Hunter x Hunter Shoot

Here you guys go~  the not so anticipated photoshoot set from the Hunter x Hunter shoot we did this past weekend. Whee. I'm not back logged lol.I guess it helps when I knew what sort of shot I wanted to do and the outcome I was trying to achieve.

Sadly we only had Ash and Hannsel again for this shoot (their cosplaying as Hisoka and Kurapika from Hunter x Hunter). We originally anticipated more people would show up but the day before the shoot it started to rain pretty badly but we were optimistic. High risk high reward! LOL And we were definitely rewarded with sun shine and muddy treks LOL! *talk about optimism* 

It was pretty difficult trying to find a good location to shoot H x H since I know we were going for a 'abandoned' building feel or abandoned penitentiary but unfortunately being in Southern California we don't get much of that like the East Coast does. 

It was a little bit of a challenge to find the location but we finally found it and thankfully enough it only took them 4.5 hrs to get ready this time versus the 8hrs it took during ALA lol thats why I didn't really have photos from ALA on their cosplay. Hahaha...eeee.

I know I probably dont talk enough about how I plan shoots / work on shoots and equipment I carry. Personally I have a very humble collection of camera equipment. I rely heavily on natural lighting. When I worked for lifetouch studios I was able to work in a studio style setting with lights and etc. I miss those days but you can't exactly have those on most on-location shoots and I like to take the time to study where I'll be shooting and plan ahead. I didn't have a reflector till recently! All the shots were mostly taken in abandoned 'caves' lol and buildings using a external flash on my camera with a soft box and a handy giant reflector courtesy of my friend Anthony of Bits Photography (you guys should check his stuff out. Book him for con shoots lol coz I personally suck convention shoots unless I know the location ahahaha he is more of a trooper than I am when it comes to that)

This was definitely an interesting experiment on my part as far as bouncing lights, playing with minimal light vs dark. Compositions and sneaking into places that smelled like piss. No. Really.

Thanks to my fwends for coming out and helping carry our stuff and holding the reflector and helping us get to all the high places lol. Literally. I've rambled enough, lets move onto the photos~

This next shot isn't exactly part of the set that I intended to show but lol.

It shows how high up we were to get this shot. I wanted to go further out onto the other

rocks on the back to get a better view/shot. But. I chickened out as me and heights do not get along haha.

On my next post on the behind-the-scenes type thing lol you'll see the view from my eyes

and I know its not that high up for most people lol but omg. no. haha.

Ash is just one of those crazy people who like to jump off airplanes. I did most of my jumping off shit

when I was a kid. And well, I grew up and realized I'm not fearless as I use to as a kid hahaha.

I use to jump off buildings and off tables to the pool xD and etc...that story is for another time lol

You know it was a good weekend when you eat Mint Oreos and Redbull for breakfast Monday morning at work and you're voice is cracking as if you're a preadolescence boy.
I miss karaoke-ing. LOL. I would be one of those sad people who would go to a karaoke bar and rent out a room for myself. LOL.

Updates coming up shwee. And some product reviews thats been sitting on my que lol. And some more photo dumps too.

GG Gatsby Hair Spray

A few days ago I poked my head at Marshalls in search of a collapsible travel hula hoop and also for some cheap deals on good hairspray lol because I can't seem to find Got2B  anymore in most stores in my area /:
and I always usually tend to score some good salon deals at Marshalls/Ross. I use to get all my stuff at the cosmetologist store and get them half off but lol license required.

I posted a instagram photo of some GATSBY hairspray and spazzed. Well, upon further research, its not the gatsby we all know and love....was pretty skeptical at first to even *find* Gatsby in my area o_O and for it to come in a pink bottle and the back instructions were all in English. I just shrugged it off and went on my way. This pink 'gatsby bottle' is actually an American brand hairspray from the Gatsby Salon in New Jersey. Made popular by some tv show called Jerseylicious

The original bottle of Gatsby hairspray that most of you visual kei fans are probably looking for is the original grey bottle which Mitsuwa use to carry. eBay doesn't carry them anymore but you can probably check SASA.com but I wouldn't want to drop$18 on a bottle of hairspray /: unless of course you really really love your hairspray.

girlconomics & more shameless haul

I had meant to post this over the weekend but I got lazy caught up in some things...So here goes another round of "shit I bought but shouldn't have but regardless you're probably going to judge me anyway :D post" but look at me being more productive and blogging more frequently lol but it honestly probably won't be long till I go into hiatus again lol...because eventually you do run out of things to talk about lol. 

BUT DID ANYONE ELSE NOTICE MY NIFTY NEW LAYOUT?! :D ok its totally nothing special, I just saw the image floating around tumblr and it was too cute not to use. And of course, credit is given to the original artist :o (left bottom corner) I might end up changing it later after this weekends shoot but I was getting tired of looking at the old one lol but a new year, a new look.

Museum sadly also didn't happen, photoshoot this coming weekend in Los Angeles. So hopefully the following weekend can hit up both exhibits in one.O w O 

And.... before I go onto the shameless and lazy instagram photo dump, I'm sure people will judge and question where you get all the cash to burn on useless girl shit and whatnot. Mint made a post a while ago discussing the economics of burning cash lol....directed here and to be honest, a lot of the stuff she says there does make sense. And not to mention I'm a grown adult, I have a full time (40-45 hr) work week and I get paid way above minimum wage, I also work freelance projects on the side. I am in debt from school and medical bills but I refuse to let that dictate my life. Sometimes you just gotta spoil yourself once in a while. 

I also make it a point to have a system and a budget on how I spend my stuff, I buy a majority of my stuff via ebay. I'm always looking for deals or flipping the clearance lines and mostly get stuff I need and really weight out the options between need and want. I also waste a good chunk of time debating in my head if a said item is worth paying full price for or if I can make a dub for it for a lot less. And if I can do without it or not.

I also set up a savings plan on my debit card, for each swipe of my card a percentage of that purchase gets taken out of my primary checkings and into my savings as well. So for example, if I bought an item for $10. $12 gets taken out of my checkings, the $2 gets put into my savings. So the more I spend, the more money gets put into my savings account. 

I also have more than 1 checkings account and more than 1 bank account to really help me budget.

Looking at DIY stuff really helps me save a good chunk of change too, and obviously cooking at home is always a much better option to save your money. Now onto the shameless haulll and postage.

This will be probably my last few 'haul' posts for a while since its the end of the season (aside from my taobao posts and the one from hip-hop candy) I've pretty much gotten most of the stuff I needed/wanted to last me a good while from now till the weather warms up and even still I've gathered enough stuff from last season to last me a while as well....

 

Went to get my car oil changed earlier this weekend only to be told two of my tires are balding so I had to go and get those replaced. Boo. I need to go back and get 2 more replaced in a bit. I have a few more mileage on them before I need to replace them. )': you kids better be grateful when your parents give you a car because most likely they'll pay for the maintenance themselves hahaha...and while waiting, I ended up wondering into stores I shouldn't have .___. because the result was; Vertical stripe leggings and skull scarf~ wheee I finally got a skull scarf, this was more or a regret buy because I feel that I could have gotten a better deal online /:

Got a free sampler from Clinique. I have the Tea Tree Pore Refiner too. I haven't really used it much since the weather is still pretty cold. But come on spring! I'm ready for you D8< 

new case for my phone~ currently I go back and forth between the silicone melty ice cream case and a clear plastic one. They dont really lock into the phone but it does cover it all the way around but grabs dirt easily but can be easily cleaned off as well with some alcohol. Wanted something sturdier that would lock into place and I've probably searched online for a good week before settling with this one. Unlike the iphone, the galaxy doesn't get much love in terms of cases. But thats ok, I don't need to horde thousands of them LOL! Normally I would have opted for a cute rilakkuma case but meh, its time for a change so I opted for this cool wood  tribal design OwO

And for the first time in years I went and shopped at Urban Outfitters. I generally avoid that store like a plague because of their over priced hipster items lol but I cannot deny that I managed to score $6 Doc Martens there before (which I later sold on ebay) I got the shirt for a friend, I initally wanted it for myself but then I thought better because I'm sure hipsters would throw their over priced coffees at me lol because I don't smoke but I do own a zippo lighter LOL (for incense and their also handy for burning the tip of your pencil liner to make it smoother and darker. I learned that from someone lol) but yeah, the shirt was for a good deal but what ticked me off was their exuberant shipping prices! The shipping cost me more than half it would have cost of the shirt. $10 for a T-shirt. What. Just get a flat envelope, shove it in there and charge $4.55. Maybe $5-6 to include shipping and handling. But $10 for SHIPPING. Thats insane. Never again Urband Outfitters. Never again.

Lastly, and probably the best buy I did was at LUSH. Also my first product from LUSH. I love that its hand packed and its edible LOL. And The moment I walked into the LUSH shop omg everything smelled so great! A lot of people recognize LUSH for their hand made products, vegan friendly and mostly for their bath bombs. I would have gotten one but I don't have a bath tub and more of a shower person but I can imagine how luxurious it would feel. A lip scrub basically works by exfoliating all those dead flakes on your lips so when you wear your lip stick it doesnt grab onto all those dried up flakes on your lips. Love that this one is bubble gum, edible and it also helps moisturize your lips :D! Normally I would have opted to make my own but this bad boy is only $9 (which isnt bad considering a little definitely goes a long way) 

If you are interested in making your own, heres a links that describes how you can make your own:

Pretty Gossip's DIY Lip Scrub and if you want to try and recreate one that looks and taste like bubble gum, you can use bubble gum flavoring and edible food coloring (the food coloring will stain your lips pink too if you add too much)

Photoshoot adventure this weekend in Glendale OwO I am ready! Lets hope it doesnt rain! Forecast says rain on Sunday. Our shoot is on Saturday. Rain or shine, we're shooting LOL. I think it would be pretty cool to shoot in the rain (but I can imagine it'd be super cold lol Oh well!)

Taobao Ring Review and How To

I'm back with another Taobao agent review and how to OwO in my first Taobao order review thing I used Taobao Spree but for this time around I went ahead and tried a new agent; Taobao Ring.

Was there anything wrong with the first agent I used? Nope, nothing! But I wanted to try out another agent just because. Not to mention Taobao Ring charges 8% fee versus the 10% fee that Taobao Spree does.
I initially wasn't going to switch to a new agent till my friend told me about this agent and I was poking through their website and was intrigued by how their system works and I was sold right away! 

The downside to Taobao Ring is that they only accept USD currency and not Euro, but it looks like in the future they will start to accept it. And to break down how the payment method works - and this is straight from their website

 The first payment includes the total items cost + their domestic shipping fee + our service fee, the second payment is for international shipping. The insurance fee is optional. Clients will pay 5% of all the cost (items cost + domestic shipping fee + our service fee + international shipping fee) if they want their items insured.

For the first payment, the items cost is fixed while the domestic shipping fee ranges from 10 CNY to 15 CNY for the first 1kg, which depends on items' weight and the distance between sellers' location and our warehouse.

For the second payment, we provide many international shipping methods, such as EMS, DHL, airmail etc. EMS is highly recommended for its safe, quick, reliable advantages, and you can enjoy a huge discount up to 40% off.

Honestly, who doesn't like 40% off EMS shipping? Taobao Spree also offered me a good discount on my EMS shipping :3

Honestly, it beats having to type everything out in an excel sheet lol and sending it to your agent. This is an automated form that grabs all the information for you. All you need to do is enter the LINK in the box below and add additional information at the box below it as well. It even converts it from Yuan to US Dollars for you! 

This is just an example screen cap for you

Its also great that it shows you the status on of your item, if its still in pending status (checking if its instock), if its been ordered or if its in transit from the seller to your agents warehouse.

And like most agents, you don't need to pay for your items until they confirmed everything is in instock. And if its not in stock, they will refund you the price of the item.

After you confirmed all the items you want on your order. At the bottom right hand of the page theres a button that says 'confirm order' and it will take you to the page above which gives you the option to select shipping methods. And again it will show you the total of your order. Once your order is confirmed, it will go into 'waiting confirmation' status. You're not required to pay for the order yet. This is where the Taobao Agent will look through your order and then you wait till they send you an email confirming that everything looks good.

Here is my current timeline in terms of the ordering process, as anyone can tell you, using an agent or going through someone else is a lot of back and forth and communication.

Monday [1.14.13] - I put my order into confirmation status. I'm waiting for the agent to email me back or update my queue screen to confirm that everything is available from the sellers.
The agent will go through each of the items you selected, confirm with the sellers the items are available and will then update your status page.

Normally most agents will email you within 24hrs to confirm they got your order and will be processing it. But with Taobao Ring and their handy system it eliminates the need to email back and forth to check on the status of your order. But being the impatient little bugger that I was (seeing as I didn't get an email confirming they even got the order or if I did everything right) I went ahead and emailed them Tuesday [1.15.13] and within minutes of sending my inquiry in, I got a reply saying that they are just backed up on orders and will be processing my order soon. 10 mins later I get another email from them confirming their ready to take my money. 

Being the excited little sucker that I am went ahead and paid for my order right away and got another email confirming my payment has been sent and everything is being set up for purchasing. But keep in mind though, when paying with Paypal, there is another service fee you incur when paying for your item.Where they do charge you about 3% fee (roughly another $2-3 more)
I don't recall having this when I made my purchase with Taobao Spree. But I could be wrong.   Your other payment option is via Western Union, Bank Transfers and etc. I just wanted this over and done with lol and didn't want to have to deal with the hassle of using bank transfer and etc. Since my particular bank also does charge for bank transfers especially international transfers and the same would go with using Western Union.

Give it a few days for your items to be purchased, received and process. Its about a 2-5 business days ordeal and when your items are receive, just check your "order manage" page and it will update itself. They will even include a photo of your items so you can see how they look like / proof its there. (I blocked out some of the items here and the photos but its there.) And from this point, it will prompt you to pay for the 2nd payment - shipping to you. And once again, when paying with paypal you are paying an additional fee. And since I chose EMS, it is a little hefty price for shipping considering they have to weight the items.

Once your items are paid for, your order will go into "shipping" status and give it another 24 hrs for them to process and ship your package and a tracking number will be given to you. Allow about 7-10 business days for the package to arrive (for the most part, usually EMS for me arrives within 5-7 but you just never know)

So far I've had a pretty good experience with Taobao Ring. After having to simply probe them in the beginning to begin my order but once it all got started it was smooth sailing. 

Hopefully this has helped you, happy shopping!

Everyone and their mom has been posting their "Its a New Year so heres my recap of the New Year" posts lately and therefore I'm going to be lame and jump on the bandwagon. Not to mention I barely really do any 'personal' ish blurbs here lately. I feel like I abuse instagram and tumblr for those far too much that I just neglect this until I have something decent to talk about. Blah how pretentious. But it is the New Year and I haven't done anything productive since ALA. Not that ALA was very much productive on my end....godIhateConshootsbooI'mspoiledbyprivatelocationshoots QwQ

So I'm just going to randomly dump stuff in here that I already originally posted on my tumblog uhuhuhu while I wait to prep for a new adventure in the upcoming week...such as! 

 

lol. What?!

The San Diego Museum of Man is running an exhibit on torture instruments used throughout the ages.

They ran this exhibit a few years ago but I couldn't go (boo for being too young then) but I definitely don't want to miss this one! Hopefully I get to go this weekend.

I definitely feel that I take it for granted that I live in San Diego and that we DO have a decent amount of parks and museums to our disposal orz  back when I went to SDHS where the school is literally 2 blocks from the park, we'd use to go alot during one of my block periods. And I use to troll the park and museums when I was in school when I would ditch class :P 

I was complaining to my brother the other day how exhibits and museums are so expensive (The Titanic exhibit ran me almost $20 lol but I managed to use a student discount) but he did brought up a good point, the money goes into helping out the museums and exhibits orz;; so I nut up and shut up and guess I'll be going and trying to support my local museums more and educate myself lol 

Don't you sometimes feel that when you're not doing anything *productive* or education your brain is just simply going to turn into mush? Growing up my parents and grandparents always placed a huge emphasis on learning and that you should take it upon yourself to *learn* something everyday. Or exercise your noggin' and since I wasn't able to sign up for classes this spring, gonna try again for Fall and in the meantime. I signed up for Bartending school. Aww yeah. 

Another instagram post dump~ as my camera is sitting in the back gathering dust only coming out to play when theres a shoot. And even still I am reminded on how old my camera's model is lol.

  That clutch Doctor style bagggg omg. I'm so mad at it, I've posted about it on tumblr and instagram. I wanted it *grabby hands* only coz it opens ontop like a clutch and it *stands* on its own!!!!!!! But wasn't a fan of the handles and the price tag /: It was almost $40? $30? No. Not when I have a taobao order coming in lol. So next time! Pill box! You will be mine eventually!

Bought a handy little soft box for my external flash. One of the problems I encountered with the macross shoot and having to shoot indoors (in the same location as PMX) was poor poor lighting. You can't even illuminate the model properly since it would just be too harsh! And when I was bouncing off my friends light stands, it illuminated areas and created shadows in others )': I am hoping this lightbox would serve me well in preparation for a shoot at the end of the month. My friend also sent me a reflector kit! Finally! Huzzah~

Hopefully when I get back I'll be able to revamp the layout on this page. Its getting pretty old /:
hoping there would be a good turn out at the 'gathering' or the photoshoot. If not, then lol we'll have the whole place to ourselves. I always feel like theres a weaker turn out because a lot of the times people don't have rides and we always tend to pick /far/ away places. But if anything, we're the ones that have to drive pretty far LOL. Yes, the shoot once again is going to be in Los Angeles. Haha. Why do we never shoot in SD?! IDK....

Welcome the new year I also went ahead and tried to experiment with other flavors that I've been wanting to try for so long. ROSE! Inspired by Rose macarons from the macaron shop in Little Tokyo I wanted to recreate some cookies. Lucky for me I live in a very diverse Asian community with a lot of different markets.

Rose water is also a great skin care agent~ I wrote up a new article regarding using tea tree oil and rose water as a skin care. I was going to post it here but I ended up submitting it to my friends E-mag. I'll post up a link and screen cap of it when the article is published OwO;;

I used my regular cookie recipe for moist cookies, I also made another version thats Rose & Matcha. I think I put too much rose flavoring in it since my friend and roomate both commented it tasted like Potpourri.
Yeah, not all of us grew up eating that stuff LOL so we don't automatically assume anything rose or lanvender flavor is potpourri...

I think I want to redo this but more of a short bread type cookie consistency and not a moist cookie and less on the rose extract maybe. I wasn't to eventually make Macarons with it but my next experiment would be is to use a Earl Grey Tea recipe I found and using a few tea bags of Strawberry Rose Green Tea with it.

Can't wait to experiment with it. I'm gonna do this next week before I head to the shoot, since. I don't want to eat it LOL. I just want to bake. Not eat them hahaha. Feeds it to all my friends. I shouldn't be feeding the models before a shoot...

 I'll post up that recipe when I get a chance to try it out. Ideally in my head, the rose and strawberry would just give a light aroma to the cookies and the green tea would give it a nice smooth flavor. Since taste is, what? 60% smell? Stoked to try it out~

Also went to the Body Shop to pick this bad boy up:

Forever sold out but is finally back instock during the damn winter when you're skin needs it less but oh well, come summer I'll be ready! D8< it works great as a primer and keeps you from being shiny. But I don't like that its $18 for only 1oz of product. So I use it sparingly )': and well, thankfully in the winter I dont need it. In fact I need as much moisture as I can get. My skin has gotten to the point that its getting flakey and even my clinique dramatic moisturizer isn't cutting it. I went back to using Honey Yogurt and Oatmeal mask. And its woooorking~ whoo. Beat that winter skin!

After the shoot I need to get me the map pass for COD~

Back from ALA 2013

Back from ALA~ I don't really have much of a photo dump to do since I'm not entirely too happy with the quality of photos I got from ALA. Nor did I really take much to be honest. I think I also mostly abandoned PMX lol.

I really dislike doing "con" shoots orz. Since I've been spoiled by doing private shoots that when you go to an over crowded convention you just feel blegh towards shooting. Not to mention I'm so out of the loop with a lot of the new animu series thats come out since.

From what I can recall at Anime Los Angeles, there were definitely /alot/ of Magi and Sword Art Online cosplayers. And I can just see them growing some more lol! ALA didn't nearly have as much Kuro no Basket cosplayers as PMX did. Heeee.

So I guess I'll probably just dump the photos I took from PMX and ALA into this one big blog posts.
 The only thing I really shot during ALA was my sisters Macross Frontier cosplay. And even then, I can hardly say there we're enough to really do a decent dump on orz. But if you guys are interested to see some *good* photos from the weekend hop over to my friend Anthony's website; http://www.bitsphotography.com/ and you know what, while you're at it, you should go ahead and book a shoot with him too ;D hes such a swell guy~ do it. lol.

But yeah~
One thing I did realize was, I should have invested in a reflector and soft box before hand. I /was/ going to buy a new lens too but meh that all flew out the window. I have another shoot in a few weeks (2???) and I just ordered a soft box, should come in by Tuesday *w* kinda excited to play with it and see what kind of shoot we have instore for January. Heeeeeeeee I miss shooting. (oh geass, you are such a beast, I don't even know where we are there honey) and hopefully then I'll be able to sit down and do a layout overhaul or something. Its been almost a year since I updated the look. Clearly, I'm lazy when it comes to this sort of stuff /: I use to be obsessed with HTML, codings and layouts when I was younger but blegh. Who's got time for that nowadays LOL! 

I didn't have a badge for ALA so I wasnt able to really hangout in the pool area where most cosplayers were but I later found out you could have sneaked around. Oh well, I pretty much chilled in my hotel room most of the time if I wasn't waiting for my friends to get ready. Hee. By the time we got to the hotel, the lobby was just too pack )': and has terrible terrible lighting. And if I wasn't trolling the con with my friends, I was probably getting drunk off some good Russian vodka orz. So sorry if I have such boring con reports lately lol. I'm such a boring person these last few cons hahaha. But definitely looking forward to a pretty cool shoot by the end of January. Not sure what we're doing for spring when the cherry blossoms are in bloom again.

Photo diary dump courtesy of Instagram though~  (you can always follow me on instagram @dearxx)
 

 New ring~ reminds me of Monomania but less vikeiii lol. Ash got me fake nails lol. I don't really wear nails. I rarely even do my nails coz I'm lazy and I keep my real nails cut down to the stubs lol coz if I have long nails orz can't game. Can't type and I'm just bad with being dainty with nails period. 

But these would be fun coz they came with the sticker backing :o oooh lol

Sheryl getting ready to be fabulous before the Con. Me and Hannsel being hungover at Ihop the day after the con. Ok, maybe I was hung over. Clearly with the durpy look on my face.

 Star Wars 2013 Planner by Moleskin was 50% off at Barnes and Nobles~ I know a lot of people got the Le Petit Prince planner but I couldn't give up the force lol (secretlywantedlepetitprincebutlooool) The Body Shop also had 50% on their makeup! I needed new foundation so I grabbed this one. Coverage is medium to heavy, its definitely buildable. Doesn't oxidize like most mineral foundations do. And I managed to finally score myself some CROSS print leggings from Cotton On. They were sold out quickly at Forever21 and  blegh couldn't be bothered to order online. I want a pair of Boy London ones a long with their shirt. Which is definitely on my next taobao order along with a VW purse. No shame. 

 Forever 21 has some of the most pretencious tanks. Ever. LOl. I like the one on the left coz its got the distressed ripped parts but I'm pretty sure my mom would back hand me for wearing it hahaha and I'm not a fan of muscle tanks anyway~ I wish they came out with the shirt that Roony Mara wore in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo:

 I'm pretty sure that shirt has circled around Tumblr among all the gawths lol. Heres another shirt that should have been released but was pulled by H&M because people were protesting against the movie orz so I guess it never got released nationwide. Sadness.