EVACOMICS BLOG

Got this inspiration when I was chatting with my teacher and owner of Yoga Inc. It seems that the longer you practice yoga, the more comfortable you are wearing lesser and lesser, especially if you are going for Hot Yoga. And this always happen during Hatha Yoga class when there are newbies who can't get the pose right or people with super-tight hamstrings... We had to struggle and hold on to the super long pose and wonder if the teacher had forgotten about us... Needless to say, my thighs always go sore the next day, but that means my muscles were working! :P

I received these fun markers last week from Chameleon Pens and was excited to try it because you can do gradation with only one pen! The last time I used markers was 10 years ago using COPIC markers. So my skill was very rusty and had to make do with my moleskine sketchbook. It would be better to use smooth marker papers so it is easier to blend and the ink won't smudge to the bottom pages. This is a 17min of my first impression and demonstration on how to use these markers. It was really fun like a science experiment or cooking a new dish :P Pro: Do gradation with only one pen. Colourless blender will not stain other colours. Fun experimenting on the mixing. Con: Takes a bit of time to figure out which side is the mixing chamber and brush nib, so might not be suitable for professionals who want to work fast. Lighter tone only last for a small area, not suitable for covering large area of pale tones. Outliner pen provided too thin for my usage. But can be com

So my Japanese friend came to Singapore after the ban was announced and he was complaining from day to night about how bad it is and Singapore not being as attractive anymore. Lucky for him, he drinks in bars and restaurant so I told him it shouldn't affect that much. Hope he comes again... because he always bring Matcha snacks for me... *PRAYS* :P Support me making more comics by becoming my patron at Patreon ! Thank you!

My friends and I originally planned to pay our respects to Mr. Lee yesterday when the wake was first opened to public, but we were shocked and confused about where the queue starts from. So we planned to return again today to spend the whole day queueing (and one of them took the whole day leave instead of half a day). But because I was the one with flexible time, I went ahead first at 9am and was surprised that I could finish by 10am before any of them could arrive! With ample time and good weather, I decided to draw my tribute to our Ah Kong (Grandpa). Actually I didn't plan to draw anything until a fan messaged me to request for it while I was having breakfast and checking out the latest queue updates. My original concept was to draw Singapore River and the shophouses because that was where we saw the incredibly long queue yesterday and Ah Kong liked to take Ah Ma to stroll there. But I later changed my mind when I sat at Clarke Quay because he is now at Parliament House a

Rest in peace Mr. Lee Kuan Yew :"( For my fans overseas: My country's founding Prime Minister had just passed away this morning. There will be no new comics update tonight. New comics will resume next week. Sorry for the disruption m(_ _)m Meanwhile other local comic artists are paying tribute to him: https://www.facebook.com/groups/comicstribute2lky/ But I rather visit his wake personally to pay my respect once it is open to public. More information can be found here: http://www.rememberingleekuanyew.sg/the-funeral/ Singapore could not have achieved what we have today without Mr. Lee. Wishing him peace and happiness, reunited with the love of his life and support, Madam Kwa Geok Choo.

The problem: I believe many of you had read my article about the problems faced in self-publishing in Singapore . It is very time-consuming to market and sell your books and the little profits is insufficient to sustain a living in this country. So I had been doing freelancing but this means less time to update comics for my readers as well as to start book 2, which will be all new content! What is Patreon? In case, you are wondering if Patreon is a reliable and a legitimate company, they already received over 17 million in funding from investors . Many well-known youtubers and some webcomic artists like Zach Weiner are also already on that platform. Benefits of supporting me on Patreon In order to work on book 2 and more comics, I will be cutting down my replies across all of my social media channels like FB, Twitter, Instagram, Google+ and Youtube. However as a patron of my webcomics, you will get my utmost attention and tentative replies! Depending on the amount pledged,

Do you prefer job hoping every few years or stay with the company until retirement?

Luckily you don't really need a car to travel around Japanese cities because they are well connected by trains and buses. Moreover they don't break down that often unless there is a typhoon or earthquake...

Thank you very much to my fans and regulars of Yoga Inc. for supporting this  meaningful event, where half of the proceeds was donated to the Singapore Cancer Society and the other half to Singapore Breast Cancer Foundation!

This is a continuation of my last month's Monday Yoga and Fitness comics . Sorry for the lack of other comics because of Chinese New Year and preparing for the charity yoga event at Yoga Inc. !

Do you know that I was rejected by American publishers, Japanese publishers, Taiwanese and even Singaporean publishers? Of course only 7-8 rejects is not a lot compared to 100 rejects from some diehard cartoonists. Even when I had 25K likes on Facebook back then, nobody had faith in me that my books, which were quite niche, would sell. Fortunately when I was about to give up, I was introduced to my lovely investor in the Singapore Makers community , who believed in my work. So we paid a publisher to self-publish because no other publishers would want to publish my work. There was one exception, however, with a Malaysian publisher who offered me a contract for the first time in my life! But the condition was that my captions had to be changed to "Malaysia" instead of Singapore... Because my journey had not been an easy one, I would like to share some of the things I learnt with other authors or artists who are thinking of doing self-publishing as well.

I think Japan has the best postal service. I almost lost my parcel in Singapore when the post lady did not go up to my unit and left the non-delivery slip on the parcel itself. Because there was no notification in my mailbox nor doorstep, I continued to wait for 2 days at home until I thought it was strange and went online to check. Luckily I managed to check on the last day that I can collect my parcel before it was returned to sender. Fortunately the post lady at my parent's home was much better and even recognised a wrong address and delivered it correctly to us!

Thanks to my brother, I finally have an android app that grabs content from both my blog and website so you can easily access all the latest comics, blog articles and news about my public events in one place!

I like the new malls but at the same time, there is a sense of nostalgia because there is not a place in Singapore that looks the same as 20 years ago. I think as we grow rich, we build and tear down things so fast without much thought as long as it is more practical and can earn more money... For people like us who had been away from Singapore for some time and come back again, we have this sense of loss as the things we grew so fondly and familiar of are now all gone.

As you can see from my recent comics , I had developed this yoga craze and been going to yoga classes every week. I am very happy that Yoga Inc. invited me over to give their classes a try. Their address is 100 Guillemard Road #01-08 Singapore 399718

I had been procrastinating to do a webinar about how I increased my fanbase from only 600 Facebook likes in 2012 to 68,000 likes now without paying for any FB ads. Luckily my procrastination stopped when Mark Koh from Temploy asked me to do a webinar for his company as a reward for their crowdfunding campaign: Skillup 2015 . Skillup is a free two-days event for youths to be inspired and learn about jobs outside the norm, such as part-time jobs, creative jobs as well as becoming entrepreneurs. I know Mark Koh from one of his networking events and he is also a writer together with my comic artist friend, Shawn Siow, for their new book " Silent War ". If you read my blog last year, you would know that they actually let me share their booth at Comic Fiesta , Kuala Lumpur. My Webinar Ok, I admit, it was my first time making a webinar so it was a bit draggy at times and totalled at around 68mins. I split the webinar into three parts: 1) Introduction, 2) Strategy and Execu

Sometimes I wonder if our city can still be kept clean without the "fine" signs everywhere and our diligent cleaners going around to clean up the mess... But one thing is for sure, we don't pick up other people's trash like what the Japanese did after the World Cup!

Ok seriously, this review took me like 10 months to complete and I gained a whopping 2kg as a result for not exercising too. That's why I had been doing yoga every week to shed those additional pounds of fats...

It's been a long time since I created wallpapers but I found this one especially nice so I decided to make wallpapers for mobile and desktop too! To download for smartphones (1136x640 pixels):  http://www.eva.sg/gallery/calendar/2015/cny2015.jpg To download for desktop (1920x1080 pixels): http://www.eva.sg/gallery/calendar/2015/cny2015_1920x1080.jpg The wallpaper should be big enough, if not you can enlarge or crop it according to your screen size. Looking good right? Like what a Singaporean Chinese will say, "HUAT AH!" (to grow wealth!)

The Problem I tried to post a blog article on my FB page EVACOMICS  on 20th Jan, but whenever I post my link, Facebook will insist that it might be UNSAFE and I had to enter a captcha code!

You might have noticed that I am starting to upload comics that are not Japanese-related to diversify my topics and not bore myself with everything Japanese...

So I wasn't sure if it was because I added a word "AD" at the top that made Facebook all sensitive, but they flagged my entire blog as "UNSAFE" since last week and had not lifted the block although I sent several requests to unblock it. You know I write here often and I visit my own blog almost everyday without any problem. Now I have to key in this troublesome security code each time I post my link and users have to confirm that they want to leave FB to visit my blog. THIS IS NOT COOL. So Facebook, maybe you want me to pay that's why? You can help by reporting to Facebook that my lovely blog that has been around since 2009 is perfectly safe by going here: https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/571927962827151 and fill in http://evacomics.blogspot.com is NOT UNSAFE! Please remove the block. Thank you!!!

Luckily I knew about this before hunting for my apartment, and I did land up in a one-room mansion :P

Frankly speaking, I hadn't teach drawing for more than 4 years so when I was contacted to become a mentor for a national TV program, I was pretty darn nervous. The show was called "Knockout Carnival" on OKTO channel that targets kids and teens to let them know more about our local arts scene. The shots were filmed on 25th August at Hoods Inc's studio and the episode was on air on 25th November. You can watch the show here (I appear somewhere in the middle, but you can't skip the loading): http://video.toggle.sg/en/series/knockout-s7/ep31/313833

Inspired by an unknown author and added our own Singapore rendition. -----original story by unknown author------- Toyota and Ford decided to have a canoe race on the Missouri River. Both teams practiced long and hard to reach their peak performance before the race. When the race was over, the Japanese team won by a mile. The American team was very discouraged and depressed. They decided to investigate and find a reason for the crushing defeat. A team made up of senior management was formed to find the problem and recommend appropriate action. The team’s conclusion was: The Japanese team had eight people rowing and one person steering while the American team had eight people steering one person rowing. Feeling a deeper study was needed, the American management team hired a consulting company for a second opinion, paying them a lot of money. The consulting company advised the Americans that, of course, there were too many people steering and not enough people rowing. Wanting to

So I'd been asked what else is good about Singapore and I would say stability and safety. It is still quite safe to go back home late at night for girls. But of course, staying vigilant is still important.

Earlier in Oct last year on my post about my trip to Japan , I mentioned that one of the reasons I returned was because I was invited for a company's staff magazine interview. One of their sections is called "TALK!", featuring someone not from the company who is actively promoting themselves outside of Japan. ( Click here to download a bigger size  or click here for the translated article by Shizuhi! ) So now, the article has been published and I can reveal which company it is! TADAA~ Yes, it was my honour and privilege to be invited for an interview for an article in Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal's staff magazine called "鉄の絆" (literally means connection through metal, but you should imagine it more poetically). Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal is the world's second largest steelmaker, so you can imagine how nervous I was...

This comic was created due to overwhelming response after posting my makeover photo for my friend's wedding on New Year's Day: Yes I was her bridesmaid. Surprisingly, the above photo garnered over 2,400 likes by the next day with loads of questions from my fans. As well as on Instagram too: Got a bit better for friend's wedding! A photo posted by Evangeline Neo (@evangelineneo) on Jan 1, 2015 at 12:44am PST Looks like I can become a celebrity blogger! Sponsors anyone? :P P.S. My dress was proudly sponsored by my friend. She bought it at a steep discount of $80, original price: $800. I took 10 mins to put on my contact lens VS 90 mins on my first try a month ago... Also proudly sponsored by my friend, hee hee.

2014 had been a great year for me (minus my horrible sorethroat and cough now). I finally got to publish my very first book after drawing webcomics for 7 years. Some people told me that they were envious because they liked to draw but gave up because it can't make money. For me, I don't want to live a life with regrets and ask myself "what if..." on my dying bed. If I should only have a day to live, I should look back at my life and glad on the decisions that I had made. I am glad that I tried, and did my very best to fulfil a dream I set when I was 13 years old, that is to become a comic artist. I spent time with my family, my loved ones, and ate all the good food I could afford. I made comics that could influence others and bring a smile to their faces. So I am happy without any regrets. I hope my fans can live life to fullest too and see you again in 2015 with all smiles. ♪(≧▽≦) / Happy New Year ＼(≧▽≦)丿♪