Frequently Asked Questions

Personal

1. How old are you?
I’m 30. Yes, I know I look around 12-25, but I’m actually 30.

2. What is your ethnic background?
I’m 100% Hmong (pronounced MONG). Nope. It’s not Mongolian.
Made mildly-famous by Clint Eastwood’s ‘Gran Torino’, Hmong people actually a nomadic ethnic group found scattered around South-East Asia and parts of China.

I was born in America and have never been to S.E. Asia. I do speak Hmong (that is also the name of our language).

3. What is your height & weight?
I’m approximately 5’3 (160cm), and I fluctuate between 115lbs – 135lbs (50kg – 63kg).
I fluctuate alas, because I have crazy eating habits.

4. Relationship status?
I am in a committed relationship. My boyfriend and I have been together for 4 years and we have kitties.

5. How many cats do you have?
I have 2, both of them are rescues. Peeker is a 13-yr old Ginger American Short Hair. Mycroft is a 1-yr old, we suspect he is an oriental mix due to his intelligence and chattiness.

Peeker is actually my boyfriends cat from college, his name is actually Aphex after Aphex Twin. Mycroft, we adopted together Jan 2011. Mycroft is named after my Mycroft Holmes, my favourite character from Sherlock Holmes (recently portrayed by the great Stephen Fry).

6. Where are you located?
I work out of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and sometimes London.

7. What do you do for a living?
I’m many things. I am a freelance artist, graphic designer, blogger, event coordinator for Bubble Punch, and social media marketing assistant.

8. Where did you buy your Vivienne Westwood glasses?
I bought them off of a friend, who did not like the way the frames looked on her. I actually broke them once and they’re now held together by some super glue!

9. Where do you like to shop?
I’m big on ebay, amazon, Los Angeles fashion district, and just by googling items for fair prices.

10. Your writing/grammar/spelling is terrible!
I’m really sorry. Editing and Grammar are some weak spots for me. Bear with me, I catch different errors but not always all of the errors. If you have any to report, please let me know!

11. You call yourself a goth and a nerd, but I don’t see it.
Well, that’s because Goths and nerds don’t need to wear their uniform every day or prove their affiliation.

My work however, often requires me to wear colorful “kawaii” things, which I have no problem with. I am a fan of kawaii culture, but the majority of my day to day wear is either black or nerd related.

However the idea that one has to always dress as ___subculture___ is a limiting idea. One can be ‘a goth’ by interests and expression other than that of the visual nature. This goes for any other subculture out there.

The Blog

1. When did you start blogging?
I’ve actually been blogging since ye olden days. I’ve had various livejournals and bloggers (before it blew up) dating back as far as 1999. I was on GeoCities, people.

Ninjasovereign.com is my fourth domain, and was purchased in November of 2009. I decided to back to the domain format after years of livejournal due to all the changes in live journal, and, I just wanted to have my own space.

2. What is the purpose of this blog?

This blog is simply here because I want it to be.

I blog about everything I like, from fashion to nerd culture, to trying to spread the idea that beauty and confidence, whether photoshopped or not, first comes from effort.

I’m here to say that you, me, all of us, were not always who we are now, and we’re not destined to be this way forever. We make our lives what they are. I’m here for perseverance, honesty, self-evaluation, and the willingness and sheer will to become who you want to be.

3. What type of blogger are you?
I’m an everything type of blogger. I like fashion, beauty, inspiration, nerd culture, and everything under the blogging tent.

I won’t say that I’m any sort of degreed professional in any of those fields, but after 30 years of being my own guinea pig, I think I can dish out a little entertaining advice.

4. Can you give me advice about blogging?
The key to blogging is: TO KEEP POSTING & KEEP IT SINCERE

Post about what you love, are interested in, what you know, and what you want to know.

Don’t blog for popularity, because trying to get popular often means you’re going to sever who you are for popular opinion.

And don’t blog because you think it’ll make you rich enough to quit your day job, at this point, there are very few bloggers who can do that.

5. Can you add my blog to your blog roll?
Sorry, I’m rather selective about my blog roll. I can’t add everyone, but do share a link and I’ll definitely check it out. I have a google reader subscription to over 100 blogs at this point, and YES I do read all of them.

6. Something is broken on your blog!
Yikes! Please contact me and let me know what the error was! I’ll try to fix it as soon as I can.

7. How often are your giveaways?
I’m aiming for every other month, or every month depending on sponsorship.

However, giveaways are held at my own discretion, and I like to have it relate to the purpose of my blog.

8. Do you get paid to review items?
Yes and no. I’ll always be honest in my reviews, and I’ll try to remember to let you guys know if something was given to me, if I paid for it, or if my sponsor is paying me to review something.

That being said, I’ll always give my honest opinion. I don’t tend to review things I don’t like, so most of the things I ever review, will be because I tried them and liked them.

9. How can I get featured on your blog?
Contact me! Send me your blog link, and a short 1 paragraph bio/statement. After reading, I’ll decide whether or not it’s relevant to my blog and let you know.

10. Credit! This image is mine or ______, please credit or take it down!
I sincerely apologize. I do try to use image search engines like TinEye and such to find credit, but sometimes I come up short. I’m always willing to plug in the credit if someone finds it.

However, if someone really wants me to take their image down, I’ll most certainly and respectfully comply.

Arts, Crafts, and Design

1. What is your Art Background?
I graduated from a now non-existent private college in animation and multi-media design. I have an Associates degree in Animation.

I’ve been drawing from a young age, and I taught myself web design back in 1997. In college, my roommates were graphic design majors and visual communications majors, so a lot of my design knowledge was learned in collaboration with them.

Post college, I took up extra design and art classes to further develop my skills, and I still continue to practice and read up on new information and techniques.

2. What medium do you use for illustrations?
I prefer paper and ink, but I also use Illustrator, Photoshop, and acrylic paint.

3. Do you take commissions?
I sure do! Just contact me with what you thinking and I can give you a quote.

4. How do you come up with DIY ideas?
I love research! I do a lot of it for my art and design, so naturally I’m always looking up diy projects for inspiration too.

A lot of my ideas are born out of necessity for an item for an event. Usually this means, I’ll plan about a few weeks ahead with a theme and look for inspiration photos.

5. Can I use your artwork on my site?
Yes, as long as you properly credit my work, and if you can send me a link of where it’s being posted, that’s nice too. NO if you’re going to alter it or resell it as your own!

Photography

1. Who takes your photos?
I take about 99% of my own photos. Those I don’t take, I try to link the source.

2. What cameras do you use?
I actually use 3 different cameras along with my Logitech HD webcam and old Samsung phone.

Nikon D3000 DSLR
Panasonic Lumix dmc-f28
Nikon Coolpix S550

3. What editing software do you use?
I use a combination of Adobe Lightroom 3.6 and Photoshop CS5 to edit photos.
Lightroom is my program of choice for raw images taken from my Lumix and my DSLR because I have greater control over the image data.

4. Do you edit all of your photos and how much do you edit them?
Yes, I do edit my photos.

Some images are lightly edited for color correction, brightness, exposure, contrast, and cropping.

However, I also do some heavy post processing for some of my images based on my own preference and what purpose I have with those photos.

I don’t have a huge deal with people photoshopping images to be honest. I think everyone, EVERYONE could learn to appreciate photoshop a little more. However, I do believe in using photoshop with a critical eye and in moderation!

5. Where do you get your blog photograph layouts?
I purchased some of the original blog picture layouts from PuglyPixel.com, after that I started making my own for my personal use.

PuglyPixel.com is an AMAZING resource site, and I love her. I subscribe to her off and on because she’s a great designer.

Hair & Beauty

1. Do you dye/bleach your own hair?
Yes I do. I also tend to cut my own hair. I’ve been doing it for about 14 years now.

When I actually go to get my hair done, I go to my friends Kaytea & Kazu, formerly of [a]narchy.
They have done some legendary work!

2. What colors or brand of dye do you use?
I tend to mix my own colors between brands like: Manic Panic, Special Effects, Prevana, and Punky Color

3. What do you recommend for dry damaged hair?
I use a protein hair mask called Tsubaki Damage Care Mask. It is a Japanese hair care product by Shiseido.

It has really helped my dry, dead, over-bleached hair return to a manageable state.

4. What face makeup/foundation do you use?
I actually use drug store brands because my skin is not too shabby. I switch between Elf Studio’s tinted moisturizer in Beige, and Almay’s Smart Shade foundation in Light/Medium.

I set it with either Rimmel London’s matte powder, or a transluscent powder by a Japanese costmetics line called Dramatic Base.

I’ll keep updating this as more questions are asked. Other things I didn’t cover?

You can email me directly for any questions you may have here.

You can also ask me on my formspring.me