In the tropics, winter just means a lot of rain.

Done in MyPaint 0.8.2 using wet paint brush.

Illustration Friday is a weekly creative outlet/participatory art exhibit for illustrators and artists of all skill levels. It was designed to challenge participants creatively. Illustration Friday just gives a no-pressure, fun excuse to use it. No clients looking for a particular thing. No one judging the outcome of the work. It’s a chance to experiment and explore and play with visual art.

I tend to lose quite abit of detail when moving from pencil stage to inking stage when I’m setting up pictures I intend to color later. I’ll be trying to add some of those details back in the coloring stage. Here’s the pencil version:

I had to content myself with leaving it at a quickly colored sketch at the time, mainly because I lacked the skills to complete it to the level I envisioned.  Coloring still involves a considerable portion of playing by ear for me now, but I am pleased with how the Hound and the Raven has finally turned out.

For those unfamiliar with the subject, CuChulainn is a legendary warrior from Celtic (more specifically, Irish) mythology- his key defining charecteristics include his extreme youth, exceptional martial talent and his notorious battle frenzy- at the peak of which he lays into  friends and foes alike.  The Morrigan is a goddess of war who sometimes assumes the shape of a raven. She also has a personal bone to pick with CuChulainn. Both have their own entries in wikipedia and the like, but be warned that spoilers abound.

click to go to larger image in Deviantart

This is a pencil sketch of my idea. I’m sure a lot of people will think of water first when presented with this week’s theme “adrift”. So I decided to think out of the box and came up with being adrift in the wind. So instead of being adrift on the sea, the raft is now adrift on the winds of fate. But the passengers doesn’t seem too concerned about where they will end up.

Illustration Friday is a weekly creative outlet/participatory art exhibit for illustrators and artists of all skill levels. It was designed to challenge participants creatively. Illustration Friday just gives a no-pressure, fun excuse to use it. No clients looking for a particular thing. No one judging the outcome of the work. It’s a chance to experiment and explore and play with visual art.

This is from an old pencil drawing that I thought fits in with the Illustration Friday theme “Muddy”. I like the drawing a lot and I planned to colour it but I never got around to doing it. Perhaps I’m subconsciously afraid that I would messed it up as colouring is not my strong point.

Illustration Friday is a weekly creative outlet/participatory art exhibit for illustrators and artists of all skill levels. It was designed to challenge participants creatively. Illustration Friday just gives a no-pressure, fun excuse to use it. No clients looking for a particular thing. No one judging the outcome of the work. It’s a chance to experiment and explore and play with visual art.

This picture was done in 3 layers in photoshop; 1 for needle and thread, 1 for fingers and 1 for the face. I didn’t do a rough sketch. I roughly knew what I wanted and also didn’t want to spend too much time on the picture. So I just coloured in straight. I did the needle first, then the thread, fingers and finally the face. Then I blurred face so there would be some depth to the picture. I also darkened it a little so it won’t steal the spotlight from the needle and thread.

Illustration Friday is a weekly creative outlet/participatory art exhibit for illustrators and artists of all skill levels. It was designed to challenge participants creatively. Illustration Friday just gives a no-pressure, fun excuse to use it. No clients looking for a particular thing. No one judging the outcome of the work. It’s a chance to experiment and explore and play with visual art.

I have been seeing the above Red Cross poster on my daily commute.

Being the Toward the Terra fan I am, the first thing that stood out to me was the kid with blue hair and pink/red eyes. A closer look turned up another ringer for Jomy and possibly a Nina too!

Zoom and compare.

And of course, that they are ranged around a earth- spriritual sanctuary of the Mu race and the titular ‘Terra’ – also helps the case.

Just my Terra deprived brain playing tricks, or an intentional discreet tribute? I squee a little inside everytime I entertain the possibility of the latter. Seriously, this series deserves more love.

Ryu: Getting ready for a fight

This is a fan art digital painting of Ryu, a character from Street Fighter. Ryu is my favourite character from Street Fighter even though I’m lousy at the game.

Since it’s a fan art and not my own creation, I tend to view it as a practice piece. When I started drawing this picture, I set out to accomplish a few things:

• Do everything digitally
• Get used to using the Wacom tablet
• Practice and find my own style in colouring
• Draw my own version of Ryu from memory

I did everything using Gimp and my Wacom graphire 3 tablet, from sketching to the colouring. I think I’m getting more used to using a tablet even though I still find it easier to draw on paper. When I sketched out Ryu, I decided not to give him any facial features such as eyes, nose and mouth because these are the hardest to draw and I don’t want to spend too much time on them. I’m still not very used to drawing on a tablet and I don’t know whether I’m proficient enough to do such detailed work. So in the end I put his face in shadows.

I wanted to give Ryu a more interesting pose than just standing there. Since he is from a fighting game, the logical conclusion is to put him in a fighting pose but it felt kind of boring to me. I wanted something that was not commonly used but at the same time, not too hard to draw and had a bit of movement. After playing with a few ideas, I decided to do a pose of Ryu getting ready for a fight. I used his clothes to add a feeling of movement to the picture. Since there were so many versions of Ryu, I used his clothes to identify him. I drew him mostly from memory, only checking to make sure that I had his clothing correct.

I’m a drawer, not a painter and I don’t really like colouring but in this piece, I tried to do everything in colour, shades and tones, even forgoing the black outline that I am used to. I think the result was not bad. It was only after I finished colouring Ryu, then I chose the background colour. It took me a while to decide. I can’t pick white as Ryu is dressed in white; black is too black and grey is dull. In the end I settled on dark red and I used some grunge brushes to make the background more interesting.

I started this painting in January and I only just completed it. Even though the painting was only just finished, I could already see some mistakes.

Did a random sketch of a person (probably a boy) while trying out a Wacom intuos tablet. The tablet is easy to use but I can’t afford it. So I will just have to be contented with my Wacom graphire 3.

2008 closed with me getting hold of some neat pieces of design, thought they’ll be worth sharing here.

First, there’s my i Dog from my office gift exchange.

plugged in puppy

A speaker that doubles as a robotic pet. Barks and whines for attention, grooves to the music being played, and comes with volume controls too! The ‘mood matrix’ piqued my interest the most. The emotions of the iDog are shown through moving colored LED lights on it’s face, like so.

jammin' puppy

There’s a whole range light movement patterns and color sets  which reflect emotions from ‘Ecstatic’ to ‘Bored’ or ‘Lonely’ or even ‘sick’. Part of the fun of getting to know this little critter is thumbing through the manual (ok maybe I’m strange that way) and getting to know what means what. It’s like learning a new language, and there’s a germ of a story there I think- perhaps it’ll incubate and surface with time

Also on the topic of Christmas Presents, FSc had a lovely range this year.

I’ve always adored FSc’s art, and discovering her equally creative and quirky range of products this year just made me an even bigger fan.

Here’s one of my favorites. It came ready packaged for a friend, and I couldn’t bring myself to unwrap it. So the photos really don’t do it justice.

"Cynthia's Mocha Mix"

When I requested FSc to add in my greetings in the design, I didn’t expect her to offer to personalise the artwork to add in the recipient’s name! It was a lovely touch on her part. Like her other works too, the can label was full of her signature quaint and off-beat doodles. Like the ingredients list below.

hm.. wonder what it tastes like?

As someone dabbling with products packaging and design myself, I am impressed (and somewhat humbled) by all the levels of detail which goes into her work. Having a ‘Gold Standard’ like her in front of me keeps me motivated!

And lastly, I’ve finally made a move to add to my digital arsenal.

black, shiny and new!

I’m still getting my head around the controls and I suspect I wouldn’t be fully comfortable with the settings until I’m done with my first 2 or 3 tablet colored pieces. So there’s one of my first new personal challenges this year.

Look forward to seeing how things turn out!