Little timelapse where I stumble!

Especially happy with how the Japan update’s Gardens world turned out! [Hipster Whale’s update tweet][Karateka tweet]

Aside from re-adapting Disney Crossy Road‘s Big Hero 6 San Fransokyo world for Tokyo city, I concepted and created all the environment and character art for this update! It’s two worlds in one (one forestry, shrines & gardens in the daytime and the other is bustling, bright Tokyo city in the nighttime).

I was super overwhelmed because Japan is super dense with culture, architecture and history! I researched, brainstormed and concepted a lot; not all of it made it into the final game but hey it’s finally out! I’m pretty happy with how the gardens turned out especially since I made more things from scratch based off with more creative input + great inspiration & references to work from :’)

Of course much kudos to the Hipster Whale Crossy team for developing and putting this update altogether.

Featuring some of food that I like + Maneki Neko & Daruma doll characters ;D 🍱🍜🍙🌸

I miss onigiri & taiyaki/鯛焼きand on trying more Japanese food. I haven’t tried Japanese tofu :0

Most Japanese food is incredibly delicious (and I haven’t tried many)!!

There’s other characters in the game but either I didn’t want to draw them all, new characters got added, a bunch got removed since I did this piece or I haven’t personally tried the food (like natto) yet. Hope to try natto for myself eventually; I got some in the fridge just this week. Am both nervous and curious :0

A little ramble on my first and only trip to Japan

I have been to Japan for ~3.5 weeks once in 2019 for my own first self funded overseas vacation (and probably my last for a long time since I can’t afford it + the current times).

I was anxious/tense most of the time because I had lots of possibilities planned and everyday felt like I had to “do something interesting for the day” else it feels like a waste of money and time to be there (traveling is generally super expensive and stressful when you’re planning it yourself so I treated it as my first and last time going there, just in case). There’s plenty of times where I just took things super slow and simple, going with the flow without any plans. Other times I shutdown from exhaustion and pain and did nothing in order to recover :’)

I thought vacations were supposed to be relaxing ;P

And I did not have rose-tinted glasses visiting Japan. I just took good, mundane and bad things (and my own mistakes) in stride as they are. I’ve considered doing a few personal comics on my experiences in Japan but I decided not to for the sake of privacy and due to not wanting to dwell nor focus on some of my mixed, negative experiences that’s still at the back of my mind sometimes. No place is perfect and that’s normal.

Overall I was glad to have visited some beautiful places in Japan, the efficient & convenient ways of life, theme parks, lots of merch, lots of game & art focused shenanigans and wonderfully divine food! (:

Yes I’m somewhat a “weeb” who enjoys various kinds of Japanese art styles and games but I don’t go out of my way to watch the latest anime, manga and all that. Instead I’m reading some Korean manhwas and some really silly Chinese manhuas at the moment? I’m keeping it to myself though as my guilty pleasure and embarrassing, unfortunate timesink ;P

Anyhoo thanks for reading! Please have a restful, calm rest of your week!

PS: I’m trying out Amazon Affiliate Program so here’s my little list of equipment I currently use if you’re interested.

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