Grace Liu's Practice Blog

Spear Guy - pose

2012-01-23T00:58:00.000-08:00

Trying to really push the pose. I always have trouble with stretching and squashing torso when it's not directly facing the camera. Not sure this looks right but I think I'm getting some energy into the pose. Will screw with it more later.

Wizard's familiar painted

2012-01-12T19:15:00.000-08:00

Now with colors!

Wizard's familiar sketch

2012-01-10T17:56:00.000-08:00

Top sketch is an attempt at re-posing and polishing the design of the same character on the bottom sketch, after some very helpful tips from Paul Richards. Thinking about weight is difficult but a lot of fun.

edit: started painting him before leaving for the day.

Flamered

2012-01-09T15:05:00.001-08:00

My SW:TOR character. I love her facial ridges.

Sarah

2012-01-06T19:09:00.000-08:00

First piece of "finished" painting this year! Also my first Starcraft fan art ever. Belated, considering that I loved Starcraft since high school.

I couldn't really understand the story when I first played through the Starcraft I terran campaign because I spoke very little English. It wasn't until I replayed some of the Starcraft I missions when I got SCII collector's edition that I realized exactly how Kerrigan turned into the queen of blades... Man, if I were her I would probably be even angrier.

Below is a cropped/closer up version for my homepage:

Sketch Practice #2

2012-01-02T10:10:00.000-08:00

Actually had a very productive winter break... likely caused by simply not having a gaming computer.

I did more monitors, trying to think about function. It's kind of a struggle for me because Sci-fi stuff never made a lot of sense to me.

Then I copied a couple of more Paul Richards drawings, trying to channel some of his crazy talent. I did a few monster head doodles of my own but cannot get close to the badassness of Paul, unsurprisingly... maybe one day?

The jeweleries are kind of a warm-up. I used to write a lot in high school, and one of my made-up worlds contained a civilization of humans that worships crystals. I chose phoenix as the symbol of royalty and "three" as the number of honor, and tried to come up with designs of emblems and jewelery using both the stone and the animal.

Last sketch - finally stopped beating around the bushes and attempted to design a set of warrior armors that server different functions but belong to the same faction.

Thoughts and advices would be greatly appreciated, thanks! And... happy new year :)

Sketch practice #1

2011-12-20T03:02:00.000-08:00

I've been meaning to do some master studies of concept sketches since a long while ago, but always felt like I didn't know where to start when I look at the hundreds of badass sketches from crazy artists such as Paul Richards. So today I finally got around to doing one... hopefully more to come. I also tried to sketch my own, much lamer, versions of the same subject-matter in an attempt to internalize some of the study.

What I forgot to do in the study was to figure out a purpose for these devices, and to try to communicate that. Doing so may also help me keep my shape language consistent. Could have also pushed the main screen a lot more. These are notes for tomorrow, when I hope to do more and better sketches of the same subject-matter.

Also, it's actually incredibly refreshing to draw with a pencil for a change. I did realize that my sketchbook is just a tad too large for my scanner though... ugh.

Last Ourdoor Painting Group of This Year

2011-12-19T08:56:00.000-08:00

San Juan mission was a pleasant surprise. It didn't look big at all from the outside, but the inside features surprisingly beautiful ruins and some nicely laid-out courtyards. The slight overcast lighting also worked really well. The low angle of the winter sun was perfect for painting.

Selection Tool Test

2011-12-06T16:39:00.000-08:00

I've always thought about trying out selection tool + airbrush, but it took me this long to actually do it for some reason. It's actually a lot of fun. Maybe I can try to integrate it into a serious painting next.

Pin-up

2011-12-01T00:24:00.000-08:00

For the weekly sketch thing titled "pin-up". I hope this came across as more funny than disturbing... but maybe a little of both is ok. Actually had a lot of fun trying to mimic Gil Elvgren's style.

Cyborg and Dude

2011-11-21T22:57:00.000-08:00

Doodles! First one was done while listening to sketch group demo. Second one is for the weekly activity with my friends at work. I decided to try to draw a guy because I very rarely do.

Forest Faerie

2011-11-06T21:23:00.001-08:00

Rushed again... oh well. This is what I get for slacking off till the weekend to paint.

Forest Faerie WIP

2011-11-05T11:33:00.000-07:00

Again... I procrastinated till the weekend to get started on my weekly painting. Can't do this next week, because Skyrim comes out on Friday!!!11!!

Work in progress. I guess I'm painting a lot of spooky stuff lately. I guess growing up with the fear of darkness has its advantages... or at least this one advantage.

Zurg

2011-10-31T00:12:00.000-07:00

From Toy Story series. Trying to draw more robots, but procrastinated seriously on this one and had to rush through it tonight. I blame Dungeon Defenders.

The Boogeyman Final

2011-10-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

Wow, I actually finished something outside of work or WoW cards. Crazy.

I might wake up tomorrow and decide I want to do more with this piece, but for now it's final.

The Boogyman WIP 2

2011-10-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

Took the Boogyman a bit further. Really trying to push the anatomy. It was very difficult for me, but thankfully my art director extended a helping hand.

Wine Cup

2011-10-20T00:01:00.000-07:00

I have a Chinese poem stuck in my head tonight.

Even though I now mostly dream in English, the Chinese language still feels 100 times more flavorful than English. The more I experience in life, the more some of the ancient poems I learned so very long ago ring true. There are so much layers of subtleties and undertones, the kind of connection I do not yet and may never have with English words, that I could entertain myself for a long while at a time just reflecting upon each and every word in the verses. If you have ever heard a song that seems to be written just for you when you are feeling melodramatic, I guess that's kind of how I feel when I remember the poems.

The particular poem that's stuck in my head right now is titled "Drinking With Myself and the Moon". It's a lonely poem, in which the poet describes a drinking party of three consisting of him, his shadow, and the moon.

This doodle is done to two verses of the poem, somewhere near the end. Please excuse my terrible translation.

I sing as the moon wanders, I dance and my shadows scatter
We laugh and chat till we are drunk, and we'll go separate ways after

我歌月徘徊,我舞影零乱
醒时同交欢,醉后各分散

Moar WoW Cards

2011-10-19T16:37:00.000-07:00

I guess I do a lot of casters :\ I'm a sucker for colorful lights.

The Boogyman WIP

2011-10-14T23:35:00.000-07:00

Halloween-themed stuff, work in progress.

Barbarian Fan Art

2011-10-03T23:30:00.000-07:00

Just really feel like doing it. Didn't turn out as wild and aggressive as I had hoped, but I guess this'll work to reset my palette from the over-sweet cartoony stuff.

Sweetums Colored

2011-09-28T02:47:00.000-07:00

I like food. I like cooking food, eating food, and painting food. A midnight snack would be pretty nice right about now.

Meet Sweetums, the new superhero.

2011-09-26T22:45:00.000-07:00

With great power comes... greater temper tantrums. Okay, that was terrible. I'm sorry.

Here's sometime else... a black dragon I did for a website front-page and doubling as a background image with text going over the left portion, hence the right-heavy composition.

Lunch Doodle

2011-08-26T13:31:00.000-07:00

Just felt like doodling at lunch. Should totally laid down perspective grid... just felt like painting randomly...

Dany

2011-08-04T02:01:00.000-07:00

Daenerys Targaryen from TV series Game of Thrones. Study from photo.

Robuts

2011-07-28T00:36:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Ian's ease in drawing robots, I try again to loosen up and tackle these fearsome hard-surfaces, starting from crazy doodles.

Crystal City

2011-07-27T00:20:00.000-07:00

Another idea that came from my high school years, where I spent almost all of my classes drawing and writing instead of listening because I had no patience. I'm still an awful listener.

The capital city is built around a huge crystal meteor. The people worship this glittery rock and guard it feverishly, believing the shard to be a physical projection of their god.

The crystal is harder than any known tool. Many ignorant thieves who wanted to pocket a bit of wealth ended up returning empty-handed. If they by chance managed to escape from the righteous wrath of the city guards, that is.

Wolf pups

2011-07-25T23:06:00.000-07:00

Another take on Moling, a character I made while in high school.

The Little Match Girl - Sketch 2

2011-07-11T22:16:00.000-07:00

Slept over it and felt like the previous sketch was indecisive. I couldn't decide if I wanted her to look pure and innocent or wild and fearsome. So today I made up my mind and redid the sketch - I want her to be as uncorrupted as newly fallen snow. In her dying hallucination, she thinks that she's making the world a more beautiful place - and by setting the cold, uncaring city ablaze, in a twisted sense she has done just so.

For those unfamiliar with the dark tales of Hans Christian Anderson - here's a link. Also, if the only Little Mermaid you know is the Disney version, I highly recommend seeking out the original story done by the same author. It's a sadder tale, but in many ways all the more beautiful.

edit: ended up managing a color block-in before bed.

The Little Match Girl - sketch

2011-07-09T00:41:00.000-07:00

Sketch for CGHUB challenge " Fairytales Re-Imagined".

Trembling, she struck another match. The world suddenly became very warm.

Gladiator Goddess

2011-07-07T00:24:00.000-07:00

More messing around with textured brushes. Just pushing around shapes and textures for fun. I should be practicing more seriously... well, sometimes I wonder if I'm trying too hard to be serious.

Blonde in Red

2011-07-06T00:15:00.000-07:00

Trying to loosen up. Used some brushes I would normally never use, plopped down rather random shapes, and reigned it in a little with air brush. Completely blotched those hands. I'll need a hand model to hold a pistol for me. The trigger finger kind of blew my late-night mind...

Warrior - Line

2011-06-20T00:22:00.000-07:00

To me, drawing seems to be a more serious process since everything is out there in the open, without fancy brush strokes to cover up the mistakes. Maybe if I do it more it will become less painful? I sure hope so :P

Warrior - sketches

2011-06-19T16:04:00.000-07:00

Going to try to ink this one, and bring back some of the flow I lost when I added armor to the sketch.

I repeatedly muttered to myself "Everything is an artistic choice" as I was doing this.

What's a "paper"

2011-06-16T08:58:00.000-07:00

A couple of traditional stuff from this month and last. Thanks a ton to Oliver for letting me hog the white chalk after stealing a sheet of brown paper in last night's life drawing session.

Midnight Doodle (cont'ed)

2011-06-14T22:44:00.000-07:00

Trying to make the doodle into an actual painting of sort. Hating the composition... I still have no logical work process whatsoever.

Midnight doodle

2011-06-12T01:24:00.000-07:00

Doodle before bed. This doodle is based on a character I made up in high school, when I used to write for fun. Maybe I should put some real efforts in learning to write in English, as I sure as hell cannot write in Chinese the way I used to anymore.

WoW TCGs thus far

2011-06-03T13:16:00.000-07:00

These are the ones that have been printed and pulished to-date. They are a ton of fun to do and I think they are helping my artistic skills tremendously.

Warrior Doodle

2011-06-03T08:45:00.000-07:00

I still remember a time where I felt a lot more comfortable drawing than painting. Now I can't stand my own drawings and can't wait to cover them up with digital paint... which is not a smart way to work at all. I need to do more doodles.

Freedom speedies

2011-05-23T23:12:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm free from the dominance war stuff, the freelance stuff, and the WoW card, I can celebrate my new-found freedom by cranking out a couple of hourly speedies.

DWV - God of Oblivion - Final

2011-05-22T17:17:00.000-07:00

Kind of rushed, last-minute as usual. But I might even have time to do a model sheet and actually submit a completed entry... hmm. Decisions...

DWV - God of Oblivion - Color rough

2011-05-16T23:23:00.000-07:00

Finally largely free to work on this. I want to try to learn how to paint a translucent skin tone, and we'll see where I get to tonight.

Edit: Here's the result of tonight's experiment. I'm not quite getting the effect I want, but it's getting closer.

DWV - God of Oblivion - WIP

2011-05-04T23:28:00.000-07:00

Painting in process. Have not done straight-up painting without color overlays for a while, and it feels strangely refreshing.

DWV - God of Oblivion - Reboot

2011-04-25T23:25:00.000-07:00

Reboot. Trying to unify the design, clarify the idea and choose an easier/more majestic pose to do.

DWV - God of oblivion - WIP2

2011-04-06T01:33:00.000-07:00

Wow, I actually feel a bit rusty. Gotta get back to painting more.

DWV - God of oblivion

2011-03-29T14:19:00.000-07:00

I got peer-pressured into joining the actual DWV, after miserably failing to finish my pre DWV challenge entry... I guess that's what makes working with like-minded, motivated artists so great.

Early rough, meeting sketch and lunch paint block-in.

The Valkyrie - WIP

2011-03-13T23:49:00.000-07:00

Had some great art discussions with mom in Dallas this past weekend, and actually felt like sketching on the plane ride back. Here's a sketch inspired by a magazine photo of a girl curling up in an armchair.

I want to finish this painting. Maybe I should play less minecraft/battlefield/wow this week...

Gonthur Loves You

2011-01-19T21:27:00.000-08:00

This is Gonthur the Dwarf, from one of my student projects. He loves putting on the hurt with his axe, collecting roses, and he also loves you.

Highlands

2011-01-18T21:59:00.000-08:00

I really like going up a mountain in a freshly generated map in Minecraft and seeing the lands nobody has explored stretching out below me, so here's me trying to capture that sense of wonder and spirit of exploration.

Guardian of the Shrine

2011-01-17T23:35:00.001-08:00

Fantasy mech doodle while watching some creepy stuff about people moving into bug- or snake- infected houses unknowingly on Animal Planet. I need this guy to guard me from the scary TV.

2011-01-16T20:09:00.000-08:00

watercolor at the beach. Messed around with it on photoshop a bit more after I got home and got the 2nd image. Watercolor is such a difficult medium! It's fun but it feels like a struggle, especially after getting used to the pin-point precision and control in digital painting.

Feel more alive and awake today than I have for the past half week. This wave of flu got me pretty hard.

Water

2011-01-16T00:05:00.000-08:00

Recovering from the flu, and lost my first hour of sketch in a photoshop crash... rough start to the weekend!

Will scan yesterday's sketches in at some point.

some random doodle for today, nothing too focused. Messing around with colors.

Rogue

2011-01-13T23:46:00.000-08:00

Messing with a more graphical look. I haven't really tried to "ink" anything since my manga-crazy days, and it shows. It's also a real struggle trying to get some kind of flow going and think before putting down lines, as I'm used to careless scribbling.

Swords of Four Elements

2011-01-12T23:55:00.000-08:00

I'm obsessed with high fantasy and I love painting shiny stuff, so here goes the indulgence piece. Had to rush on the latter two swords because it's both over my 2-hour budget and getting near midnight.

Flute

2011-01-11T21:59:00.000-08:00

Catching a new wave of flu. Not really feeling better after resting for a whole day at home :\ Didn't want to tackle anything too serious, so I revisited an old subject from a couple of years ago:

http://nightblue-art.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=120#/dv595d

Hilltop temple revisited

2011-01-10T22:58:00.000-08:00

I guess I can't just leave a failed sketch alone, so here it is - me trying to rescue the piece.

It's still kind of weird, but I think it's somewhat better. May screw with it more later.

Some Thoughts

2011-01-09T15:44:00.000-08:00

After Marshall's lecture, I had some discussions with my art director, who is possibly the most left-brain, analytical artist I've met in person. His belief is that a good artist is always thinking about why he or she is doing what they do to their image, and what message they are trying to pass on. He doesn't believe in the "touchy feely" kind of art.

Being a newbie artist who is just coming out of the eggshell of ignorance and "lucky accidents" of doing things just because they "feel right", I found a lot of merit in my AD's viewpoint. I've known for a while that I need to think about why and how a lot more rather than striking out blindly, hoping to hit the target somehow. On the other hand, the notion about absolutely relying on the left brain bothers me. I found myself mulling over this on my way to and from the grocery store.

I have seen pieces of very well-designed art, with great composition and nice craftsmanship but lacking in something. My right brain would say "this feels souless, synthetic, and generic." It's like a beautiful face with empty eyes. To me, a good piece of illustration carries some true feelings from the artist. There is something intimate and personal for the viewer to grasp on. Just like the craftsmanship of a piece should not outshine the message of the image, I feel like the design of the piece is also just a tool to make sure the message gets through, rather than being the most important part of the piece. While design and craftsmanship makes for good art, a masterpiece should require sincerity and deep feelings. It's like the difference between a piece of sweet, tangy candy that dissolves quickly and a dish that have a great, immediate deliciousness but also leaves a lingering flavor in the mouth.

I know these are still very right-brain words, and I failed to analyze this "sincerity" in a more logical rather than touchy-feely way. Maybe more thoughts on this subject will help down the road. I also found it funny that as a new artist who can't even produce mediocre "candies" reliably, I'm thinking so much about gourmet dishes. I'll probably look back on this a few years down the road and smile, like I do now when I look at my old diaries from teenage years.

Hilltop Temple

2011-01-09T13:25:00.000-08:00

Composition mess-around today yielded what I'd call a fail piece. At some point of this doodle I thought I had something going, and ended up over-complicating values and shapes, without nailing down the perspective. But messing up is part of what the daily painting is about.

Self portrait

2011-01-08T13:55:00.000-08:00

Haven't done a self-portrait for a long time, so I guess it's about time. Actually tried to set up lighting and keep the compositional tips from Marshall in mind. This one took 2 hours and I now have a stiff neck, haha...

Pretty happy about how this turned out. Not as good as I was shooting for, but it's my best self-portrait to-date. It actually looks like how I see myself.

Composition study - drama

2011-01-07T23:37:00.000-08:00

Lunch + evening sketch, added some counterchanges after tonight's composition session. Tonight's the last night of the seminar and I wish there were more. Surely there will be more awesome classes to come.

Composition studies - joy

2011-01-06T23:39:00.001-08:00

A bit too sleep-deprived to type up the notes for tonight, but here are some studies I tried to do.

Not sure if I'm doing this right, but it's a lot of fun.

Composition Class with Vandruff, Day 1

2011-01-06T01:13:00.000-08:00

http://www.marshallart.com/seminars/info/composition/index.php

What a treat. Four hours has never passed this quickly since I last played Starcraft II :P Vandruff is one heck of a teacher who is extremely well-prepared and knowledgable. Well, here are some notes before I slip off to bed.

======

The Role of Composition

Three Areas of Mastery in art

Technique: How you apply the medium. It's related but different from "style". Technique is valuable because it's the first thing people see, much like instrument is the first thing people hear in a piece of music.
Draftsmanship: This is "grammar of art" and "correct drawing." There are three aspects to it: Anatomy - What things are made of, Perspective - how things look in space, and Rendering - putting skin on things. Correctness in itself is emotionless, however. What makes things exciting?
Composition: It's the same thing as "Design", and is similar to "arrangement" and "organizing". Composition is organizing from feeling, and ultimately organize for feeling. (Quote from Vandruff: "The worst teachings in classes happen in composition classes." His main reason is composition is subjective, and teachers should help rather than direct the student in finding their own compositions.) Composition is about making good choices. Impulses and habits also kicks in, but the choices are what make the difference in making art.

Errors Commonly Made by Writers and Artists Alike

Sentimentality - beat people over the head with emotions and commentaries
Fidelity - author being overly cold and unemotional, insensitive to human feelings
Mannerism - Pretentiousness. Author is more focused on showing off, putting their skills on the center stage rather than the purpose of their work.

Studying Composition

"Rehearsing success" - choose a favorite master, pretend to be them, and imitate their choices. The risk of doing this is becoming a rip-off. To remedy this, one should take works of people who have very different styles, find what's in common, and take the common element that make things work for his own use.

Developing sensitivity: look at what you love. Look at what other people tell you to love to. They may be wrong but they may be right too.

It is best to make big choices small.

A good approach is explore first before asking questions with left brain. Analogy: You cannot steer a car that is not moving. Illustrations must be made by inspiration. "Child mode" and "Play mode" should come before "Adult mode" and "Work mode."

It is important to compose with negative shapes as well as positive ones.

Abstraction and Feeling

The first principle of composing: A picture is essentially a flat surface colored with colors and symbols in a certain order.

Quote from Andrew Wyeth: "I feel a picture has to be abstractly exciting to be a good picture." A picture should be exciting without content, just with the arrangement.

Every picture, including realistic ones, is an abstract arrangement.

Abstractions should evoke feelings.

Analogy: you should be able to tell the mood of a successful movie poster through a shower glass.

Analogy: Phillis the Cat was never as popular as Mickey Mouse because Mickey Mouse has less pointy, more "huggable" silhouette.

Metaphors & Touchstones

Metaphor is the life of art, if not art itself.

One thing is like another.

Assigned symbolism frequently become pretentiousness. One should serve viewers rather than testing them in decipher symbols. An image should work on the primitive level.

Visual metaphors make abstractions concrete.

When studying from life, instead of just copying what you see, get an opinion about it.

Metaphor can happen in parts of the picture, or the entire picture.

Brainstorming using clustering technique: What is the ___ like?" Start from the center and branch out with metaphors and analogies.

Injected metaphor: if an artist does one thing a lot or like it very much, it may seep into their work unconsciously. This could be cool or problematic, especially since we want to choose what emotions to convey on a per-piece basis.

Metaphore exercise: Name everything as something else, and name everybody you know as an animal. They may be different animals depending on their mood.

Use touchstones - inspire yourself with another artist's work. Work best when the artist's subject-matter is vastly different from yours.

Consonance & Motiffs

Consonance is opposite to contrast. It's about how things are similar, like echos. It's the visual rhyme of a painting.

If the repeating element becomes too much, switch to a different one and interweave with the previous one. (Counter-rhyme.)

Four questions to ask when making a composition

What feelings am I trying to evoke? This has nothing to do with context.
What other things is this thing like? (conveys emotion, messages)
What visual rhyme can I echo throughout the picture to unify it?
What visual metaphor can the rhyme fit?

(Analogy: a common rhyme for poems is "-ore" rather than "-ippy", because "-ore" sounds heavy, solemn, like a person's death sigh. Same thing with visual rhymes: what are their emotional connotations?)

Yawn

2011-01-05T12:39:00.000-08:00

My attempt of mixing canine and feline anatomy. Trying to learn a little more about how the shoulder and chest of animals work. This is also how I felt like doing after forcing myself out of bed early in the morning so I can do the 2-hour daily before tonight, when I'll be going to a composition seminar by Vandriff from 6-10pm.

Looking forward to the seminar tonight and the next two nights very much. This'll be fun!

Pirate Cove

2011-01-04T20:40:00.001-08:00

Tonight's doodle. Started in very messy, scribbly grayscale, overlaid with colors, then went from there. Used quite a bit of airbrush everywhere after the initial step. I think the light/dark contrasts worked out ok. Not happy with the colors - I never seem to get good results from overlaying colors on top of grayscale unless I almost completely paint over the whole thing again.

Veteran's Home

2011-01-03T22:27:00.001-08:00

Started with literally a blank page and just doodled. It's been a long while since I tried to do an interior scene from my head, but this piece came surprisingly painlessly. I'm sure I'll find perspective issues tomorrow, but it was fun to paint this.

2011-01-02T09:57:00.000-08:00

Lighting and color exercise. Painted this over a photo of a Japanese garden I found online, and ripped the color scheme off an illustration in James Gourney's book Imaginative Realism. Made up the architecture from my head.

The Old Witch - wip

2011-01-01T19:53:00.000-08:00

New year's resolution - paint more, and make sure I make time to paint for myself rather than something tied with money or deadline. I need to fail a lot before I can go forward.

This is a work in progress I may or may not finish. Tried out a more methodic way of painting, as well as laying out colors beforehand. Also, I think using a 40% minimum opacity on my pressure-opacity brush is forcing me to think more and fuss around less, which is a great thing.

Happy New Year :)

Study - Dec 7

2010-12-07T23:41:00.000-08:00

Messing with a trail version of Painter. The weird thing is, now that I've gotten used to photoshop's pressure -> opacity settings, I feel much less painterly when using painter.

Study from a portrait painting I found online, with skintones I really like. This crappy study isn't really doing the original any justice though. May redo in photoshop.

Studies: Dec 1

2010-12-02T00:12:00.000-08:00

Realizing how much I don't know, time to go back to the studies.

DW5 Pre-challange WIP2

2010-12-01T21:26:00.000-08:00

Color shift. Hated the red light (because I suck at it!) Also cropped it to reduce the amount of dead space around the characters. Not quite feeling it tonight, so I'll prolly switch gears and do some studies instead.

DW5 Pre-challange WIP1

2010-11-30T23:25:00.000-08:00

Trying to take on multiple challenges at once with this piece. It's been a struggle thus far.

Need to learn anatomy, colored lighting, perspective, posing, and more ways to render/paint...

DW5 Pre-challange:Corrupted Value Sketch

2010-11-29T20:30:00.000-08:00

Yahh... slacked off over Thanksgiving big time. I blame my cold, Mount&Blade, and my terrible self-control.

A Week left till the challenge deadline. Can totally do this!

DW5 Pre-challange: shadow value sketch

2010-11-17T13:48:00.001-08:00

Lunch has become a pretty productive time now that we can't get a Civ 5 game going, heheh.

DW5 Pre-challange: shadow sketch

2010-11-16T13:38:00.001-08:00

Lunch sketch.

Dominance War Pre-Challenge sketches

2010-11-15T23:22:00.000-08:00

Trying to get my butt off the gaming chair so I can do some art instead. Dominance War V's pre-challenge seems like the perfect thing.

http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?t=17742

I'm doing the Shadow and the Corrupted. Below are the thumbnails and sketches.

Monkey King

2010-11-14T19:32:00.001-08:00

Started off wanting to make a full painting, but ran out of time this weekend after working on some WoW cards. So here it is in its half-assed glory :P

Angler Fish WIP

2010-10-26T00:22:00.001-07:00

Felt like painting a sketch I did at sketch night today, so here goes!

Inked Drawing:

Zombified self-portrait WIP

2010-10-24T23:33:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I painted for fun, so I'm picking up a new character of the week topic on conceptart.org - depicting myself as a zombie.

And with all the WoW stuff I've been looking at lately, I couldn't help putting armor on myself. Go figure.

Next to me is my golden retriever. She looks much friendly in real life, but is just about as crazy.

Life painting, with costume

2010-09-15T21:25:00.001-07:00

I really wish there was a longer pose so I can capture the awesome costume...

4 5-minute ones, 6 10-minute ones, and a 30-minute study.

Sketch night - ancient robotic gargoyle

2010-09-13T20:55:00.000-07:00

From this Monday's sketch night. The "ancient" is the difficult part. I don't think I succeeded in conveying that.

Centaurman versus Splashwoman

2010-09-11T11:02:00.000-07:00

8-bit character redesign activity on conceptart.org.

Went to TX for laborday weekend as well as to help my boyfriend move in, and came back with a finance and a ring instead :) Spent today moving him in and buying/building some furniture, as well as finishing this entry.

Here are characters one can choose for the activity. I want mine to look really serious in contrast to the two goofy 8-bit megaman characters I'm basing my entry on.

Lunch sketch - the orc statue

2010-09-02T23:47:00.000-07:00

Computer ran out of juice halfway through the lunch + sketch session, and that'll be my excuse for this chicken scratch of a painting. At least the computer's smart enough to turn itself off without losing my progress.

Life Drawing

2010-09-01T21:25:00.000-07:00

Kind of not feeling the longer poses tonight... the 5-minute ones on top right beats out the longer ones hands-down. At some point I'll learn to keep the simplicity and energy in the longer poses too.

Underground Fire Fighter

2010-08-30T20:29:00.000-07:00

Sketch night, topic as stated. Bonus animal is bat.

Beach sketch and skech night doodles

2010-08-23T23:18:00.000-07:00

Had a wonderful time painting on the beach last week, even though my rusty watercolor painting turned out pretty meh :P Also, a couple of sketches from tonight's sketch night, topic being "shadow ninja of dragon octopus." Crazy as usual.

Snow Spirit final

2010-08-19T14:11:00.000-07:00

Attention span expired... moving on :)

Snow Spirit WIP1 + 2

2010-08-17T20:28:00.000-07:00

For conceptart.org's character of the week: Yuki-Onna, The Snow Spirit .

I've been starting a lot of WIP's, heheh. I guess that's what happens when I'm pressured to produce polished work for my job. It's just so fun to do loose sketches :P

Thanks to Gino's paintover, I have a better composition now :)

The Woods - Wip2

2010-08-10T00:03:00.000-07:00

2-3 hours tonight.

The Woods - Wip1

2010-08-09T08:56:00.000-07:00

Just a color sketch so far. Not sure where I want to take this one yet.

Life drawing

2010-08-04T22:34:00.000-07:00

Too lazy to scan in the pencil sketches, so these will have to do. 5-10 minute poses mostly. Just having fun.

The Odd Pilot

2010-08-02T22:24:00.000-07:00

Colored a sketch from last week's sketch night. This guy is pretty weird, heheh.

The festival - WIP 1

2010-07-31T15:03:00.000-07:00

Gonna see how much I can get done over the weekend. It's been a while since I tried to do an environment painting. All the fear about bad perspective need to go away.

Gothic exercise - day 4

2010-07-01T02:01:00.000-07:00

Architectural + perspective practice. Still painful to do this :\ Need to do more.

Pattern exercise - day 3

2010-06-17T08:37:00.000-07:00

A speed painting of a Gothic architecture, study from photo. It's fascinating how Gothic architectures put all the intricate elements together.

Pattern exercise - day 2

2010-06-16T08:19:00.000-07:00

Columns for today.

Pattern exercise - day 1

2010-06-15T08:18:00.000-07:00

Going to try to get back into the habit of doing one-hour daily studies. Goal is a month's worth of pattern/architectural studies. Kicking off with some patterns.

Lord Remix Final

2010-06-07T00:16:00.000-07:00

Spent too much of today enjoying the last Sunday of Starcraft II beta... and having Hulu on as the "background noise" proved to be pretty distracting :P

I'm pretty happy with how this turned out though - it could use more refinement, but in general I think I was able to say what I wanted to say without losing too much energy from the raw sketch. Maybe it's just late and I'm more happy with my art than usual, heheh.

Lord Remix WIP

2010-06-06T13:18:00.001-07:00

Going to try to finish it tonight.Having a lot of fun with this one.

Lord Remix Sketch 2

2010-06-04T23:22:00.000-07:00

What's a better time to work on a contest than 2 days away from the deadline? :P

Character designed by Shwann, original character design art is here. It's liberating to do other people's characters - gets me out of my little circle of comfort.

rhino lion

2010-05-21T13:24:00.001-07:00

1-hr lunch doodle for daily sketch group on conceptart.org, the subject being "Creature • IMPRESSIVE ALIEN BEAST BLENDS QUALITIES OF BOTH RHINO & LION".

kekai brushes

2010-05-18T13:13:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Jeff, I am now a proud owner of Kekai brushes :) I've always been a huge fan of Kekai, and hopefully with his photoshop brushes I can steal a little bit of the liveliness that's present in all of his paintings.

Quick lunch study of... another face, heheh. I changed her expression up subtly from the original photo.