I traveled fairly light this time--just a small carry-on suitcase, my camera bag, and another small pouch for my MP3 player and headphones. In the future I might replace my Creative Nomad 3 with a smaller unit, and replace the Denon AH-D950 with an in-ear headphone like the Ultimate Ears Super.fi 5 Pro--that'll shave off even more size from my traveling setup. I only took two lenses with me this time--the Tamron 28-75 and Sigma 12-24. I regretted not taking the 50 f/1.4, since I could've used the large aperture during some of the extreme low-light situations that didn't allow flash. I also had the Speedlite 580EX flash unit, a homemade flash bouncer/diffuser (made out of a TUMS anti-acid bottle. I didn't bring the Lightsphere II because it's simply too bulky for traveling), and a 40 GB storage unit.
I take photos of anything interesting while traveling alone, so I can show them to Elena when I get home. And yes, females dressed enticingly is one of our favorite things to look at together.
Singapore International Airport's arrival hall.
The Gallery Hotel. The hotel is actually a lot smaller than I imagined from looking at their website, but it's quite nice.
View from my hotel room.
On our way to the conference hall. From the left: Sen Lai(3dsense Media School), Carlos Baena (Pixar), Justin Chua (3dsense Media School), and Andrew Gordon's forehead (Pixar).
Shooting out the window of the car.
Doing a round of sound check, customizing the softwares we'll use, calibrating the projectors..etc. That hall can seat roughly a thousand people, and as you'll see later, it was totally filled.
Someone from Lucasfilm probably got fired for that. They managed to get it corrected for the first day of the conference.
Where we went for dinner on the first night. Mmmmm...chocolate.
From the left: Sen, Kurasawa-San (Robot Communications), Nishi-San (Robot Communications), Carlos Baena, top of Daniel Martinez Lara's head (Pepeland), Andrew Gordon, and...I'm drawing a blank. I'm so ashamed.
Justin's pimpin' ride, with additional useless meters and gauges for show only. It sure looks pretty though.
Singapore at night.
First day of the conference.
Shuzo John Shiota meets Daniel Martinez Lara. Joanne in the middle--our speaker liaison.
Shuzo John Shiota giving the keynote speech.
Carlos Baena rocking the stage doing a presentation on how he approached animating characters in Pixar's Cars. The bald guy is the MC--a teacher for one of the local schools. I can't remember his name--once again, I'm soooo ashamed. He was a really good MC too--totally knew how to work the crowd.
Speaking of the crowd, the audience was just lovely--enthusiastic, eager to learn, and full of good humor.
Carlos Baena trying to destroy Justin's jacket.
Booth babes--the only ones at the conference.
Two of my pieces in the gallery.
Sen happy among Cars cutouts.
I snapped this on stage right before settling into my digial painting workshop. I had a lot of fun, and I was told afterwards by attendees, sponsors, and other speakers that they really enjoyed my workshop. I personally think I could've done better, but then again I'm a glutton for self-inflicted punishment. They had an expensive Wacom Cintiq unit there, but I didn't like working on it so I chose the regular Wacom Intuos instead. I didn't like the Cintiq because I found myself expecting the feedback and tactile sensation to be similar to working traditionally--it's because looking at the pen actually touching the screen brings expectations that I don't have for the regular Intuos tablets. However, no matter how expensive the Cintiq is, it's still just a digital tablet, and still feels like one--nowhere near the response and tactile sensation of traditional medium. Somehow, working on the regular Intuos kills any expectations, and you accept it for what it is--thus it's actually easier and more comfortable for me.
The place where we had dinner that night.
Sophia and Selina, handling media and publicity. Can you guess which is the older sister?
One of the booth babes got swapped out on the second day (but she came back on the third day. Some people liked the replacement more). Can you tell which one got swapped out?
Nishi-San doing his thing on Onimusha 3 cinematics. I missed most of his workshop and I felt bad, because he worked so hard for two days in the hotel on his presentation.
Drawing for prizes--no organized convention or conference is complete without it.
The cgtalk.com members met up for dinner at Brewerkz.
Steven Stahlberg and I ordered a beer sampler set each, while the other guys got two towers of beer. I actually wasn't going to drink at all, but since I wasn't driving and my workshop was already done, I decided to let my hair down (not literally--no way in hell in that weather).
It's burger madness!
The crew chillin'.
Now, that is a drinking face.
Steven was happy that night.
I promised Elena I'd snap some pretty girly photos to show her, and I dutifually did so. Notice they are all from the back? Well, it's kind of awkward if you try to shoot them from the front, and it's too tiring to go up and ask each of them if you can snap a photo.
Pretty lights all around us. What a great place to have dinner--except for the weather.
Justin and his twin (not identical, but close enough) smiling for the camera.
Nishi-San is slightly shy.
The legendary Feng Zhu's kung fu is strong. His workshop rocked the house. Too bad he'll be concentrating on being a company boss in Beijing from now on--we'll miss his awesome concept works.
Mr. and Mrs. Zhu. And their split-toe sandals.
Sen, Mrs. Zhu, and Kurasawa-San.
Mrs. Zhu and Kurasawa-San.
Michael Conelly of Rhythm & Hues. I had to leave early and missed his workshop on image-based lighting for film effects.
One of the cute girls that asked me for an autograph.
Selina and Justin.
Daniel Gregoire of Halon Entertainment. His presentation on previsualization for feature films was pretty neat. His company worked on Star Wars Episode II & III, War of the Worlds, X-Men 3..etc.
Andrew Gordon: "You tell that cocksucka if he ever shows his face on my turf again..."
Andrew's workshop on his way of animating was pretty cool. He walked right off the stage at one point but landed on his feet--that cat sure is nimble.
Mrs. Gordon, happily three-months pregnant (congratulations!).
Stephen Unterfranz of Blue Sky. His workshop on rigging pipeline for Ice Age, Robots, Ice Age 2..etc probably flew over most of the audience's head, but for the people that understood what he was talking about, it was quite informative.
Sen, making an obscene gesture.
Daniel Martinez Lara finding a state of zen in his camera's LCD. I didn't get to see his workshop but I heard it was hilarious due to his limited English and crotch jokes.
Trippy.
Kurasawa-San and Joanne.
The only dinner I got to eat alone during the entire trip. And I tell ya, I was alone--the hotel's restaurant was practically abandoned.
Most of the speakers went to the Night Safari on our last night there. It was a pretty interesting concept for a zoo.
Some exhibitionist psycho little girl went around posing for every camera she saw with zeal that could only be matched by Richard Simmons (if you don't know who he is, count yourself lucky). It was very bizarre.
The Night Safari didn't allow flash photography, so I had to bump up the ISO to 3200, keep the shutter at about 1/30, and used manual focus. These are some of the better shots--the rest are just a blurry black mess of nothing. At one point Andrew Gordon talked me into taking a couple of flash shots, but obviously the animals didn't like it so I stopped.
The hyena's were creepy.
These little guys were hilarious. They somehow learned to beg for food from visitors and were extremely loud about it.
Bongo Burger hits the spot after looking at all the yummy animals.
Mr. and Mrs. Zhu.
Andrew Gordon enjoying his brew.
Shuzo enjoying his long-delayed dinner.
A good breakfast started the last day in Singapore--long flight ahead.
Taipei International Airport (waiting for transfer).
And then I slept the whole way home. Zzzzzzz. . ..
