sebscorner

Hello!

Yesterday was my first day back at the company and today is already weekend. Excellent. Even better- looks like I’ll be doing artsy stuff from the time being. Only took me 3 years, ahhh,  let’s hope things turn out well.

As to other news, I managed to get another picture done before going back to “work” work. All thanks to the pin-up contest over at CGfeedback (a nice little forum I can warmly recommend!) I couldn’t get myself going until a week before the deadline so I made it just in time (as in 3 am Japan-time) making me show up tired for work . But it was well worth the effort  - first body in ages, first time painting textures by hand in mudbox. Good fun!
Stop the talk, here’s the image. If you feel like it, head over to the original thread here for some in progress images.

The other day I saw the trailer to “The Fall” – more than the movie I loved the theme music which happened to Beethoven’s 7th Symphony. Such an amazing piece. Listen to it and be happy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTo2wI-lpq4

I’m looking for cats now. I need to make one. It’s my mission!

Wow, unbelievable. Here I go again – anger makes me productive.
I hadn’t dabbled in mudbox for a while so I thought I give it a go and this is what came out.
Some alien-ish fac with a aztec-ish helmet.. I guess.  While making it I realized that it looks a bit moebius-ish as well, must be the high hat. I love Moebius. French artists are the best.

Mudbox is also nice, I like it. I do miss some of the zbrush brushes though, especially the new hard-surface ones.  Combining the two softwares would be glorious I thought – replace Mudbox brush engine with Zbrush and it ‘d be perfect.  :P
Anyhow, for the helmet I exported the high-res mesh as OBJ, brought it into Zbrush and reconstructed the lower levels. This is so cool, I knew about “reconstruct subdiv” before of course but I it was a bit of a revelation that one can exchange a model with all subdivisions like that.

Silly old me – shame it doesn’t work the other way though (Zbrush -> mudbox). Ah well. So heres some pics rendered with MR.
It looked a bit too boring with any colors so I blobbed some on in PS…

One day I’ll remesh it and make a proper character.. Right!! Get in line with all the unfinished stuff, aztec-alien-thing!

Oh -last but not least, I signed my new contract yesterday and I’ll be back at work in a week, oh dear. Time sure sure has flown.

Grrrml.
I’m angry and even though months and months haven’t passed yet I feel the urge to post.
This is something that people working in Japan should better know before they try to be out of the order punks like me so here we go:
If you have read this blog before, you know that after 3 years of teeth-grinding work I have quit my current job for a relaxing 2 month summer break.
And now after my little travel and general refreshment I will – as planned, re-enter the company on the first of July.

All nice and dandy if it weren’t for that letter from the tax-office yesterday: Income Tax? Me?! A mistake, surely. Not.
Big surprise,  都民税 (tominsei, Metropolitan inhabitant tax) is naturally calculated and automatically deducted from your income .. and here comes the funky bit, is also calculated *per year*, in advance.
In other words, after a full year of working in Japan your tax-rate will be set – and even if you then quit your job on the coming 2nd of January,  you will still have to pay.. drumroll..

A FULL YEARS TAX! OMG! What?!

Wow! Wow! If you don’t quite believe it (as I did), here’s an excerpt from the homepage of Yokohama about taxation (this is concerning ex pats but applies to my case as well)

Income tax is payable for each calendar year,however, inhabitant tax for the calendar year is calculated based on taxable income for the preceding calendar year. Moreover,inhabitant tax assessed against residents in Japan as of January 1 of the taxable year,and, therefore,if an expatriate terminates his assignment in Japan and leaves Japan on,for example,the second of January, he/she will be liable for the entire inhabitant tax for the year of his/her departure from Japan based on the taxable income for the preceding year regardless of only two days of residence in Japan for the year of departure.

I think it’s all the crazier that this still applies, even though you are not actually living in Japan anymore..  where’s the sense in that now!?
small update: some more research reveals that this rule also applies if you (or any Japanese citizen for that matter) actually *die*. So we got that covered.

Income tax is usually 20% of the salary for a foreigner in Japan which is, at least compared to most European countries (Germany 50%!!), beautifully low.
Yet, without any salary it suddenly looks like a big chunk of cash ( especially combined with  rent, living expense etc.)

I guess this is yet another measure to keep things running in a nice and straight line for Japan: if you have a job you better keep it, until the end of your days – seems the motto here. Taking time out? Crazy nut!
Maybe you already know but if you rent a flat in Japan, you usually give the landlord a “present” (yes, as in it won’t come back when you leave!) of 2 months rent – similar concept.
So there you are, another useful bit of info about living in Japan for you.

I really should write a lot more.

Oh! Before I forget, this applies for health insurance as well by the way – another letter I got today. <sniff>
God bless it’s a tad lower but still – my little break surely cost me.

So until next time I leave you with a fitting Japanese proverb I found:

“The nail that sticks up gets hammered down” (Deru kugi wa utareru.)

Lovely.

PS: Thinking more of it now I wonder if all this is one more explanation for all the homeless people I see around.
If you happen to get fired early in the year, I suppose this madness could really give you the push over the edge…

Welcome back,

after almost 3 weeks of travel in Europe (and a week Kyoto). Ah.. good times – Germany, northern Italy, lovely Provence and grand Paris. So much art, good food  all topped with surprisingly good weather.
I’d love to show some proof but sadly my iphone+photos got nicked from my pocket at Charles de Gaules airport. Shocking event but at least I managed to lock the phone and board my flight in time. (checking my identity only took 2*15euro phone cards calling Japan! they do things properly here).
I guess I would have taken it slightly easier if there wouldn’t have been also a problem with my credit card earlier –  having nothing but 40 euro in cash left made the whole affair all the  more exciting. Luckily it seems like the insurance will pay so the only shame is all the nice reference lost .
Oh well, I better be productive before it all leaves my brain for good! Seriously though, don’t miss Musee d’Orsey if you happen to be in Paris as it’s an amazing place. Or the National Gallery in London for that matter. So inspiring.. Also I never had much of an art education myself so it was really good to see what’s behind “Impressionism“, “Expressionism” and the like.
And above all the trip made me want an atelier like Cezanne had in Aix:  ;)

Anyhow, back in Japan with an urge to create I had to do some more modeling of course. Mainly I wanted to get some of the “Classic” feel I saw so often in the last weeks. The first one is a bit of a homage to Camille Claudel who was a student (and lover) of Rhodin.  The second I hope you do recognize (or I failed completely!). It was harder than I thought to get his likeness right though..

Still so many things I want to do and time is running a bit short – so that’s it for today!
See you soon, hopefully with some more new work!

Hello world,

as usual long time no post but it’s not been more than half a year so not bad for my standards! There’s been some changes:

Change 1: I moved!
Well I liked my old place. I really did. It had character and it had trees around it. But well, it also had it’s downsides. There were the cockroaches yes .. big ones but still I could live with those. Some traps here and there… Girlfriend screaming.  ahh. The lack of isolation, that was a bigger problem, those paper-thin wooden walls.   So cold in winter, so hot in summer. So easy to punch through.
Well, the aged shower that would sprinkle cold water half of the time I did not love but who needs hot showers anyway? Shame I did not take a photo of the contraption that would get water to it though.
But all this I could easily endure. What I couldn’t was a months rent “present” to the house owner which was in order for the 2 year contract renewal – for “keeping the house intact”.
This was just too ridiculous and I knew it was time to move.  Oh, and yes, they cut down the biggest tree too.. to build another apartment in front of my window. Sad.
Well, this was 2 months ago and I’m already writing from my very comfortable new home – made of real stone and just 500 meters away (I love the area!)
I will post some pictures soon.

Change 2: I have time.
After working 3 years on a project I thought it was time for some proper holiday – by that I mean longer than a week! So I asked for an outrageous 4 weeks of (unpaid) leave but sadly it turned out it was company policy not to give any.  My bosses fought valiantly but rules prevailed.  I will spare you (and me) the gory details here but in the end the only way to get time off was to quit the job for the time being.
Tut, tut, I do wonder when Japanese companies will realize that happy employees are productive employees. Too late probably. Oh well – the current plan is to take it a bit easy now, see the family in Europe, then rejoin with a new contract in July!

So the first thing I did with my free time was finishing a new image!

I created the model for this image initially for the “classic movie monsters” contest over at Kolbies excellent SinisterCircle forum.. which I just found out closed it’s doors. Oh no!
It is based on Klaus Kinski in Herzog Werners Nosferatu – “Phantom der Nacht” (a film, although long and slow I can very much recommend!)
While focusing on the melancholy and sadness of the Nosferatu character, the film stands in stark contrast to most of the other versions. (like the  Bram Stokers Dracula.. ).
So anyway, that’s something I tried to bring into the image - I hope you like it!
Thanks to Martin Krol (http://www.martinkrol.com/) for various tips and critique