The (Unofficial) White Party of 2011!

Saturday marked the date for what was supposed to be the White Party celebration here in Manila, but the night before had a storm named Falcon (warning, NSFW link here) showing up and drowning many parts of the city under almost half a meter of water.  In what seems to slowly becoming a growing tradition for me and Rocky, we decided to come up with cool shirts we can wear for the event.  As I mentioned in my previous post, I wanted to find a design which celebrated both our geekiness and our gayness at the same time!

But sadly, thanks to the porn-studio-named typhoon, the official White Party was declared cancelled and was to be rescheduled on a different day.  Rocky and I, however, found ourselves still wanting to celebrate that night due to many reasons:  New York just legalized Gay Marriage, The Stonewall Riots were still an event to be remembered and celebrated, and our friend was still going to our favorite haunt, O bar, to introduce us to her partner.

So yeah, we pushed through with our "unofficial" White Party and wore our lovely shirts.  Here they are!

Blurry pic care of the elevator mirror.

For those who were curious, or aren't geek enough to grasp it, yes, the shirt designs were inspired by the PlayStation Portable game called Patapon.

Rocky's shirt.

And mine.

The best part?  The quote in the back of the shirt is an actual quote from the game!   To make the design, I actually had to dig around the net for two things:  high resolution images of the Patapons, and a font typeface of the font they actually use in the game.   The Patapons I was able to find, but not in the size I actually needed.  So to make it work for the design, I had to redraw the figures in Photoshop.   The font was more interesting.  There were files of the letters, but no actual font that I could find.  Many sites suggested directions on how to convert the file to a font, but I couldn't make any sense of it.  So what did I do?

I actually had to find ways to push the size of the text images to a high resolution and keep sharpening it for the design.  Thankfully, I got it to work!

Spank Them Bottoms!

Horror of horrors though, I worked on the Patapons too much to realize the big mistake that was present in the shirt designs.  The mistake?  Well, I used the WRONG RAINBOW.  The rainbow I had used was actually the traditional rainbow with all seven colors.  Ironic that I'd overlook that detail considering I had to actually redo the rainbow as well as the bisexual triangle icon for the high resolution needs of the design.

Proud to be Geeky and Gay!

Still, I feel pretty proud of our White Party shirts.  They weren't as big a hit with the people present as our Katamari Damacy inspired shirts before, but what mattered most was we loved wearing them.   In a celebration of being proud of who you are, wearing a shirt that you didn't just buy off the rack feels fantastic.

Hmm must start working out again.  I don't fill shirts like I used to.

It does make me wonder... come next Pride, what do we wear next!

Suggestions are always welcome :-P

Happy White Party!
Happy Gay Pride!

Count me OUT!

It is National Coming Out Day.

I am proud to be Out.

Never be afraid to be yourself.

Once again, I thank my partner Rocky Sunico for giving me the support and courage to finally take this step forward.  Being able to truly celebrate and be myself is a joy every one deserves to have.

Go 8-bit Happiness!!!

Got a load of stuff in mind for this blog.  Frankly, I'm happy as a katamari to see how there actually has been an increase in the number of readers I have in this blog.  Google Analytics reveals very interesting search key words that have lead people here, as well as which other sites have been instrumental in helping me gain more hits.  

Among the things I have in mind:

1) A short post I guess on what lead to me creating this blog in the first place

2) More Geekwood posts.  I have to make sure I widen the scope.  Comics should include manga, European comics, and possibly even local komiks.  Maybe more entries from video games, roleplaying games, and even books.

3) More Quickie Fiction.   As well as a post on the origins of Quickie Fiction stories.  Here's a little known fact:  They are not purely fictional stories.

4) Maybe even start a gay-centric online comic.  I've been wanting to do one years back, even before Diliman first found its home online.  But as always, performance anxiety gets to me.  But as Carlo Vergara of ZsaZsa Zaturnnah always tells me, "Don't be afraid.  Just do it.  Gawa lang ng gawa! (Just keep making comics!)"

But yeah, coming out was definitely a highlight in my life this year.  From actually doing it, to writing about it as part of an online event, I can only hope my own experience will help inspire someone else to do the same.  There truly is a joy in being able to proudly be who you are and stop living in fear.

Again, Happy Coming Out day everyone!

Our White Party Shirt Designs!

Celebrating my very first official White Party (although I did attend the previous White Party last year, I wasn't officially out yet back then) with Rocky, my partner of over one year, we decided to have shirts that proudly reflected our gender as well as our geekiness in a single go.

With Pink Triangles to reflect our gay status, we added a rainbow loop to be sure to encompass the official gay colors in our design.  In the back, however, we definitely wanted something that proclaimed how much of a geek we were and at the same time, when seen together worked perfectly as a show we were a couple.

We chose Katamari Damacy!
With the King of all Cosmos on my back, and the numerous cousins on my partner's back, we then added the words Royal and Rainbow underneath each one.  When together, we easily formed the term Royal Rainbow, which anyone who played Katamari Damacy would easily know is the gayest mode of transport available to man!    The shirts were beautiful and exciting concept wise, but sadly were not executed as well as we had hoped.

Ultimately, we were happy to have our first official Gay Pride White Party couple shirts and we're definitely looking to making this a yearly practice!

Happy Gay Pride to you all!