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.