'll close this blog post with a link to a collection of "Realistically" drawn Pokemons: http://www.icanbecreative.com/realistic-pokemon-characters-redesign.html. They might not be as cute as the original, but they're amazingly drawn. :)

See y'all soon!

Naga & Nostromo

I don't know if you remember, but about one month ago, I posted about choosing a new mouse (http://tetsuoryuu.blogspot.it/2012/03/new-mouse-approaching.html). Well I've chosen. Razer Naga. Black and Azure. So far, no ground breaking news. What's new is that beside the Naga, I've decided to purchase also the Razer Nostromo, a very unique keypad. (Their colors mesh perfectly!)

When I first saw it, it looked so straight out of a sci-fi movie, like Minority Report, that I thought it wasn't real, or it was just a concept. But it was real! And it looked so freakin cool (with its shape and cyan's leds) and useful I couldn't just skip it. Yea, I am arming myself for gw2 with an huge amount of keys to bind and the precision of a D-pad (between the mouse and the keypad 17+16 without considering the alts), but they'll prove to be useful also when I draw (mapping all the tools and the layers browsing). People who used it say that is also extra comfortable.

Here's a list of the complete specs:

• Ergonomic form factor and tournament-grade layout
• 16 fully programmable Hyperesponse keys
• Programmable 8-way directional thumb pad and scroll wheel
• Instantaneous switching between 8 key maps
• Unlimited macro lengths
• Stores up to 20 different game profiles
• Adjustable soft-touch wrist pad for exceptional comfort
• Backlit keypad and scroll wheel for total control even in dark conditions
• Enhanced Razer configurator software
• Approximate Size : 183 mm / 7.21” (Width) x 159 mm / 6.26” (Height) x 59 mm / 2.32” (Depth)
• Approximate Weight: 297 g / 0.65 lbs

My mean friends say the Naga has a calculator on its side, or that it's used to make phone calls, while the Nostromo is a space shuttle controller xD. The Naga & Nostromo (Double-N!) should be delivered in the middle of next week, right in time for GW2's beta (27th-29th April). I can't wait! :3

Originally I had something else in mind for this blog post, but I had to face a nasty bug in a software I developed, and I am still dealing with it. Due to it I couldn't complete the drawing I was working on and I planned on posting tonight. I need to come up with some idea to fix this fuckin' bug, because it's really hideous. Time to go back to stack-traces and debugging. I hope I can finish soon so I can draw :\

See y'all soon!

Tea, Bad weather & Titanic

It's really raining a lot lately, the rainiest April in the last 20 years they say. I guess I was too hasty when around ten days ago I said to Angelo "Hei this winter it didn't rain much at all!". Sigh. Not only that, it's rather cold too, so I had to get back my blankets (until ten days ago the weather was like the one you usually have in late spring / early summer!) and to warm myself a little I decided to sip some good tea. Particularly, I decided to try one of the blends that the Japanese Professor Naohisa Takahashi helped me to pick. So among Wild Berries, Four Red Fruits and Orange & Cinnamon, I decided to go for the reddest of them all :) It's sooooo...delicious :3

The weather is so bad lately that is causing problems with the public transports, yesterday in fact I prefered to stay home, and it was a wise choice. The one in the picture is the Metro's central station. It rained so hard that the metro had to stop...it became like a stage for the America's cup but sadly the trains can't float. 'Cause of that many students from my campus couldn't get back home. Beside that, it was good also for some pleasurable thing I managed to do instead of going there... :) Since the weather is still like this, and it seems there should also be a strike of public transports, I'll stay home on friday too.

Considering so many people are going crazy over the 3D version of Titanic, I thought I'd share this funny picture. I don't get in the first place why people are raising such a fuss about it, it's just the same 'ol movie, and the 3D it's not a real 3D, but one artificially created outlining the frames (in 1997 when it was filmed, there were no modern 3d cameras), so it's not as good as the one you can see in other recent movies. All in all, it's just a commercial operation to harvest some cash (and it seems it's working well judging by the sales). Even though I watched it at the cinema back then, I never really liked the movie too much, I remember I was kind of forced to watch it by my girlfriend of the time, and I remember it being insanely long and wanting it to end as soon as possible. Everyone knew that Jack was gonna die, and in my mind I was like "Die. Die. Die fast and let me go back home!".
Going back to the picture I posted, I always wondered why that Rose person didn't make Di Caprio get on the door too, there was way enough space. Let's not talk about buoyance as an excuse, because such a massive wood door, would've had no troubles at all to float. Fiction's drama need I suppose. Oh well.

See y'all soon! :)

Sexy Witch

The image I posted is still currently under work, particularly I have to fix her neck and shoulders. Compared to my previous images, this one's style is a little more mature. I am still inexperienced and so I am still testing around which style fits me the most. Maybe the next one will be a little more moe (if it's a girl), since someone finds the mature style a little "boring".

Today was a normal day, I should've had 4 hours of lessons, but a teacher didn't come, so I just had 2, and I spent the time at university mostly chatting leisurely with Angelo. When we went to have lunch, pizza of course; recently I've started ordering "Diavola con prosciutto cotto & funghi" (Diavola = Devil-like = Mozzarella, Tomato sauce, spicy oil, Salame + Prosciutto cotto = Ham + funghi = Mushrooms) because apparently their standard Diavola isn't really that spicy, so I went for a variation. Slowly it seems they've been increasing the spiciness of their oil, and today...sigh, I still have my tongue burning >.<

Tomorrow I am supposed to wake up early, but considering there is no end to the rain that is pouring outside, I'll call it a day. It just sucks because I was supposed to meet some people I got to know last week at the bus stop, but now that'll have to wait for friday.
I've added a new song to the playlist, Sweet Love - Liviu Hodor feat. Mona. It has a rhythm that is particularly addictive, and it's Enrico's fault that I now have a Last Song Syndrome on this one >.<
Here are the lyrics:

Liviu Hodor - Sweet Love Ft. Mona Lyrics

Big smile in my heart

nothing can tear us apart

i've been searching for you all this time

keep your eyes on my lips

cause it's them that you miss

i'll be there when you need my love

I need tonight your love your love your love your love by my side cuz i'll be waiting for your

sweet love tonight your love your love your love your love by my side cause i'll be waiting for your love

Chorus:

let's fly away together

let's get this dream forever 

let's dance like we're in heaven just give me your sweet love

let's fly away together

let's get this dream forever 

let's dance like we're in heaven you know you're my sweet love.

Chorus:

let's fly away together

let's get this dream forever 

let's dance like we're in heaven just give me your sweet love

let's fly away together

let's get this dream forever

let's dance like we're in heaven you know yo're my sweet love.

A-ah ah la la la 

I need tonight your love your love your love your love by my side cuz i'll be waiting for your

sweet love tonight your love your love your love your love by side cause i'll be waiting for your love.

[Chorus]

Say that you love me love me.

Say that you love me love me.

A-ah ah la la la .

Gotta run to drink something...
Water...Fruit Juice...maybe Pepsi...
...my poor burning tongue!
See y'all soon!

The 26th birthday party

The cake me and mom baked :3

As I told you in my previous post, even though it was my birthday I was required to take part to the W2GIS international conference. Last year I didn't celebrate my birthday, for personal reasons, and at first I didn't want to hold a party this year either, it was the first year after losing two people very important for me, and I would've wanted to avoid comparing it to the past and bringing back sad memories. What made me change idea has been the life teachings my grandpa always tried to instill in me, he would've wanted to see me with a smile on this day, like always. My friends also pushed me so that we could all celebrate together and in the end today (yesterday considering it's past 2 am of sunday now) we had this party.

Fooooooood!

It took a while to me and mom to prepare everything, and since we both were quite busy, we split the load on two days. Too bad I was too busy with my friends during the party to take pictures of the pizza, other foods and drinks (my brother helped me to prepare some good sangria, homemade! ).

Looks like my friends...arrived!

Another reason why I decided to have this party is that due to our distance and the different schedules (especially after graduation) it's becoming increasingly difficult to meet all together, but this kind of celebrations usually manage to do the trick. It was a lively night, I had to introduce to my university friends some new entry that wasn't from our campus and they never met before, we laughed a lot, watched funny videos from youtube on the tv, and told each other about our recent stories, especially with those that we didn't meet since long. They asked me about the drawings, what I used, and to show them something and...poked me a lot about the flowers from the previous post... >.<  

Swoooooosh: Express a wish...

And so it's 26. I am getting old...or so they say. I don't really feel old and I don't care about what others say I should do at this age. I think that age is mainly a state of mind. Oh and with yesterday it's exactly 8 years since I last got a fever. Is that a record? :)

While I was blowing over the candles on the cake, and I had to express a wish I suprised myself. Without really thinking, in that blink of an eye, I wished for something I thought that at this point I wouldn't have, I realized it only after, I was like...D'OH! I won't say what is it about, wishes are secret afterall, but it's true when they say that: "When you're conflicted, flip a coin. In the time it takes to land you'll know what the better option is"; when you're unsure about something, or you have to listen to a secret wish you can't admit even with yourself, if you're forced to take a decision on a split second, or hope that something happens, your true desires come out on their own.

As always with you guys it's fun, and it sucks just there is never enough of time to talk more with all of you (in this kind of occasions I always feel like a whirligig because I don't want to neglect anyone). Thanks!

Before leaving you for the night (my feet are killing me!) I want to share with you this video. It's really, really, really great (look at the red-haired kid's expression!). The best advertisement I saw so far. Turn off the blog music and enjoy it!

See y'all soon!

Unsigned flowers, InTernational Conference & a particular parking place.

Unsigned Note

Weirdest thing about today (yesterday)? I received flowers, it was a first. I mean, okay I received flowers also on my graduation, but it was different...and it wasn't from a girl. It's kind of strange, don't you think? Let's go with order...

Today as planned, I left home early to go to attend classes and the conference, suddenly in the morning mom calls me to tell me that I received...flowers. It was such a big fuzz, she couldn't stop laughing <.<".

I was really surprised, I couldn't imagine who would send me those, and I thought about a prank at first. I was able to check them only when I got back home in the evening. There was a note, unsigned, saying: "I tuoi occhi mi fanno sciogliere... Guardami! Buon compleanno! <3 xoxo", which in english means: "Your eyes make me melt...Look at me! Happy Birthday! <3 xoxo". *blushes* Pretty intense. Even if the note wasn't signed I think I may guess who was it from. So...I don't know if you'll read this, but thank you mysterious person, it was an atypical but nice thought n_n.

Shaved. As promised :)

I suppose that by now you guys can guess yesterday was my birthday. I didn't want to publicize it much, but I had to thank those of you who greeted me, and gave me some little gift. Actually, considering facebook, I received well over one hundred greetings, but I am pretty sure that not even one tenth of those even knew when was my birthday if it hadn't been for facebook/skype's reminders. Well nothing wrong with that, I do the same. Except for some people I care about, because somehow I manage to remember their days, and I start waiting for them a week ahead. Even so, there have been also people that, without using any of the technological gimmicks, remembered about me; I want to say a special thank you to them, because even if I don't really care about bday's greetings or presents (many of those are just empty), it's nice to know that you're important for someone, even just a little, and that they don't forget about you :)

Dell'Ovo Castle from the conference's place

After having my warm and relaxing shower, I can say that today's been a really tiring day, with all the mess with the transports, the bad weather and the conference, but it was fruitful. The conference was really interesting, there weren't many students (beside me, Vic, Enri and Elvio around other  5?) but there were professors and expert from all the world, it was really technical but with that easygoing spirit that distinguishes us IT specialists from the other scientists. My thesis tutor professor was particularly on a roll.

The conference room from a side

The conference took place in one of the oldest rooms of our university. It was quite pompous, with marble walls and fine woods ceiling.

A part of the buffet: assorted "Babà"

There was also some really good food, from high quality mozzarella to first dishes, seconds, lots of different desserts. As drinks there were Coke, wine, many different fruit juices, tea & coffee. All you can eat. I didn't manage to take many pictures because...let's say I focused on keeping my mouth busy.
The breaks and buffet were a good chance to socialize with the experts from other countries, discuss about light or deep topics, with people that it would've been hard to meet otherwise.
Particuarly, I drank some tea with a japanese professor (an expert of GPS traces), if I am not wrong his name was Naohisa Takahashi, and since we shared the same passion for tea, we discussed about our preferences, and he suggested me some blends I never tried, and we picked together from those available (I brought some home with me). It was really great!

At the end of the conference, it was announced that next year the W2GIS will be held in Banff, Canada, from april 4th to april 7th. They showed images from that place, and we were all invited there. If it will be possible, we will gladly go. Oh and as last remark, the Canadian host stated that this year Naples set the level for food really high, so they'll have to try their best to be on par. As always, our food is the best.

An unexpected discovery in the parking lot.

I didn't say before that it was really hard to find a parking for our car due to the ZTL (Limited Transit Zone) and the America's cup race (too bad for the weather :/ ) that was taking place in front of the conference place. We parked in a really peculiar place, in fact we discovered with great amusement that inside it there was a Paintings exhibition and that from the parking place you could see and visit some historical finds. It was really different from the usual garages :) (check the pictures!).

And now...
I'll eat my tasty yogurt...
Listen to some good music...
And draw a little.
See y'all soon!

Sleepy head, GW2, Conference, America's Cup.

America's cup in Naples

Just got out of a warm warm shower. It always feels so good.

This morning my alarm didn't work...or most likely I didn't hear it since someone kept me awake on skype till late =_=. I got up at 12.20 pm, luckily I had classes after lunch. So I had to rush a lot, barely managing to eat 2 toasts. That's why for dinner I cooked something delicious. I prepared one of my favourite dishes, pasta with salmon and cream, and then a few hamburgers. And to make it up for all the stress of the day I had this late in the night relaxing shower.

After many issues with Paypal, I managed to get my (prepurchase) copy of GW2 (thanks to Vic!). Their customer support replied to me after 1 hour I bought it, talk about usefulness. Anyhow, I can finally look forward to the last week of April, when I'll be able to take part in the closed beta. Fun~

Tomorrow (today, given the time) will be one hell of a busy day. I'll have to get to classes early (hoping the bus will pass), and then after that we'll have to have an uber early lunch at around...11am, because we have to take part to a conference about "Web and Wireless Geographical Information Systems".

The conference will take place quite far from our campus, in front of "Dell'ovo Castle", one of the biggest castles you can find in my city (there are a lot of cool pictures of Naples and tasty food on the conference's website: http://knomelab.dsf.unina.it/w2gis/venue#location ).

Dell'ovo Castle

I personally like that place a lot, it's romantic, and there are a lot of great restaurants around there (I go there to eat japanese). We will have a break around lunch time to watch the America's Cup race. The first picture in this post in fact is taken in the same waters under Dell'ovo castle, because this year the America's Cup (http://www.americascup.com/) will be hosted in Naples. Coincidentally there will be a round tomorrow, in front of the conference room and we will be watching it. After that, we will have to resume our attendance. What bothers me is that the weather forecast says tomorrow it's going to be really rainy, so I hope it won't ruin it all (and it's going to be a pain to travel with that shitty weather). So I'll get home later than usual, possibly not wet.

Someone said I should shave and get groomed:
Gonna do it tomorrow ;)

See y'all soon! :)

Spitfire

Hello people!
On today's post there are just a few fast drawings I did in my spare time. They didn't take much. The little lazy salamander may not fit well with the overall style of the game, but I find its face relaxing. As for the chained flame, I may have to rework the chains a little, and attempt other patterns of colors.
Finally I received the new router so my net is stable, and faster than before.

On the opposite I am having some troubles with paypal to prepurchase GW2, and their customer support still hasn't replied me <.<

Ever since I got back home today I feel quite lazy, I barely managed to do some studying, I am on the verge of going to sleep...but I must hold on, and work on some art. ._. Gotta get a lot more done before GW2 comes out.

I added a new track to the blog's music. While I was contacting the customer support of my ISP I kept listening to this song over & over and in the end I liked it. 

Thoughts and Clouds - Malika Ayane

There she goes
Down my knees
She sings out loud
She says

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Here she comes
Through the clouds

Not old
Not new
The world
You knew
will change with you
And colours too

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Thoughts and clouds
Can drift or sway

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Now she's grown
She doesn't care
Drifting on
Rain and rainbows
She'll play with trees
And daisies too
To shine her love

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I can't take the flowers away
Her favorite game

Not old
Not new
The world

So rain and rainbows
Make a perfect day

Okay, okay, now this lazy salamander is going to do his job.

C'yall soon!

Under the same sky...

I think I might stop drawing CodeP-chan. This one I just posted, is one of her pictures I drew in the past weeks, there are still others, finished and not. I don't even know if it was the right thing to post it at this point. When I started drawing her, it was to create a mascotte for our game, unconsciously while I was drawing I mixed in it a lot of myself and my feelings, getting too carried away. I think that's a lot like me to end that way though.

Those feelings allowed me to keep improving in order to shape her the best I could, she started as a chibi/comical character, but drawing after drawing she grew, because I wanted her to look as cute as I had her in mind, because it was like "If she has to be cute, she has to be like this". That wasn't a problem in itself, it was up to me the style to use for the mascotte and even if at times I diverted from the original purpose, it wasn't a big deal. In the last week there have been some events happening.

To be honest, I am a little confused on what to do about some things, there are people I don't want to hurt, but I don't want to lie, so I have to sort out some loose ends first.
I know all this mess doesn't even make sense, but right now it's like this.
There so many words I still want to say, keeping them all inside feels weird, together with the bitter thought that maybe in the end you didn't understand how much you really meant.
But right now, what I still treasure dearly, for someone else might just be forgotten memories to replace, so fast, it feels too rough.

Good night.

Photographies

You know, Photographies never change...
Even when the moments they picture seem to be lost,
Even when the people they picture seem to be so far away,

Photographies are like that, they never change.
It doesn't matter how much time passed,
open your heart and they can make you live those emotions again,
Photographies are like that, they never change.
We smile, we cry, we love, we fight, we grow up, we live,
we are not like photographies, we change,
but if looking at a photo your heart still skips a beat,
that image for you is not just a memory,
it's something that inside you will never die.
Photographies, you know, are like that, they never change.

I don't feel like writing much today, I wanted just to take the chance to post my last work and wish you all an Happy Easter.

Maybe I should stop looking at old pictures.