PLAY!

Will this sketch ever be a completed into a full illustration?? Nah... It's just something I've cranked out in the 2 minutes when no one's looking at work (shhhh!!!). In actuality, it's posted here in hopes that you'll continue reading onward.
Sadly, things are a bit at a standstill illustration-wise due to my lovely computer being a bit... busted. The lovely computer I just bought two months ago. Poor lil guy will be shipped out to be fixed in a day or two. BUT. If you want to keep yourself busy, why not play some games I've done animations for?

Think you can save the world by going Green? Always wanted NFL stars to somehow help you out in this crazy littered world?! (Ever thought those two things could be combined?!) Be like this awesome kid, and play this Nickelodeon Go Green Game!

Or perhaps you have a young child that wants to match colors to notes and see some animals dance and play instruments at their every beck 'n call? Maybe they wanted to simultaneously learn Chinese as well!!! Then they've gotta try NiHao Kai Lan's Dance Party! Woo!

Cheater

...So, I finally created an animal-subject-heavy illustration. I couldn't help but put a person in there. However, that person is quite defunct and therefore doesn't count!

...Yeah, that's cheating.

I have to say this was an extremely fun piece to work on; a great break from the Abroad Again image below. Animals have the ability to be beautiful no matter what they're doing. They're somewhat tragic and inexplicably wise in such a way that I'll probably never know.

...gah

Sure, sure, I'll do some non-people illustrations. ...And then I go and make this comp. Basically the boyfriend is abroad in Japan yet again. And I decided I would do a similar image that I originally had on my website. Only... better? I'm trying my best not to skimp out on backgrounds anymore so here's hoping. A bit into my process, I draw out images on paper, ink them with a brush, and then scan them in pieces and fix it up in Photoshop. Obviously parts needed to be reworked and matched up and redrawn, which I sketch out in a different color (like red!) I've been busy with this monster; it's one of the largest illustrations I've worked on since... college. Yikes.

To the future!

Sometimes to get there, we need to let go of a lot of things from the past. Learn from those memories first before continuing to move on, and understand that some things really have to let go.

It's been a long, long time since I've done an illustration without the hint of someone's face in it. I tend to think a piece looks too empty without one. I'm hoping to get some animal studies and landscapes done to make up for that!

The Pressure's on!

A new illustration, appropriately titled 'pressure.' Just playing around in Photoshop some more as Operation: Replace Portfolio continues on! It's been a bit hectic for me as usual, but of course it's always like that around this time of year. I've organized myself by about 2% more than normal and have somehow managed to find the time to set up a shop on etsy. How the heck did I manage that?? If you'd like any of my illustrations, feel free to purchase prints of them here!

Late

It's this week's topic for Illustration Friday! and I couldn't resist because this image kept poking me in the side. Should I be worried that this was the first thing to jump out at me when hearing the word 'late'? ...Maybe not? There were many girls back in school that would hold pregnancy as a tremendously high fear. Doesn't help when I keep reading statistics that women having children in the US is just about the lowest it's been.

Character Process

Just some side characters from sketch, to digital ink, to color, from my one-day-sometime-in-the-future-perhaps-graphic novel. Little by little, I think it'll come together. Gotta take the small steps first!

Autumn!

Autumn is pretty special for me; it's my last name in German! Here's a piece I cranked out from over the weekend and finalized today (get it? Fall into Fall? ahhhh so cliche...). Things are moving a bit slow illustration-wise due to the state of my laptop. Hopefully in about 2 weeks, I'll be receiving a new desktop computer so working with high DPI files won't kill me so much! In the meantime...enjoy!

The Video-Gamer

Just a fast illustration I cranked out yesterday. I was inspired to do some more brush 'n ink work for a change and wow, it felt great.

It's really interesting to hear guys talk about video games or watch them play video games (don't get me wrong, I enjoy them as well). But there's a certain look that they get on their faces and their gestures become much more animated. I think it's a special sort of love!

Monstaaas!

More work! From.... well... my full-time work. I've been busy doing a lot more typing and writing than drawing for the past two weeks, finally putting together the complete story of a graphic novel I'm hoping to put together. In the meantime, enjoy these cute 'lil monsters that are in the process of development. The backgrounds are just some test styles; very different from the usual!

More Monkeys

This was actually a commission from about 2 YEARS ago by an old co-worker of mine. She had simply asked for a Buddha with monkeys. I promised to get it done and while moving from NJ and then NYC set me back a bit, I finally came through with my promise (albeit extremely late)! If she doesn't read this blog, then she'll be in for a nice surprise when I send her a poster print of it in the mail!

Fuzzy

Just some unused animal designs from work; the target audience was for preschoolers. I'm without internet until Tuesday so I won't be able to publish any personal work until then!

Crazy

This was on Nickelodeon's website for my company's game. Apparently we had a small TV spot for it as well? It's pretty exciting to see our work on their site!

Things will calm down once I have my internet set up in the new apartment; I have to say, things have been hectic. I've finally moved into an apartment that isn't a sublet and it's a full year lease. Hooray for not moving for at least an entire year! I'll post a new Mission: Replace Portfolio illustration by the end of week. Cheers!

Gamer Stuff

During the months of April, June, and part of July, I had been working on a game for Nickelodeon's Avatar: The Last Airbender during the 'ole full-time job. It's titled "The Path of Zuko." I somehow earned the title of 'environment artist' for the game. It was a fun experience; Nickelodeon sent us the series to watch for research, plot-writing, and reference for the artwork. The game is supposed to go to retail in a few days, but we're still working out the last kinks and bugs. All of the artwork for in-game shots were created by my lead artist Mike and myself. For a 20 level game... that's a TON of artwork for two artists to make in a 2 months' deadline! And a bit of background on the style of the game: it's a tile-based game. Which means the ground is created by 32x32 pixel sized squares... So those "ground squares" you see in that library are actually 4 tiles each. For exteriors, tiles go from full grass, to half grass-half sand, full sand etc, for all turns and straight lines. The game used a total of 776 tiles I made along along with over 8 sets of walls, with over 200 different objects between Mike and myself. It was pretty fun to create all of the interiors and exteriors!

More snow

Okay, so it wasn't too early to make more snow. I think the lack of AC is definitely getting to me. Here's an illustration I started and got halfway through while at work (shhh, don't tell).

It's funny when making some sort of remotely mythical creature and then think of all the mechanics and physics on it. I'm well-aware that the rider could quite possibly poke his eyes out on those antlers... but I like to think they're a bit softer and spongy than hard and pokey.

Scissors Cuts Paper v2.0!

I opened the old file/first version and thought to myself... dear God, what was I thinking? I guess that happens to lots of artists. You look at something you drew yesterday and want to go over all the lines again to make it better.

That, or destroy the entire thing and start anew!

This feels a thousand times better; I also felt it complemented styles with Paper Suffocates Rock.

I apologize if my colors are WAAAAAY saturated on your monitor! I really need to take a look at my settings...

Way Too Early

To be thinking of snow, that is. Thanks to Mauricio for telling me about Hallmark's (red) card contest! The theme is 'holiday' and I guess I kept the origami trend going. Still going, going...

Sketch Drop

Dropping in some sketches from the plane ride/airport. I plan to redo my Scissors Cuts Paper illustration into a v2.0 now that I have more time and have developed the Scissors girl a whole lot more. And Rock Crushes Scissors is here as well!

Operation: Replace Portfolio

Yes, Operation: Replace Portfolio is now in effect. This mission is just about exactly as it sounds. I will begin to replace the very old illustrations on my site with new ones like this:


I guess it can stay as 'Kite River' for now. It should truthfully be entitled "NJ Transit," because the landscape right outside of NYC looks like that. Finally finished!

Honestly, I don't think I could ever be one of those digital painters who do 'speed paintings.' While this illustration went a lot faster than other digital ones I've tried in the past, it's going to be a LONG while before I feel comfortable enough to crank out a just-as-detailed piece in 30 minutes or less.

Comicon 2008

Is over, and what a great time it was this year! It started off right as I sat on the airplane going from JFK to San Diego. The guys next to me (from Major League Gaming) were taking bets on whether I was heading to Comicon because I was sketching. My apologies goes to the guy who lost a few bucks when he didn't think so!

Day one was a good start, met up with Stephanie and Catherine, along with their old high school buddy, Alexis. Visited a few publishers in the Exhibitor's Hall to hand out the Pinky Swear comic and overall, I think it was received pretty well! The only panel I think I saw that entire day was for Minx which was awesome since Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly were there. I also met up with Stephen who literally just came back from Japan and straight to Comicon! Here's hoping he's coping with the jet lag and time zone changes accordingly! The evening ended with some really great Thai!

Day two began with the longest walk known to mankind. It was also known as looking for the end of the line to the Heroes panel. After making our way around the entire convention center and two hotels beside it, we realized we were right back where we had started and simply gave up. Here is the elusive end of the line that we finally discovered:

Afterwards, we decided we might have more luck at the Spaced panel (after seeing the end of Craig McCracken's panel on Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends and Powerpuff Girls' 10th anniversary) where Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes Stevenson, and Edgar Wright did a fun Q&A and cheered about the fact that American TV failed to recreate their amazing British series. I cheered too!

Thanks to Catherine's impeccable eyesight, she spotted Fred Savage over at Mcfarlane Toys as we were passing by. And while he was excited to see the toys, we were excited to see how down-to-earth he was! He graciously let us take a picture with him and was real nice about it. Thanks Fred Savage!!
Here's a great shot of Stephen's reaction to our photo with Fred:

Afterwards, we decided to head out to grab a bite to eat when we noticed an Ice Cream truck, plastered with Sci-Fi's Eureka ads all over it, was handing out free ice cream. Little did we know that the stars of the show were the ones HANDING OUT said free ice cream!! It's pretty crazy to see the people whose faces are posted on the entire side of a truck right in front of you inside of said truck!


After lunch, we spotted Bruce Campbell at the Dark Horse booth (I wished I had a stick of Old Spice for hims to sign..) as well as James Duval who was incredibly nice and an all around a great guy!

The day was winding down with us giving little gifties to Giant Robot's co-creator, Martin Wong. Who was really friendly and posted a photo of us with our gifties on his blog (bottom image)! Much thanks goes out to him and the whole Giant Robot booth! At the end, some great dinner meeting up with Melody and her husband, Nicholas.

Day three - started with roaming the exhibitors hall. This was when the long days started taking their toll. I bought quite a few books, from Flight, Blue Sky Studios, Top Shelf, and Ragnar; all were signed by the artists respectively! A large portion of the day was spent relaxing while Catherine waited for a portfolio review with Nickelodeon. For dinner, we met up with Nicholas, Melody, and her family for some good conversation and great food!! The end of the night was complete with a sketch-crawl in one of the hotels around the convention center. I now have sketches from old friends and new ones in the book!

If I'm able to go again next year, I can't wait! I hope everyone had as great a time as myself!



Thanks goes to Alexis and Catherine for their photos.

WIP - Kite River

Obviously this is nowhere near done, but I've just been dabbling in the photoshop paint stuffs for half this weekend and just after work today. Again, I'm working very differently than I'm used to. While I sketched the image on paper and scanned it in, the inks were done in Photoshop this time around to see how it would go. I'm much more satisfied with the way it came out than trusting my hand with a brush.

Actually, I remember a conversation with Aisleen in which we believed each other to be insane; me for using a brush, her for using pen nibs. I think she wins that argument. No matter how well I cared for my brushes, they still would deteriorate from the permanent ink and I think a lot of my illustrations suffered for it. I've always wanted to do more painterly looking works and this is by far the closest I've come to uh... something that looks remotely presentable I guess. Don't even ask to see my past attempts... yuck.

Cover

...This is extremely out of my comfort zone though it feels new and exciting. But I think it works. On numerous occasions, Randy and I have scoured through NYC's comic book stores. We discovered we became disappointed when a comic has this truly amazing cover on it and the inside artwork is either done by a different artist that doesn't hold up to the cover artwork, or the interior is black and white while the cover has amazingly vibrant colors. It's true, it really is hard not just judge comics by their covers when it's supposed to be the thing that catches your eye while it's sitting on a rack.

I suppose I wanted to do a sort of opposite effect for the cover. Not fully colored cover with a fully colored interior. Maybe it'll be my downfall!
Did I mention the title changed? 'The Promise' kept reminding me of the asian film by the same name. I just didn't feel right if I kept it. I guess this has a more playful childhood feeling. Less ominous.

This image is sized for printing when I do the 8.5x11 folded paper bit, saddle-stitched with staples over the next week.

In other news, Society of Illustrators West 46 is finally up! You can check out my piece in there along with everyone else that's in it!

Mission...COMPLETE.

All that's left is the cover. ...And a title. Which I know will change in my head before I get it down on paper. Again. ...If only I could make up my mind. Here's pages 18 and what could be considered a back page, or simply a page 19.

Hope you enjoyed this strange 'lil story.

3-day weekend

Granted I was away for half of it. Here's what I got done in the second half.

Page 17. One page to go, plus a closing page, and something I'm still tinkering around in my head for... a cover... ayaah. So close, so close...

Frenzy

Yes, yes, that's the perfect word. It is officially July and I need to finish this comic, plus put together a new postcard for San Diego. ...Cutting it close, much??


Page 16!

The Conference

I was receiving mail for Icon5, and while it would be truly worthwhile for me to go, with panels by Allan Comport, and maybe even running into other ridiculously great and wonderful individuals, I know that I simply don't have the time.

I depart for San Diego at the end of July and this comic is still unfinished. The rest of today will be filled up by inking any remaining panels for the last three pages. One of which needs to be redrawn entirely...

...Not to mention that I have YET to create a cover image for this thing. Aiyee!

Page 15 just for you.

Page 14

I've been going to an open life drawing session once a week for the past 2-3 weeks. Hopefully I can get some gestures scanned in. In the meantime, here's page 14.

Also a reminder, these are still not color-corrected. so I apologize for the 'over-exposed' sort of look they seem to have on anyone else's monitor!

Summer

This page took me a bit longer to finish than I expected. I apologize for that.

I always forget that there are specific dates when a season begins and ends. I just assume once a particular month starts, such as June, that month signifies the beginning of summer. I will admit, sometimes I miss the long breaks between one year of school to the next. With a full-time job, there are no immensely long pauses. But there are its perks. I go home and don't stress about tests or homework(well... freelance and its insane deadlines once in awhile, but that brings money and accomplishment as a reward).

When sitting in the park during lunch, co-workers along with myself will treat ourselves to an icy from the man who pushes his 'lil icy cart around. And while this seems like such a trivial, unimportant, little event... it's nice to know you have the freedom to purchase what you want when you want as an adult.

Treat yourself to something nice once in awhile.

Eye-spotting

Page 12 for your viewing pleasure; I realized the last page wasn't the right file when it was uploaded; the highlights and texture layers had been turned off. My mistake! The updated file will of course be in the printing when this comic is completed.

In other news: David Tabler of TheIspot had emailed me earlier today asking if I was interested in posting my portfolio on their website to have art directors find me for freelance work. Apparently SILA finally posted the names of their artists and the pieces that were in it; including my Half-Asian piece. He had found me through Nate Williams at illustrationmundo. In truth, I've been staring at their website every so often since I had Whitney Sherman as an instructor at MICA and she had recommended posting a portfolio there to our graduating class. The problem is I personally don't feel I have enough pieces to be a good, strong portfolio. That's up to 18 images, while I'll feel I have perhaps 5-8? I'll have to work harder once this sequential piece is done. I think it's always good to set personal goals; nothing too ridiculous but something that can be remotely feasible. If I can come to the end of this year with a few more strong, concrete illustrations while working full-time, I'll be more than satisfied.

Needless to say, I'm really excited to have these individuals looking at my work!

Heat Wave

...Think I can brave the city summer without A/C? ...well, I've just survived the first weekend of 96 degree straight weather. Here's hoping I can withstand the following weeks.

Page 11 for ya!

Sketch-Crawl

...I suppose this doesn't count as a sketch for Drawing Day 2008... Maybe I'll get to sketch something unrelated to this comic before the day us up.

Page 10!

25 hour day

...Or maybe 30? or 45? I haven't had time to draw in the past few weeks, other than the work I do at my full-time job. It's a bit saddening and stifling at the same time. I DO enjoy coloring these and getting them done. It's always nice to have a finished product in the end that's all polished. Hopefully after this is done, I'll get some single illustrations up.

Moved!

This weekend flew by; I've just settled into a new apartment. Albeit temporary, but it's the next step in this crazy phase of life before 'normalcy.' ...whatever is that??
Sorry about the delays, I was trying to keep myself paced at about 3 pages or so a week!

So here's the delayed Page 8 of the Promise comic:

Happy Happy

Happy Memorial Day, all. I hope you were all graced with a day off like myself! ..Before you go off on the godawful perspective of this page, I'm well aware of it. Trust me. The girl's proportions are just terrible and it didn't matter how many times I redrew it with photo references. I truly wish I had more time to go back and correct more of things... the top panel actually had a complete overhaul on her face from the original inked page. Glad I was able to at least get to that one!

Next!

Oh ho, double-whammy. Pages 5 AND 6 fully colored. The basically non-existent plot has begun to congeal into a paste. Enjoy!