I’ve been absent from the blogoshpere WAY too long! All thanks to that damned speedy that never fails to dissapoint me. There was some time where I couldn’t connect every night frm 6pm till midnight. Secondly, for some unknown reason, all of my internet bookmarks are gone! Countless of links that I’ve gathered, all gone! Knew I should’ve backed it up every once in a while. Well, without my bookmarks, I don’t even know where to point my browser to…

Anyway, today I drew a few portraits of my friends - something I wouldn’t even have thought about in the past. Though my drawings are still far from the real thing, I had fun! Yeah, most say that it doesn’t look like them at all. Oh, and also some people are shy when I start to draw their faces, that’s why I only get a ‘looking down’ pose here. Agit, hope you would smile more.

And for the sweet new couple in my class…

Recently got this simple mascot job. It’s more or less the same as all the mascots I have done haha. I kinda lack variety at the moment, so I guess I’ll try more daring stuff later on. Coz you know, better play it safe.

So basically I asked the client to send me some pics of his face as reference. I then sketch semi-realistic style, taking note of special features of the face. Once I get it, I just simplify the illustration and make a mascot out of it.

Finished work. Got another version of the illustration where the mascot holds a pitchfork. Also simple T-shirt design there. But to be completely honest, I’m not too satisfied with the colors. But hey, the client said ‘great!’ and sent me the payment (t’was cheaper than usual).

I noticed most, if not all the CG artists in NewType had their works featured in Robot - a collection of coloured (CG) comic which, if I’m not mistaken, are handpicked by Range Murata himself. I got curious, so I thought I’d get one for reference purposes. Like always, imported stuff costs a lot more than the original 1900yen price tag. Below is the one I got, volume 8.

Robot volume 8

Unsurprisingly, the first comic is Range Murata’s. Eventhough it’s only four pages… Still, it’s Range Murata’s superb art, and four pages worth of gold and win. His work in this particular volume is BMW Drive. I reckon that the main focus of this piece is the motorcycle.

BMW Drive by Range Murata

Here’s my personal favourite, Straw (ストロー) by Neonvision. I like his colouring style, good for reference. While the idea of zero margin between panels is refreshing, it gets a bit out of hand sometimes - there is a bit too much to look at, that we don’t know where to start (eventhough we know as a fact, Japanese comics are read from right to left, top to bottom)

Well I guess coloured comics are fine, but I still prefer single full-page CGs. Robot was a good addition to my collection, but I’m going to look out for more CG books.

Had this project back in January, t’was my first project involving a client and a deadline (well sort of). I have to admit that I’m not yet used to working under deadline pressure. I didn’t work efficiently and wasted quite a lot of time. As a result I had to do all the work last minute, three days without sufficient sleep and then I fell sick lol.

Logo

The logo making part was quite frustrating. I did a lot of concepts, but just somehow wasn’t good enough. Kaizen made me realize that I’m better at my freehand, so on my second attempt the logos were more complex and more of an abstract piece. Colored it just to find that Kaizen didn’t like it. In the end it was a modification of a previous rejected concept.

Logos I did using freehand

Mascot

Character design is always easier for me than logo design. Making the mascot was a breeze. As described by Kaizen: similar to my mascot, wearing shirt & tie, confident looking. And there ya go.

WP theme

Peak of my frustrations haha. It was a while since I last did a WP-theme. The main code was done fairly quick (just to get the theme up by the deadline), but the more specific parts took me MUCH longer.

Here it is, my fifth CG. I’d say, big improvements over my previous CGs. This is a good sign - means that I’m on the right track. BTW, up till now I’m only doing CG for the head part only. Next time for sure, I’ll make full body CG illustration.

It took me about two weeks to finish it. Just one thing though, half way through the work, Photoshop was lagging so badly. I wondered what could’ve caused it and, oh! When I realized, the .psd file was over 60MB! Maybe I over did it by scanning the sketch in 400dpi, the canvas was 3893 x 2827 pixel. I figured working in hi-res isn’t a problem, since I did the lineart in that resolution without problems. It only started to slow down when I lay down the gradients and shadings - smudging was painfully laggy. Reduced it to 100dpi afterwards.

The .psd was over 60MB!

The focus of this piece is the eyes. Hence the title I gave, cos’ I’m not sure how to describe this illustration. I tried to do the eyes the way Tony Taka does - it’s not perfect, but it’s good enough for me.

Close-up on the face

I also did a cloud background. Done it by hand (or mouse, rather) with the brush tool. I then smudged the shadings by instincts. Aw come on, this is my first attempt - it’s already good enough right? But when I put it together with the character it looks a bit off… Perhaps because the colours don’t match?

Cloud background

Well I had fun making this CG. The best part is that I can write crap about it when I’m finished. Also, when the work is finished I get to know which part needs improvement so I’ll try better next time. Below is the finished work, cropped.