izyibel - Tumblr blog

[izyibel]

Just returned from 10 days back in japan. I'm so glad I started studying japanese and managed to hold actual conversations, although my japanese is so broken but the people we came across were just soo lovely and open to having a chat despite it.

We rented a car and drove down the izu peninsula along the coast. All the way to cape irozaki and worked our way back up visiting museums, Mt Fuji lookouts, peering over cliffs at jogasaki coast, eating great food. We were so lucky with the weather. Had the best crab of my life near mihama beach. Came across the coziest izakaya in itou. Had a phenomenal kinoko mushroom hotpot somewhere along a mountain. it's all a blur. Fish cakes at odawara on the way to atami. Houtou noodles at a teahouse up a random mountain nearby lake kawaguchi we saw on Google maps and when we got there I saw this huge embroidered cloth that was Dazai Osamu's face which was interesting but i didn't think much of it but while waiting for our food S looked it up and apparently Dazai Osamu stayed there and the second floor was a museum dedicated to him??? Twas interesting looking around the cozy place.

Also tried glass blowing and our little glasses turned out so cute but I don't think they're able to withstand high temperatures 😄. Grateful for great experiences. We're soo unbelievably lucky we kept saying our thank yous to the sky throughout the trip haha it was such a joy just being silly and exploring 💕 I hope we'll continue to be healthy as we age so we can keep doing this together for awhile.

[izyibel]

spent 2 weeks over the lunar new year with my love back in sg. the weeks leading up to it were pretty hectic - we've been looking for a home for us and my grandpa was and still is not doing well. there's nothing i can really do about that but seeing my mother hurting is heartbreaking.

nevertheless the trip was pretty special. we stayed with my mother in law and S's grandma and of course i had plenty of anxiety building up to it but it turned out to be the most wonderful time and i've never felt closer to S's family. i feel so loved and appreciated, just wish we could have had more time with them but it is what it is! i know it took awhile but i'm happy and thankful i'm now able to reach this level of comfort with people who have become my family!!!! 💕

[izyibel]

I started using a "new" phone around the last quarter of 2023, I say new but it's a spare phone my aunty got when she thought she had lost her phone and this phone's been sitting around at home for over a year but I finally got around to replacing my very basic a12 galaxy phone with this current one, an a32 galaxy.

Anyways I totally forgot about Tumblr because I didn't have the app on this phone until today when I was reminded of it!

It's 2024! We had a lovely countdown at Bobz' place. These silly things are as meaningful as you make it. I'm grateful for S the love of my silly life!!! I'm grateful for friendships, the long distance low maintenance ones, the weekly hangout ones and the ones that are mostly text and memes.

My friend Lydia whom I haven't seen in person for 11 years bought flights to brisbane for a holiday in march, she hasn't been in brisbane since we graduated high school and after high school, during my second year of uni I flew to Korea by myself, my first solo trip, and stayed with her family in korea and that was the last time i saw her in person!

Anyways she sent me a screenshot of her booking with a heap of excited emojis and I just I'm sooo excited to hug her to hang out to listen to music to sing to play to just BE together again ❤️

[izyibel]

my love and i went on a little weekend getaway to adelaide and it was so perfect. the weather, the walk along the beach, the sunset, the people we met. and somehow we came across the kindest souls. we're not religious but we've made a habit of looking at the sky and saying thank you for the lucky things that happen to us. getting a parking spot in a busy place, for example.

just before getting on the plane to adelaide we went to grab dinner at the airport and the person behind the cashier counter sneaked in a discount for me, at first i had corrected them and said that's not the price on the sign but they smiled at me and whispered i know, have a wonderful day.

on the plane we sat next to this older man who's going home to adelaide from a job in brisbane, he works in the maritime industry. and he was just incredibly kind and had very insightful views, he had to go to perth the next day for another job but gave us his and his wife's contact details in the rare chance we might need a local's help in adelaide.

and the next day, along the beach, there was one other person also watching the sunset in the same spot and we got to talkng and getting to know her was just lovely.

to be frank, im not a particularly social person but nonetheless im really grateful for these little experiences and the little connections we can make. even if we don't end up making contact again, im just thankful that we got to experience some amount of kindness from other people and get to know a little bit of their stories.

[izyibel]

The artist whom I just reblogged from was someone I started following in 2016 (when she made a small comic about her racist encounter inside a bus but also about the kindness and bravery that followed). Sooo surreal to see she worked on such an incredible film!!!! I wish it continued for another 2 hours, it honestly didn't feel long at all. I'm looking forward to the next one!!!!

[izyibel]

Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse comes out later today so I wanted to write a post reflecting on my journey and experience working on this movie. So many people have supported me through this and I am so thankful to each and every one of you!

Text version of this post under the cut:

Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse comes out tonight. It feels really weird to be typing that out right now. I worked on the movie as a visdev artist for the last 2.5 years, from 2020 to 2023. Long post incoming.

There are a lot of reasons why I'd consider this film to be one of the most ambitious animated films to ever be made. As artists, we were asked to push ourselves far beyond our comfort zones and do things that had never been done before in animation.

Every time we reached a point where most people would say "this must possibly be as creative and weird as it gets," our entire team of artists and animators would smash right through the ceiling. The driving direction for the visuals of the film was to push the limits of every single frame; to challenge audience expectations and make something truly original.

The best thing about this film was that there wasn't a single boring day working on this movie. The hardest thing about this film was also that there wasn't a single boring day working on this movie.

There were times while working on this where the imposter syndrome hit me hard. This was my first big movie, and what a hell of a first movie to get thrust into.

I came in only a few years out of school with absolutely no idea what the hell I was doing. I constantly feared that someone had made a mistake in bringing me onto this film, and I was going to let everyone down. There was a solid chunk of those 2.5 years where I wasn't sure if animation was the right path for me.

If there's anything I could tell my past self it would be this: there are so many people who love you and believe in you. There will be a time when you get to stand on the other side of it, look back on everything and see how far you came.

I'm still working on self-acceptance every day (it will be a lifelong struggle, I'm sure), but I'm glad I didn't give up on myself. I'm proud of myself and my contributions to this film, and I'm certain that this movie will continue to change and shape the animation landscape just as the first one did. That's truly a special feeling to have been a part of. I am so incredibly grateful to every single person who helped me along this journey.

Here come the thanks:

To the ENTIRE visdev & art crew- it's been an honor getting to work alongside each and every one of you. My jaw is literally still on the floor from seeing your incredible talent day after day.

I want to thank Tiffany and Felicia especially for being there for me through tough times- I admire and respect you both so much as artists, and even better than that, my life is greatly enriched for being able to call you my friends.

Thank you Patrick and Dean for taking chances on me, teaching me so much about art and what I'm capable of, and encouraging me along the way. To Aymeric, your art is one of the reasons I initially became interested in animation and you have been one of the kindest & most empathetic mentors I could ever have asked for.

I want to thank my wonderful parents for believing in me always and raising me into the person I am today: everything I do in life is to make you proud. To my brother Andrew who is perpetually awake at 3 AM when I need someone to talk to- thank you for always picking up the phone and making me laugh.

And finally to my partner Luke for making me grilled cheeses on all of the difficult days, for never getting sick of me even when all I would ever talk about was work, and for patiently and steadfastly loving me throughout this entire thing. I don't think I could've done it without you.

Starting tomorrow I will begin posting and sharing some of the art I made for this movie; I'm looking forward to sharing some of my personal favorites with you. I hope each and every one of you enjoys Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse when it hits theaters later today!

[izyibel]

in the past, i’d be so harsh on my dad. sometimes on my mum too. maybe it’s all part of growing pains. but now i just feel really grateful to have such kind-hearted souls surrounding me.

my dad is such a funny bubbly person, and someone who just genuinely wants to do good for everyone else. i was maybe 10 or 11 and he said to me that we have the power to make someone else’s day happier, just with a smile, just with a moment of kindness. he said even apathy can be hurtful. and it crosses my mind a lot lately. i try to be kind i try. i see him do it all the time to the strangers we encounter. and i’ll be beaming inside outside.

my mum, a wise and brilliant person. works herself too hard sometimes. just incredibly eloquent. i can tell her anything and blabber on and on about messy feelings and she’ll distill it into terms that i understand and sprinkle her little anecdotes in that just make the tough words a bit more palatable but she just knows the best way to put things. i love the way she finds something to appreciate in everyone and everything. i’m just so lucky.

i’m afraid of losing them but i know we all end, i hope they live okay, i hope they feel minimal pain in the rest of their years. i know i can’t record everything, i know i can’t remember everything. but i know i’ll always feel their love.

[izyibel]

[izyibel]

when hayao miyazaki said that true love was two people inspiring each other to live…recognizing just how hard living is, putting one foot in front of the other every day, how easy it is to lose our passion for it…… that’s the real shit

[izyibel]

several things have happened. i think i let the school know i would like to take some time off when i was in the depths of grief still and grappling to gain some sort of control. but the more i ruminate over this change, the more excited i become, the less lost i feel. the less nervous i feel. i think it’ll take me awhile to find my footing again, but when i do, i believe i can flourish. maybe not do anything grand or great or “ethical”, but at least gain a sense of fulfillment somehow.

the plan is to take it a step at a time. i’m lucky to have love around me, i’m grateful to be the recipient of kindness from so many people, and instead of feeling encumbered by it all, i just feel like i can do anything because i have this support. i know i’m capable of learning anything, just need to be patient with myself.

i hate myself less and less as the days go by. i’m reminded of how when i was learning how to drive (here in brisbane we need to log 100 hours as a learner before we can take our practical test and drive without supervision). i was perhaps 50 hours in, and i had unknowingly left the lights on when i turned the engine off and began to exit the car, but because i had left the lights on, the car beeped as i opened the door. i was confused, puzzled and worried that i somehow caused a malfunction of sorts. my dad just said “you left the lights on” and so i turned it off. but i also felt shame and intense self-hatred that was so disproportional (the right amount is zero actually) to what the situation was. 

i remember telling myself “you’ve been driving for awhile now and you’re still making silly errors!!!”

then at the end of year 12 my friend E had already got her Ps so she could drive without supervision and moreover, drive her friends around. so she picked me and A up for a sleepover at her place. when she parked in her garage and we opened the doors to exit, her car beeped. both her and A were puzzled as to why it was beeping and E quickly closed and opened the door a few more times to see if the beeping persisted. but because i had done the same thing before, i simply said “you left your lights on” and E then exclaimed “ah! thanks izzy, you’re so smart” of couse what she really meant was “thank you for helping me”.

anyways i’m writing all of this because i want to remember that there is no point hating myself for simply experiencing things. and what i perceived as a “silly mistake” or “dumb error” was not that at all. it was simply an experience. and it was only because i had made those “silly errors” that i could help someone else meaningfully. and though it may not seem like there is anything good to draw from it in that moment, i shouldn’t be spinning it into something negative about myself. it was simply an experience. and it might come in handy one day.

[izyibel]

I was already informed that any email sent 6 months prior would not be saved in our work inboxes so I would archive emails thinking they saved. When I found out in the middle of last year that I had to archive it in a special in-place archive and not just the archive folder, I was devastated because I had lost all the nice emails i had saved since my first year of teaching. So anyways, I started archiving them correctly since then... putting the max of 10 pictures on here as a reminder that there are absolute angels in this world and i was fortunate enough to cross paths with some of them.

[izyibel]

Well... I have decided to quit teaching. Not sure what I'll do next but after next week, I won't be working for awhile. Might elaborate more later.

[izyibel]

[izyibel]

Lmao! I was reading the website of this musician and their bio was like

"Classical guitar, ukulele, machete"

And I was like um... machete? haha... they have a sense of humour...

But it turns out machete is an instrument from Portugal much like the guitar lol.

[izyibel]

This is random but just wanted to record this happiness here because I have done the same before in this space.

I'm so enamoured by my love... honestly even though I'm with him everyday I still have so many moments where my heart gets all flustered. From the way he looks to his mannerisms, his unending wit. That silly coyness that silly goofiness. Insanely good looking grin. Ah it's so absurd.

I honestly don't know how I can be this happy or this in love but I am!!! I'm so in love!!!! I can't believe we're ~married~ 💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

[izyibel]

Hyesu Lee

[izyibel]

Good news: if you’re currently laying around and not producing anything, you are a credit to your species.