Schoolism Week 4

This is going to be a real quick update as I've got lots of work to do.

I'm now in the 4th week of Bobby Chiu's 9-week course at Schoolism. That means we're almost halfway into the class already and I don't want it to end so quickly! I'm having a lot of fun. About a week ago, I sent a personal e-mail to Bobby telling him that I wished that there was some place where the members of our class could interact, give each other feedback on the assignments and stuff. Imagine how happy I was when he told me he'll create a blog for us and he did! Bobby's just awesome. You can visit our class blog here if you want: Schoolism: Digital Painting Class Blog

I've been talking to some of my classmates on MSN and things have been really exciting. Before the blog came into existence, we almost had no way to get to know one another. Met Troy, a real hyper-energetic 3D modeler from Australia (if you're reading this, hey there Old Frogapillar!), Herman, an awesome (and also real serious O.o) concept artist from Hong Kong, Ariel, a children's book illustrator from Taiwan, Althea, a 2D animator from Australia, and Mariann from Norway. The others aren't actively participating in the blog yet but I'm hoping that'd change. Man, I don't want this class to end. ><


Assignment 3: Painting Bobby's sketch digitally, using traditional textures. Troy calls this little monster Frogapillar. I call Troy Old Frogapillar.


Assignment 4: Using textures from photographs on a digital painting. Would love to include a Before/After image but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to put up class materials. Anyhow, Bobby's creature designs are made of pure win.
I'm working on a robot design right now; will update in a few days!

Skin tones

Skin tone study..... sort of. Used the technique learned during Week 2 in Digital Painting class at Schoolism. Wasn't aiming for anything realistic, but hopefully I got the skin tones and facial features resembling real life enough for someone to be able to tell their ethnicity. Still haven't thought of a title. Actually, let's just stick to Armless Midgets. It sounds kinda weird and that's perfect. Oh and I showed this to Roden, and he said that only the girl on the left looks cute and that the other two look old. DDDD: Niuuu...


click for full-view

Favorite parts of the painting: the Caucasian girl's hair, the East Asian girl's eyes, and the African girl's skin tone and lips. :D

Here's a gif I made in case anyone wants to see how the painting was made.



[Update on critique for Lesson 1: None! asdafdasfasdf.]

New home

Messed around with the my Blogger settings and decided that I like how it looks enough to import all my Livejournal entries over. No more ugly ads, and I get to display my website's shoutbox.

I'll probably be updating both accounts from now on. It's just copying and pasting anyway.

Me Demands Critique!

Bobby Chiu is killing me!! It's been 9 days since I submitted my first assignment and no critique yet! D: I'm dying here in anticipation, Bobby! And nervousness. And curiosity. GAHHHHHH. *grabs imaginary Bobby by the neck*

These days I'm feeling a lot more motivated to draw. I'm focusing on enjoying the process rather than just the end result. I guess if I keep trying to keep up with the world and all those crazy masters out there, I'm going wear myself out real quick. So... yeah, taking an advice Bobby gave one of his past students. Enjoying the process of learning. Being excited about every new thing learned. And as Android Jones (another crazy artist) once said, "If you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong!"

Which means I've been doing it wrong for............... a while now.

It's 6:43 in the morning and I'm wideee awake. Tried going to bed at 3:00AM but failed. Now, this is especially unusual for a person like Ciaee. Ciaee is usually able to fall asleep in a matter of seconds. She can also sleep through an entire day. And this can happen anywhere - at the restaurant, in the car, on the stairs... etc. Yar. So something must be wrong with Ciaee.

Anyway, since I was unable to fall asleep, I drew something.


Not sure what to name these... armless midgets yet. Will be coloring this to try out different skin tones.


Colorized this from Bobby Chiu's black and white painting for Schoolism's Digital Painting class Week 2. Think I did a pretty good job for this one. *Pats self on the back* :D Can't wait to hear what Bobby will have to say. Grrr. *wails, kicks and screams in impatience*
It's 7:09AM now. Still wide awake.

Schoolism!

It's been soooo long since I've updated. There are a few reasons *excuses* for this.

One, I'm beginning to dislike LJ. Forcing Ads on Basic Accounts is quite unacceptable. Or more like totally unacceptable. I moved from Multiply to LJ not long ago because I couldn't stand the Ads on Multiply. I use Adblock Plus on Firefox, so I don't actually see these Ads but I really mind the fact that people who visit my blog see ugly Ads all over the place. Definitely moving to Blogspot real soon. In fact, if I can easily transfer my LJ layout over to Blogspot, I would've done it already.

Two, my main reason actually, I've been feeling a little... less-confident about my skills and I'm not sure if I want to put up my less-than-awesome stuff for anyone to see. I'll have to overcome this if I want to improve.

I enrolled for Digital Painting classes at Schoolism.com and am now in the 2nd week of the course! Bobby Chiu's an great instructor and his video tutorials are very helpful. His patience and passion for teaching just shines through. I haven't received my first video critique just yet, but looking at his previous video critiques (for the students from the last semester) has already taught me a lot. Can't wait to see what he'll say about my assignment submission!

I was a little disappointed to see that there wasn't a place for the students to interact though. Classmates don't even get to comment on each others' submissions. D: A discussion forum would be really nice. I used to take online art classes at the Academy of Art University and mainly, the classes work like online forums. The "online classroom environment" made everything a lot more engaging because we got to discuss topics and ideas, provide critique and suggestions for our classmates, talk about other unrelated stuff, etc.


My Lesson 1 assignment at Schoolism. The drawing is done by Bobby Chiu and our assignment was to visualize the shape and form of the figure through darkness, and turn his pencil drawing into a painting.


Did this one as an extra exercise using the techniques learned in Lesson 1. She's a 狐狸精(húli jīng) or "Fox Spirit". I'm very happy with how her face turned out. It's fox-like. :D
I've been acting weird these days. I wake up at nine, have breakfast, tidy and clean my room, wash my own bathroom, exercise daily, do drawing exercises daily, and get enough sleep. I KNOW. Like, OHMAIGAWD.