Misty Village!

The Riddle of Misty Village is a fun little imaginary game project that I got to work on this Spring! I never thought it could be much fun designing the look and feel of a game.

And here's a mock screencap:

I want to give a shoutout to Chris Carman for offering a ton of useful feedback and Ryan Prothero the all the hard work he put into the coding/scripting/crazymathstuff. You guys are awesome! :D

Year End/New Year Giveaway!

This event has ended. Everyone who sent in their entry by December 21, provided that the entries were complete with all the information required, will receive a personalized copy of the calendar in the mail. 

It's time for me to give something back to the people who like my work and also to those have been so supportive of me. So here's a small giveaway event. I had designed a tiny calendar and it's my sincere wish to mail one out to everyone, but I only have enough material to print 100 copies before the new year comes.

Event details:

Oh, and here's the aforementioned calendar that may or may not be worth your trouble. :D

Again, I'm really sorry that my budget only allows for mailing to US addresses right now. I'll try to include everyone else the next time!

*Giveaway event ends once 100 responses are received or on December 21, 2013, whichever occurs first.

Productive break? Impossible!

Quite shockingly, I was pretty productive during my break in Malaysia this time around. I met a lot of cool people, visited a durian orchard, stuffed my face with durian, went to Penang, stuffed my face some more with Penang food, checked out a fish farm, stuffed my face again with fresh seafood, had chunks of stubborn goop removed from my sinuses and my septum straightened, stuck to my workout routine, spent some quality time with old friends and family... 

... and on top of that, I actually managed to get a few *gasp* paintings done.

I'm feeling quite awesome right now, so hopefully this productive streak will continue... *crosses fingers*

Spring 2012

So... it's the end of yet another semester! After eliminating the ones that will probably hurt your eyes, only 6 miserable images remain.

An Ordinary Summer's Day 

Still working on getting over my fear of drawing from life...

I seem to only ever make decent drawings when Connie models.

More work on my personal project (animated-short-to-be):

Passenger

 

Sailing with Fish Kites 

I feel like such a disappointment to everyone (and myself) this semester... *sigh*

Last update of the year

Merry Christmas, everyone! Phew, this semester was a roller-coaster. My body literally refused to function for a week. (Me: Come on! Body: Nope.) So after many days of sleeping, eating really yummy food and catching up with friends, I decided that I should at least update my blog...

some rough character sketches


These are all for a story that I'm writing. I don't wanna give away too much, but it involves a girl with a birthmark, fishes and birds. :D


Definitely still trying to figure out the kind of look that I'm going for...


Book Arts completely knocked the wind out of me this semester. I wasn't expecting such a heavy class! However, I did have a lot of fun and Macy Chadwick is one of the sweetest and kindest teacher I've ever had. Here are some of the stuff I made for that class:

Everyone's gone home! D:

He loves me.

I made a book that's also a daisy. It's not very big, but it contains all of my heart and my love. Hope you'll like! :D




To address the many requests for tutorials, I did not invent the folding technique used for this book. This structure is commonly referred to as the 'star book' and I learned it in my bookbinding class. I came up with the idea of turning it into a daisy and did this by rounding off the corners and using more pages (9) instead of the usual 5 or 6.

There are many tutorials online that you can find if you want to learn how to make your own star book. These are the best ones that I had found:

http://poppytalk.blogspot.com/2011/10/star-book-tutorial-by-roughdraftbooks.html
http://billiescraftroom.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/video-tutorial-star-book/

SCBWI conference starts tomorrow!

I hope everybody's enjoying their summer break! I had the opportunity to visit Hokkaido with my family but fell quite sick on the trip and lost my hearing in one ear for two weeks after that. Still it was absolutely wonderful - the people, the air, the water, the flowers, the food, and bathing in the hot springs... it was exactly what I needed. Here are some pictures I took on the trip!


I'm in LA right now with fellow artists Isabella Kung, Arthur Lin and Lois Wang. The SCBWI conference officially starts tomorrow and everyone's excited! For review purposes, I had put together little portfolio of work mostly done in the past year including some silly sketches I did over the summer.




Oh and here's a little something I painted to cheer my dad on for his swimming competition. He had just turned 60, and was born in the year of the Rabbit. He hit me on the head when I gave it to him! Haha, I could tell that it totally made him happy though.


He won. 8D

Koi Dreams

I've been trying to develop a story around a little girl with an imagination. (Vague, I know.) I'm not sure if anything's going to come out of that yet, but here's a painting based on the idea.


Koi Dreams
Tools:
Pencil (Initial sketch), Photoshop CS4

WIPs:

I'm also working on a book dummy of Hans Christian Andersen's Princess and the Pea for class and here are some characters from that project! These are some nice princesses the prince meets early on. In my version of the story though, he likes them! Unfortunately they fail the pea test :( and he marries a chubby, snotty princess at the end. I'll have to thank my friend Pétur for giving me some great ideas in varying them up while I was designing these. They would've looked totally boring otherwise.


Princesses! (work in progress)
Haven't been sketching as much as I'd like to in the past month, but here are some that managed to come out looking quite alright.


Some quick gestures (pen and markers)


Randomly random randomness
And... more school work stuff!


Oil studies


First Venture (digital)


Valentine's Day mailer (reworked)
Children's Book Illustration class is such a joy to be part of! My classmates surprise my every week with their creativity and Angela's such wonderful and dedicated teacher. She has helped me a great deal with some of the pieces here. If you go to the Academy and are interested in children's books at all, I highly (highly, highly x10) recommend her class.

I hope all's well with everyone!

An update! Could it really be?

I promised my friend Andrew that I'll update, so here are some stuff from my humble sketchbook.


Doodles from the past two months
I've always been afraid of sketching. I mean, blank white sheet + traditional media + crazy talented peers around you; it's terrifying! Rarely did I go to drawing workshops and when I did, I'd pretend I was sketching the model. I'd be writing or something... nobody's allowed to look. My circle of friends (mostly artists) knew me as the one who didn't sketch. That's fine, but I hate being afraid of anything. So I've been sketching. It's frustrating at times, but it's becoming less scary and I've found that it can be quite freeing.


A few better composed pages from the sketchbook
Been thinking of going into children's books lately. This could be my new direction from now. Class with Angela at the Academy's been really exciting! Here's what I did for my first assignment. (holiday mailer)


Valentine's Day Mailer
I took some pictures of my room to show to my parents, but I thought I'd post them here as well.


(random sketch, children's books!, my room, my wardrobe)
Sorry I haven't updated in so long! I've been feeling a little lost and all over the place for the past year. Haven't been too productive either. =\ But I've been trying to get myself motivated lately, so that'll probably change. I hope to post again soon!

Are you there?

Part of a conversation with a dear friend.


are you there?
The image of a girl listening to a seashell just came to me out of nowhere and the mood and atmosphere struck so clear that I had to draw it. Watching all 25 episodes of Soukyuu no Fafner in one sitting gave me the inspiration for the title, "are you there?" (anata wa soko ni imasu ka?) which is a recurring question throughout the series. The anime explores concepts like existence, choices and nothingness and although I'm not crazy about the art, the story was good and I really enjoy thought-provoking themes.

This piece isn't popular on deviantART, but I'm very proud of it. :)

Tools:
2B Pencil, Photoshop CS3, Wacom Graphire4

Typeface:
Peach Sundress by the incredibly young (19!), talented and generous Teagan White

Process:



I was invited as a guest artist to paint something for this year's Comic Fiesta 100 Days Countdown!


CF 2009 - Linedanser Coffy
This is Coffy, one of the event's mascot. (I took some liberties- her ears? I ate them.) You can read about Coffy and Tea here: [link]

I'll be having a table at Comic Fiesta this year, and I'm really excited because it's my first time ever! I'm busy making some last minute preparations now and I want to kill myself for not starting earlier.

Tools:
Photoshop CS3, Wacom Graphire4

Process:


The entire painting process looks so easy in the GIF! Gah. I swear, I spent almost an entire 24 hours just getting those fucking comic sheets right.

The Dance of a Child Escapes Time

I finished the piece and even thought up a pretty title. Mummy and Daddy, hope you like!


The Dance of a Child Escapes Time
Tools:
Photoshop CS4, Wacom Graphire4, Straw Paper

WIPs:

Link to deviation:
[link]

Also, there's a one-page feature of my work in this month's ImagineFX issue. I saw it at Borders but it's so expensive! (15.99 USD + tax = RM60.52) *hyperventilates and dies* But Jon Woodward was kind enough to send me a scan of that page. :D


I met a whole bunch of crazy students from the Academy of Art on Monday. (There were 10 of us in total, sketching at the cafe at Borders.) It was totally awesome meeting a group of people who share the same passion! I feel quite intimidated too- they're all so good at what they do. Me, I still need to work being able to draw in front of others. I'm terrible at performing under pressure.

Been doing a lot of thinking too, about whether or not I want to further my studies and eventually lead a life here. I think I'm going to apply for the graduate program.

I still exist!

I still exist!

Okay, I feel really bad for not updating. I talked to my parents on the phone today and I'm suddenly reminded that my dad checks my blog really often. DADDDY, I'M SO SORRRRY!

So, what have I been up to? I'm working on 2 paintings and a short comic, and my excuse for not updating is because I don't really have anything completed yet. But posting a journal entry without any art in it is kinda against my personal blogging policies so... here are some WIPs.


(Currently Untitled)
Mum wanted something related to dancing for the new house. It's almost complete, I think? My sister thinks it's not clear that the little girl is dancing. I might want to fix that.


I am a watch (page one - draft)
A rough draft from my comic in the works. It's about a watch. I don't know.

I go to Borders really often these days. It's a great place to work because there's no internet! The Internet is Evil, Tempting and Distracting. Seeing people around me busy with their work gets me motivated to work hard too.

I love it here in San Francisco, although I miss my family. I really like the city and its people, I love how random people would come up to me and strike up a conversation and how the systems actually work here. I like that diversity is celebrated. It's been only 4 months and I already feel like I belong here.

Malaysia? I want to love Malaysia. The country where I was born. 22 years I've spent my life there, and I still don't feel 'included'. When the politicians say 'rakyat Malaysia', I hear 'bumiputra'. I want to love Malaysia. I really do.

But home. I wish it was just an hour away. My Mauritian roommates and I- we'd always talk about how good it would be if there's such a thing as teleportation... so that we won't have to choose. Why isn't it possible to be in two places at once?

Anyway, living here on my own has made me realize how hard my mum had it all these years, doing most of the work around the house on her own. I know it's ridiculous that it took me 22 years, but thank you Mum. And Dad too of course, for the support all these years!