Sketches from Japan

Late post sketches from my trip to the land of the sun around a month ago.. posted not in any particular order :) This trip was truly an eye opener for me. I felt I changed a lot after going through this "self discovery" trip. I would highly recommend solo travel for anyone to try, at least once, in their lifetime!

I apologize for the Low quality images! it was all taken with my crappy phone :D Please do feel free to C&C or even share your own travel experience with me :)

On the plane.

On the train to NAMBA!

Hotel room.

Eating okonomiyaki!

On the train. Rainy day...

Climbing Fushimi Inari Temple..

My feet was about to break so I sat to sketch...

About to leave the temple but again my feet was killing me.

Rainy day in arashiyama..

Jidai matsuri. Would love to come back just to sketch the costumes!

More sketches from inside the train. Japanese people like to sleep on the train, it was rather cute.

Some random strangers.

...train sketches.. again

Nara... vs SHIKA AKUMA 

Inside Shinkansen

Freezing in Hamamatsu~

At fuji

Inside ryokan

Watching people moving furnitures

GOING HOME TO SEE MY BELOVED JOY!

P.S I had a great opportunity to visit  Nubee Japan! Thanks for the warm welcome :) It was rather nostalgic.. and rather embarrassing that everyone saw my work.. I feel so ashamed that they seen my bad drawings.. oh whales xD I felt so inspired after seeing their works! Special thanks to Ayaka san for arranging the visit and Kanabaru sama for introducing me to all the artists!

This was actually a sketch on the office lobby  while waiting for my friends to finish their work before going to dinner together! The stamp was from Iga ninja museum that I stamped on my sketchbook but I ran out of sketchbook page when I wanted to draw this lobby :x 

Quick Master Study

Hi there.
I found an awesome video by Noah Bradley teaching about master drawing practise. I have been dying to try it and since I finished my work earlier today I tried to do one quick one. I realized how off my drawing is! Definitely must try to do more.

The video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgJXyEsakC8

This is the reference
http://uploads0.wikiart.org/images/john-singer-sargent/portrait-of-albert-de-belleroche-1882.jpg

Ruins Jungle

RX-071 lit the cigarette. The nicotine taste spread throughout his taste bud.. it was..intoxicating.

"Are you sure you could do that? Won't captain be angry?"

RX-023, his ever anxious colleague tapped his shoulder. Fully equipped in his body armor, he stood in full alert..

"Heh its alright, he won't notice. Not when he is too busy learning about this god forsaken place." RX-071 puffed away at his cigarette. "Anyway relax, won't you? Take out your helmet and breath in some fresh air."

RX-023, shifted. He doesn't like this place.. uncharted territory, unfamiliar creature and.. they had been separated from their squad. "Its fine.. I feel more comfortable in this helmet.. We will never know what toxic gas the plants in this area could emit.."

"Hmm suit yourself...but if there is ever a toxic gas.. that insane captain ahead of us would have been dead long time ago." RX-071 chuckled.

"..I guess you are right.. but you know.. just in case.....Whats that?" RX-023 heard a strange sound, he looked around with the gun pointed in front of him.

"Just the birds... restless we intruded into their nests. Stop being so paranoid... the radar would have notified us of any strange prese..."

RX-023 never heard the rest of the sentence from his friend.
===========================================

In my previous work I received various feedback and concluded my weakness to be:
1. Value
2. Composition
3. Material.

Thus in this work I try to address those.

I was reflecting what do I love when I do art.. I guess it has to be story telling, I had a premise of some ruins jungle when I started but as I painted I came out with some stories of this place. :D

Feel free to let me know what you guys feel about the work or about the horrendous story (with awesome-ly horrendous grammar <3)

Fishing with Gryphon

Peaceful day fishing... with gryphon

Trying to make it looks polished... but failing badly at it.
I wonder how to improve it much more.

Low point

Hullo.

No art today, just want to share some thoughts

Firstly, a powerful video I found in youtube by Paul Klein

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcTYhaA72iY

and another by Jim Carrey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V80-gPkpH6M

Recently I have been pretty stressed and confused about my future path as artist.. to the point I wanted to throw in the towel and go back to my hometown and be a farmer (serious ;D ) I have been talking to more and more people, trying to hear about their life stories and getting wisdom from them. Reading on various articles on life, work, and success. 

Just at the lowest point in my life, a friend send me Jim carrey's video. His wise words broaden my horizon and made me goes back to the fundamental on why did I even choose this line... It was great to look back and tried to remember my roots and raison d'etre (one bucket list to cross! finally used this cool word)

As I was observing my lack of fundamental/traditional skills, I found this guy http://www.classicalartonline.com/ and I read up about his adventure @ CA forum. I remember seeing his post a couple years back when I was in school, to stumble upon his work again now and seeing how much he improved was very inspiring! I think as long as I have yet to work as hard as this guy, I cannot give up or whine. 

Pretty much distill it to two goals for myself this year.

1. Find my style/voice (inspired from my idol Terryl Whitlatch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdpnBn9Cv9o and Paul Klein's video)

2. Learn to polish my work.

Finally a motto that keeps me going for weeks now,

Success is a choice, so is failure. 

Wassup dude? Trying to read here.

Color and Light @ CGMA week 5 assignment

This assignment was a tough one yet very fun to do.
I had always been a fan of http://sticksalesmanadventures.tumblr.com/.
So I tried dedicating these pieces to the legendary stick man :D

For this assignment I wanted to push the pieces to have 3 very contrasting mood and color, so I decided to start by choosing the main color of each piece. I chose red for the character because I thought it gave the best contrast to see how it reacts differently in diff background.

Personally I think the third one was the hardest to do since it was my first time doing a wet environment/rainy day. Please feel free to share pointers/feedback on how to improve these pieces :)