Chun Li Fanart

1One of my favorite character from street fighter has always been Chun Li since I used to know the buttons combo to make her do the spinning bird kick back in the days...oh fun time.

Fortune Teller

A couple year ago I was designing characters for my circus idea line-up. I designed a couple character and then I asked my friend Quin to design a few more. She sketched out some and we basically forget about it or at least I did T_T. Until recently I looked back at some old files and remember the sketch she did for me. I really like the character design and I know I wanted to color it. So here in the result:

(Left side: I did the lineart and rending. Right side: Quin original concept drawing)

Girls Doodle

For the past week/month I been working one some freelance works so I wasn't been able to do anything big personal work. However, I was still able to work on some mini piece. And here there are:

Sci-Fi Chick

Inspired by Sci-Fi movies I been watching and I just wanted to created a badass chick stepping away from girls in dress that I usually draw. This piece took me awhile to complete since metal isn't something I done before. I tried to be as detail as much as possible.

North, Central, and South Ao Dai

Two trips I took in the past year that I felt inspired, influence, and shape me as an artist were CTN 2012 and my Vietnam trip earlier this year.

When I was at CTN, I was obsess with artist artbooks. I spent a couple of hundred on artbooks alone and you know what...YOLO lol. Not sure when will be the next time I will return to CTN so might as well. Among the artbook I also got a Chris Sander's Aloha Figurine because I admire the style of figurine.

 

Chris Sander's Aloha Figurine

 

Earlier this year, when I was in Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh City I was at the marketplace went I run across three figurine set that I was really interested in getting for myself. The figurine illustrated the three different Ao Dai (Vietnamese cultural dress) in the three region of Vietnam which are North, Central, and South. I wanted a solid wood type texture to the figurine and my Aunt and I had a hard time finding it. Most of the booth that we went to had alot of the figurine ready painted. We finally found a store that sell it in a solid color, but it was smaller than the other that I saw. I still end up getting that. All the hard work looking for the figurine with the right price was kinda ruin unfortunately during my trip back to USA. We bubble wrap the figurines, but when I unwrap the figurines when I was back one figurine was beheaded, the hands was falling apart @_@...it was just sad. I was able to fix it with glues, but it wasn't strong enough so it still kept falling apart.

(The order in this photo is actually South, Central, and North) 

Anyway, the reason why I bought those stories up is because those figurines been sitting on top of my desk at home where I usually do alot of my drawing so to me it's always a reminder of what's my root and what is my passion in case I lose track. However, it's also a bumper for me to look at broken figurine, so I been working on a new project to replace my broken figurine. I illustrated female Ao Dai from the three region with the inspiration of the figurine of Chris Sander (which is also close to my artistic drawing style). I plan to print it out and add some more personal touch before framing it.

Mako from Pacific Rim

I wanted to work on my personal project, but wasn't able to work on it before flushing some fanart out.  Saw Pacific Rim a couple weeks ago and since then I can't get it out of my mind. I mean that movie wasn't "perfect," but the fighting sequence were just mind blowing and one of my favorite character from the movie is Mako Mori.

 The first one I did was Mako when she was a little girl when a Kaiju attacked her city and killed her parents (I guess).

  The second piece is Mako during the movie when she was fighting with her co-pilot (Love that scene).

Recreating: Notice Me

In preparation for my portfolio for 2013, I looked at my old works from my 2012 portfolio. I looked back at my "Notice Me" piece, I had plans for the characters, but I didn't finish the story development. I guess that was a regret for me, I decided to revisit the design and grounded them a little bit more. For the old story I was thinking way too...fairy tale and this time I wanted to be more realistic and not only did my perspective for the characters change, the finally product I want it to become also changed. I'm not thinking of story development to be like an animation, but more in a line of how these character will be like in a mobile game and what kind of game am I thinking they would be in and etc. It's actually a fun and really frustration process, but to me it's also rewarding to see how much my perspective of art change and just my style evolving within a year (more or less). This recreating project is also my own self indulgent of wedding and I feel like if I work on something I am passion(beside drawing) about I will be more motivated to finish the project.

The Blue Umbrella

Saw some early character concept artwork for The Blue Umbrella and it push me to draw this out.  

Mini Project: Japanese Street Fashion

For the past couple of weeks I been trying to be more creative with my clothes and design on my drawing. I then discover this tumblr of street snap fashion and I have to say most of the of the snap shots are from Japan. I find myself scrolling around looking at the different street fashion, there are some design that I can't help but take a double look at it and want to draw it out. So that is what I did for some couple images I found:

Then my ambition took over and wanted to do something more than copy what I am seeing. For the next two drawing, I still copy the pose and clothes, but mash-up comic characters: Batwoman and Robin base of Carrie Kelley design. 

Reimagine Megaman 2.0

The pro and con at looking at your old works...are how bad it was and how much you improve since then.

In 2011 DAC (design-a-character), posted a challenge to reimagine Megaman. Of course I participated, I had to think out of box to re-imagine  a character that is already so known for he's design.

Now in 2013, I revisit the design and tried something new cause looking back at my old Megamen designs...it's quite flaws.

Since then, I learn more about:
- Proportion
- Shading
- Character design

Bigger ver of Megaman 2013

Feeling Nostalgic

Growing up, one of my favorite anime to watch was "Sailor Moon." I remember how I used to draw the characters, buy the stickers cards and poster. It been ages since I drawn a Sailor Moon character and lately I been feeling a little nostalgic with classic anime so here to fond childhood memories!

Avatar base on Flavia Ceccarelli's style

Need an avi updated on DA, this time base off Flavia Ceccarelli's style.

Vietnamese girl with Lotus flower

Fresh from my trip to Vietnam:

Easter Day

Inspired from from a photo of two special kids in my life during Easter Sunday.

Cracking joke among friends

Based on current event with my friends and I. I was trying to open the umbrella. It was also a windy day so the umbrella ends up hitting me on the face and one of my friend crack a lighthearted joke about it. I thought it was pretty funny so I draw this.

Part 1- Chinese traditional grown: Cheongasm

Around this time last year, I actually illustrated three different traditional Vietnamese grown (post).  While taking some break off my other project, I wanted to do some more traditional grown. This time I want to cover Chinese growns.

Cheongsam

I guess this is more of a modern ver of a Cheongsam, since it used to be longer and it looks really similar to a Vietnamese Ao Dai (without pants).

Tawny and Russell

A super super belated drawing for Quin. Took me a while to figure out what I wanted to draw for her, then I thought about her two original character:  Russell and Tawny. 

After I finish the drawing, I printed it out and place it into a shadow box photoframe and also added some quilling.

Vanellope Von Schweets

 

I saw Wreck-it-Ralph twice in theater! One with some really good buddies and again at Disney Studio Screening during CTN2012. I really have to say it's one of my favorite animation film in 2012. I'm not fond of Sarah Silverman personally, but I thought she still did justice to the voice of Vanellope. Of course I been wanting to draw something for WIR and what better timing than the release date of WIR on DVD and BLU-RAY (and 3D blu-ray?), MARCH 5th, 2013. 

I'm also showing my WIP of my rendering. As much as I want to finish a piece in a couple hours even if it's fanart. Its still take me a couple of days to finish it. Each new artwork from me is like a new battle. I kept trying to develop new ways to render like "oh I saw this style on an artist's work, wonder if I can imitate it," or "saw a really cool shortcut technique on PS, let's try it out this drawing." I try not to be too comfortable with a style or a technique, so I can push myself harder to learn more stuff. 

1. Like any drawing, its start with a sketch. I had to look for references of the character and think of a pose. Once I thought up a pose and doddle it out, I actually have to do a couple layers of the sketch. The first one which is not shown it's really simple and just scribble of a general idea of the pose. From the scribble I add another layer on PS (I did all this on Photoshop by the way), to add more details of the character, I try to be as detail as I can so I don't have to think of too much changes when I do the lineart.

2. Clearly from my sketch, I still made changes on the lineart. I really like fine clean lines and the "Pen tools" has been my best friend for that. 90% of my lineart is done with the pen tools.

3. Once I am good with the lineart, I can start rendering. I starts out with flat color. Then I would usually work on the face  like adding blush or whatnot. Oh for this piece I also color in the lineart, sometime I would keep it as a solid color and when I am not feeling lazy I would also color the lineart. I usually would color the lineart a couple shade darker than the colors around it.

4. Shadow time! First I have to figure out where I want my light source to be located, in this case it's the upper left.

5. Adding some highlights on the hairs and the tights because in the film Vanellope has these almost shinning tights.

6. I see alot of second lighting/highlight in alot of artwork, it's usually blue or something like that. I don't really understand the reason behind it at first. Then I watched a video where an artist was explaining that beside the main lighting, artist will add a second lighting (usually cool colors) to add more dimension to their pieces. I usually don't think of that because when I render it's usually 2D style, so it's flat colors. However, thinking of a second source light really make me rethink how I want render my characters and what can I do to add more dimension to the characters.

7. After I am done with the piece, I will play around with effects. Right now I really like the blur effect on  drawing.

 

I am trying to improve on my rendering and my foundation for it is really bad. So I'm going to start a series of "Back to Basic" assignment. For the first assignment is rendering circular to show basic lighting. I did a couple of different rendering style so I can have a better understanding of different styles.    

Happy Belated V-day!

Fanart of  BBC North and South mini series

Oliver from Ni No Kuni

I been playing this game on PS3 name Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. I was on the fence about buying this game, but after watching this youtube video of Steve Zaragoza reviewing the game. I was SOLD! So for the past couple days if I'm not playing the game and grinding to level up in the game, I am drawing the character. So far I only finish Oliver, not sure if I want to to draw Esther and Swaine. I'll just have to see if I will be up for it or not.

Music bud i3000

Since my collaboration with Ryan Hall I been meaning to do another collaboration. This time I got a chance to work with a very good friend and an amazing artist Amy Liu. She designed the character and once again I did the lineart and rendering.

The cold @_@

Ahhh it's mid January, I thought I would done more artwork by now, but I been a TOTAL MESS! The flu got to me for the past couple days and I been feel really crappy so I have not done too much drawing as much as I wanted to...it's not having the flu MWAHAHAHAHA. Anyway, the time I'm not feeling lazy or light headed, I was able to develop some new characters and been playing with shapes and expression.

This is one of the character I develop, the pose it not too different from what I have done before, I'm little disappointed in that, but I just wanted to develop a full body design for her first before I start playing a little be more with her design. I'm thinking she's like a traditional dancer. There is a male ver/sibling of this character. I designed him and I didn't like how it was...and I been watching alot of Kung Fu movies so don't be surprise if the male character is in a martial art pose. 

For warm-up today, I drawn some male's heads.

Hello 2013!

I am very excited for 2013! I want to see what is going to be unfold or what different chapter I will enter in my art career! I was fortunate enough last year to get a job at EA/Maxis as an contract concept artist, attended CTN with some good buddies and met so much amusing and inspiring artists. 2012 was quite a profound year for me in the art department and I hope 2013 will be greater as I push myself harder to improve my art style, take risks, learn more techniques, and be influence by other artists.  After all I am still a very hungry artist! So let's cheer for 2013!