Look what I found!

This is some pretty old stuff. I found these pictures buried in my old files when I was busy cleaning up my computer! I did all of these in my teenage years... lol!

Gun Girls ~ Continued

Reminiscent of some of my first posts, I've drawn some more gun girls. I tried a roller-girl look with simple colours and a 2d cutout style.

Asian Princess Concept

A sort of modern-futuristic take on asian historical dress. Should I develop her into a character? ...

Painting Sketch

Here's a snippit of what I drew in photoshop class today. I think I'll develop it into a complete painting!

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Looking better, I think! Like the design of the dress a little more...

Robots!

I admit robots are not my strongest point, but I was kind of enjoying drawing some of these.

Time for some Figures...

Been a while since I uploaded some sketches. These are some drawings we did today. Thanks are in order to our model who put up with our long conversations about Star Wars and various other distracting cracks at pop culture.

Portrait

A character from my imagination. I've been working on him for a long time now... still not finished. ;)

New Coiffeur

I decided the hair styles weren't doing it for the warrior girl, so I decided to try some more. I'll probably do at least 8 more of these. I'm liking the one in the middle, and the 4th and 5th one too... though I'll do some more variations of the 5th. :)

More Designs!

These are slight variations of a costume I was working on today. Inspired by the oiran painting I did the other day. I'm planning to turn one of these designs into a 3d sculpture.

In addition, here's an anatomy study in 3d! (Female skeleton and muscle structure. I'll be doing a male character for my second one.)

Killer Oiran

Messing around in photoshop during class! I've been going on with a blue-green colour theme in the posts for October.

A-Team!

Here's a digital painting taken from a screenshot of Liam Neeson from the A-Team! Did you like the movie? I thought it had some good action and I liked it, though I've never seen any of the original A-Team episodes.

I think it's almost done... though I need to finish working on the smoke. It's pretty tricky and incredibly tedious. I really like how the face turned out!

Forest Cottage

Another school assignment, yes. Still in the process of tweaking it. I'm liking it a lot.

A Study in Pink

I've been busy replicating an art piece by the wonderful artist Tan Kit Mun, whose work I greatly admire! I am not claiming copyright to this drawing, but it's simply a study for me to try and understand how she approaches her illustrations. Her compositions are also amazing!

Check out her work! Definitely inspiring! :)

http://www.kidchan.deviantart.com/

Eagle Eyrie

Here's a photoshop drawing I finished up last month. Cheers!

Turquoise Girl

I've been meaning to get down and practice painting again. I did a quickie here in photoshop which I've kind of fallen in love with! I am very ashamed to say, though, that I did not use any reference whatsoever... my painting teacher would kill me if he knew! You can tell by the terrible collar-bone area... haha.

School is starting again, so I should be back to posting on a regular weekly basis! (I function better when there's regular structure going on in my life!)

Creature Designs

Here are a few little silhouette/sketch designs I have for creatures. I wanted to design some sort of pack or transport animal.

Creating a World

Hmm... I seem to be moving on from sketchbook drawings to photoshop doodles, and I am slowly but happily learning how to create and design worlds. This here is a sketch in progress still in the early stages. I am beginning to sketch in an ancient-looking city carved into the cliffs which I think looks very cool.

Town Square

This is a concept piece with a mixture of old and new. At first I wanted it to be an 18th century town square, but then decided "to heck with it" and added some spaceships. :)

New Character Design!

I am amazed how much time has gone past since my last post! Here's hoping the wait was worth it.

I've been busy learning new things at my digital concept class (of which I have mentioned many times before). My character design is based on a French revolution-esque setting, hence her outfit and weapons. I'm happy with her look, but I think her costume design needs some work. Can't wait to show more!

Revolution: Character Designs

I am really excited to show some concept ideas for my digital art class! I've been exploring with some character design and it's the most interesting project yet. I haven't nailed down a particular character I'd like to do, so I created several different characters as I went along. All I know is I want to do a cross between the French revolution and intergalactic wars in the future. :)

So far the designs are leaning towards historic fashion, so I'm working on some more space-y ones too!

Sketchbook Scribbling

Found these in my sketchbooks a while back. These were done with felt tip pens.

First Assignment!

I've just started my concept art class last week, and I'm currently working on a background still from King Kong in Photoshop. Our project is to choose a screen capture and paint it on a separate canvas without tracing. The first one was black and white, and this one in colour. I'm actually enjoying background art a lot, and learning so much!

(I don't claim copyright to this image, other than for learning purposes.)

Character Sketching

Well, it's been a little over a week... my bad! So I put together two sketches this time! These characters are not anything specific, just random ideas from my imagination. :)

African Inspiration

Quick little Monday sketch. :)

Unusual Costumes

Next week I'm starting a concept art course to brush up and learn some new skills, so I'm practicing a bit with costumes! This is a random little sketch mixing both rococo and samurai clothing together. Not very exaggerated... more whimsical but I like it!

Concept Art

Yay! Colour!

This is related to my last post as the character here belongs to the same legend from Japanese folklore. She is the famed beautiful princess in the legend. This was mostly to explore her hairstyle (which is not at all authentic, but I had fun with it!) I really want to do an illustrated series for this story...

Spring and Autumn

This is a quick little sketch I did based on two characters from a Japanese fairy tale. It is a story about two brothers, the god of Autumn, and the god of Spring and how they compete for the marriage of a princess. The younger brother, Spring, asks his mother to help him out, and she weaves him a robe that blooms into purple wistaria flowers, therefore winning the princess' favor. At the end of the tale we know why Spring is fresh and merry, whereas Autumn becomes the saddest thing there is.

Sketch ~ Surreal Garden

This sketch was inspired by one of my favorite illustrators, Kay Nielsen. I guess I kind of added on anything I could think of at the time I was drawing it and came up with a very dream-like sketch. I was thinking of re-drawing it and making it more haunting... that would be cool!

Apologies for the long wait this week! Happy Easter! :)

A Bit of Hair

Some drawings of simple hairstyles, some taken from magazines. It's a pretty subdued sketch, eh? Nothing too fancy. Cheers.

Logo Lovin'

I've been having fun doing logos lately. I like adding an antique or vintage touch to them. I do find difficulty in designing my own logo though... I change my mind so often!

Speaking of which, the IDEA program (which I graduated from last year) is having a show for their 2011 grads! Check out their amazing work! www.idea11.ca

Difficult Customers ~ Comic Strip

I drew this comic last summer as an exercise in expression. Any of you ever witnessed someone ordering an overcomplicated coffee? Starbucks seems to be the place to go for it. It's one of the few places where you're allowed to be obnoxiously specific with your order and not have people glare at you. I always feel sorry for the poor coffee baristas who get these people. This is an ode to them.

As for myself, I always order a simple or predetermined drink ...with whipped cream. :)

Sketchbook Saturday ~ Here are some concept sketches for my cheeky main character. She is often impatient but has a somewhat vigorous attitude. Enjoy!

Couture

I love magazines. I recently picked up a French magazine (L'Officiel 1000 Models) full of couture collections by John Galliano, Valentino, Chanel, Dior, Givenchy, Maurizio Galante, Elie Saab and many many more! It is bursting with runway photos of the Spring/Summer 2011 shows, and I was completely blown away with all the intricate and ethereal designs. I even found some new designers to love, notably Elexis Mabille. There were so many gorgeous dresses that I had to buy this $30 magazine... (ouch!) Expensive, but it was definitely worth it! The whole edition has given me so much inspiration, so I'll be happily working away on some new illustrations!

The above drawing was done a few months ago, but was also inspired by another fashion magazine. The colour reminds me of the ocean. :)

Photo Inspiration ~ Books & Things

Long post for today! I was organizing my closet this afternoon and suddenly got motivated to take some pictures.

I got these antique books from my grandfather, some of which are over 300 years old. I just love them! I think most of the books are in German, at least one is French, and one of them might be Hungarian... The small gold book with the red Vita Del P. Paolo written on the spine was printed in 1646! The red one is also pretty old, from 1767. And the black prayer book with the leather cover is dated 1812, and has some beautiful letterpress engravings. One of the books even has a Tolkien-style map folded at the back. When I first discovered that I was fascinated... I am a geek for anything to do with letterpress or typography. :)

The necklaces I made myself from various beads and suede leather (except the gold heart one). Recently I bought the soaps at a local gift shop. I thought the packaging was gorgeous, and immediately wanted to take pictures of them. I keep them in a large tin on my dresser.

So there you go. Hope you enjoy the pictures. :)

Sketchbook Saturday ~ Let Them Eat Cake!

I am so excited!! I am currently working on an illustration of Marie Antoinette, which is to be displayed as wall art in a bakery! (So cool!) I've been given quite a lot of freedom so I went wild with the concept. These are some early thumbnails. The middle one was picked and will be full-figure. The final work is still in progress but coming along very nicely! :)

Hats and Wigs

Continuing on with rococo-style headgear. These are pretty much doodles... I like the one on the top best.

Sketchbook Saturday ~ Gainsborough

Found this in my sketchbook today! :)

I have mini sketchbooks where I only draw in ink or felt pen. I find this nice because if I make a mistake, I won't spend a lot of time trying to perfect it. I think this encourages me to pick up speed & let loose in my illustrations once in a while. Before I drew this, I found a site that had an enormous collection of fashion plates of hats. It is awesome! I've got the link below for those who'd like to take a look.

The Mode in Hats and Headdress

Gun Girls: 2

Time for another gun girl!

This one is still in progress. I've blocked in the main colours and almost finished her hair & face. I'm still deciding on what kind of background would work best. She is holding a 17th century flintlock rifle (really cool!) but I don't think it stands out enough... I'll see what I can do with it but I am loving it! :)

On another note, I've completely re-designed my website! Check it out here!

Life Drawing

Thought I might add some study work, as I love drawing real objects too! These are a couple of life sketches done in pencil crayon.

Work in Progress

It's 4:30am, and I'm currently working on this image of The Tormented Soldier in photoshop. I'm trying out a simpler style of colour-blocking. Quite enjoying the composition so far! :)

Waitin' on Spring

I seem to draw this character a lot. (All ready with her gardening gear!) :)

Here's hoping spring will come as soon as possible! I'm starting to prepare some new projects and ideas to work on for the next few months. I've been meaning to do a short story comic for quite some time now, so I'm gonna try and make it happen!

Happy March!