Still Life

Still life studies.

Studio light.

A long still life studies from life.. was done in one seating. Trying to apply what I learnt from earlier painting studies of Caravaggio's work which was to group/simplify the value/color. I cut a unused cardboard box to create a "room" to control the light direction, It still create a warm bounce light due to its local color. I plan to buy some black paper and stapler them to the box in the future!

Studies of Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio

Studies from Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio's work. Trying to emulate the color he is using. Image is sourced from the internet.

Nubee Days: Animal Collections!

Hello all!

Its very unfortunate but I found that my HD has been corrupted and I lost quite alot of old works. I thought I will just post up some that I could salvage up here. :) These are some stuff that I did in Nubee for Animal Collections project!

UPDATE: I removed the video file since blogspot messed it all up. Will post the video link to vimeo later.

UPDATE2: here is the link

https://vimeo.com/120525968?from=facebook&fb_action_ids=10152858951537701&fb_action_types=og.shares

password: Ilovejoy

Pranking A Yeti!

Snowy theme #3!
The backstory that I established was of a boy who met a witch girl when he was out to play.They became a fast friend since they both enjoyed the same activity...of playing pranks. (...its something I enjoyed as well so I had a lot of fun painting it :p) They would dig traps or disturb hibernating creatures. The boy has a dog who always got into alot of trouble because of his hobby.. like courage the cowardly dog! (one of my fave cartoon!)

I have had an idea of kids playing prank on a golem or monster for a while. I had another sketch before this but ended up scrapping it cause it didn't read very well. The yeti dude went through a couple iteration before he became a yeti (nature golem->crystal golem->snow golem-> *gasp* yeti!) In this painting, I am continuing the style exploration I set out to do since I cannot make up my mind yet what type of style I enjoyed. Its pretty fun to do too since this and the scene painting I did prior to this are both about snow but they are so different in terms of color and mood... and saturated color is definitely out of my comfort zone which is pretty fresh to learn about!

Please, as always, do feel free to leave any feedback or comment so I can learn from you!

Alla Prima Trial 1

Lighting studies for today :)

Trying the method described in Alla prima book by Richard Schmid but I painted too slow and the natural lighting in the room keep on changing. Trying to focus on the material and rim lights. Its really difficult to achieve the fogged glass effect, ended up really blurry. :\ If anyone has any tips or feedback on those I would greatly appreciates it!

25 Hornet Warrior

Done in Pen brush and photoshop.

Its hornet...its a dude..its hornet dude!

Been playing too much of monhun 4 *_* dangerously addictive game. 

24 Bug Knight

Done using copic and brush pen!

Hello all!

Meet the bug knight! Inspired from medieval knight and rainbow beetle.

I'm practicing to work under a time pressure for this piece. The time limit was 1 hour for research and sketch. 1 hour to clean up and 2 hour to ink and copic. For those eagle eyed people, Im sure you guys can see I'm panicking halfway with my ink lines, being more wiggly and unclean. The design is also rather generic and lacking some design detail! I really need to rethink my workflow!
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Also I just had another epiphany.. of course its filled with personal view on life. Please do not take offense if you read it since.. this is more like a notes for my future self if I am ever in a slump.. which happens pretty often :p

Now, let me start with three basic rules for me to remember when I am down.

1. Don't forget why you start it. 

2. Don't limit yourself because we are our own limit. 

3. Don't be sad because there is always better tomorrow if you choose to make it so.

Firstly, for me, art is a hideout, like those small pillow cave I used to build when I was small. When I am sad, angry and happy, its fun to draw, I could pour out my excess emotions there. I never been good in understanding complex human emotion and reaction but at least here I could carve a world that I could understand.
I sincerely hope I would continue drawing for the rest of my life even when I lost use of my eyes or limbs cause this outbreak of happiness and excitement that pour out from my heart every time I thought of an idea is just addictive :)

Secondly, many times over people told me that I have no talent or my talent is not here...(not that I believe in talent).. but even so, it does not change that I love to draw and I would like to do it for living. So even if there is scientific proof of talent or not, it should not affect my decision..
If one day I would like to change my career, I sincerely hope its not because I am depressed and give up on myself but it is because I find a new calling. One reason that I refuse the existence of talent is because it could easily become a convenient excuse to hang the towel and forget why are we doing something in the first place. I am weak, my mind is weak but hopefully by being selective I could forge it stronger.

Thirdly, Learn GROWTH mindset instead of FIXED mindset!
Anyway... time waits for no one. It will come no matter what. So just enjoy it instead of dreading it. :) But don't let life lives you instead you living your life. Excess baggage in life will create this problem..! Learn to live simpler. Love yourself cause that is one person that will forever be with you through up and down.. then grow old gracefully and have a happy holiday!

Winter Boy

I have been struggling in developing my own personal style because that was something I really tried to avoid doing for very long.. Cause in my mind, everytime I developed a story it already has a fixed style that I want to achieve. But in recent time there has been many occasions where people encourage me to pursue cuter style instead of realism.

Struggling with that thought for a few months, then I decided to embark on small challennge for myself to try as many different style as possible. While trying to still keep the winter theme, In this piece I am heavily influenced by the great Fabien Mense! (Check out his work at http://fabien-mense.tumblr.com/)

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Also I am doing this while listening to my friend, Jessica Smith's Hardcore 24 hour charity stream! Check it out here  if you have not,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJCBAE_QBV8

and don't forget to donate to the cause!

Snow

In my mind they are comrades that are being chased by group of enemy soldiers, when one of them suffered from heavy injuries... knowing his end is near, he handed his friend a family heirloom with a request that it be passed to his family. In the far distance, they could hear the hunting dogs howling and barking.. excited from the scent of blood....the enemies are approaching fast..

With no time to spare,  he told his friend to leave him behind...

"Make haste! Don't die a dog's death like mine... Godspeed brother!"

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Been wanting to do a tragic snow scene. Trying to slow down my speed too, to focus more on polishing and studying the poses and textures before moving forth to painting the real thing. Attached below is my studies for the bark and snow textures. If I have time I will try to scan the poses studies. :)

BRIXTANNIA CANNON!

Meet sir Brixtannia Cannon.

The Spanish conquistadors whose mustache is peerless in the whole wide world. Though that seems to be the only good thing about him.. He ain't exactly a just man nor is he smart. In fact he loves attentions, especially from the señora~, as much as he loves the bribes he receives every single day!

He commands a troop of loyal followers (who are all always in awe of his mustache for their species are hairless) who does all his dirty works. From cleaning the toilet to serving him his daily dose of cocktails, they are always at sir Brixtannia service! (24/7 except when the soap dramas are on the tv of course!)


Born to a long lineage of nobility, he is very lazy .. *cough* I mean he is a gentleman. And gentleman does not dirty their own hands, instead he will commmand his loyal troops to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of the world!

Thus his troops are always carrying the cannon around, in case there are any citizen that displease their lord which seems to happen pretty often.

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A piece i did in BIW 2014 i thought i would have time to try to do the fixups as advised by the instructors..
in the end never found the time to do so. Urged by my friend who asked me to just upload it and move on.. I decided to do so.. :)

I imagined it as a game like TF or Dynasty warrior in casual form. His normal attack could be just a sword hack and slash.

His special attack would be the troop's cannon shot. It could be a fun factor too if the bullet is randomized, it could be a normal bomb or maybe fiery bomb that does AOE or even a freezing type of bomb.

Quite a fun piece to do! Please let me know what do you think about it ^^