I'm so ronery...

Well this was a pleasant surprise.

Thanks to Facebook, I stumbled upon another CHIU-Stream happening this evening and decided to participate. I apparently came in about halfway through the stream, giving me about 30 minutes to execute an image for the theme "loneliness". Aww shucks, that poor little fella. Think we've all been there.

I definitely want to play around more with this image. My goals for next Chiu-Stream should be to A): not use animals and B): not use a blue background.

Fat & Scary

My entry for this evening's CHIU-Stream. I went into this one going "PanicPanicPANIC" due to a combination of a late log-in and then a comp restart (my tablet decided to go on strike for a bit).

I haven't quite found the painting formula that works for me yet, so I am loving these practice sessions. Some things I definitely need to experiment with are starting grayscale verses color, trying different brushes and settings, layering and what to do with my line art... just gotta look at some more tutorials and play around.

FAT BUNNEH.

Tall & Grumpy

This was my first drawing for CHIU-Stream, hosted by the amazing Bobby Chiu. One of the newest goals I've set for myself is working on improving speed, so an hour-long assignment like this is great practice.

This is a character assignment I was given to create the President of a bird-world. More details to come, I just wanted to get him posted right now.

Yeeeaaah!

For reasons unknown, I was utterly compelled to draw this image after getting out of the shower yesterday. I haven't watched the movie, heard the theme song, or even caught that episode of Family Guy that parodies this scene for quite sometime. Why my brain suddenly produced an image of me riding atop Falcor the Luck Dragon, I simply do not know. Despite having several more pressing projects to work on, this was one of those times where an idea hit and I just had to get it done.

From rough sketch to final painted image, this took me approximately 3 hours. I used an Intuos 4 Wacom tablet and Photoshop.

Please press "Play" on the video below to enhance the above image's viewing experience.

Moleskine drawings

Here are some of the pictures from the Moleskine sketchbook I attempted to draw in once a day. It was a good run while it lasted. These were all drawn with a basic, Uniball ink pen.

Going Digital

So instead of a scanner, I splurged on a new Intuos 4 Wacom tablet last month...

The digital medium is something that I'm still very new to, and trying very hard to practice with. We never used these guys in school, so I've been browsing tutorials on various websites and just trying to play around with sketching.

The second newsflash is that I obtained an internship with a Burbank production boutique called Green House Studios. They weren't kidding when they said I would hit the ground running. My first week as an intern I ended up designing new business cards the company needed in time for their grand re-opening party. On top of that, I'm getting to work on character design for a film. Can't wait until I can post some of that stuff.

If I were getting paid at this place, I would be on cloud friggin' nine. I go in early, I stay late, and I work on art and design all day. I also have the pleasure of working with some very talented interns who offer great tips and advice, especially since I'm so new to working digitally.

Above are some practice sketches I worked on last weekend using the Wacom. I used the poor-man's reference of googling chicks in bikinis. I realize that I am becomming too dependent on using references in my work, which is something I'm working to break out of by simply getting back into the habit of practicing the human figure once more.

While in Barnes & Noble this evening, I spent time looking through "The Art of Disney/Pixar's Up" and "Drawn to Life", by Walt Stanchfield. These were great reads, and I'm sad that my current financial status leaves me to treat the bookstore as more of a library for now. I definitely want to pick up these books as soon as possible.

"Drawn to Life", in particular, was a very inspirational read. The four words that made the biggest impact on me were simply "Draw verbs, not nouns." Funny how such a simple statement can make a big difference in the way you think about things. This is something I will now be repeating to myself in my head whenever I sketch.