New sketchbook

Whew. A long time eh? Haven't been drawing much as I was quite caught up with the things happening around and to me these times that just stopped me from progressing much in this area. The unproductive days... makes me wonder have I been taking my education for granted?



Anyways, got a new sketchbook filled with watercolor papers (from popular) a few weeks back, and was quite excited to start it off.



The first page... that is. Let it fly...



A random doodle along the thought of creating the universe.



Pictures of some cows from a natgeo magazine caught my eye and I tried to get it down. Sketched a man in there along the way.



Another picture from the same natgeo magazine of a harpy eagle. Wanted to do a realistic rendering, but got bored of it very quickly, turning the details into abstract shapes instead. Added a lot of details during the painting part, and felt it might have been overdone. Yea, it no longer looks like the eagle from the magazine...



While slaving away for Davide's 3D homework.



This started from a life sketch of some plants growing around the pioneer bus stand in Northspine. Decided to put in a fairy. And what is the fairy doing? Collecting dew perhaps, for some reason that I have no thoughts of yet.

That's all for now ba. Unproductive again... need to concentrate on my pre-pro and 3D... Managed to scribble some stuff for symbolism, finishing some analysis for the first 4 movies. Didn't read much of the notes though <:p. Totally disregarded Marketing and Biz Law, but they are quite an eye-opener this semester. Hehe, I don't feel like an art student, come to think about it. Or maybe that's what one gets when asking not to be clueless about life?

Rose

Haven't paint in a long while... just a translation of a postcard that I found in the library last week.



Kind of like the idea of the dress being a rose and decided to draw it, changing and adding a few things along the way. As a prof has pointed out that I need to draw more, I realised that I have been outlining more than constructing. It's a discipline I lack while in pursuit of a freedom in my drawings (or possibly, that's a sign of the slacky 'can't be bothered' personality trait). Get caught up a lot in just drawing down what I see and leaving 'errors' as they are. Well... Time to find the midpoint!

Für Elise

Found this old sketch two days ago when I was cleaning up my cluttered area in the study room. It was an old idea inspired by an mtv during a KTV trip quite a few years ago. The image of a lady lying on a grand piano caught my attention. Tried to draw that down, but it was just that, a lady on a piano. It didn't mean much and I decided to shelf it away. Sometime later, the familiar melody of Beethoven's Fur Elise found a way into my head again. I used to listen to Xiu practising that piece for her grade 3 (I think?) exam. Then came the urge to find out what the music was about, since the word 'Elise' strikes as a name instead of some fancy foreign language like 'Für'.

An internet search in 2009 led me to a couple of forum posts about speculations of it. (Lazy to find the forum again, but this would suffice as an introduction: http://www.forelise.com/about) Sounds like some secret love story or something; there was even one speculating 'Elise' as Beethoven's sister named Elizabeth (or something like that)... who died before he was born? Anyways, it seems like a mystery that just died with the composer, maybe a secret that will just sleep in history... But yea, the melody lives on; with young kids hating it everyday cos of the examinations.

Despite having an idea for this, I quite hesitated with painting the picture as my mental image of it was still quite vague. Wanted to portray a wooden flooring but when picturing the colors, it just feel too uniform (The initial coloring idea was all yellow and brown, kind of bathed in sunset light). Then came the idea of a watery ground, with some roses instead of just papers on it. From then, the yellows were substituted by blues. It was a slow process for this painting, but hey, kind of liked the way it turned out. Dug out the 'Für Elise' score for the details and realised it was just a couple of pages long. -_- Heck, no one's gonna care about such accuracies...

Relaxing...?

Just a random face to keep my skills from rusting...... It's been almost a month since I painted anything and yea, just had the random urge to paint something today.

My animation project has finally entered the clean up phase, probably quite on time? I thought it would be easier for me at this stage, but it was tiring a tiring process... I found myself napping away after 5 hours of animating, never knew it'll be such a strain for the mind and eye. Anyways... aiming to finish my cleaning up part by end of this week. Great that today is a holiday, no Davide's lessons! A nice break, or rather, a chance to catch up with the other stuff.

Eye of Beholder

Beauty in the eye of the beholder? A random sketch that started from a random rectangular pattern seen on a TV commercial. Then the girl. Then it looks empty. Then the old man and the (insert random gender) shorty. Might CG it, might not... it's just so random!

Have been reading Naruto recently. Dor told me Shippuden was nicer and that I should watch it. Awing at the art though, haha.

Simple stuff

Found a previous sketch that I wanted to color sometime back in illustrator, but didn't really start on it. Wanted to color something, so did a watercolor of it instead. Think I'd better go back and review the basics of color again. Feels like the more simple the linework is, the more important the color choice too...

After that logo, I found myself playing the ds again. Ace Attorney Investigations this time... Have that in the r4 for sometime, but didn't really get down to playing it. It's amusing watching Edgeworth get slammed over and over again with my wrong decisions, cos he'll try to cover it up, unlike Phoenix Wright. It's nice that the cases were out of the court, one gets to see different backgrounds rather than the courtroom (but that would mean no table banging scenes and clueless judges). The 'logic' system was an interesting addition, but there could have been much more to it, like processing 'wrong' ideas instead of everything being absolutely correct. It could have let players think more about the situation than simply 'trial and error'. The game hanged at the start of the 4th case, but guess it's a pause for me now. 14 days to the end of the hols! Omg.... everything's gonna end someday, guess it's good that it starts?

Last Song

Random pic to test out the new block of Arches paper. Quite a nice surface to play with.

Lalala...

Lazy days... Time to think what next....

Burned Out (Traditional Version)

YES! Printer ink loaded!! Painting time!! (No printer, no tracing... T_T)



Process Log

Decided to paint it right away, since the computers are giving me headaches.... (Sometimes I wonder is it that I'm addicted to the smell of paints like a drug addict.....mwuahhahahaha...) Borrowed a book about watercolors from the library a few days back and it inspired me to paint like the artist of the book. The paintings he does are quite elegant, very appealing to me... But I'm just too impatient to do it right.... Haiz. Well... impatience has it's own way of handling things... ngaaaahh....

Ignored the right proportions and everything for this painting. Nothing is accurate, perpective is in a mess and I didn't spend much time refining the anatomy. Wanted a somewhat stylised drawing, but when I inked it and everything, it went back on the old track. -_-... my style? More like a reflection of my inner being.... oh noes. I'm a confused individual who doesn't like to plan ahead!

One Interesting Day

What an interesting day today had been, or maybe... interesting in my own thoughts... haha. It started off with this cute little (how do you say '麻雀' in english....) brown birdie which had just landed on a pile of dirt/ sand nearby the 180 bustop. The bird was like a little blob, resting there, looking around. And then, it started fidgeting, and 'diving' into the dirt, splashing it everywhere. It was enjoying the dirt/ sand? I dunno... but its actions were really cute, I dunno how to describe it well... cartoony in a sense. Drew it down during today's lecture.

During lunch time, I decided to eat a healthy meal, and bought a slice of watermelon. As I took that slice and walk towards the cashier to pay up, I had the urge to say '我的美人一片', and I did say that while passing the coins to her, speaking quite softly though. Not sure if the cashier aunty would start staring at me wierdly for saying that. And gosh, she did hear it, called me back and corrected me '不对不对，是“美人一个!"' In a way, yea, I'm shocked, but walked off with some giggles. She's probably in her forties, rather serious looking and had a rather tired expression when I paid up, but there she was, suddenly bubbling with laughter. Maybe that remark kind of stuck out from the mundane work, haha. All these were just ordinary, nothing fanciful or extreme, but somehow, they do kick off a few ideas. One of the joys of being alone, probably.



Went to the library to do some research for my homework after the lectures, but I end up looking at other stuff... Just right opposite the architecture section were a few books regarding timepieces. Had a thought of looking into the gears of a timepiece for my new paintings, and end up had an idea for a story! Maybe it's an idea used before, but it got me somewhat excited. An angel/ reaper who is interested in timepieces, has a shop and sells his own creations. Thinking about the little objects and how it goes about. Shaping it slowly there, it wouldn't be too much of creating a brand new world like the previous, though the shop idea reminded me of xxxholic....

*pirate

Aye, pirate. The idea was from the cleaning up session I had a few days ago. Found a box of unnamed cds, and thought of going through them all to see if there was anything important before discarding them... Troublesome chore though... haven't done it yet. -_- Drew the picture during the architecture lecture today, had a lot of fun drawing it out with a pen. Kind of liked the sketch and decided to put some color to it. Anyways, that was the idea that evovled into the 'burned out' picture. Those. Cds.

Time to go do my homework.... haven't touch them in 2 weeks, and the special sem is gonna end in two weeks time. Time flies nia, hmm....

Side: I wonder why the chatboxes are starting to get filled with adverts these days. It's getting very very annoying. Tempted to get it down if it continues that way... -_-

Burned Out

Was thinking about drawing a modern pirate (rip, burn, crash...), but it slowly changed into a person sick of his work. The pieces of paper at his feet were the resignation letter he prepared, so just backing up everything in his laptop. However, yea, all burned out.

Trying to paint with minimal use of the smudge tool this time. Turns out pretty fine for now, let's see how it'll go.... :) (That's it... I'm giving up coloring on my laptop........... >_< THE COLORS ARE OFF AGAIN!!!!! >_< !!!)



This was the intended colors.......... T_T T_T T_T... why liddat de........ >_< Went to test print the Enma picture yesterday and it turns out that the colors on the desktop were nearer to the print. However... this desktop pc is getting very old and whenever I try to do some digital illustration with it, it keeps popping that 'low memory' warning on the corner of the screen, and the next thing I know, the program starts to lag big time.... T_T Rarrrgggghhhhhhhhhh >_< !!!!!!!!!!

A Peek into the Past...

Well... my presentation for Asian Art History is coming up soon on thursday, and there are still soem stuff I wanted to clarify, one of it was the term 'Austronesian'. Seems like some civilisation thing to me, and immediately got the wikipedia article for it. Somehow, the term 'Singapore' caught my eye there, haha. Just curious, I clicked on it, hoping to see something about my home country's past. Well... not much, but another link to the early history of Singapore, and taa daa~ Some info. Just some, not very in depth, but still some stuff, some things that I never really thought about. (Link link!)

Seems like the earliest records from the Chinese called Singapore 蒲罗中 (Pulau Ujong, which meant 'the island at the end') and in the 14th Century, it became Temasek under the Srivijayan rule (talke about the AAH module... really forces one to look at the ancient stuff.) Then the story of Sang Nila Utama.... Unsure about that, but after the previous week's AAH presentation on the Bataks and the Singha motif, it makes me wonder what really is a lion to the people with Sang Nila Utama and was the 'lion' seen a tiger... The Batak Singha motif doesn't look like a lion at all, more of some mystical creature made of different parts of animals.... Maybe some animal, extinct by now, was what they saw? Why the hell am I speculating all these when I have a presentation to prepare...... T_T

Distracted. But it just got me interested. Maybe there are archeological treasures buried in Singapore telling of her important history (man, the Chinese have such a record in the 3rd Century, surely something is here that made them even bothered to write it down?) but seeing how little space we have in this country and how much was urbanized, doubt it's even practical to go dig for them.

Fish!

Just a random doodle of fishes and a boy... Wanted to play with colors, maybe just wanted to avoid work somehow. Met up with Shengyi finally to discuss out stop motion idea. The storyboarding process.... is always difficult... Hopefully we're not choking ourselves to death there.

Happy Valentine - New Year!

*Image edited. XD
Nice to break away from traditional once in a while. Long time no do some serious illustrator work, 9 hours altogether from conceptual to end... but still late for mailing. This year's Chinese New Year falls on the western Valentine's Day, perfect for someone who's all about the family, I guess? Haha, wishing all a Happy Chinese New Year and Valentine's (whatever relationship status... it's one nice day to indulge into some chocolate, haha.)

Bockingford Rocks Big Time

Expanding on the previous concept of <<如煙>>.
The most tortured piece of work to date:



The sketch on watercolor paper. Pretty fired up after seeing a picture done beautifully with salt technique. The texture was pretty much of the same feel as I wanted for the sketch, so I tried it out... I was unsure of the color that I want though... Wanted some moody feel, so...



Ack. Regret. Gave the surface a wash after that, and didn't know the pencil lines can still be seen. Somehow, I couldn't get rid of the bottom textures, but it looks pretty nice. Way too much salt there... and I wonder if the amount of water mattered to give the effect I want...?



Tried again... And it turned out ok. Back to the old palette.. I guess.



Added the lines with the water soluble ink (on purpose... Took me sometime to decide, cos I wonder if it'll come out too dark for the picture.) And it did... so I sprayed water on the picture, dried it, do it again... and decided to try the salt again. Dunno a good or bad thing, but I wanted to test how far the paper can go with that. And this time, the effect was minimal. Ah well... not good, destroy.



Couldn't think of any better way.



So shuang.



Gotta admit, this paper is amazing... the introductory paragraph on the watercolor pad was not kidding about 'extremely forgiving watercolor paper'.... Think it was ran under the tap many times, crushed and squeezed 5 or 6 times, washed with soap twice and it's still in one piece. O_o... During the process, I thought of smearing some prussian blue goauche on it, hoping maybe it get into the paper or something... Got a bit carried away with the washing, didn't realise how much water I've wasted there... and decided to stop and leave it to dry.



The ink lines then looked kind of faded, quite what I was hoping to get when I inked the picture. The texture on the back page looks even nicer....



Left it to dry while I tried to concentrate on working out the scenes for the collaborated animation.... Due to the wet weather, the paper didn't dry, and it was already night... So I just went ahead with the coloring. Watercolors won't work anymore on this one... since the translucence will just drown in the blues... my next immediate option was gouache, though I have no idea how to go about with it as the opacity will definitely cover up the lines...



Turned out pretty fine.



Yay! Feels like I ran one big round... heck.

Convocation Speech...?

A small part of this was shown during a lecture about writing. The hilarity..... omg, can't believe it's during gradaution. Hope my graduation (if it happens... that is) is as happening as this. Hahahahhaa...

A Lion, some Bunny-Hoodie, Plushie, Anonymously...

Went back to concetrate on accounts once more, but as usual.... Had these characters in my head while having some random sms chat. Don't really know how to define my own personality, so maybe just draw aspects of it down ba! Maybe can get something through that... End up getting a couple of characters down, four of them in that picture above, while the other 3 are just omitted due to lack of space. (haha) Kind of felt my head working again. Wonder if this is what they meant by enjoying what you do and not....

So that's a super showy lion who runs around with a mike, a hood-ied person who can turn into a lady or a Mori-sempa-ish (think Ouran) gentleman depending on the surrounding, some plushie looking movable that can't seem to stop crying and a super tall person who will always fit into the frame of the picture with the head unseen. (And he/she wears a white robe and has super hairy legs.) Ookie, I'll go work on it... after the accounts part.

Tick Tock Tick Tock...

Haven't done something simple like this in a while... Takes me back to the happy Cardcaptor days.... T_T Having done the political drawing, I kind of remembered doing one coffee and tea picture for a friend, using real coffee and tea to dye the paper brown. Wondering if those drawings have disintergrated... since the acidity level of the coffee picture would be high, the papers would slowly crumble to pieces in a couple of years, and yea, same goes for that 'propaganda'.

Went to meet Michael again for the last time regarding the final project. Set, me am doing a short graphic novel (of no words...), but still figuring out how to go about styling the illustration and all... 7 days! That's all I've left. Time to chiong... Before leaving he asked me a really cute question... "why are my students having so many problems nowadays? Just yesterday there was another one all emotional. You guys stress is it?" Arh-ber-den... Kind of regreted not asking him which class is that person from... I'm wondering if that class have the same tutors as mine....

It's wierd, and it's happening again, I realised it's easier for me to speak to the other people in the group these days. Maybe i broke the barrier then when I waited for Beryl the other time? Or maybe because of occassions that forces us to mingle with each other? Or maybe because of the fact that we are all going through the same thing together? The semester is going to end soon... how many times did it happen that I'm starting to enjoy the conversations with these people and the next moment it's time to go seperate ways? Maybe that's something to look out for... I guess I'm too quiet...

Disoriented

It's been a while... and yea, the above picture quite sums it up. It has been some terrible weeks these days... the very first time I step into a lesson and told the professor straight in the face that I did nothing for the assignment he issued 3 weeks ago... did nothing concrete for the entire week... Drawing assignment is due in two days time and I have yet to draw. There's a lot to do for that spoon, but I have done nothing... Art history exam is just in two weeks time... and 2D... haha, the very first time I have an idea but no visuals. All due in less than two weeks time... I'm finally going downhill after these years... maybe that calls for some celebration inside, haha...XD

Failing the sociology test quite nailed the fact that my thoughts n ideas are missing... something that I knew long ago... Individual thinking is very much a heavy factor in this course of studies, without one's own thinking, what's will be originality..? It haunted me since nyp days... if I don't have my own thinking... why am I still in this field? Seeing the many creative people around me, they have their own philosophy, their own beliefs they stick with... what would mine be? Wonder how to fill that gap... or maybe I just don't want to fill it at all...

Went to meet Prof Michael again for that 3-week-still-stuck project.... Apart from struggling with ideas, the confidence part is just lacking big time. I have my ideas, but just not confident enough to do it. He tried guiding me to find my topic for the project, sharing a bit about his time in college too. Really grateful for his help... now it's just how to tackle these problems my way...

Spoon project is quite a goner.... but still gotta survive for that one. Many had lost interest in it, finding it a drag to carry on. There are some politiks going on in the place... workshop usage seems like some biggie issue with quite some fire and war going on. Hopefully, everyone can pass this module and get it over and done with and the uppers can just go fight all they want.

The only drawing I did in the past week:
Took a hole puncher I bought recently and went punching away. Kind of fun.... Maybe that's why Ann loved to do that when she was younger. Now looking back at it, seeing a new technique for exploration there... hehe.

Oh yea, submitted my tees to threadless. The other two weren't accepted due to the typography... This one got through cos the type was fused with the image, making it part of the design. I was shocked that people bothered commenting there, since the design pales off with the many great ones around. Wonder if anyone would even think of buying it... Anyways, here the link for anyone interested: