Nana Draws!

Muscle study

2012-02-16T15:53:00.001Z

Reference art by Min Yum @ http://www.minart.net/

Draw

2012-02-07T13:59:00.002Z

Encounter

2012-02-04T01:02:00.004Z

New additions to the gallery

2011-03-24T14:15:00.006Z

These were done last year for a project that's come to a halt so I'm happy to be able to show them now. :)
Pic 1 // Pic 2 // Pic 3

Vampire Hunter D

2011-03-11T09:48:00.021Z

D's design is full of big sweeping lines which is always a joy to draw.

Jakten på lyckan

2011-03-10T12:56:00.004Z

Swedish television has been running a series called The Pursuit of Happiness (Jakten på Lyckan) with the somewhat morose yet refreshingly pragmatic presenter Hanna Hellquist. The series looks into the contemporary obsession with happiness that has spawned a whole industry of self-help books and programs and asks the question of whether we can learn to become happier. Hanna's melancholic temperament and her history of depression gives context to the journey of exploration through everything from dolphin therapy to hypnosis.
At the end of the journey the conclusion seems to be that excessive soul searching and questioning of whether we're happy enough is something that actually makes us more unhappy. Worrying over happiness is a luxury problem.

Hanna is quite a strong character so I wanted to capture her somewhat pouty, sulky, yet determined personality.

Sigurd Eriksdottir

2011-02-18T11:30:00.002Z

Beach screencast

2011-02-18T00:30:00.003Z

I made a screen recording of the drawing from this morning, so here it is. :)

Beach

2011-02-17T11:06:00.015Z

Gnossienne no. 1

Wig

2011-02-16T12:02:00.000Z

Values are tricky...

Norman Rockwell's America

2011-02-11T23:13:00.006Z

The Dulwich Picture Gallery, located just outside of central London, seems to be favouring some great American artists lately. Last year they had an exhibition on the Wyeth family (N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth etc) and right now the gallery has a special exhibition on America's probably most well-loved artist, Norman Rockwell.

Apart from original paintings the gallery has covered a long stretch of wall with ever Saturday Evening Post cover Rockwell ever did. It's the work of a lifetime spanning four decades. Seeing them all hanging there side-by-side gives you an impression of what a prolific illustrator Rockwell was and how with-the-times he must've been to capture the American heart and imagination in the way he did.

Rockwell's mass appeal probably hasn't done wonders for his gallery presence so it's a real treat to see a gallery putting the spotlight him. Despite what critics have to say about his depth and choice of subject matter I think that each Saturday Evening Post cover is a little delight in itself, and on the whole his body of work reflects a nation's attitude of an era. His pictures are idealistic to be sure, but without truth they could not have touched the hearts of so many. He chose simple, everyday situations to portray, yet through the artist's lens we see these moments in a new and beautiful light.
The ability to make people see things with a fresh pair of eyes, giving them a new perspective, is one of the greatest things about art.

Norman Rockwell's America at the Dulwich Picture Gallery runs until the 27th of March.

Prickly

2011-02-04T17:39:00.000Z

Happy holidays!

2010-12-22T14:40:00.001Z

Fire mage

2010-12-15T02:06:00.001Z

A random sketch that looked like a witch at first but took a slightly different direction.

Ross Noble tour poster

2010-12-06T16:14:00.005Z

Last Friday, comedian Ross Noble was performing in the Cambridge Corn Exchange. I'm not generally that into stand up comedy but in this case we had a particular reason to go and see him.

Earlier this year I got the gig to do the artwork for Ross' Nonsensory Overload tour poster. I didn't know much about him before this so I had to do some research. Ross' shows seem largely improvised and he constantly feeds off little oddities and quirks that he finds in the audience. That unfathomable mind of his manages to make the most unconventional associations, of which he will happily paint you a vivid picture, usually resulting in surreal hilarity. This makes for a very random and bizarre comedy experience and it was this randomness that Ross wanted to show in his poster.

The idea for the poster was wholly Ross'. He already knew that he wanted a picture of his face with his long, crazy hair twisting and morphing into all kinds of random objects from past jokes.

In the beginning it was important to get a clear idea of what Ross had in mind was so I sent over a few different sketches with different levels of stylisation of his face. I felt that since he has such a distinctive look it would be a shame to make things too stylised, and indeed, the version that we decided to go with in the end was the most "realistic" one. After that it was just a matter of watching through a bunch of Youtube videos and noting down the random things said that could be used in the artwork. It was an unusual but fun experience to find yourself drawing owls in nightcaps, squids with foam fingers, feather-duster emus... not to mention the bum-faced kids. Gotta' love 'em bum-faced kids.

Rough and cleaned up drawing.

The colouring was probably the most challenging part since there were so many separate elements that needed to stand out. Normally I gravitate towards more muted colours so it was hard to figure out how to use a bright, crazy palette. I ended up going in circles and getting nowhere, but luckily there was a colour lover in the house. Chloe Citrine, my housemate, is great at coordinating bright colours and she quickly spotted the grave that I had dug myself into and suggested the solution.

The artwork was finished in April and to be able to see it used as intended now, towards the end of the year, is a great treat. Apart from posters and flyers, an animated projection of the artwork was shown on the curtains before the show started. When the curtains dropped, so did my jaw. A giant, colourful air castle made up from Ross' joke topics had been erected (or rather inflated) on stage and I could spot some of the elements that were used on the poster.

I was thrilled to see that the artwork was also printed on all sorts of merchandise. Signed posters were sold at the show for the charity Riders for Health (Ross is a big motorcycle buff). I hope that the art helps to sell them lots of posters!

After the show we got to go backstage and meet Ross, which was awesome. I didn't communicate with him directly as the artwork was created so being able to get the approval from the man himself was the ultimate closure. It turned out he had even used parts of the artwork on the shoes that he wore on stage, how awesome is that?

Me, Ross and house mates/ fellow artists Chloe and Anna!

I really appreciate the time that Ross and his crew made for us after what must've been an exhausting show. Ross is practically doing a performance every night in what must feel like a maddening marathon. He's a super nice and, despite what you might think based on his comedy, down-to-earth guy when you get chatting to him and seemed quite interested in comics. Do check him out if you get a chance, it's a surreal experience. :)
I feel incredibly lucky and privileged to have been trusted with bringing Ross' idea to life. It's not the type of commission that comes knocking every day and it's turned out to be an incredible experience. Freelancing might have its downsides, but it certainly also has it perks!

Twelfth Night - alternative US cover

2010-11-29T11:47:00.042Z

Abrams publishes SelfMadeHero's Manga Shakespeare titles across the Atlantic and I was given the chance to do an alternative background for the cover of the US version of Twelfth Night.

Originally I modelled the landscape in Twelfth Night on the dramatic mountains and valleys of certain regions of Switzerland and once I told my father that I'd love to go travelling there. My parents now live in Norway and my father, who's been to Switzerland, scoffed and said that I didn't even have to cross the border to see that kind of landscape.
When I redid the background for the cover it was not long after I'd visited the beautiful Geiranger fjord, just a few hours' drive from my parents' town, and that proved immensely helpful. Often I find that the most frustrating and time-consuming part of painting is searching for that something that you can't quite grasp, probably because of a lack of understanding or knowledge of what you're trying to paint. In contrast, when you have a clear idea of what you want you can avoid a lot of false leads and pitfalls, and shoot straight for that image in your head.

If you ever visit the fjords, make sure to pack warm clothes. It gets surprisingly nippy, even in the height of summer. This was July.

The memories of the fjord were put well to use when visualising the colours and atmosphere for the painting and it was an enjoyable and surprisingly agony-free experience to paint.
I'm not sure which version of the cover I like the best. I like showing the landscape in the US cover, it adds to the story, but the title and the characters stands out more in the original cover.

Ikea Man

2010-11-28T00:03:00.002Z

A doodle done while video chatting. I thought he might be a savannah explorer at first but the stripes on the tie suggested otherwise. His distant gaze turned into a puzzle over what to have for lunch.

Second Sky characters

2010-11-17T23:59:00.002Z

These are the main characters from Second Sky, the comic that I'm working on right now, written by the talented Mr Fehed Said. It's a comic that has been "in development" for a long time without really getting anywhere, the problem being entirely my own, but things are finally starting to pick up and I can't wait to share some pages with you soon.

The comic has given me quite a few challenges to tackle. The first and most important one being the character designs, which I felt needed to be different from anything I've done before. August's design went through the most revisions. A 36-year-old Asian delivery man is surprisingly hard to pin down.

August Zhao

May Zhao

Popo

MCM expo haul

2010-11-01T09:53:00.005Z

This last weekend was another MCM expo and I shared a table with John Aggs on Saturday (who has a just started a new developmental blog for his personal comic, Liquid City) and Belinda Leung on Sunday. I met Belinda at the MADE art symposium in Berlin this summer and hadn't seen her since so it was particularly nice to catch up. :)

Last expo didn't leave me any time to do shopping so this time I wanted to correct that, but still managed to fail at planning and ended up having to cram all the shopping into the last 45 mins before closing on Sunday. Thus, the expo haul is not big, but oh so sweet.

Firstly, I need to plug Paul Duffield's new self-published artbook/visual poem/narrative Signal. The artwork is beautifully emotive and captivating. If I could I would want to stick every spread on my wall. The book is a string of wordless narrative - part comic, part artbook, all gorgeous.

I also bought some beautiful art prints and postcards from Zarina Liew and Yuri Kore, both whose art I absolutely adore.

Nikki Stu is a new discovery who amazingly lives just up the road from me. Her comic was packed in a brown envelope and reminded me of why I love home-made stuff.

And here's another great find, Kenji from Naoki Urasawa's 20th Century Boy. Spot on dude!

Big thanks to everyone who came by and bought books, prints and commissions. Love you all! :)

Cambridge Coffee'n Sketch

2010-10-07T01:41:00.022+01:00

Last month saw the first Cambridge creatives' meet happen at Clowns café for the first time. The original idea was to get those of us who work from home a good reason to put on some decent clothes, leave the house and go out and interact with other humans at least once a week but of course, anyone is welcome! :)

The meets are on Wednesdays, from 2-6pm at Clowns Café in King Street. People can drop in or leave when they feel like it, it's quite informal. :)

For updates on the meets, see the Cambridge Coffee´n Sketch Facebook page.

Sidetracking... That photo was taken with my new DSLR which was broken in at today's meet. It's a Nikon D3100, fitted with a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens. It's a marvellous little piece of technology! I'm loving being able to take pictures with short focus and play around with the light settings.

Leon

2010-10-01T21:16:00.003+01:00

Luc Besson's Leon (The Professional) is a brilliant movie with iconic characters. I watched it for the first time the other day. Should've done it years ago.

My Deer

2010-09-28T09:17:00.001+01:00

Based on a fashion shot.

Backyard

2010-09-23T19:37:00.011+01:00

There were some great, low-hanging clouds in the sky this afternoon.

This epic cloud in our backyard made me stop dead in my tracks. The massive formation towered above our house like a mountain, the scale reinforced by the bush in the foreground. I tried to remember as much as I could about the colours and values, before doing this quick memory painting. The subtle warmth in the clouds from the afternoon sun is often lost in a photograph.

Round-hair girl

2010-09-21T22:34:00.002+01:00

Lately I've tried a different approach on hair. I wanted to give the hair a slightly rounder feel, treating the locks as larger shapes rather than wispy strands. It might not be very obvious though. :)

Finally, universities are starting here in Cambridge. I can't wait to do some figure drawing again. I believe Anglia Ruskin does an evening session, although I need to find out what day and time it is. Cambridge University terms don't start until early October, but once they get going I'll try to make the Architecture Society sessions again.

Chameleon boy & Red scarf girl

2010-09-07T00:10:00.016+01:00

I managed to get hold of an Intuos3 A3 on Ebay so I had a go at digital inking. It was definitely easier with a bigger tablet, although I still think that traditional inking is something I want to continue to work on.

The scarf set the tone for the rest of the outfit. That type of red scarf was worn by youths during Mao's cultural revolution. I don't know if they're still used in this day and age, but for a long time they were worn in schools as a sign of distinction.

The slogan on this propaganda poster has been so re-iterated to most Chinese as they were growing up that it's become somewhat of an in-joke, often told in English in its direct translation.

"Good good study, day day up."

You get the idea. :)

How to simulate a large graphics tablet

2010-08-22T15:15:00.122+01:00

For those that are thinking about upgrading their graphics tablet, yet are unsure about what size that would suit their needs best, there's a simple way of emulating the feeling of drawing on a larger tablet. If you already own a Wacom, the Mapping function, which comes with the tablet software, allows you to do this. By mapping your tablet to a smaller portion of your computer screen, it gives a similar effect as drawing on a section of a larger tablet. All that’s needed is a bit of maths.

Tablet measurements. Find the dimensions of the Active Area of your current tablet and of the larger tablet that you want to simulate. This can usually be found in the spec sheets for the tablet.
Resolution. Note down your screen resolution. (You can find your screen resolution by right-clicking on an empty area on the desktop, choose Properties and then Settings.)

Mapped resolution. The resolution of the mapped area (in pixels) can be found simply through the ratio of the smaller tablet to the larger tablet.

Mapped width in pixels = (Width of current tablet) / (Width of simulated tablet) x (Screen width in pixels)

Just substitute Width for Height to find the mapped height in pixels.

So for example, I have an Intuos3 A5 Wide (271 x 159 mm) and I'd like to simulate the Intuos4 XL (488 x 305 mm). My screen resolution is 1680 x 1050 pixels. By plugging in the numbers I find that the screen area that my A5 Wide should be mapped to is 932 x 547 pixels.

Change Tablet Properties. Now, open up Wacom Tablet Properties and select the Mapping tab. Under Screen Area select Portion… and you’ll get a pop-up. In the Enter Coordinates field, put in the new dimensions. You can then choose what portion of the screen to use by moving the red box in the little screen diagram.

I used this method to compare the feeling of drawing on my current tablet, the Intuos3 A5 Wide, to drawing at the size of an Intuos4 Large and an Intuos4 XL tablet.
The Intuos4 Large is not that much bigger than an Intuos3 A5 Wide and as predicted, drawing at the Intuos4 Large size really didn't feel all that much different from the A5 Wide. The Intuos4 XL on the other hand is a different story.
These doodles were drawn at my screen resolution (1680 x 1050) with no zoom using the XL-mapping, L-mapping and no mapping respectively. It might not be obvious, but I felt much more in control of the lines with the XL-mapping. My hands did have to make larger movements which could be tiring in the long run, but you can always zoom out if you want less precision.

I've never found pencilling and sketching on the computer particularly enjoyable, probably because of the lack of control compared to sketching on paper. After having felt what it's like to draw on a much bigger tablet I think it might be worth investing in an upgrade though. It would be great to have the Free Transform tool and Cut & Paste functions at hand, and setting up perspective guides is ten times easier in Photoshop than on paper.

Ghost Hunter designs

2010-07-09T15:11:00.002+01:00

These are some designs I did for a mock project called 'Ghost Hunter'. The project was a part of a concept art course run by Leo Sandberg at the University of Gotland last summer. Leo is an amazingly multifaceted artist and a great teacher. It was a privilege to be able to learn from him.

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Leo Sandberg - Link
University of Gotland - Link

Recent Life drawings

2010-07-08T13:38:00.017+01:00

It's been a while since I last did proper life drawing and it's hard to find classes in the summer, but I felt a strong need to get back into it so yesterday I splashed out on a slightly more expensive class than the ones I've been to in the past (previous post).

I've been trying to move away a little bit from the construction method à la Glen Vilppu. Vilppu's method is excellent for drawing figures from your mind and I'm still using it, but I think there's benefit in learning more approaches to drawing.
I need to give my mate John Aggs a great thanks for getting me Henry Yan's figure drawing book. Henry Yan has been a great source of inspiration for how to use charcoal, as has Nathan Fowkes.

My favourite from this session is probably this last one. It was one of the shorter poses, 5 mins, but I think enough information is suggested to make it readable and the pose ended before I could screw it up too much. When given longer time there's more of a risk for over-working the drawing.

I find it difficult to get the value relationships right. It's very easy to make something darker or lighter than it should be. I've heard that squinting is the trick but it's hard to see the right things.

Now that term is over it's become quite difficult to find cheap life drawing classes in Cambridge. The class I caught yesterday is run by Mark Rigby and it was unfortunately the last one for this summer. The next batch of classes start on the 8th of September. The class was held in St Barnabas Press on Coldham's Road. The building is a printing facility, mostly for artistic prints, and they also offer small studio spaces for artists.

These classes aren't cheap - £17 per session, but materials and easels are provided and the sessions are fairly long (3 hours, with a short coffee break). This particular class was not taught but Mark also teaches at the Hills Road Sixth Form College, and those classes are more structured.

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Mark Rigby's Life drawing classes - Link
Hills Road Sixth Form College art & design classes - Link
St Barnabas Press - Link

London Expo & Dino-Saw-Us!

2010-05-26T16:47:00.007+01:00

London Expo is upon us once again! I'll be there both days this weekend (29-30 May). I'm bringing copies of Twelfth Night which I'm happy to sign and sketch in, prints and a few very limited edition postcards made from the Chinese New Year and the Showgirl pics I drew a while back. Of course, I'll be doing commissions and portraits as well.

Now, let me give a plug to Dino-saw-us, a super fun sticker collecting game that will be run at expo for the first time .
You play by simply picking up a blank passport booklet at Expo (or print one out yourself) and then you find all the people with stickers. I hope there's time for me to go sticker hunting as well... I really want some stickers... Gotta catch 'em all!!
Hopefully this will become a reoccurring Expo activity that will yield a different collection of stamps each time. I can see the passports becoming collectors' items, and it's a great way to make some new friends!
Find out more about how to participate and who's got stickers on the Dino-saw-us blog.

My stickers arrived today and they look great! I almost want to keep them to myself but I'll give them up if people come and say hi at our table!

I'll be sharing table C17 with Amanda in the Artist Alley. There are quite a few new names on the list so it will be fun to see this incarnation of the Artist Alley. Floor plan here:

Hope to see lots of people at Expo!

---------------
London Expo - Link
Dino-Saw-Us - Link
Previous post: Expo portraits - Link
Table buddy: Amanda Elanor Tribble - Link

Anna-conda

2010-05-07T09:14:00.010+01:00

Found this sketch I did for one of Bobby Chiu's one-hour challenges last year. The theme was "serpent" I believe, but I didn't feel like going straight for the topic so I gave it a little twist.

Looking back at the challenges that I did for Bobby's live-streaming sessions, most of them seem to have gone in a humoristic direction. I don't normally do funny drawings, but Bobby's own whimsical artwork with a twist inspired me to think differently. I'm not a competitive person either, but challenges and competitions can push you in unexpected directions so it's worth going for it from time to time.

Topic: Cave man

Topic: Design your own Street Fighter character

Topic: Big and graceful

Topic: Creature cowboy

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Bobby Chiu's Imaginism Studios - Link
Sketchoholic.com- Live streams, contests and interviews

Previous related posts:
Chiustream cave man
Girl sketch

London Book Fair

2010-04-21T20:40:00.002+01:00

Yesterday me and Emma Vieceli spent a few hours in the new Comics area of the London Book Fair drawing on giant A1 sheets of paper. This was the first time attending the fair for both of us and despite empty stalls due to the volcanic ash cloud, the scale and diverse offerings of the event was pretty impressive.
Throughout the day there was a steady stream of people stopping by to look at what we were doing and to chat about comics and illustration.

It was interesting to meet people with different backgrounds in publishing and illustration. There's certainly a big world out there outside of comics and manga.

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Emma Vieceli - website
London book fair - website

Ink sketch

2010-04-20T23:17:00.001+01:00

Drawn on a shaky train with a Japanese fude brush. Inspiration provided by Ludovico Einaudi.

Colour geekery

2010-04-11T10:40:00.000+01:00

Today's laundry: CMYK

Pirates colour studies

2010-03-25T18:28:00.004Z

These are a bunch of 15 minute colour studies from one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.
Movie shots are carefully framed and colour designed for story-telling and mood so it's a great study resource for all the beautiful images you might want.

It's funny how the more you learn about something the more you realise how little you know. Back in the days when I started colouring digitally I knew very little about colour theory, or light for that matter, but I knew what I liked so that made me confident in my colour usage. Since then I've gradually caught on to the complexity of the world of colours and light, which all of a sudden made it into something rather difficult.

Colour is one of those shifty topics where rules are rarely general and things are judged on a case-to-case basis. There's a lot that could be said about it, but the piece of advice that I keep stumbling across is "When all else fails, go by what looks right".

There's a great resource for pre-captured movie stills here - Leave me the white

Wedding

2010-03-24T22:29:00.002Z

At the end of last year I was privileged to be invited to my first wedding - that of Sally and Peter.
Sally is a gifted artist who I met through the comics scene. She had done a fabulous job at decorating the wedding reception with origami orchids made from book and comic pages, which gave the occasion a very nice personal touch.
Instead of presents she asked us to do some sketches and I was more than happy to comply!

I was honoured to be able to share their moment.

From having had a wedding attendance of zero only recently I'm looking at two weddings coming up this year. You can tell when you're getting older.

Recent sketches

2010-03-16T19:37:00.011Z

I lost the pen I normally use for my sketchbook (a Pilot G-Tec C4) on a recent trip to a karate competition (from which I brought home a silver medal by the way!) so I've been reverting back to the good old biro until I get a new pen.

Biros actually feel quite a lot like using a pencil, minus the possibility to erase of course. You get dark or light lines depending on how hard you press and it's quite easy to fall for the temptation to correct mistakes by going over the same area again and again... usually resulting in nothing more than a messy nest of lines and no real improvement.
That's why I love using a more fluid ink pen like the G-Tec when I'm out and about with my sketchbook. Its thin tip is precise and it forces you to be decisive when you put down a line. If the line is wrong you just leave it and move on which makes sketching fun and liberating and there's a definite charm to describing things with as few lines as possible.

With the risk of this turning into one of those "this is the tool to use" talks, I'd just like to end on the note that of course it's all about what you're comfortable with. It's worth highlighting the benefits of using a tool that makes you take responsibility for your lines and preferably think before you put something down however.

Happy Year of the Tiger!

2010-02-14T03:49:00.003Z

Happy Chinese New Year!

Or Valentine's if you prefer! :)

Gandalf

2010-01-30T08:56:00.009Z

Over the years the most iconic Tolkien character I've seen portrayed is probably Gandalf. It's hard to shake the impression that those great images have made. When drawing this version I remembered an interview with Sir Ian McKellen where he mentioned that his own immodest nose was made even larger for the character of Gandalf.

Caricature of Jason Seiler

2009-12-02T13:34:00.011Z

Bobby Chiu is doing a live interview with caricature artist Jason Seiler at 11:59 pm EST tomorrow (4 Dec, 4:59 am GMT) on his UStream channel. As usual with his interviews, a contest is held in conjunction with the show. This time people are asked to do a caricature of Jason Seiler and the winner will have the courtesy returned by getting their caricature done by Seiler himself.
I've been curious about doing some caricature drawing so this came at a good time.

Much as I tried, I couldn't bring myself distort the features as much as some caricature artists do. It made me wonder if the measure of how good of a caricature artist you are is how much you can distort someone's features, yet still making it look unmistakably like them.

More info about the contest and the streaming on Bobby's Chiustream blog...

Life drawing in charcoal

2009-11-29T00:32:00.003Z

Charcoal is very much a hit and miss medium for me at the moment. Most of the time I find it difficult to control but every now and then something shapes up more than usual.
My first breakthrough was probably when I stopped using the charcoal as a pencil and started using the side of the stick. This brought about an intuitive shift of mind from thinking in terms of lines to focusing more on masses, and that's pretty much the whole idea behind this drawing.

It's amazing to see what masters like Henry Yan can achieve with the same primitive medium. His figure drawing book is on my ever-growing Amazon wish list.

It's been almost exactly a year since my first blog post on life drawing at The Shop in Cambridge, which is still where I go for life drawing. I'm glad to see that there seems to have been some improvement since then.

Leeds Thought Bubble 2009 wrap

2009-11-23T15:58:00.004Z

This was my first time attending Leeds Thought Bubble festival with fellow Manga Shakespeare artist Faye Yong. I had heard good things about the show by people who'd caught it last year so there were certainly expectations but the show managed to be everything I'd hoped for and more!

The convention part of the show was a Saturday-only event and was held in the Savilles hall. Most of the day was spent at the SelfMadeHero table. 1st gen Manga Shakespeare artists Sonia Leong and Emma Vieceli took time from their own tables and popped by to do short signings for their titles (Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet/Much Ado respectively)around mid-day.

Doug from SelfMadeHero hooked us up with giant pads and markers so Faye and I went about sketching out crossovers of our characters from Twelfth Night and Merchant of Venice.

Despite getting only about 4 hours of sleep the night before the Saturday evening party in the next-door casino was something that couldn't be missed. Apart from great people and a bar that was open until the early hours of the morning, they also arranged for comicker DJs and a burlesque drawing session.
Sadly I lost my camera at the casino so the few pictures that were taken seem lost forever. :( The only records I have left now are in my sketchbook.

The Sunday program consisted of workshops and talks. We went to one where Frank Quitely talked about his art and influences which was every interesting. I wasn't very familiar with his work before this but when he showed us a few sample pages with mind-bogging paneling it reminded me of how flexible the comic medium can be. The guy deserves serious respect... :)
Did a sketch of the man in the talk and as he was being interviewed by some students.

And that was the end of Thought Bubble. Many thanks to the wonderful organisers who made the event such a great show to be at! It will be the place to be this time next year so make an effort and GO! :D

"Waking moment"

2009-11-19T00:56:00.004Z

Some time ago the lovely Karen Lusted asked me to be a part of an artbook anthology that she was putting together. The artbook, Secret Colours, was not only going to showcase artwork from UK artists but also show steps in the image-making process.
I asked people on the Sweatdrop forums and on Deviant Art to come up with keywords or catch-phrases of what I should draw and later set up a poll for the final decision. The winning concept was "Waking moment".

I started out with doing a few rough thumbnails to explore the composition. After that I did a rough pencil in light blue over which a tighter pencil drawing was done as the final line art. The blue lines were easily removed in Photoshop, as described here.

The digital painting was done in Photoshop. Here's a small GIF animation showing different steps in the painting process.

Secret Colours can be ordered directly from Karen Lusted at karen_lusted@hotmail.co.uk. There's some more information about the book, including preview photos in her DeviantArt journal.

Caricaturing likeness

2009-11-11T09:44:00.009Z

Fashion designer Jasper Conran stood out to me while watching a program on Sweden's equivalent to BBC's iPlayer (available until 9th Dec, 2009). I thought he had such a caricature-friendly face.

It seems that capturing likenesses is easier if you push the caricature aspect.
It's quite liberating. Instead of meticulously trying to reproduce what you see in the exact relationships that you see it, focus on getting the prominent features down first (the chin and the nose in particular in this case) and working everything around that. It could bring it closer to home.
Caricature could be described as picking out and magnifying flaws, but I wouldn't necessarily think of prominent features as flaws. It's wonderful how different people are, let's celebrate that diversity!

Oh, here's another one of the 2009 Eurovision Song Contest winner, Alexander Rybak (whose song I was rooting for from the moment I heard it, by the way - he has great energy!).

Moon drops

2009-11-07T00:31:00.001Z

Lullatone is an electronica/indie musical couple who describe their music as 'pajama-pop'. Quoted from the Spotify artist bio:

...Seymour moved to Nagoya with her about a year later, where they moved into a tiny apartment. It was there that he was inspired to start writing what he called "tiny songs." Seymour, who didn't sleep much at that time, would stay up late composing and recording lullabies for Tomida, making use of whatever he could get his hands on: xylophones, keyboards, music boxes, /.../ and, as Seymour put it, "a lot of daydreams."

Their songs make me think raindrops, sunshine and unicorns. If you're in the mood for that, check them out on Spotify where most of their albums are available. :)

London Expo 16 over!

2009-10-28T01:04:00.006Z

And so the 16th London MCM Expo is over with yet another record breaking attendance number. This was also the first proper event where people could pick up our new Manga Shakespeare titles Twelfth Night and Merchant of Venice. :D
It was fantastic to be able to share a signing session with fellow Manga Shakespeare artists Faye Yong and Emma Vieceli in the afternoon. Huge thanks to everyone who came and got some books!! When I was told that Twelfth Night had sold out before the end of Saturday I was convinced someone was pulling my leg for sure.

This was also the launch event of Fehed Said's anthology Talking to Strangers, in which I illustrated the short story 'Box'. Since then I've heard rumours that it has caused various degrees of unease, to the point of nightmares so I imagine that Mr Said must be satisfied.

Saturday is always the busiest day and this time the air conditioning system seemed to have reached the limit of its capacity. It was very hot in the convention hall but that didn't seem to get people's spirits down... much.

I spent most Sunday exploring the convention and the Comics Village was definitely the place to be. Not that the rest of expo wasn't exciting but nothing beats being able to meet creators and check out their work. My favourite purchases this day were probably an original watercolour drawing from Sarah McIntyre and an amazing drawing of Rock Lee on cardboard by Will Kirkby which is now decorating my wall.

Sunday ended with a surprise offer to help out with the judging of the cosplay competition which was great fun. There were some fantastic costumes in there!

It's been a crazy weekend! Highlights? The art and the people! :)

Girl sketch

2009-10-10T21:49:00.006+01:00

Hot off the drawing board. I'm doing some little girl sketches at the moment in preparation for the next big project I'll be working on. :)

The girl's hands made me think of this other sketch I did a few days ago for one of Bobby Chiu's live streaming sessions. The theme was "big and graceful". Maybe it's a preview of what the future might hold for that little girl after too many close encounters with Crispy Creme doughnuts...

Talking to Strangers - Out soon!

2009-10-06T23:10:00.016+01:00

A girl trapped in a box, a boy chained to a rock and a friendship between a child and a flower. These are just a few of the themes that storyteller Fehed Said explores in this collection.
Joining Fehed Said, the acclaimed writer behind SLG's Clarence Principle, and Sonia Leong, the award winning artist behind SMH's Romeo & Juliet is a sterling lineup of the UK's best new talent. Featuring artwork from Nana Li, Wing Yun Man, Chloe Citrine and Faye Yong.

Talking to Strangers is an anthology of short stories all written by the talented Fehed Said. I've been very lucky to be part of this anthology and he was also kind enough to ask me to do the artwork for the cover.
The book has been a long time in the making, with a great deal of time and effort put in by both Fehed and girlfriend Faye so it's great to see it finally revealed!

The short that I illustrated is called 'Box'. Not recommended for people with claustrophobia! ;)

Talking To Strangers is due for release on 24th October 2009 at the London MCM Expo and available to buy online from the Sweatdrop Studios website.

The full press release along with more preview pages can be viewed HERE.

Old man sketch

2009-10-03T16:08:00.006+01:00

I decided to have a little wrestle with charcoal. It's a medium I first encountered in life drawing class, but usually for the most rudimentary line drawings and not at all for exploring the range of value that charcoal offers. Handled well, I've seen people do fantastically rendered drawings with it, but that's always the core of the problem eh? Handled well...

For me, using charcoal feels like being a toddler, grabbing that pencil with my fist and trying to control the unpredictable lines it makes. It's a very flexible medium, but it's not a pencil. Considering the 20-some years I've been handling a pencil, maybe patience is the key.

Norwich workshop at The Forum

2009-09-25T10:27:00.002+01:00

This is a bit late notice, but I will run a workshop in conjunction with an East Meets East event in Norwich tonight. Pop by if you're in the neighbourhood! :)
Location: The Forum, Norwich, Norfolk
Time: 5.30 pm - 9.30 pm

Chiustream Caveman

2009-09-20T18:43:00.005+01:00

Bobby Chiu over at Imaginism studios is doing a series of live painting sessions while filling up a sketchbook of his work that will be published. Meanwhile he invites people all over the world to paint along with him. A theme is chosen and the stop clock is set to one hour. At the end of the hour Bobby picks one of the paintings and does his own version of it.
Today the theme was 'caveman' so I decided to do a little art nerd caveman. The time given was 1 hour, but I started late so it probably ended up being 45 minutes.

It's quite amazing how the internet has transformed how we can interact with each other. Bobby Chiu is an amazingly inspiring and giving artist so if you haven't checked him out, DO!!

Where to find him:
Imaginism Studios
Imaginism Blog
Podcasts on Youtube
Chiustreaming on Ustream

HGO Life drawing: Day 3

2009-09-19T12:26:00.006+01:00

In the third day of the first week we covered the basics of head construction. I had never seen this particular way of head construction before so it was very useful. It's a lot easier handle the head if you break it down into regions and surfaces. I often fall into the trap of focusing on details before the structure is understood. The construction lines help by simplifying the structure so that you can locate the broad shapes before narrowing down on details like eyes and lips. I feel that this way it's less likely that you will end up with wonky and uneven features.

Here's a video of a head drawing where I try to follow the construction steps we learnt. I'm afraid that the lighting is quite bad however, so it's hard to see the lines.

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HGO Life drawing: Day 1
HGO Life drawing: Day 2

HGO Life drawing: Day 2

2009-09-18T18:44:00.003+01:00

It's been a bit of a break since my last post on the life drawing course I did at the University of Gotland this summer. The first 4 days of the course were probably some of the most intense ones. On day 2 we did some focusing on arms and legs. The big take-away thing for me this day was probably the way the shoulder can be visualised as being a flat plate connected to the collar bones. The plate can be seen as the end of the cylinder which forms the arm and helps in describing the direction of the arm.

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HGO Life drawing: Day 1

Snake bite

2009-09-18T03:17:00.011+01:00

These are part of some of illustrations I did as a test for The Naked Scientist podcast. The article was on whether or not snakes are susceptible to their own venom. Apparently, to some degree, they are! :)

(Click for GIF animation)

Snakes are rather expressionless so I had to figure out how to draw them. I wanted flexibility in expression so I took a lot of inspiration from Disney's Kaa (The Jungle Book) and Sir Hiss (Robin Hood). A cool thing about snakes is that that you can pretty much shape their body any way you want for desired effect. In the example above the whole joke is based on the flexibilty of the snake body.

Since we're on the topic of Disney, while I was in Visby this summer I discovered a copy of The Illusion of Life at the local library. It's truly a treasure trove on the origins of the Walt Disney Studios, the invention of Disney animation and information on what makes their drawings so special. It's so easy to take Disney animation for granted and sometimes I even sense that they're thought of as the big bully when it comes to animated features, but looking back, the way they pioneered animation is simply astounding. Gradually I've come to realise that there's a lot that can be learnt from animation for any kind of artist, especially when it comes to expression, form and gesture.
A great source on gesture in particular is Walt Stanchfields Drawn to Life books. They're two thick books consisting of notes which were distributed by Stanchfield to the animators at Disney over the course of many years. There is so much insight about drawing, mentality and creativity on these pages that it's taking me ages to get through even the first volume.
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The Naked Scientist - link
Illusion of Life - Amazon
Drawn to Life - Amazon: Vol. 1, Vol. 2

Copy of Emily Sargent

2009-09-16T11:37:00.005+01:00

A pencil copy of John Singer Sargent's painting of his sister, Emily Sargent from cc. 1877. I used a 2B and a 6B pencil for most of the drawing and a 9B for laying down the big dark areas.

The original painting can be found at the Art Renewal Centre .

12th Night preview pages

2009-08-20T10:06:00.012+01:00

I've just realised that there are now some preview pages for Twelfth Night on the SelfMadeHero website. Please check it out! :)

The official release date is the 21st of September but it is already possible to pre-order Twelfth Night on Amazon.

Stockholm Skeppsbrokajen

2009-08-11T11:42:00.009+01:00

While in Sweden I took the chance to pop up to Luleå, the town that I grew up in, this last weekend. It's been about 3 years since I last saw my friends up there so it was great to catch up. Two unexpected encounters with old classmates and a summer storm (love the summer storms up north!) were some of the highlights of the trip.

On the way back for my last few weeks in Visby I had a few hours to spare in Stockholm so I took a walk from the train station down the main shopping street Drottningatan, past the house of parliament and through Old Town down to the water (a very popular tourist streak). These sketches were drawn on the pier at the edge of Old Town where you can get a ferry that takes you on a sightseeing tour along the shores of Stockholm. (Why do I feel like I'm writing a tourism advert?)

View Larger Map

Visby Medieval Week

2009-08-06T12:32:00.014+01:00

Around this time every year, the town of Visby gets invaded by all manners of people dressed in medieval clothing. Some are natives but many come from all over the country as well as from abroad. It's a sign that the annual Medieval festival is about to start!
We're in the middle of medieval week right now and I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't enjoying every moment of it. Unfortunately I haven't been able to see as much as I would've liked to but it's pretty much impossible to escape the medieval people.
The other night I was walking home along the old city wall which passes the medieval market. A big group of medieval people were playing flutes and drums around a campfire - all this under a gorgeous full moon. I felt whisked away to another world.
A colleague at work told me she moved back to Visby after spending some years on the mainland (Visby is on the island of Gotland) because there's just something magical about this town. I can believe it.

These are some sketches from a performance of the Swiss musical group Koenix. They play "loud and impulsive medieval music on bagpipes and drums", perfect for the theme of the festival. I really enjoyed their performance and it was fun to try and to capture their movements.

The first sketches were done with Stablio coloured pencils and the last ones with an Akayashi Sai watercolour bush pen in burnt umber. I only bought one of these brush pens to try it out. It feels great but I've only used it as an ink brush. It would be fun to try it with water as well.

P.S. If you ever want to visit Visby during Medieval week (or most other times during the summer for that matter), be sure to book accommodation early! This event is extremely popular and finding housing can be difficult.

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Visby Medieval Week - link
Koenix - link
Akayashi Sai watercolour brush pens - Jetpens

Bee head

2009-07-29T17:41:00.005+01:00

A sketch where I tried to make use of some of the things we've done in life drawing class.

Visby - Summer evening sketch

2009-07-24T19:45:00.006+01:00

This is the view I see from the back of a computing lab at HGO at this very moment. It's a beautiful, warm summer evening and it would seem that a family is having a garden party. What an idyllic picture of Swedish summer at it's best!

HGO Life drawing: Day 1

2009-07-20T09:38:00.010+01:00

I've finally scanned in some life drawing sketches from the first week of class at the University of Gotland (HGO). We're already 6 weeks in now but somehow I feel that those first intense days were some of the most rewarding ones. That week we were burning through paper at a furious rate. It was exhausting but fun as well. Pernilla would go around looking at people's work one at the time and angle her advise to each person's level.
There was a lot to go through in those first 3 ½ days since we had get along on our own for the subsequent 3 weeks . I was a bit disappointed when I realised how little actual model & teaching time we had in the course. Pernilla commutes to Gotland for a few days once every few weeks. In between we have a model for one afternoon each week and a weekly assignment to send to Pernilla.
In a way it probably could have been expected since HGO is not an art school. Many of the people attending the class are either current Game Development of Industrial Design students at HGO and they get models through another local art school. Still, I would have loved to have a few intense days like those first ones every week. I think the effects would be quite noticeable.

I've compiled som drawings from the first day. Comparing with more recent drawings, these seem more lively and spontaneous... but also a lot messier. It might be because we were focusing on movement and gesture at the very beginning. A lot of people were pretty much beginners at life drawing so it was important to establish some proceedure. In later weeks we started looking more at form and we got a (*cough* stiffer *cough*) male model, so the drawings lost some of the spark in my opinion.

Some notes from the first day:

Start by getting the overall rythm/direction of the body. S-curves or C-curves (if bent over) are often great for this.
Use curved lines to get the movement and the gesture, but avoid symmetry. Let the lines flow into each other through the body while pushing from one extreme to the other.

The direction/angle of the shoulders is not necessarily the same as the torso. The shoulders can move somewhat independently.
The nipples, on the other hand, are good markers for determining the angle of the ribcage.
The S-curved is used all the time to describe organic shapes, get used to it!
The "body bean" is a good shorthand for describing stretch, compression and twist.
Use the neck/head line as a marker when drawing the head from the back. It indicates the tilt and direction of the head which can often be hard to see from the back.

As a final note, this type of life drawing is most famously taught by Glenn Vilppu who has a great video series to complement his Vilppu Drawing Manual. It's a form of life drawing that lends itself well to animeation, and comics for that matter, since you learn to construct the body without a model.

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University of Gotland (HGO) - link
Life Drawing at HGO - link
Pernilla Persson - link
Glenn Vlippu - link

The King is Dead

2009-06-26T02:15:00.012+01:00

I got into pop music way too late to have caught the Michael Jackson wave but he was a legend and touched so many lives. The world's reaction is a testament to his greatness.

For the first time I spent some time watching his videos on Youtube. I was watching a song called Beat It when it struck me how expressive and full of gesture his dancing style is.
We may exaggerate people's gestures to create more lively and expressive poses (which they often do in animation), but in Jackson 's case he is that exaggeration. His dancing is constantly pushing the limits... bending, stretching, twisting and turning.

I did a Google image search for "Michael Jackson gesture", and found Alex Woo, who has worked as a story artist on Wall-E. He taught a life drawing class back in 2008 where he used Jackson as an example for gesture drawing and camera awareness (link). He makes the point that Jackson is a master at positioning himself as to create the most striking and readable silhouette against the camera, and that artists shouldn't be afraid of manipulating poses to clarify the action.

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Beat It on Youtube - (link)
Alex Woo - link
Michael Jackson gives some insight into gesture drawing - link

First post from Visby

2009-06-21T22:18:00.010+01:00

There's quite a lot I want to talk about. Meeting with the wonderful Yosh and Soya of the Swedish manga collective Yokaj Studio for one, my courses in life drawing and concept art at Gotland University are others, but in the midst of settling in, starting a part time job and keeping up with coursework my time management has proved insufficient so for now I'll update with tonight's view of Visby.

I spent the day working at the university since their computers can handle a lot more than my little laptop. The university is right by the sea and as I started heading back the sun was just setting. Couldn't recall when I saw a sunset last, so I sat down on the wharf, watched the sun go down and sketched a family with two kids sitting on the pebble beach below me. It was very relaxing... just wish the sun hadn't sunk so fast. :)

It's very beautiful here. I feel like there's a new and wonderful scenery to discover every other day. Visby is a great vacation spot especially around early/mid June, before the bulk of the tourists invade. I hear there's quite some night life to be had here as well, although I've yet to experience that. :)

Summer on Gotland

2009-06-06T22:46:00.003+01:00

At the moment of writing I'm in Stockholm, sitting in the home of an old acquaintance of the family which is where I've been sleeping for the last two nights. Stockholm is just a intermediate stop. Tomorrow I'm off to Visby and the University of Gotland, where I'll be taking a 10-week course in Life drawing with Pernilla Persson. At the same time, I'll also be doing the long-distance course Concept Art II, led by Leo Sandberg. Looking forward to both!

I didn't use to think that Sweden had much to offer in terms of education for entertainment art, but you never know what a little digging can yield. The great thing about Swedish education is that it's free, and I don't think you need to be a Swedish citizen to benefit from it. Compared to the complicated UK UCAS system, it was so easy for me to register for these courses - a few clicks for the mouse and that was it. Although, that might be because I do in fact have Swedish social security number.

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University of Gotland (HGO) - link
Life Drawing at HGO - link
Concept Art II at HGO - link
Pernilla Persson - link
Leo Sandberg - link

Removing blue lines

2009-05-31T15:15:00.000+01:00

The big reason behind using blue lines, apart from helping you see on the paper is that it can be easily removed in Photoshop. The same goes for red and green (RGB), but I just happen to like blue better. The blue pencil that I've fallen in love with is Uni-ball's 0.5 mm soft blue mechanical pencil. Sadly they're not sold in the UK as far as I know, but they're available online from stores like JetPens.

Start out by scanning your drawing in colour. I believe that most scanners scan in RGB mode by default. What this means is that the colour in your drawing is split into three channels, Red, Green and Blue.
In this case my pencils are blue so what I do is select the Blue channel. All the blue then disappears from the visible image, but it's still there. If your underdrawing was red, you'd click the red channel instead, and similarily for green.
In order to get rid of the colour permanently I go to Image>Mode>Grayscale.
Finally I adjust the Levels (Image>Adjustments>Levels, or Ctrl+L) to enhance the contrast of the lines. What I've found to work best is to move the rightmost lever a little bit to the left (this gets rid of the greyness of the paper) and the middle lever a bit to the right(which darkens the lines).

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JetPens - Shop

Using blue lines

2009-05-30T12:08:00.002+01:00

There was a time when I used to think that if you couldn't nail your drawing in the first try, somehow that meant that you were a lesser artist. In recent months after listening to tons of podcasts and learning about different artists working processes I realised that more often that not, most people tend to have some kind of a rough stage.
Illustrators like James Jean can go through several series of roughs, each one gradually tidying up the concept until the final drawing is the end result. It's easy to gloss over the effort behind a well executed and well-planned illustration.

This is some work James Jean did for AND1 Shoes.

The way I draw is pretty sketchy, mostly because I'm not sure exactly what I want so I use all of those sketchy lines as little tendrils to explore possibilities. If things get too messy though, it gets difficult to tidy up and pull out details so I feel limited.
I've praised the usefulness of colour leads in a previous post, but at that point I didn't realised how important this method would become to me. Just about all of the pages in Twelfth Night were drawn by first laying down a rough in blue lines before going in and drawing the details with a normal mechanical pencil.
I believe that what James Jean does is to scan in his roughs, print it out lightly in colour and do the next stage on top of that, which is essentially the same thing.

This is a page of pencils from Twelfth Night which shows my blue lines.

Tomorrow: Removing blue lines

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James Jean artwork courtesy of JJeanius.net
James Jean - Website
Twelfth Night - SelfMadeHero

London Expo portraits

2009-05-29T18:33:00.008+01:00

Last weekend (23-24 May) was the May edition of London MCM Expo. I shared a table with Kat and Dave from Studio Two Sides Wide on the Saturday. Since I had literally only just finished Twelfth Night a few days before Expo, there was no time to prepare anything new to sell. Kat came back from a three-week-long trip to Ghana for her university project the same morning of Expo so she didn't have much time to prepare either. To earn back the table cost we started doing on-site commissions, of which "manga portraits" proved the most popular. There was hardly a moment to spare on the Saturday, but the Saturdays are always extremely busy.

Here are a few that were drawn that weekend:

There were also few which I didn't have time to finish during the Expo so I drew them back home. This also gave me a chance to scan the artwork properly.
This group of lovely ladies were cosplaying characters from Negima.

Something I must remember to do next time is to ask people for their eye colour. It's very difficult to see in a blurry photo and since manga eyes are so big, it becomes quite an important piece of information.
For anyone who might be waiting for their portrait and might be reading this, I mailed them out today. :)

There were quite a few people who asked me about my tools. I tend to use Copic Ciao markers for my convention sketches. Copic had a stall at Expo for the first time this year so it was easy to point them in the right direction.

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London MCM Expo, website.
Studio Two Sides Wide, website.
Copic Markers, website.

Twelfth Night is completed!

2009-05-28T14:26:00.007+01:00

Last week I finished my work on Twelfth Night for SelfMadeHero.

Since starting the work in October 2008 I think I've learnt a fair amount. For one, that churning out 200 comic pages is no small feat! Mostly it's made me a lot more comfortable with drawing people and poses. During uni I really didn't draw much, so every drawing I did required considerable effort to make it look right. Twelfth Night has helped me figure out and get comfortable with a process that works for me (much thanks to my blue pencil) so drawing difficult poses isn't as daunting any more.
Soon I'll be posting a little bit more about using blue pencil for underdrawing.

Now a little early plugging for the book... Twelfth Night will be out in stores in September 2009! Meanwhile, the article series on the production of the book which I've been writing for NEO magazine will continue in August.
Last weekend a girl came up to my table at London MCM Expo and told me that she had already pre-ordered it which made my day! It is a strange feeling to see the book listed on Amazon before you've even finished it.

It's been a big project with many ups and downs along the way, certainly, but in the end I can't wait to hold the book in my hands, and that should be a good sign.

Twelfth Night Feature in NEO 58 - Cover and Character Design

2009-04-27T12:14:00.003+01:00

The third feature on the production of Twelfth Night is out in NEO magazine, issue 58!
This one talks about the process of designing the cover, showing the (many) discarded thumbnail designs and the thoughts choices that were made in rendering the final image. There are also some more thoughts behind the character designs and you get to see a full line-up of the ensemble.

The two previous features on pitching and world design can be found in NEO issue 56 and 57 respectively. I'm not entirely sure if back issues can be ordered, although I'm under the impression that they can.

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NEO Magazine - http://neomag.co.uk/
SelfMadeHero - http://selfmadehero.com/

Mid-day nap

2009-04-08T22:28:00.007+01:00

A bit of doodling in ArtRage. I find the tools rather hard to handle, but the result sure is unexpected. This doodle started out as a black mark I made by accident when trying out the Wacom tablet shortcuts. I didn't bother to erase the black mark and in the end it grew to become the star of the show.

3AM instant shot

2009-04-08T03:11:00.004+01:00

This is what my desk looks like at the moment of writing. Twelfth Night is progressing... however slowly.

Also, I just found out about the Ninja Mountain podcast with a few familiar names in it, amongst others Andy Hepworth who was one of the finalists in the 2006 Tokyopop Rising Stars of Manga UK & Ireland competition. I haven't reached episode 8 yet, but I'm looking forward to hearing Mattias Snygg (Swedish pride!) who's artwork I've been aware of for some time.
The podcast has been very good so far. The hosts have been working in the art field for some time so there are a lot of good tips for people who are new to the industry.

Devil's Tooth

2009-03-27T02:04:00.008Z

Something from a dream last night. I rarely remember my dreams unless I go back to sleep after first waking up, which happened this morning. And I overslept.

The Devil's tooth marks the steepest point in a mountain range completely enclosing a hidden valley (think meteor crater), which is why (although it makes no sense now that I think about it) a lift system was built there.
There is a second part which I remember, which was more spectacular by far but it's too late to paint that now.

Time taken: ~ 30 mins

Relaxed

2009-03-16T20:00:00.006Z

A bit of a play with shading and trying to go for a more realistic look than normal. Got a bit lazy in the ribcage area. Wasn't quite sure how to shade it.
No reference. Time taken: An hour+?

Oily back

2009-03-12T02:38:00.005Z

Speed sketch, 10-15 mins. Half used a reference image but mostly improvised.

Good night world!

Gloomy swamp

2009-03-05T12:21:00.005Z

It's been a while since I painted so here's a quickie. Time taken: 20-30 mins.

The Making of Twelfth Night in NEO

2009-03-02T21:15:00.005Z

As mentioned in my previous post, I've been working on an adaptation of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night for SelfMadeHero. Simultaneously, housemate Faye Yong is working on her Merchant of Venice. Progress art for her and the other coming titles can be viewed on the Manga Shakespeare Ning network.
There have been no progress shots of Twelfth Night so far, and for a good reason. Starting with the current issue of NEO magazine (issue 56), there will be a series of six features showing every step in the creation of Twelfth Night - from concepts to finish.

In this first issue I introduce myself, talk about my background and how I got in touch with SelfMadeHero.

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SelfMadeHero - Twelfth Night
NEO Magazine
Manga Shakespeare on Ning

2AM Blues

2009-01-25T02:19:00.013Z

Another late-night paint sketch that started with throwing down some random brush strokes and seeing what emerged. It's a fun and spontaneous exercise.

Us humans are a narcissistic breed. We tend to see our likeness in the most abstract shapes (take Scott McCloud's example in Understanding Comics, a smiley for instance :) ), so it's probably not too surprising that it ended up looking that way to me and I reinforced what I thought I saw.

This dude was the end result. With this cropping I thought it looked a bit like a CD jacket.

The progress shot shows that the painting was started in the template I use for my work on Twelfth Night. I've been thumbnailing for the last few days. It's probably the most challenging and creatively demanding step in the comic creation process for me, but that also makes it the most rewarding. If the underlying structure is boring every step in the process to follow, from pencilling to inking to toning, will feel like a drag because I know that the page will be lacking no matter what.

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Scott McCloud: scottmccloud.com
Understanding Comics: Amazon - Mandatory reading for any comic fan

Bizarre pair

2009-01-21T02:00:00.010Z

A late-night paint sketch in Photoshop.
It started with random brush strokes which I kept building on until I saw something emerge. I was going to save some intermediate steps but forgot after the first one.

I was trying to make the global values read well, but I think the details ended up overshadowing the general composition. Maybe I started shading too early.
Time taken ~ 1.5 hours.

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-24T15:14:00.005Z

The painting was done using a gradient layer set to Overlay over a greyscale painting in Photoshop. Final colour tweaks were made, trying to bring up the brightness and warmth using adjustment layers. This is the season to be jolly, after all!

Happy holidays! :)

By candle light

2008-12-14T01:12:00.005Z

Growing up in Sweden, there were plenty of opportunities to play in the snow. In order to make sure that I didn't loose my mittens in the cold, my parents tied them together using a long string which was thread in through one sleeve of the coat and out through the other so that they were always hanging off my sleeves.

Considering the number of gloves I've lost since I outgrew that method, maybe it's not such a bad idea...

Time taken, 45 min- 1 hour.

On Sargent...

2008-12-08T00:27:00.007Z

Yesterday I posted a copy of a painting by famous 19th century artist John Singer Sargent (1856-1925). A greatly successful portrait painter and muralist even during his lifetime, his popularity survives until this day.

I initially stumbled across Sargent's name while trolling the depths of the ConceptArt.org forums, where I found him frequently mentioned with great reverence. A quick search for his work reveals why. One of the first works I found by him, El Jaleo, left a strong impression. The gracefulness and dramatic lighting creates an enchanting mood.

Finding Sargent so frequently mentioned on the ConceptArt.org forums is no coincidence, I reckon. Sargent is well known for his genial choice of colours, allowing for a seemingly effortless ability to capture the essence of a picture through a few brush strokes.
This is best felt when looking at thumbnails of some of his paintings, which look perfectly rendered from afar, but when zooming in it can be seen that the brush strokes which make up the picture are surprisingly coarse.

In today's entertainment industry there is a high demand for large quantities of conceptual work, supplied by artists such as those found on ConceptArt.org. Apart from quality, speed is an important skill required from these artists. The need to communicate as much as possible, as effectively as possible makes artists like Sargent excellent to study.
A contemporary master of the art of using a little to communicate a lot is Craig Mullins. His resumé includes concepts for franchises like Final Fantasy, Harry Potter, Age of Empires and James Bond.

---
John Singer Sargent @ ARC
ConceptArt.org
Craig Mullins - GoodBrush.com

Pictures courtesy of ARC and GoodBrush.com

Sargent copy

2008-12-07T01:20:00.005Z

A copy of a portrait by John Singer Sargent, one of the great 19th century painters,

I decided to do a tonal study so the original painting was converted into grey scale. The time taken was about 2 hours, although as often is the case with paintings, most of it was done after just half the time. The last hour was spent tweaking the details to add that final touch of realism. The eyedropper was only used once at the beginning of the painting to find "black", i.e. the darkest shade, in the original.
It should be fairly obvious, but the original is to the left.

---
John Singer Sargent @ The Art Renewal Centre

Head painting

2008-12-05T22:29:00.005Z

A free practice painting in Photoshop, without reference photo.
I suspect that I started refining too early. More shades on the rough block-in stage would probably have helped the final result.

Victorian & Edwardian Photographs

2008-12-04T22:20:00.003Z

This was the find of the day - an image archive with hundreds of vintage photos. I especially liked the ones of people with outrageous bicycles. You have to wonder what the big idea with those was...

Victorian & Edwardian Photographs - Roger Vaughan Personal Collection

Another incredibly cute find... This 9-year-old boy, Alec Greven, has an early start on becoming a serious ladies' man. The book he wrote, How to Talk to Girls, is illustrated by Kei Acedera from Imaginism Studios.

Green ribbon

2008-12-02T23:13:00.009Z

A speed painting in Photoshop. I had a go with some textured brushes. The time taken was probably a little over an hour. The main parts were in place after less than half that time, but quite a while was spent trying to tighten it up, especially the face. Unfortunately the end result lost some of the movement and fluidity compared of the rough block-in.

I just wanna live

2008-12-01T20:20:00.005Z

Overheard at Clowns, a popular café in central Cambridge.

Tezuka's Paneling

2008-11-30T23:10:00.006Z

Osamu Tezuka is often hailed as the God of manga. It's taken me a good while to start reading his work but so far I've been pleasantly surprised. As old as these things are, the stories are still relevant and they read pretty well. It's easy to see why they changed the face of manga back then.

Tezuka is known for being pretty experimental for his time. Recently I've been reading his Ode to Kirihito. Most of the book has a very clear panel layout and narrative but these two pages stood out a bit. Nowadays this type of irregular panelling would hardly raise a brow, but I wonder if it would have been perceived as pretty out there back when it was published in the 70's.

The question is how effective this kind of jigsaw type of panelling is. I find myself struggling to figure out in what order the panels are supposed to be read. It could be argued that since these panels are used in a collage fashion to give you a visual blast, it doesn't really matter. As interesting as it may look, the fact that you have to stop and think about how to read it defeats the purpose to me.
It could be that the purpose of the creator is to generate a sense of psychological unease, in which case I think this type of paneling would work pretty well, but having read these two pages in context, neither warrants large amount of unease.

It can be a challenge to balance between interesting page layouts and readability. Paul Duffield and Kate Brown did great jobs on this for SelfMadeHero's Manga Shakespeare line - their titles are The Tempest and A Midsummer Night's Dream respectively.

Being Shakespeare, the beautiful and often abstract page layouts compliment the poetical language. At the same time, the narrative is kept flowing steadily so the reader can immerse themselves in the story.
(And for the record, I'm not just saying this just because I happen to be working on a title of my own.)

---
Paul Duffield - spoonbard
Kate Brown @ Deviantart
Manga Shakespeare - SelfMadeHero

Twelfth Night for SelfMadeHero

2008-11-29T20:02:00.009Z

Since October, and for the next couple of months onwards, I've been working full time on the graphic novel adaptation of Shakespear's Twelfth Night for SelfMadeHero's Manga Shakespeare line. It will end up as 193 black & white comic pages and 9 coloured character pages. The colour pages are already done and I'm working on the first batch of pages from the abridged script. Sadly I can't show any work in progress at the moment but the cover and some information about the title has been released on SelfMadeHero's website.

Fast food chains, sale labels, road signs - things that are designed to steal your attention tend use the primary colours, red, blue and yellow. I decided to apply similar reasoning for my cover design. Each character is dominated by a primary, but it's not quite as eye-catching as say, a Burger King sign.

The composition is simple but I hoped that it would read more easily this way.
There were about 10 alternative cover thumbnails of varying complexity, but in the end it was the very first one that I drew that got chosen. Perhaps that says something about that first intuitive idea you have when given a new assignment.
For the same reason I find it very difficult to keep my comic page thumbnails rough. The strongest imagery come from the first time I immerse myself in the a script, so I tend to put down little details before I forget them. On one hand it's good in that the first impression is preserved but on the other hand it makes me more reluctant to scrap things and start over from scratch, which is needed sometimes.

Friday life drawing

2008-11-28T21:54:00.003Z

Today was the last session for this term. Once again, we had a male model.
I think my focus was not as good as last time. It was quite hard to see things with an analytical eye. No excuses, but I wonder if the fidgety and bored-looking model could have had something to do with it.

The Cambridge University Architecture Undergraduate Handbook strongly encourages first years to attend these sessions. At the end of the class I asked one of the architecture students about how life drawing was supposed to help them in their studies. He didn't seem to be quite sure himself. I can imagine that architectural drawings must be quite different from life drawing, but perhaps this enforces the idea that life drawing is a strong basis for any kind of art.

Dancer

2008-11-27T22:38:00.004Z

Usually I use mechanical pencils, but recently I bought a pack of medium soft Derwents for life drawing class. I never realised traditional pencils had such potential. It's ironic, considering it's usually he first writing/drawing medium given to you as a kid.

By gripping the pencil from above and using the entire arm instead of just the wrist I felt that it was a lot easier to create fluid lines. The size of the paper is A4.

Sketches from China

2008-11-26T21:06:00.007Z

A sketch I made while I was in China this summer...

It's from the Tang Dynasty Cultural Park in Xi An. The park is an artificial reconstruction of what the Tang dynasty supposedly would have looked like, so the impressive-looking buildings have no historical value. They are very shiny though.

The weather had been extremely hot and stuffy that day, but as dusk approached a rain cloud breezed past in the distance. For a moment the light took on the golden sheen which contrasted nicely against the dark clouds in the distance. Even though we didn't get any of the cooling rain, the wind took most of the heat away so it was a great evening to spend in the beautiful and uncharacteristically empty park.

Setting goals

2008-11-25T16:32:00.004Z

Many people who list manga as their prime, perhaps even only influence are quite young when they start drawing and do it mostly for fun. Speaking from personal experience, when I started out all I wanted to draw was "manga-people". My parents, once they noticed my new hobby, sensibly suggested that I should try studying real people but I would turn my nose up at the thought - real people weren't pretty!

For a few years I learnt by copying and studying other manga artists and in the beginning the improvement was quite rapid. Learning the box & ball anatomy took some effort... folds quite a while, and don't get me started on the hands, but eventually things started to shape up.
Now, the first few years were great, every other new drawing I was drawing something for the first time and I had fun improving. But after that, things plateaued. When I started my goal was to learn how to draw pretty manga pictures. So what do you do when your pictures start looking pretty? Personally, I stopped improving.

That being said, not everyone aims for constant improvement. Drawing for fun is fine, more than fine, terrific! It beats shopping or drinking your allowance away if you ask me.
My point is, if you are looking to improve your art, whether it's for fun or dead serious - being aware of where your goals lie is a very good idea. At that time I thought I had reached my goals, and for the time being I had.
A few years later I found new goals and started bashing myself for having stopped improving but looking back now I'm realising that it was a matter of maturity. Your frame of mind grows just as you do so there's no point in regretting lack of insight from those early days. The best thing to do to avoid stagnation is to make sure that you keep on developing your art as well as your mind.

Mushroom Fighter!

2008-11-24T18:59:00.014Z

Saturday was mine and Faye's workshop on "Designing your futuristic manga hero" at the Victoria & Albert museum.
We decided to approach the subject by showing that inspiration for outlandish character designs can be found just about anywhere. Google image search provided some random imagery and I did a pre-design on the train to London...

... after a quick breakfast. I swear, these make me look forward to train journeys.

Can you spot all the images used in her design? It shouldn't be too difficult.

The backstory involves a future where humans are cultivating space mushrooms which are in constant peril of being garbled up by giant grasshopper-like aliens. Our heroine is a pestilence fighter, wearing a lethal chemical pack and brandishing a set of anti-pestilence emitters, whose light repel any hoppers which might sneak up on her from the back.

Right. Maybe it's not an award winning design, but you get the idea.
The second point we wanted to make in the workshop was that a world and a back story is essential for a believable character design.

Life drawing at The Shop

2008-11-21T17:12:00.006Z

Fridays 2-4 pm, The Shop, Cambridge is on my agenda from now onwards for life drawing sessions.
Today was the second time I went and we had a male model, which apparently is quite rare. Whenever I've been to life drawing so far it's been pretty evenly distributed between male and female models, so I'm guessing my sampling population is still too small.

The life drawing classes are organised by the Cambridge University Architecture Society and is open to the public. Each session is a mere £2 for members (anyone can join for £15) and £4 for non-members.
The sessions are quite informal. There is a teacher who will dictate the length of the poses and suggest things to focus on, but you are also free to do your own studies. Drawing material is supplied, but today I grabbed my own pad since I find huge sheets of loose paper hard to handle.

It 's interesting how the first drawing of the day turned out rather badly, but how things got progressively better. It's a bit like exercising I guess, warm-ups are needed.

Most of the poses were around 5 minutes. These are roughly in the order they were drawn.

If there's something I don't get it's blind drawing, where you look only at the model and not at the paper. The teacher was introducing it as a way to loosen up and get some new marks down. We were also encouraged to use out left hand. When it comes to blind drawing I found that it doesn't matter what hand I use, the result ends up the same, which is pretty interesting.
The final pose was 25 minutes.

At the moment I have quite a hard time controlling the medium - charcoal in particular, since I have almost no previous experience with it. You can get some nice subtle shades with charcoal by smudging it, but for me it ends up rather messy. Also, drawing big seems essential. With my sligtly-larger-than-A4 sketch pad it was difficult to do any renders at all with charcoal.
Instead, I found it easier to use a soft 6B pencil, only I forgot to bring a sharpener so it quickly got worn down.

The Shop - Cambridge Open Art Space

2008-11-14T18:24:00.007Z

The Shop is an open art space and meeting point for artists in Cambridge, run by a group of volunteers. Apart from life drawing sessions (which is linked to the Cambridge University Architecture Society) it hosts other workshops (Cambridge Comic Creators Collective, a.k.a. C4, for one) and also yoga and dance classes.

It's a great art space and for a insignificant membership fee of £6 (£12 if you've got a steady job) you can use the venue and the materials it freely. The life drawing sessions are by far the cheapest I've been able to find in Cambridge.

I was told by one of the people behind The Shop that the premises are owned by Jesus College. It has been let on a short term basis until it will supposedly be turned into a hotel in two years time.
The place itself is not huge. As far as I've been able to gather, there's only one main work area, but it's large enough to accommodate for a life drawing group of 20-25 people quite comfortably.

Did I mention they have a tea corner as well? What more do you need?

The address is:

18 Jesus Lane,
Cambridge CB5 8BQ

It's located smack in the centre of Cambridge which makes it very easily accessible for people in the area.

More information about The Shop and an activity schedule can be found on their homepage.

The Shop

Space doll and V&A workshop

2008-11-01T21:31:00.008Z

The futuristic designs in this sketch wasn't intentional at first, but as the figure was laid down I realised that it couldn't hurt to brush up those scifi sensibilities since I'll be co-running a workshop on the theme of 'future' later this month.

Scifi is not really a genre I'm very invested in (being more of a fantasy-person) so there's not much I can say about the designs. There are enough second skin suits out there for inspiration.
To get something useful into this post, I'm looking at the composition instead. These are two ways in which I think this composition works.

The first one is global and similar to how you would plan a comic page - the path of the eye. The positions of the elements in the image form a smooth path from the top left corner of the image, brings the eye across the figure and down to the bottom right corner, so that the entire image is swept. At the same time, the dome on the right hand side of the girl forms a stopper which keeps the eye on the page.
The central figure rests in a compositional valley. Just like a ball set to roll between two hills, the eye will tend to return to the valley.

Another example of the same compositional trick. This landscape painting is hanging in the Irish National Gallery in Dublin. It's possibly by George Barret, but I'm not entirely positive. The shrubbery forms stops on either side of the painting and brings your attention to the woman on the road.

The second composition has to do with the figure at rest. The pyramidal structure speaks of stability. There's a good reason the Egyptian Pyramids have withstood the sands of time!

The workshop I'll be co-running with my house mate, the talented Faye Yong, is on the 22nd of November in the V&A museum, London. We're doing two 40 min workshops, one at 11.30 and another one at 15.30.
The event is called 'Big Create, The Future' which features a whole day on the theme of 'future', with other workshops as well apart from ours. It's a free drop-in session so there's no reason not to check it out if you're around London and have the spare time.

Queen of Jupiter

2008-10-12T12:00:00.004+01:00

This is a textured brush created from a photo of the bark of an ancient tree in the back gardens of the Forbidden Palace in Beijing. The origin of the tree is a nice little trivia, but what I found interesting was the rough texture.

Photoshop's feature for creating custom brushes is a very powerful tool, but I still don't know how to fully utilise it. I created this wood grain brush as something to play around with and ended up using it in a somewhat unconventional way.
This picture was created exclusively using the wood grain brush and a simple palette of black and white.

Usually I use brushes which have the 'Other Dynamics' box ticked in the brush settings, which allows some opacity variation for blending. However, I noticed that it damped the texture effect of the brush so I decided to leave it unticked. As a result every dab of the brush gives full opacity, i.e. black or white.
These were the settings I used for the brush. The only thing I varied as I got going was the Master Diameter, and occasionally the Spacing.

The main features of this brush is no opacity jitter and wide spacing, which makes sure that the texture comes through. It's also slightly oval, which gives some direction in the stroke. For example, the lace of her collar was done in a single stroke. Makes it seem simple doesn't it?
The time-consuming part was the face, since you can't be too rough while still making it look like a face.
Instead of using the brush in a conventional manner, I used it more like a sponge, creating shades by dabbing blacks and whites. By varying the brush size, the density of the 'holes' in the dab would change and I could thus lay down different tones. Then I would chip away with dabs of the opposite colour to refine the shape.

It may seem like a somewhat convoluted method, and sometimes it was quite difficult to get the right, but the end result was interesting enough to make it worthwhile.

Visualising in 3D vs. memorising lines - Part 2

2008-10-02T22:12:00.003+01:00

A member on the Sweatdrop forums was asking how to draw the head from a low-angle view. I drew two examples of how I tend to approach this particular pose.

The example to the left keeps the normal, frontal-shot face shape. The only thing that happens is that the facial features are shifted upwards so that the chin becomes larger, and the underside of the nose becomes more prominent. The second example illustrates the tilting of the jaw and tends to look more extreme than the previous method.
The first example is an approach which I was able to do from very early on, but it took a few years before I could use the second method.
I learnt the first method by copying other people's work without really understanding the underlying principles. The tilted jaw line was more difficult to reproduce by copying however, so I was only able to use it to good effect once I could visualise the 3D form of the head.

It would seem that the 3D approach is far superior than the line approach, but if we look more closely, the two may not be totally unrelated.
Someone able to draw a face/pose without guidelines might have learnt how to draw using the line memorising approach, but, it could also be that they're so used to drawing that face/pose that they've moved past the need to construct in 3D. They know what the form looks like from any angle because they have already worked out the 3D problem multiple times, so they can now jump straight to the solution - the lines.

So, what's the difference between memorising other people's line patterns versus working things out yourself and then, when you're comfortable enough, use the line patterns you've learnt?
I believe the main difference is called your personal style.

Visualising in 3D vs. memorising lines - Part 1
Related post: The art of copying

Visualising in 3D vs. memorising lines - Part 1

2008-10-01T22:23:00.009+01:00

A while back I went to a manga-drawing workshop by the wonderful Emma Vieceli and Laura Watton. One of the many interesting things that were mentioned was related to how many of us approach drawing a figure.
We will take another look on the often somewhat controversial topic of copying which I've talked about in a previous post, and compare it to the "proper" way of learning to draw - visualising 3D form on paper.

When learning to draw people, folds, hair etc. by copying the line drawing of an existing artwork, certain line patterns are memorised. However, little knowledge is gained about the underlying 3D form which creates those characteristic lines. That means that you will most likely only be able to draw a pose from the particular angle that you copied it from.
I can't remember exactly what Emma and Laura called this kind of way to think about drawing, but let's call it the line approach for simplicity.

The other, usually more useful approach is the ability to visualise the form in 3D and translate that into a 2D line drawing. This takes a bit more time to learn since it's about learning to think rather than simply memorising lines, but it is an important, if not essential skill to learn.
By being able to visualise in 3D, it's possible to solve more complex poses and makes you more flexible as an artist.
The 3D approach is what is encouraged when how-to-draw books tell you to use spheres, cyliners and blocks to build up your figure. While it may be easy to draw geometrical shapes on paper, understanding the angle and depth relationships between blocks and being able to translate that into a human form takes some time.

Related post: The art of copying

Rainy Nights

2008-09-30T21:40:00.004+01:00

Back when I was taking my driver's license we were taught that a deceptively dangerous weather situation for driving is rain combined with darkness.
Normally the eye can largely adapt to the darkness of the road, but when the streets are wet the existing light sources are multiplied as well as spread out through their reflections. As a result, a wet night scene will take on a lot more brightness and colour than a dry night.
It's actually quite surprising how bright the night can become through reflections under the presence of only a few light sources. That being said, the reflected light tends to have a blinding effect on the eye, which makes it difficult to spot detail in the dark. Hence, one of the reason extra caution is advised to drivers on rainy nights. The other being the risk of slippery roads, especially at high velocities.

Image source: GettyImages

Fish-eye and Curvilinear Perspective

2008-09-12T00:11:00.006+01:00

Fish-eye lenses are used in photography to capture angles larger than the normal field of view of cameras. This means that the lens captures more of a scene than a standard lens, at the expense of some distortion. Examples where this can be useful are security cameras and "peep-holes" outwards on doors.

The fish-eye lens causes barrel distortion. This means that objects far from the centre of the lens becomes mapped into a smaller surface than those at the centre, thus giving rise to a spherical appearance.

A similar effect is explained more formally by curvilinear or 5-point perspective. It was discovered as early as the Renaissance and has even been suggested as an alternative (and perhaps more accurate) way of representing the way our eye sees the 3D world. A simple demonstration is given by Scott McDaniel in his explanation of 5-point perspective.

One of the arguments for the use of curvilinear over linear perspective draws from the observation that objects which are farther away laterally in our field of view will look smaller and smaller. Imagine a box in the middle of your field of view. Now imagine that box being moved farther and farther towards the right edge of your vision. Objects farther away look smaller, thus lending strength to the argument of curvilinear perspective.
However, this argument breaks down if considering that our field of view is relatively limited for any fixed point of view. The objects which would supposedly look smaller towards the periphery would not be captured by our visual field, or at least not in any clarity.

While it's true that curvilinear perspective is able to squeeze in more information about a scene into any single drawing than normal linear perspective, thus giving the viewer a feeling of "being there", Bruce MacEvoy explains that this is due to the combination of multiple viewpoints. I.e. as if your eyes or head was moving and taking in more information about the scene than any one viewpoint could give. According to MacEvoy, a single viewpoint is best represented using linear perspective. The curvilinear perspective can be viewed as originating from superimpositions of multiple viewpoints.

More information about curvilinear perspective by Bruce MacEvoy.
MacEvoy has a very informative site on Elements of Perspective. The Perspective in the World-section explains what perspective really is and is well worth reading for a more in-depth understanding.