LiveJournal... the beginning of the end?

With the recent news of layoff at the US LJ HQ, I'm starting to feel the inklings of worry.

As a longtime LJ user, it's hard for me to just pack up and leave my blog there, as I've put years of work into it - longer than most relationships I've had! In many ways, it's my only connection to online friends and it helps me keep track of various interesting blogs I've come across via the RSS feed reader. It's my one-stop shop for everything I need online and to hear it go through some tough times like this, it makes me wonder if it's high-time I need to change my online habits.

I opened my Blogger accounts to test the waters here for my family - as they were becoming interested in using the internet for commerce, but didn't know how to navigate, much less create websites. I chose it for its ease of use and user-friendly options and built-in community (of sorts).

Now facing the possibility of migrating here myself, I feel a little lost. I need to learn a whole new system and layout.

We'll see how this goes.

Japanese-style dry curry

A family favorite!

It's very easy to make, most ingredients are readily on hand and it doesn't take long to cook. I think the longest part is chopping up all the veggies.

I'm still experimenting with the liquids to get a better flavor.

*****

Japanese-style dry curry

300g ground beef (roughly a pound and then some)

2 small onions (I just use 1 or even half... most onions here are gigantic)

50 g celery and carrots

1 clove garlic

curry powder (1-2T depending on heat/spice preference)

1 C vegetable juice (the sweet fruit/veggie juice works well)

2 T Worchester Sauce 

2 T Shoyu

1/3 C Raisins/Currants

1/2 C White sesame seeds (toasted)

Butter

Salad Oil/Vegetable Oil

Salt

1) Finely chop the celery, carrots, and onions.

2) Heat a slice of butter and oil in large fry pan over medium-high heat. Add the vegetables and cook until onions are translucent and carrots are slightly softened.

3) Add the ground beef and brown.

4) Clear a space in the pan and put the curry powder on the dry space. Cook until browned/aromatic. (30 secs - 1 minute) Mix w/ the meat and vegetables. 

5) Add the Vegetable juice, Worchester sauce, Shoyu and raisins. Add in a 1 1/2 t salt and sesame seeds (more or less to taste). Cook until most of the liquids have evaporated.

Eat with hot white rice (mixed or on top), garnish with boiled egg or parsley.

--

Note: I've used both a tomato paste with 1/2 c water and Japanese-style vegetable/fruit juice. I find the Japanese style vegetable juices have a lot more flavor and give the curry a sweeter aroma. I have yet to try the tomato based Japanese-style vegetable juice. 

The curry won't be "dry" dry - it'll still be wet, just not soupy. You can opt to mix the rice with the curry - or just eat it on top like a donburi - both ways taste great. ^^

PoseManiacs

I haven't taken a life drawing class in over 7 years and haven't been to a sitting in about 4. Visualizing people in various perspective is challenging, to say the least - when you're out of practice.

I don't remember who recommended PoseManiacs to me, but it's been quite valuable as a learning tool and reference. Aside from just having a great library of 3D bodies (sans skin!), there's also warm up exercises, a hand viewer, a negative space viewer, and a perspective editor - all great tools to have in one single location.

Every now and again, I use this site for warm up or look up pose references if I can't do the pose myself.

It definitely doesn't replace the real deal, but it's an awesome alternative!

Studying the Human Form - Hitokaku

In looking for tutorials to effectively draw people efficiently and proportionately, I've stumbled upon this blog via other people's journals.

Aside from the general language barrier, I've found this site to be the most informative yet when it comes to demonstrating drawing people. He breaks things down into simple shapes and formulas. Very simple, yet very effective. Just running through the site through Google's translation service, you can get a pretty decent idea of what he's teaching.

I've gone through most of the warm-ups and basic head tutorials and found them very easy to do. I even went to far as to craft a comic using his techniques. :D Considering I'm pretty out of practice, it's a good start for me!