Directions of Destiny

S'okay, just get them up quickly!
Finally, Mei! S'okay, just get them up quickly!
Finally, Mei!

That's the spirit Hans! Keep going and don't let that pesty little schedule slip out of your hands!

Oh and...hooray for Mei!

UNSHADED ARCHITECTURE! O_O;; I don't suppose someone will be picking up the slack for these. X3

What do you mean exactly by "nearly finished"? :P

go Mei!

I know you prefer drawing trees to buildings, but I love seeing the buildings of the Alatus Institute. Architecture is sexy, you know. And your layout for the institute is so much the spiffy.

Yessss! Mei finally makes her appearance. I truly can't wait for the Mei/Li hints to start. =D *rabid romance-whore*

You're doing such a great job with the comic, keep up with the great work!

Actually, what with Xin having dove into the cold water to save Azalea and carrying her back to her bed after she passed out again, I'm half anticipating Li Xin & Azalea getting together. Even if I know that Azalea and Zephan are supposed to get together--at least what I conclude from the constant pushing them together on projects, in elevators, and in the general illustrations. (Zephan didn't do anything gentlemanly to help out Azalea in section 1.4. In fact, he mostly stood away from Azalea as much as he could, acting all unconcerned. Xin was the one who was most worried about Azalea. ::hearts:: I really like nice, caring guys...)

To remark on the title page for 1.6, since I'm here, ... I think the mix, if that's what it's supposed to be, of the Western dress and the Eastern dress ("ka-po") is disorienting. To me it doesn't work well. (At first I wasn't sure what you were doing, only getting the mixing of styles after someone else mentioned it.) Plus, the bottom part of the dress is too poof-y for a mix. The flow of material doesn't match up right. (Meaning, with the amount of excess material on the bottom part stemming from the top portion which uses a lot less fabric, while not impossible, would need some tricky weaving.) Plus, ... I'm just wondering how is she holding up her dress and how the wind is blowing to get those lines/creases of fabric.

And, if it were just a regular old ka-po, she wouldn't need to lift up her dress.

But to each girl her own, I suppose.

-AKung

To reply to AKung:

I just wanted to point out that dresses like Mei's which mix eastern and western style actually DO exist, I know one or two people that own one. Also.. what's wrong with tricky weaving? XP There are lots of oddly constructed costumes in any number of comics so I'm not really sure why tricky weaving is that big of an issue!

To address the creases in the dress, I believe that it's pretty heavy material and the picture is supposed to capture it in motion.

Oooh, mei Oooh, mei

Oh, Hans, I love you so much right now. I totally needed this after 3 hours of quantum exam. Oh, Hans, I love you so much right now. I totally needed this after 3 hours of quantum exam.

YAY UPDATE! :D But where is Azalea?

I don't find Mei's dress on the cover page disorientating at all. Nice mix between a cheongsam and a western gown.

What I think AKung was trying to say wasn't that the cheong-sam+evening-gown mix is ugly/unattractive but more like Hans didn't manage to pull off the effect properly. Yes, such dresses do exist BUT not the one Hans drew. Why? Because the tricky weaving means that 2 types of cloth were used to make the dress, a heavier silk-like one on top and a poofy, flimsy one on the bottom (at least, that's what it MUST have been because the picture is drawn that way). That's impossible, unless it's a 2-piece.

When we suggest a traditional cheong-sam for Mei to wear, it's not because her dress looks bad now, it's because it'd be easier to draw because the skirt, currently, looks unrealistic paired with the top.

Sorry Hans, don't mean to say your drawing's horrible or anything (far from you, you do great conceptualizing and artwork) just giving you some constructive criticism (which you like, right?).

AKung and Ming, I really do appreciate your critiques. I am aware that two types of cloth would be used in Mei's dress, but would it be so farfetched to consider that they lie underneath a seamless silk layer? :D() I can hardly imagine any kind of heavy ball gown to contain only a single layer of cloth, so to me it makes sense to have it all covered by an outer layer (not that I know a whole lot about ball gowns or anything--I can't say I've ever worn one myself ;o).

But Ming, I think you might have confused what AKung meant by "tricky weaving"--I think she was referring to how the amount of fabric used around her torso is much less than the amount for her skirt; not, like, weaving two different pieces of fabric together. However, there are tons of seamless dresses that are form-fitting on top and very wide on the bottom--I swear I'm not making it up! :x (Well, not completely seamless--there are light seams going vertically on the dress, but not horizontally in the sense that it's separating one material from another. Mei's dress has a few vertical seams, but they're along the sides and back of the dress, and they'd be too light so I felt it was better to just leave them out.) Either way, there's no "tricky weaving" involved. :D()

And yes, the ball gown portion of Mei's dress is actually supposed to be heavy material, not flimsy--if it were flimsy, I would imagine it'd have a lot more folds and such? Here's a picture of a lady picking up her heavy gown to demonstrate!

Anyway, you know, it's okay to not like a particular kind of dress. :D() Girls wouldn't freak out about prom shopping so much if their preferences aligned perfectly with any given dress. ;o

horay, i do like updates....
i was reading back a bit, wanting to re-check the turtle/snake thingy part...and i noticed something.
when zeph-y threw the ring, azalea put it on her thrid finger...
o_O ooooooooh...

It's Mei!! I missed her, glad she's making her appearance again, well technically it isn't again because it's one story...but there are two versions. So excuse my paradoxes.

No need to rush it's fine. I'm happy your getting yourself up to date though. Hope everything is well. Also the story is getting suspenseful! (Which is a good a thing lol)

Wow...it's a dress...and... it's fiction...suspension of disbelief! Not that criticism is bad, but it doesn't need to be so heated. Maybe the dress could be very simple to make in the world of Directions of Destiny with simple fabrics that can do anything. Yeah!

~Yay Mei~!

The past couple of updates have been interesting. I was looking forward to Mei in the comic. About the dress, several people have said that it looks a bit unnatural. You probably can't change anything at this point, but having worn dresses with full skirts, I would guess that Mei's dress needs an underskirt to keep the skirt full. Letting another layer of skirt peek out when she lifts the skirt might make the dress more believable to those of us who have worn formal dresses. Just a thought.

Um... I'm glad Hans got what I was trying to say? I have seen garments which have more material on one end and less on the other--just not to that extent. But I do love the flowers on the top--they're very tasteful. But I had no intention of making a big fuss about it all. Sorry!

Though I didn't notice the problem about an underskirt. But I have a dress (being a girl) which uses heavy material and doesn't require (or have) an underskirt and still manages to keep rather full. But it's not near as poofy as Mei's is.

-AKung

PS: I hope you update soon! :)