Year of the Tiger

New Year's cards are kind of a big deal in Japan. Sort of like Christmas cards in the States. Anyway, I made these a while back ---sometime in the beginning of this past summer--- for a bunch of New Year's card contests.

























[ all: concentrated dyes & color pencils on watercolor paper, & Photoshop ]
The last one was selected as one of the winning works, and is now available on sale at Joyful-2 (an arts & crafts store) around Japan!



Hope everybody is enjoying what's left of 2009.

Computer Arts Thailand

This is totally long overdue, but I was featured in the October issue of Computer Arts Thailand!
Check out this low quality pix:

Elephants

...are by far one of my favorite animals, next to monkeys. They're the most gentle, nicest guys EVER. Anyway recently I had the opportunity to visit a few few elephant camps / centers in Kanchanaburi, Thailand.










^ The last guy is from the wildlife hospital... Some people's faces just MUST be drawn.

Hot Air Balloonin'.

So, more than a month ago I started brewing some ideas for a new promo card piece:




I picked the last sketch and worked right up to the color comp stage, but didn't get around to starting on the final until two days ago:

I tried to keep everything fairly loose, as far as coloring went.

Almost always I scan in piece and tweak the raw piece in Photoshop:

Most times I do simple color adjustments and clean-up, but I wasn't too happy with how the blue in the balloon came out so I fixed that.

Anyway, here is the final:


Media: ink dyes and color pencils on CP watercolor paper, gin*** + Photoshop.
****I often use lighter fluid to smooth out the color pencil markings (it melts the wax). However, today I couldn't find any so I used gin as a replacement. :x It worked okay but definitely not up to par with lighter fluid, hence the Photoshopping.

About To Cry.

Random facial expressions are fun. Any suggestions?

Some of My Published Works

...that I should have posted a YEAR ago.




in this:








the above two in these (same issue, different covers):


I really need to take better pictures...

This Cat Always Cracks Me Up.

Archivin' these two older pieces---stationary ideas:




My main site has been updated (every piece is bigger!) so check that out too! I need to make&add new pieces real bad. I'm also thinking about making my site Japanese-friendly some point in the near future. I wish web design wasn't so frustrating!

More Of These.

These are so much fun!!! Hopefully I will post some real drawings sometime soon...

Paint Mark Guys.

When I'm painting, I usually have a little scrap piece of whatever paper I'm using at the time as an area to test out the colors before I lay it down on the actual piece. Sometimes these paint marks turn out more interesting than the actual piece.

Also, have you guys ever drawn random lines or scribbles and given it to somebody else to draw something using those lines? And swapping it back and forth? I don't know if that has an official name or anything but I love doing that.

Anyway, last night I was feeling silly and started doodling on my paint marks from the swine flu piece. It was a lot of fun! Unintended (unintentional?) shapes and patterns are so interesting.



My favorites are the three guys on the right: the dog (?), the cat, and the guy with a turban-esque headgear.

Swine Fluzilla

I'm not really the editorial / contemporary events type of illustrator, but this swine flu madness is getting ridiculous (in every way) that I just had to draw this.



Concentrated dyes & color pencils on watercolor block, some Photoshop.

GG Completed.

Ed Westwick as Chuck Bass

&
Leighton Meester as Blair Waldorf

[ click to enlarge ]
...from the TV show Gossip Girl!

Both are gouache & color pencils on stretched Canson Mi-Tientes paper.

Gossip Girl Gifs.

I'm 99% with both Blair & Chuck. Here are the progress photo gifs:




Please give the gifs a few seconds to load.

Blair Waldorf In Progress.

Gouache on stretched Canson Mi-Tientes paper in Light Blue.

Mr. Chuck is 97% done, so I started Miss Blair so I can finish the two together. I kind of intended them to be a pair piece that also works independently.

More Charles Bartholomew Bass Progress...

Chuck Bass In Progress.

Gouache on stretched Canson Mi-Tientes paper in Buff. The suit needs to be pushed back a little bit as far as saturation goes. Anyway, onto my favorite part: color pencils!

I'm On A Roll! GG Color Comps.

I guess it's just one of those days where I'm oddly inspired and productive!

Chuck Bass Color Comp:

[ click to enlarge ]

Blair Waldorf Color Comp:

[ click to enlarge ]

Let me know if you have any favorite(s) or any other color suggestions! The only things I want to stick to are: Chuck's purple suit, Blair's red lipstick & white dress. I might come up with other variations with her headband/bow thing.