The Realm

Operation ‘Quiet Birthday’: Great success!
Operation ‘Update more in the holidays’: Epic fail!
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So yeah, my birthday and not a few other notable birthdays including our gracious web-host Tony, guest artist Saphy and my friend Xtina’s were in the past week. To report, it went really well I think. In terms of gifts received it went to plan that not a great number of people felt a need to bring me anything; this is good because while I appreciate the thought I don’t have a great need of material things and so I’d rather not have people fuss over me. But I must say my expectations for things I might get this year were surpassed. For your information, I now have incoming a bass ocarina from Noble which might feature in an upcoming video, I can buy a legitimate version of photoshop (finally) to draw in, and I have a scanner so I can draw in pencil if I choose to. 🙂

I do actually have a drawing on the way, and it is a reasonable one, but it’s going a bit slow. And it’s none the faster for me having realised that the proportions are horribly wrong in some key areas. >.< That's what I get for not starting with the mannequin, grrrr. But I think I'll just make a note of the mistakes I tend to make and finish this picture as it is, and then try not to do things like make necks too short and that again. So just letting you know I am alive. I'll write some more after I get some sleep. I've gotten a bit of a tummy bug (or for those with a higher vocabulary, an illness) and it's making me a bit uncomfortable at the moment. I need to get all the rest I can while working during the day and trying to study and do assignments at night. >.< [EDIT] Alright, now we're talking! My Noble plastic alto C ocarina arrived today. 😀 I'll probably make a little video sometime soon if I can so you can hear it and see it better. It's pretty cool, because I've played my other sweet potato ocarina a fair bit I was able to pretty much pick this one up and play right off. The first few songs I tried sounded a little airy as I got used to the breathing pressure needed for this oc, but once I moved outside I was able to play almost every song I know without much difficulty. There are only a few things that aren't quite to my liking about this ocarina, one of which being the angle of the mouth piece. The ocarina I first really started to play was an in-line ocarina where all the holes are ...in line with the mouth piece (surprise!). My first transverse (sweet potato) was that clay double, and if you look at that closely you'll notice that even though it's a sweet potato ocarina, the holes are not very far off from being in line with the mouth piece. This means that it's quite easy and comfortable to hold and play because your hands can hold it from either side (like as if you were eating a sandwich or burger 😀 ). But this ocarina is very transverse. The holes line up at right angles to the mouth piece and this means that your hands have to match. You basically have one arm directly in front of you with your hand facing towards you, and one arm bent out to your side with your hand quite close to your face. It's not the most comfortable of postures to hold for a long period of time; I'm sure I'll get used to it, but I definitely noticed when I ripped it out of the packaging and proceeded to play for a good half hour. xD