Happy Holidays!

I apologize for the lack of updates. I'm currently living out of a suitcase on a couch all the way on the west coast!



It's that time a year. I send out 50-100 holiday postcards I've created for my family/friends and here's this year's design for all you!

Hope everyone has a great end of the year!

BREATHE!

This is either a man that's drowning, or a man that's juuuust reached the surface and taken that great big breath of fresh oxygen. I'm in that very position right now; I can't tell which of these actions I'm experiencing.


I'll be in San Francisco until around the New Year for a contract position that will hopefully turn into a permanent full-time job. This means: Kim can't update her blog as often over the next month. This also means: Kim will most probably relocate from the East Coast in Brooklyn, NY, to the West Coast in San Francisco, CA.

NYC, it's been awesome/crazy these past two years, but you sadly didn't show me enough love when I needed it most! Cheers!

Long Distance Relationships

...are really hard. The other day I was commended by a friend, as she was impressed I've been in such a relationship for the past year and a half. It's not what either of us would want, mind you, but life happens and the circumstances will change in the coming weeks.

Needless to say, this personal illustration is generally what I feel if I dwell on the subject a bit too long. ...Or if a friend keeps asking when he's coming back. Or when someone looks at me incredulously when they're informed he's been abroad for over a year. ...Or if I see other couples holding hands and embracing one another. ...List can go on 'n on...

Goin' Ape!

Much thanks to Alex Mathers for featuring me on Ape on the Moon! It's super exciting and super appreciated. Check it out, there's tons of other great illustrators and artists on there!!

Duck 'n Cover

I've had numerous dreams where I'm in an apartment building, I look out the window, and Godzilla is rampaging across the city. I kid you not. Numerous times. I tell myself to just 'stay still and be quiet' when I see him. I mean, he's so freakin' big and I'm so freakin' tiny, it's not like he'll see me. And as soon as I think this, he looks over with his huge menacing yellow eyes, does that high-pitched metal-bending roar of his, and then proceeds to smash apart the building where I'm cowering inside.


It's kind of funny because Godzilla in films isn't terrifying whatsoever. Yet, the very IDEA of something gallavanting across a city, destroying everything in its path (a la Cloverfield), with you, so insignicantly small, unable to do anything about it, is a really frightening notion. Think about it!

This piece was worked on over the course of the later part of this week. ...It ended up being like three illustrations in one; the monster outside the window, the girl inside the apartment, and then that lil vintage 'gojira!' poster on the wall. Phew!

Dig It

Tak Toyoshima contacted me if my German For Autumn illustration could be used on this week's issue of Boston's Weekly Dig. And 'lo 'n behold, I said yes and now it's on the cover! If you live in the Boston area, pick up a copy; if not, you can download a PDF of the current issue online. Funny they put 'I guess she's a PC' overtop the illustration... I do use a PC!! I really have nothing against apples!!

Hydro-Fracking

If you live in NYC, you can pick up a copy of The Indypendent, the 'free paper for free people!' I had the chance to create a piece for the cover, an article that deals with the procedure of 'hydro-fracking' and how it might be polluting NYC's drinking water.
Here's the illustration as it appears on the cover, and then the original below it:

Poor Circulation

A creepy illustration just for this creepy time of year. I could have done more leaves and Autumn-related colors, but there's something I find extremely eerie about how quiet everything gets when it snows.


Those feet can belong to something mortal, or not, either way, she has very poor blood circulation...

Flying

Wow, I have to say I'm pretty darn proud of this one. This is for Illustration Friday! with the theme of the week, 'Flying.' Of course I immediately thought of Icarus who flew too close to the sun, but it was his quote that really got to me: "All limits are self imposed."

My limits are as far as I make them, so I think I went nuts with this one, working for most of the entire day on this as well as yesterday. As a bonus, here's a few work-in-progress images so you can see my process (at least... the process for this particular illustration).

First I start with solid lines, I just refer to them as 'inks.' The flames are there to give me an idea of what style I may do them in, either stylized in the same fashion as the smoke, or something else.
Next comes the background and I place flats on the front elements. The smoke I tinge with a bit of color to remind myself that Hey, I'm putting fire in there somewhere....And then I accidentally shut that red-tinge layer off. BUT. Now we have more background elements such as clouds, the shadows under them etc. I've also started placing a shadow on the man and his broken wings, with slight color tweaks here and there.

Aaaaand here's the final! Textures are brought in, the flames are painted in, embers are a-flyin' and he's most assuredly falling.
Enjoy!

Pop!

Much thanks goes out to Popwhore for mentioning me on his blog! Check it out, there's a slew of great people on there!

Also, a sneak peek at my current illustration, for Illustration Friday!'s topic 'Flying.' Enjoy!

Herbst

Not sure why, but this piece took me far longer than I thought it would have. I might've mentioned this before. My last name, 'Herbst' is actually German for the season of 'Autumn.' It holds a special place in my heart. I had created a piece a few weeks ago to signify the end of summer. This one signifies my Fall illustration for this year, literally titled 'German for Autumn.' It's been years since I did an actual self-portrait, and while I don't actually have pink hair, this is about as close as you'll get to a self-portrait from me.

...Also, I have nothing against apples except for the fact that I'm sadly allergic to them (along with all the other 'stone fruits') but I somehow force myself to eat them once in awhile anyway. Because they're ever-so-delicious.

'Cuz This is THRILLAAAH!

My buddy Omead contacted me with another idea for a t-shirt design. This is basically a tribute to Michael Jackson in general, and his amazing Thriller music video (Also the right time of year with Halloween coming up, no?) There are a bunch of elements that I left off of this particular image, but these are the main components that'll be in the main design. Hope it makes a great shirt!

Flash Attack!

For over a year, I was a flash animator/designer for a web-games company in Brooklyn, NY. I've decided to share a few random animations I had done. Some of the designs were created by the very talented Mike Tarnowski, or the equally awesome Jesse Aclin, who would then hand off their creations to me to be animated.

Here's a character from Nickelodeon's NFL sprint game which had been featured on their site for sometime. The main character had to evade obstacles and make his way to the end of the level with the help of famous NFL stars. Some parts a bit awkward as a character isn't included in this clip, and this is prior to the 'lil guy being programmed. Enjoy!



Here's a shortie. Jesse had designed this adorable crocodile for the iPhone's 'Tick Tack Paddywack' game (a cute tic tac toe app for your iPhone!). This guy could be unlocked when won, and I had him dance as a fun reward.



Another shortie, this kitty was another character you can unlock in 'Tick Tack Paddywack.' He gives you a hearty meow and does a back-flip for ya!

Portfolio!

It's been a REALLY long time since I had to bind anything by hand. I decided to do that cliche illustrator thing and make a portfolio completely hand-bound to mail off to Berlin for Illustrative's portfolio review. A bit of effort was put into this 'lil guy and it's shame I have no time to set something up with an international courier; I won't be getting this portfolio back. Oh well, here's hoping it brings me some luck! Here's the whole thing, the front, a sample interior page, and the back. ...Not sure I got all of the spelling correct on the different languages, but at least I tried!!

Exodus Printed!

Received my copy of Hyphen Magazine today and got to see my illustration 'Exodus' finally alongside the fiction that Ky Phong Tran wrote! Very exciting! I love the layout and the colors!

Illustrophile

HUGE thanks goes out to Charlene Chua for featuring my work on Illustrophile! I am SUPER stoked to do a print trade with her. Seriously. Giddy in my chair! I've been loving her work for the last year and really am happy to have had this opportunity :)

I'm also super grateful for all the love from the d lounge, masayume, this isn't happiness, and many others who have found and enjoyed my work!

Farewell, Summer

Summer is gone; so long to the smoky barbecues and fireflies.


On to Autumn with leaves, spices, and wind.

PRINTS - BUY ONE!

Now available, my Legend of Zelda, "We're Gonna Need a Bigger Rucksack..." illustration in super-awesome-thick-stock-Limited-Edition-Signed-Wowee-form. The prints are absolutely gorgeous with a matte finish in full poster size of 12" x 16"!!



Come grab a copy from Gallery 1988!

Come Together

Clicking on the above image will take you to the first page of the comic/issue and then you can click for the next page, 'n the page after that, 'n so on...

As of right now, Plastelyzed is currently on WebComicsNation and will (HOPEFULLY) update every Wednesday. I don't know how long I can keep that up. I'm currently working full-time at Techno Source Toys for the next 2 weeks because they need someone to cut lots of foamcore for an upcoming toy fair. This means my hands are going to cry and I might not post any illustrations for a bit. In the meantime, go look at those pages!

BLAM BLAM

Black and white sample page for later on in the Plastelyzed comic.

I noticed tons of people are checking out the Comics section of my website and it is VASTLY outdated. Soooo, I'll be updating it with more recent-hopefully-better pages. This, surprisingly, took far longer than it would take me to regularly color a page. I have to give huge props to people like Frank Miller who can work in positive and negative spaces so successfully!

More Kids

I recently did some character designs for a children's book. These had to be vastly altered to reflect Chinese origins, and fit the demographic of 6 year olds.


..I find 6 a hard age. I would've done much more cutesy designs for 3-4 year olds but I remember bedtime stories around 6-8 having far richer illustrations that I loved and still love today.

Plastelyzed Cover

Just sort of threw this together today. Cover for issue 1 (Issue 0.000) ...I feel pretty great about the cover. Not so great about a lot of the interior artwork I've been making that's to follow it. I think I'll be redrawing some pages now!

Eczema

...Ever have a visible condition, that seemingly takes over your whole identity? Where someone sees your cane, or crutch, or birthmark, or a bandage before looking at you in the face?


Mine, once in awhile, is eczema. ...It's not contagious, but I catch peoples' facial expressions on my hands every now 'n then when I'm on the subway. Simple illustration for this simple feeling!

More Comic-ing

Pages 5 and 6. ...pretty self-explanatory.

COMIC-ATCHA!

I've been writing out something that's somewhat personal to me. But I figured it's something that should be shared with others, and who knows, they might be able to relate to. So, it's being put into a black and white comic form.

Below are the first two pages, interior title page, then the following 2 pages that I've been working on thus far.

I'm debating on putting this onto a webcomic sort of format. Maybe someplace like Webcomics Nation. Or should I just try and crank out a page a day until the thing's done and then ship it off to publishers? Anyone have any suggestions??

Postcard

Just a b/w study for an upcoming idea I have. Maybe this'll turn into a page.


Sketching of pages is currently happening!

FIRST PAGE. EVER.

Oh. My God. I actually went through and colored an entire page for my comic. I feel faint. I was about to re-ink the entire thing too.
The first page to 'Plastelyzed,' after what, 10 years when I first thought about making it (and re-wrote it literally about 4 times) and I'm hoping I have the guts to continue going.

For Kids and Not For Kids

I was glad the description gave a range for this guy's age. It's always hard to pinpoint an EXACT age-number when drawing someone in their younger years. This guy is just a simple character study for a possible children's book...

...While the gal down there is obviously NOT for a children's book. Different clientele, for a possible flash-based game. The concept is to have very buxom women who look like they could fight in a Heavy Metal Warrior world.

Yumi's Arrow - FINAL

This took far longer than I thought it would. But that's what happens when projects come bombarding their way through. At least it's finished now!


For my pal, Yumi. Her arrows are really crackin' through the world's problems quite nicely there! Granted the girl's still a bit dark, it seems like more of a hopeful image with the light.

WIP - Yumi's Arrow

...Slowly but surely, I'm making I'm making a little headway on this piece. I've been currently swamped with a few secret projects that I can't post here. Sorry!


BUT, you get to see the flats I've put in, at least. I've gone through about 7 different color schemes and so far this seems to work the best. It's subject to change again, of course.

Child Knights

Here's a sampling of colored pages for the new children's book about the training involved to become a knight.


The edges are rough since they'll all be masked off and I'm a bit crunched for time to make them neat. As usual, it's around 2-4am and I wish I could keep tinkering on these. It may or may not happen.

WIP - Yumi's Arrow

A few days ago, I received an e-mail from good friend Miss Yumi. She requested an image of a female cupid, " tied down by the world and all of it's unnecessary and self-created problems." But she would be freeing herself with her bow and arrows. Here's the first draft of the image:

Originally I had thought of using actual objects from everyday modern problems. It seemed a bit tacked-on to me and I thought to myself, the literal world holding her down would possibly seem more powerful.

This is definitely a theme I think nearly everyone I know has dealt with, or is currently dealing with at the moment as multiple people have approached me with this subject. After graduating college, perhaps you've gone through a job or three and realized you haven't been happy at any of them. Or maybe you've become so comfortable at one job that you realized you're not even doing what you truly wanted to do while growing up. You come to find you're content but far from ecstatic and you're just moving your body in the same repetitious cycle.

It's that awkward stage where you have a job somewhat in the field you want and yet you're just not where you want to be yet. And for many of us, we can fall into a horrible depression when we come to terms with this fact. We can become impatient, or even resentful.

So here's to Yumi and her arrow that can destroy the ties that bind us down so solidly to our earthly problems.

Banner

Once in awhile, I scour Craigslist for freelance jobs. And once in awhile, an actual, honest-to-true job will reply back. Gustto, the designer handbag company, contacted me for one such project. The concept was to create a banner that would be based off of a 1960s movie poster with elements mashed-up together in a sort of collage.

Here's one of 6 pencil drafts I went through, one colored rendition, and then the final. I believe I went through about 12 different versions with this. Phew!


This was in a style very far from my own, since fashion illustration usually calls for long legs and sketchy watercolors. It was a pretty big change!!