Grave of the Fireflies

New process video and illustration up.

Mobile Games

New personal illustration for this week - ‘Mobile Games’

I worked as an artist in mobile games for the last 5 years. I don’t have anything against them. There are very good ones and there are also bad ones.

However, the rare emails sent in where a husband or wife is thrown out of their home because they couldn’t control their online spending for a game I worked on was extremely difficult to hear about.

When creating a game, you always aim to create something fun but also don’t want to live on the streets, so you want your product to be lucrative. Sometimes people can’t control spending on games the same way as at a casino, or buying cigarettes/drugs, alcohol etc.

It was very hard to come to terms with the fact that I’d drawn artwork for a product that caused a problem in another person’s home and as a result, it ended up taking advantage of their addictive personality.

Short Film Poster - Client: Filmbox Productions

I had the wonderful opportunity of working with Filmbox Productions, creating a poster for the debut of their short film, HTM, directed by Sachi Ediriweera. Really fun project, and a heartwarming short film to boot!

You can watch the film online here! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkYnXgwjXrA

Social Attack

New personal illustration I've been chipping away at, finally finished.

I’ve noticed in the last few years, no one is really allowed to have opinions anymore. If you do, for some reason, have a slightly varied opinion, then the rest of the world (whose voices are louder than ever from social media) seem to cry out in vast numbers to squash you down. If someone has a different opinion, the other side of the argument is no longer heard. The person will block/ignore and no actual debate occurs anymore. Or worse, people no longer stand by what they believe in, and cave, catering to the vast majority.

OR, if someone is offended by someone else’s opinion, they need to let the world know they’re offended. I understand that no matter what, someone, somewhere, is going to be offended. It’s just so much… LOUDER now - but the world can’t cater to everything.

TL;DR - Social media attacks are now common and suck the life out of interesting debates.

Fighting Evil By Moonlight

My Sailor Moon illustration is now available as a T-shirt, tank top, crew neck, 'n hoodie on TeePublic! T-shirts are on sale for $14 for the next 2 DAYS! 

Best Sled Evaar.

The linework to my holiday card which I'll send off to be printed on Monday. Who the heck knows when I'll get them back, but let's hope it's before the holidays! After they're mailed out, I'll post the final with the front and back. I swear it'll make more sense than it does now.

...And that child's mouth is MASSIVE. He must be related to Mick Jagger or something...

AGH no time!

Which one of these is not like the others?? ...Ignore the guy with the mechanical lark. He obviously doesn't fit in with the others.

Okay. So all I have to show right now is sketches. And I've had ONLY sketches to show for this project literally for years now. Waaaaay back in high school I thought I could write full-length stories and probably tortured some people into reading them at some point or another. But one plot seemed to stick and I dropped it as a short story and decided "when I grow up" (haha..) I would convert it into a graphic novel since so many were interested. I held off on it until I felt I was relatively confident in my skills as an artist(read as: practiced drawing more) and wouldn't make it look utterly horrible. I actually still don't feel I have the confidence to take on such a huge project, especially on my own. But the concepts are at least coming along. Slowly but surely. The script and panels are coming along as well. The first issue is completely written and ready for me to have time to sit down at my drafting table and just dive in.

I'm just a bit scared to erm... drown.

Holy Cow

Wowee, I have an 8 page, FULLY COLORED comic I just cranked out because of my 3 weeks of unemployment. Or was it 4 weeks? Ah well. Check out the sequential art section of my site to find it! I've uploaded the cover art here as a preview.

San Diego is steadily creeping up on me and I need to print and bind about 50 copies of these for publishers. Phew. The pressure's still steadily pounding down on me but I think I can get it all done. ...Actually there is no 'I think I can' ...I have no real choice but to complete all the work I'm setting up for myself. Yikes...

Other news, I have two interviews lined up for this week. If I get a job, no need to worry so much about having my work published and freelancing gets pushed back a tiny bit. If no job, it's back to cranking out work. 'Til next update.

Cheers.

Recuperation

I find it hard to keep creating pieces when they're just not working for me. I think I'm discouraged because I really am awful with Adobe Illustrator CS and every job description asks me to be completely fluent in the program. Nevertheless, I'm going to struggle and kick vector art's ass. In the meantime, more photoshop airbrushing practice. This one was a one-day sketch.


There's just something unnerving about doing flat color work and then working with gradients and airbrushing. ...There has to be a better way to mesh the two and I have yet to discover it for myself.

Now. I have 2 weeks before the San Diego ComicCon to color my two comics... and possibly draw up a third. I'm being as optimistic as ever.

Cheers.

More Photoshop

Another one finished. Is it obvious I really enjoy scanning in pieces of paper...?

Just a piece to practice yet even more airbrushing in Photoshop. Another two or so may follow after this one.

Lack of Funds

That's the terminology I'm given by small companies. While I have the potential to do freelance concept work for a video game company now, I am hoping for something more concrete. Full-time being the key words. Freelance work for publication just isn't going my way right now, and I think I can definitely blame myself for not trying hard enough in that department. I look at work by Yuko Shimizu or Rodolphe Guenoden and I become a bit discouraged. I have higher hopes of getting a career in NYC, probably working in Illustrator. While I dislke the program, I believe I can teach myself easily for a job. I used to abhor Photoshop and now I can't seem to tear myself away from it. Funny how programs grow on us like that... I just take a bit of time to resist technology I suppose.

No Worm For Me

I received an e-mail with a bunch of links to some interesting crafts and books I could purchase. My curiosity got the best of me when I saw one place had the words 'paper' and 'crane' in it due to my current obsession with them in my illustrations. Sadly, I've been beaten to a domain name about paper cranes with a website full of felt plushes. But this lady at My Paper Crane puts my wool felt sushi to shame. She's tackled not only food but inanimate objects as well. Check her out!

More artwork to post next time!

Relocation!

I've signed on to do a children's book which I'm biting my nails over with giddy-ness; Copyright to Laura Saba as they are her characters. Here's a sampling 1st sketch of the kids. I know I'll be revamping about three of 'em.


After applying to a few places, it has come to my attention that Baltimore just isn't the place for me. The amount of boarded up/cemented shut houses, muggings, drug-deals, and prostitutes etc, are steadily creeping closer to the people I love, along with myself. It's time to hit the road.
...The road up north to NYC and... Central Jersey of all places.

I was recommended to check out Digital Embryo who is looking to hire all sorts of people to work on games they develop for Nintendo DS (and very recently XBOX live too). While Cake Mania doesn't sound NEARLY as enticing as God of War II, they've just been licensed to take on games for the Wii. Here's hoping the interview goes well.

Meanwhile, I am rooting for my friend Joe to be hired at World Leaders Entertainment because (I doubt I will be and) he's exceptionally talented for the job. If they don't hire him, I'm pretty sure he'll become severe competition for them in the near future. Congrats to all the MICA seniors who are graduating this year!
Cheers.

Too Many Things!

The cover image to my 10 page comic!


It's all happening at once! First off, I have the line-work for my first of 6 sequential art stories up in my sequential art section which you can find here. In the next week or so, I'll add a two-tone flat color on it so it's easier on the eyes than just lines. I only have about 2 more stories in my head before I have to really start scratching my skull. I really DO want about 6 stories put together. Here's the whole story:

I made a few rules/guidelines/restrictions for myself in which there is absolutely no dialogue and each comic involves origami being used in an unconventional way (Seeds, transportation, weapons, and so forth). There's no page limit and...it's kind of exciting as I really don't have much coming my way at the moment.

Also, I've joined up on IllustrationMundo, go search for me if you'd like! It's pretty exciting to see how many people have clicked on the Scissors Cut Paper icon I have set up for it. Also, if you're there check out my latest obsession with Amy Sol whose work is somewhat similar-looking to Audrey Kawasaki but both have their own uniqueness that makes their work absolutely gorgeous. There's just something about girls that look super-airy and somewhat confused in their surreal settings.

I'm currently looking for jobs related to art in NYC. I've been searching for the past three weeks or so when a storyboard position opened for an animation studio. After sending off my resume and updating my website, I'm praying to someone out there that I get this job. The suspense will kill me over the next few days.

Cheers!

Introduction

I felt I needed to take desperate measures in having mulitple places to post news, artwork, and general thoughts. Perhaps there are individuals out there that want to see what I've been up to or might be severely bored and have hopes that I can relieve that boredom.

That's a lot of pressure. ...I'll take you on.

Here's some new artwork up in the illustration section of my site. Part one of three in the Rock.Paper.Scissors series. Scissors Cut Paper. Check it out!

There's the possibility of relocating to NYC in the next few months. Their subway system frightens me after seeing the immaculate state of Japan's trains. But I think anyone else would think the same way after being set to such a standard.