"I HATE BROCCOLI!" said the tough biker dude with childhood issues.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Monday, December 2, 2013
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Friday, November 22, 2013
Green arcanian
Nigby’s acidic spittle flew as he passionately gave his lecture about the many evils of beauty. It was a life-changing talk, no one got a chance to apply it though.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Monday, November 11, 2013
Vandine the Fertile
I was sketching last week and had this idea of a barbarian woman blessed with such incredible fertility that she uses her children as disposable minions in battle. The name “Vandine” popped into my head and I knew I just had to make an illustration out of it.
Here we are many late nights later, the piece is finally finished. I never knew making an illustration is soo challenging. I guess it’s like giving birth. It’s messy, you struggle and push hard to get it out of you and once it’s out, it’s just…out.
I am hungry, sleepy and I need to catch up on work but at last that idea in my head is now born. Ladies and gents, I present to you - Vandine the Fertile.
Here we are many late nights later, the piece is finally finished. I never knew making an illustration is soo challenging. I guess it’s like giving birth. It’s messy, you struggle and push hard to get it out of you and once it’s out, it’s just…out.
I am hungry, sleepy and I need to catch up on work but at last that idea in my head is now born. Ladies and gents, I present to you - Vandine the Fertile.
In addition to this, I also made a coloring tutorial and a preliminary sketch for the character. Check em out below!
Sunday, November 3, 2013
Ridin' Dirty
On his 5000th day of service as a squire, Pekto discovered the ability to turn into a fun-loving cyclops with a set of perfect teeth(for fun-loving cyclops anyway).
Around the same time, his master and all around pain-in-the-butt Sir Sean passive-aggressive, transformed into a leashed pig.
At that very moment, both knew their lives would never be the same.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Yamabushi Heretic
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Sunday, September 22, 2013
My own principles of design
What is design?
According to the dictionary, design is a specific arrangement of elements to create a desired result.
Lately I have come to the realization that I can't master all areas of art in my lifetime. I enjoy and want to make many kinds of art but I can't possibly learn all of them in my time here on Earth. Instead I made a list of the things I enjoy most in art and focus on them. These are based on my own values and what I enjoy the most.
In short, these will help me create the desired result - simple, lighthearted, appealing illustrations.
Here are my criteria for good design:
1. CONTRAST - size(big x small), direction(horizontal x vertical), angles(straight x curve), lighting(light x dark) texture(rough x smooth) substance(hard x soft). Don't be shy on making big contrast, push more, experiment, have fun, learn. Experiment the distance between elements(eg. eyes from nose), and play on proportion.
2. SIMPLICITY - simple shapes, clarity and silhouettes
3. APPEAL - anything that catches the eye, could also be but not limited to - cuteness and childish features
4. STORYTELLING - the illustration, animation or work of art must tell a story, not just pretty figures standing around
5. INTEREST - the secret sauce, the thing that will separate your bear design from all other bears. This is
something unique and quirky about your character, like a bear that grows flowers on it's nose, a flower that eats moonlight, a young kid who gets insanely strong after the adrenaline rush of a panic attack. The humorous, the insane, the creepy, the tongue in cheek; anything to add life and make your heart skip a beat while drawing. One can only play with shapes for so much, somewhere, a poor guy is doing the same thing wondering why his characters still look generic.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Sunday, August 25, 2013
WHEEL OF TIME FANART!
This has been a long time coming.
I’ve been listening to WOT audiobooks for the past months while working so I guess it’s just natural to make fanart for the book I love.
P.S. Mat Cauthon is the coolest character ever. Uno is not far behind though with his cursing and eyepatch.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Quick painting test
The result of playing Bastion and listening to WOT while working. I'm planning to use the same style in a WOT fanart piece. It's been long overdue.
Tuesday, July 30, 2013
Mid year catch up
Wow! It's been a month or so since I last posted on this blog. Time flies so fast and life threw some huge boulders on my way so yeah. But here I am, stronger than ever before, and itching to get some personal projects done since it's officially the eighth month of 2013. I usually release a cartoon atleast once a year and I'm not planning on breaking that tradition now. It'll probably be released in the last quarter but in the meantime, these are some designs I did for the game I'm working on. I had fun working on them, but more importantly, I got a chance to exercise this new drawing style I've been developing behind the scenes.
Monday, July 1, 2013
My best animation so far
Last year, I accepted a project - making cutscenes for an ipad and iOS game to be exact - and did the best I can for three whole months, even if the project budget is only for 1 month, and being under an NDA until the game is ready to be released.
The reason for this is that I wanted to test where I am, skill-wise on making animations. The budget didn't matter, nor the NDA, I just want to know what will be the result of my full effort. Eventually, I finished it, and the weird thing is that it didn't even bother me knowing that other people won't be seeing my hard work until a year or so.
I forgot about it and moved on to other things.
Fast forward to this day, the client suddenly contacted me, telling me that the game is about to be released on July 16. It's time to release the project to the world! Somehow this didn't excite me, but as I watched my work again before uploading it, the feeling of wanting to give everything I got to making a project suddenly came back to me. I miss that feeling - you're totally exhausted to the point that you just like to sleep for a week, yet you're happy cause you never held back. I think I'm going to try that once again soon, but this time, I'm gonna make sure it's for my own personal project.
Anyway, here's one of the cutscenes I'm talking about:
I did the art and animation, my good buddy Patrick did the voice overs, while the client provided the story.
How bout you, when was the last time you worked really hard for a project? :)
Thursday, June 20, 2013
Monday, June 17, 2013
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Friday, June 14, 2013
Anime-ish character designs batch 4!
Just like your favorite talent search shows, my character designs also come in batches. This week has been particularly tough as I was down with the fever for a few days yet I didn't have the luxury to take a day off. But tomorrow will be a different story as I promise to treat myself extra special for all this hard work.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Latest Anime-ish character designs
New designs for work. This time the theme is a girl who loves superheroes. I widened the descriptions though, see for yourself:
1. A little superhero girl. This girl is really adorable but her moves are really brash and violent due to influence of film and tv. She thinks of herself as a real superhero trapped in a little girl's body.
2. The method-acting cosplayer. In every costume she wears, she becomes that character. Confidence and great poses are her signature in game. She knows how to project her best angles.
3. The consumer fangirl. Just a typical teenage girl addicted to cartoons, books, and internet culture. She lacks athletic ability or finesse but has hard hitting moves because of her bulk.
4. Shy "harajuku" nerd. This girl grew up embracing the fashion of Japan and it's famous street named "harajuku" where people express themselves through clothing. She is terribly shy though, and often hides the lower part of her face in a mask. In game this shyness will be relayed through a bit of indecisiveness in her every move.
5. Boisterous working girl. This girl acts more manly than most man, she works blue collar jobs and shouts a lot. In game this will translate to really manly moves that will surely match her tomboyish look.
Friday, June 7, 2013
More Anime-ish character designs
New character designs for work! The theme was a rocker dude. I totally enjoyed thinking of the designs and envisioning their personalities, you can read em below: (from screen left to right)
1. A bar room player who likes to play energetic songs. I imagined something like the men from the tap dance scene in titanic. So this personality will translate in the animation by giving him hillbilly like jumpy movements.
2. Wild rocker - just like his look, this guy plays with reckless abandon and wild kicks like there’s no tomorrow.
3. This guy is a blues singer. Suave and groovy, just like what his moves will be in game. Moves like James Brown or something like that.
4. The depressed, cranky artist. This guy doesn’t sleep and is underpaid. In game this will translate for sloppy moves, and poor balance.
5. Heartbroken drummer. This guy just got out of a 7-year relationship. He’s totally emotional and pours out his soul in playing the drums. For the game he could be constantly intense and crying as he releases his frustration in every move.
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Anime-ish character designs
Some character designs I did for work. I tried to implement some things I learned about drawing clothes but as of now I'm still faking it. Gonna dig deeper and find out about how folds on clothes and drapery really work.
Monday, June 3, 2013
June - Clothing and drapery month!
If anyone noticed, I haven't done any long written blog post in a while. The reason is that I wanted to make this blog more about the drawings and less about the talk. It worked for me as I got a lot of drawings and work done during May. But for now I have to make an exception cause I'm once again dedicating a month to improving a certain area of study - namely, clothing and drapery!
This month is supposed to be dedicated to working on my comic and learning more about story but as fate would have it, my current project extended and I have a chance to design and animate 6 new characters plus 20 aliens. Now I decided to go along with the circumstance and study clothing instead to improve my designs and to make the characters more fun to animate in the future.
So for now, my plan of attack is this:
Drapery :
3. Master copies - Look for fold patterns and study how of these people draw/translate them: (200 copies)
-simple - fabien-m
-intermediate - gainax (TTGL and FLCL)
-complicated - kekkaishi
4. Appeal (200 samples)- Now that you've learned how folds work, it's time to present them in a way that you'll find it fun to draw and people want to look at. Keeping in mind how interesting are master copies you've done earlier, the two things to do to add appeal onto your own work are:
-simple, interesting general shape of fabric
-interesting and well defined two tone, giving sense to the folds
5. Putting it all together. Draw from your street photography bookmarks = (125 copies)
Pencil Mileage:
The top priority is to draw clothing/drapery everyday no matter how long or short your available time is. Just don't miss a day. Aim to do 100 clothing/drapery studies every week. 30 are copies from animation and 70 are drawings based on real life.
As an additional guide, here are a list of the most common types of fabrics, categorized according to : (thickness) thick, average, thin + (rigidity) hard, soft, crisp.
1. (normal, soft) Cotton is derived from the fibre of the tropical cotton plant. When the cotton flowers bloom and die, a boll remains which ripens and splits open to reveal a white, fluffy interior with seeds – this is the raw cotton. Cotton is the most widely used fabric and is the basis of over 30 types of textiles.
2. (thick, hard) Denim is a type of cotton fabric woven in such a way that the threads produce that distinctive diagonal ribbing on the underside of the fabric. Traditionally it was dyed blue and the first denim trousers were made in Genoa, Italy. Both the words ‘denim’ and ‘jeans’ are of French origin.
3. (thin, crisp)Linen is derived from the fibres flax plant and is highly valued for it’s fresh, cool feel especially during hot weather. Some fabrics of cotton or hemp when woven in a linen-like weave are referred to as linen.
4. (thin, soft)Silk is one of the oldest and most luxurious fabrics known to man. This protein fibre is obtained from the cocoons of the mulberry moth and was first produced in China as far back as 3,000 BC.
5. (thick, soft) Wool is a natural protein fibre derived from the hair and fur of different animals including sheep and goats. The fibres are shorter than those of silk and generally form a looser weave.
Gonna post the results and a tutorial in the future. Till then, keep your pencils busy!
Thursday, May 23, 2013
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Monday, May 6, 2013
Digital Watercolor
Trying out digital watercolors. I may be on to something here, it looks like the real thing.
Is style needed?
I got this from Austin Kleon's tumblr:
“Don’t worry about style. It will be expressed no matter what you do. Style is part of the way your brain is wired.” —Luke Sullivan
“The problem with art today: the artist believes he must find a style (or a schtick really) and defend it with his life. And if all the schticks are already taken, he must pull one out of his ass. He must find one, invent one, fabricate one, for he can be nothing if he cannot be original.” —Eddie Campbell
“Style is a capitalist invention. It’s a trademark. It’s very useful in the world of commerce to have a good trademark, but it wasn’t my first concern. I got restless…” —Art Spiegelman
“The way to professional accomplishment: you have to demonstrate that you know something unique, that you can repeat, over, and over and over until ultimately you lose interest in it… The model for personal development is antithetical to the model for professional success….Whenever Picasso learned how to do something he abandoned it.” —Milton Glaser
“In our current cult of originality, the pressure is to have a personal style as soon as possible, and the classroom environments often have this mentality as well. Everyone is freaking out: “What’s my style? What’s my thing?” It’s too much too fast. This race for originality has, over the years, spread from that future-goal timeline to just after college to (now) inside college itself. A safety zone no longer exists.” —Dash Shaw
“When I talk to young composers, I tell them, I know that you’re all worried about finding your voice. Actually you’re going to find your voice. By the time you’re 30, you’ll find it. But that’s not the problem. The problem is getting rid of it.” —Philip Glass
“Don’t worry about a style. It will creep up on you and eventually you will have to undo it in order to go further.” —Gary Panter
Don't worry about style, instead, master the fundamentals and always draw honestly from life. By doing this, you will be open to new possibilities instead of being trapped in inbred methods that has been rehashed over and over for centuries.
I think it is better to be known not for your style but for your honesty and versatility. What will represent you will not be superficial details, rather the wide range of work you will accumulate over the years. Having only a single style is limiting anyway, it will be a cage that you have to escape in order to grow. Atleast in this path you can shake things up by having the solid foundation to experiment with anything as you please.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Don't wait to get better - Guidelines for making things the zen way
 |
| Art - a mountain without summit |
2. The second thing is that simplicity is important, but simplicity is also relative. Simplicity is key in all things. Eliminate the unnecessary to highlight what's important. On the other hand, we must realize that what's complicated and hard to you now could be relatively simple to a master.
3. That brings us to the third point. Improving your skills is essential, but do it along the way. You'll never be ready - improving artistically is a mountain with no summit.
4. The style should serve the material, not the other way around. This is bigger than yourself, more than a style, it is about an idea that needs to be communicated. As artists, we have to be humble enough to let the material itself guide our choices.
So in short, do the thing that you want to do right now, don’t wait to be ‘better.’ You’ll always want to be better. No idea you have is so grand that it’s worth wasting your life over until you’re ‘ready.’ Do the damn thing right now and try to just keep improving as an artist as you go along. Finally, be humble to recognize that we are but humble vessels of ideas, thus, our decisions have to be guided by what's best for the material.
Thursday, May 2, 2013
Friday, April 26, 2013
New logo
After trashing several ideas, I finally settled on a new logo look.
Considering that I didn't study design, I'm quite surprised it turned out ok. I liked the way the character is somewhat "sneaking" and boggarting his way into the lower right side of the stage, as well as the custom text I designed. I didn't know what I was doing 90% of the time but I just trusted my instincts to what looks nice. Now moving on to studying shape and creating several clips for my new animated intro. Totally stoked for May!
Thursday, April 25, 2013
A recommitment to professionalism
I remember it very clearly, it was a normal sunny day. I was inside my crowded apartment starting though the window. The previous days have been wasted in browsing the internet and playing games which I don't even remember. I feel terrible, I'm wasting my life and I know I have to make a decision. June 12, 2012 was the day I committed myself into becoming a professional.
This commitment was brought upon a special audiobook I bought several weeks before - Turning Pro by Steven Pressfield - which was and is my go-to book whenever I feel like I'm out of touch with the way I should be living. It emphasizes that an individual that wants to be the person that he's destined to be must rely on order and regularity instead of a few days with a blaze of glory to make anything substantial. He must turn pro.
So I did, and it brought upon great results. I did 8-10 backgrounds for my animation short till I changed my mind and switched to making comics which I did a lot of episode outlines, character C.V's and 3 full-color pages. After that, I slid back to my old chaotic ways and forgot about the commitment.
I did try several times to recommit, they lasted around several days to a month then a fast slide back down chaosland. But I still remember the feeling I have when I was acting like a pro. It's a relaxed feeling of following a certain schedule, doing whatever you can in the time allotted and leaving everything else in the hands of the muses. I liked that idea, and frankly, it's the best routine I had that's why I'm recommitting back to it.
Once again, I need to become a professional and this time, I'm sticking to it. I have no excuses this time, I'm living alone, my life is peaceful, and I'm healthy in every way. Combined with the effortless life learning experiment, I think this will be my best year so far.
 |
| This quick doodle shows nothing of what I learned |
The only thing I needed to do for this is to keep my schedule. I'm also keeping my Effortless life experiment for learning which would help greatly in this schedule due to it's emphasis on passion instead of goals. I'm already done with two things on my Pro Level Curriculum - I'm looking forward to the next challenge. Onward!
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Caricatures 001
Some warmups to get the 2 day rust off.I got way too burned out finishing the hand tutorial in just 24 hours. The tiredness carried over the next 2 days, but now I'm feeling much better though the week is almost over and I hadn't done anything yet work-wise. The effortless life experiment has been going great as well. I'm feeling less stressed and more productive the past several days.
