Illu, Doodles, and A Link.

Wow, I didn't realize it's been so long since I last posted!

Here is a little freelance thingy I did for Jorden Magazine.

Gouache and color pencils on Canson Mi-Tinte paper. It's a lot more vibrant in person and I love it.

A couple of doodles:




Also it's been a while since I posted artist links, so here we go. Kyle T. Webster has a blog, The Daily Figure, where he posts a figure drawing every day. The commitment is impressing, as well as the simple yet sophisticated line qualities of these figures. He gets the pose down with just a few strokes.

Yeah, totally awesome.

Doodles From The Past Week Or So

I drew this one in a dark theater, and while I enjoy the nervous linework it resulted in, I ended up getting myself a little booklight so I don't go blind in a few years.


I like this one a lot, I might take it to finish.



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Also, I got myself a Behance site. Check me out and give me some thumbs ups!

Archive Galore

I have revamped the Home Base, and am moving some older pieces here for archiving:


A poster I did for Ska Weekend 2007. Spring 2007; Photoshop.


An editorial piece on women's pay equality, it won third place & honorable mention for a competition sponsored by American Association of University Women and SCAD Career Services Department. March 2007; Ink dyes, gouache, & color pencils.


A skateboard I painted in acrylics for a gallery show in Atlanta last summer.


Wine label design. Fall 2006; Gouache & color pencils.


Stamp design about childhood. Winter 2007; Photoshop.



Cover & pages from my children's book, which can be read HERE. Fall 2006; Gouache, color pencils, & Photoshop.


Painted from a life model, approx 2 hours. Spring 2007; oils.


Also painted from a life model, approx 2 hours. Spring 2007; oils.


Drawn from life, approx 30 min. Spring 2007; charcoal.


Assignment about this incident. Fall 2006; Gouache & ink.


Self-portrait. Early 2006; C.F. Payne technique.

An Apple A Day...

Just doodlin' on the school Cintiq.

Also, here is a link to Lobaton, an amazing caricature artist. I really admire his illustrations because it is a prime example of "less is more." I love how simplified YET still very recognizable these faces are.
(MUTE your speakers first, the intro page has music...)

I'm Impressed.

Sean Ryan Cooley's first time-based typography project to Streetlight Manifesto's "Would You Be Impressed."

Holler him some compliments, cuz I think it's really awesome!

Sketch Dump

Just some randoms from the past couple weeks:

Me and my roommates...in a nutshell.

Playing around with different headshapes.

Messing around with different styles.

I like looking around a room full of people, finding a certain pose/angle that is visually interesting, and completely making up a doodle based on that.

I like this guy's hair.

A depressed Gorgon.

Scott Bakal came to the SCAD illustration department to have a presentation, because apparently he is one of the candidates for working at SCAD. I couldn't resist drawing him during his presentation, for he had a very animated & distinct face. As an illustrator, he has a very good sensitivity to color, shapes, and texture. -Do- check out his stuff!

Circus & Caricature of Me!

I thought it would be fun to make a little gif animation of how my final piece progresses--and figured I might as well post it up here:

(please give it a sec for the gif to load)
Here is the final product:

The following were used: concentrated dyes, bleach, color pencils, lighter fluid, & acrylic paint pens.

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Today in the Art of Caricature class, we had two caricaturists come in to do demos: Jeremy Townsend and Justin Galloway. It was phenomenal to see them bust out great line drawings one after another without any sketch lines.
Jeremy drew me!

(the actual paper's not yellow, it's just a bad quality photo)
I definitely learned a lot from just watching them draw-- They're living proof that, like with anything else, the only way to get better is to draw, draw, and draw some more.

Fanboy & Fangirl Time Galore.

Over the past two days, my friends and I went up to Atlanta to participate in the SCAD Illustration & Comic Arts Forum. It was amazing, definitely worth the 4+ hour ride.

On Thursday night there was a lecture by 2 comic artists (Eric Canete & Andrew Robinson) and 2 illustrators (Yuko Shimizu & James Jean). I was especially psyched about seeing the latter two because they're some of the most influential and successful contemporary illustrators that I know of. It was thrilling to see them talk about their work in person.

On Friday I attended a workshop by James, in which he colored a simple pencil line drawing using Photoshop. I was amazed to see that for someone who has such great color sensitivity and intricacy in little details, he didn't use any more than like 5 layers. (Granted, it was a quick exercise piece for a demo--but still.) He also used some Photoshop effects that someone could easily call "tacky" (i.e. gradient overlay), but he used them well-- I would never have guessed just by looking at his finished. It further emphasizes that "it's not about what tools the artist uses, but HOW he uses them."

Anyway, I was a little fangirl and I got my sketchbook signed by Yuko & James:


They were nice enough to top them off with a little doodle!

Zoo Color Comps & Genevieve Kote

Here are the color comps that I had whipped up in Photoshop for the zoo mural art.

I ended up picking the bottom left colors for the final piece, which was done in concentrated dyes, gouache & color pencils. I think color comps are a great way to lay out any value/hue issues before getting to the final. In this particular piece I only varied the background color because I decided to keep the animals colors naturalistic (so there were no confusion as to what was what).

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The illustrator link of the day is Genevieve Kote, who is from Quebec City. She does a lot of freelance stuff, mainly for publications. I just love the whimsical characters, well-planned composition, and bright color schemes that she executes in her illustrations. She also has a great ability to depict any situation in a light-hearted, yet not overly-comical way.

She also has a flickr which has more up-to-date sketches &pieces.

New URL

....YES.

My Sketch Blog is now @ http://yukikoadachi.blogspot.com! The old URL (http://yukikoadachi.com/blog.html) should still work, but it will be in the previous boring template (with the subdirectory link Blogger doesn't let me customize the layout of the page... which is random and lame).
*edit* I deleted the old URL.

Anyway, if everybody could re-link me I'd appreciate it!

P.S. I'm -hoping- to update my main site with new work + info by the end of the month... so stay tuned.

Weee! Huh?

I think it's really important for any artist to take a break from their current projects/assignments, and doodle things that have absolutely nothing to do with anything.

By the way, my boyfriend Sean Cooley has revamped his portfolio site at Ardour Designs. He's a graphic designer and has a completely different style than mine, but is super talented so I thought I'd show him off. So yeah, check it out!

Zoo Mural Art Concept

A value comp I did for a zoo mural. It's kind of hard to see in a sketch so small, but it shows a bunch of animals partying, dressed as another animal. I'll probably keep the colors naturalistic so there's no confusion as to what animal's what (it's already so busy!).

By the way, here's another illustrator link: Matt Phelan. He's a children's book illustrator, and I'm actually doing a report on him. He works mainly in watercolors + ink to produce simple yet unique imagery. I mean, how adorable is this??

I love his sketchy look! I tend to overwork in my final pieces, so I admire how he's able to keep the loose quality of his sketches whilst defining a certain environment/atmosphere.

Upload Overload.

Alright, I've got a lot to post today:

First off, here are initial sketches (from life) of my fellow classmates in my caricature class:


And here are the final finished pieces:

One had to be graphic/geometrical (top, dyes) and the other one more naturalistic (bottom, graphite).

We also did a fun little in-class exercise today, where we had to draw the Statue of Liberty in various facial expressions:

They were definitely fun to do! Why can't Lady Liberty actually look like one of those in real life? :D

Up next are a few random doodles in my sketchbook:

My personal (=not for class) sketchbook is a small 6"x6" square format, so I tend to just put it on my lap and draw things from all sorts of angles... hence the sideways bears... Sorry, I guess you'll just have to tilt your head sideways!

Another one, drawn during a long winded critique...*yawn*:


Finally, my friend Shiho Hoshino put up pictures of her worktable on her blog the other day, so I thought I'd be a little copycat and put my own up:

You can sort of see the finished version of the piece I had been working on...the sketch is in the previous post. I'll be sure to post a good res scan of that soon!

Girls & Yusuke Nakamura

Been drawing a lot of girls lately. It's a weird trend/cycle (?) that comes and goes: sometimes I draw animals for weeks, sometimes I draw boys non-stop, and right now I'm drawing mostly girls.

Speaking of drawing girls, 中村祐介(Yusuke Nakamura) is an amazing illustrator, mostly famous for doing artwork for the band Asian Kung-Fu Generation. He also does bookcovers, shirt designs, and various other freelance work. His graphic style of drawing girls within a design is truly phenomenal. More of his stuff can be viewed here.



I emailed him several years ago to tell him how much I love his work, and he was so nice and humble in his response. It's nice when really talented artists don't let their success get to their head, and stay grounded. I'd like to be like that one day (well first I need to get famous...).