Face Practice 05

4 hours, photoshop, again with reference. Im using my sis's computer for this, its in the living room and damn are you're prone to disturbance when you're not painting in the comfort of your room. I think this didn't turn out as polished. This one also didn't look as close as my ref then my previous attempt. Theres so many subtle lights playing off the face in this one, I dont think I managed to really capture that, maybe I should choose a picture with more contrasting lights.

Things learned: Texture is important, instead of rendering highlights and shadows with a round flat brush, use dots, speckles, to add texture to the way light bounces off the skin. Also keep in mind the relation of one shade next to another. A very bright highlight on the lips wont look as bright if the areas surrounding it aren't dark enough.

Good bye dear friend, I hardly know ye

First off, my laptop's harddisk just crashed on me. Songs, gone. Save games, gone. Bookmarks, gone. Ancient 3Dsmax files with work Im too ashamed to show anyone to, _Totally_ GONE.
Its okay. Breath in. Out.

Its the primary platform that I do my work/gaming/painting on so its likely I wont be submitting anything for January , esp with the datelines at work approaching and all.

And next month's theme is... regeneration. Miguel's idea, go forth and paint.

Update: Colors...

Coloring can really kills me. Especially the subtle details and the choice of color for skins. Now the color pallette is kinda having too much exposure thou. :( But probably this will be enough for concept art i hope.

The Reel Truth

season of sharing

Sorry wasn't able to post anything recently. Heres something for everyone who interested in film language.

http://www.filmeducation.org/secondary/concept/filmlang/docs/lang2.html

Christmas Claws

Santa is not there though...

Hmm... Merry Christmas!

Why so serious

I don't particularly enjoy super hero flicks, they usually come off too cheesy for me. But Batman I make an exception, if just because he gets his muscles from doing push ups instead of radiation/spiders/lowered gravity/science experiments/mechanize armor.

Im telling

Hunchback Santa has a list and ur in it.

2Hours, photoshop

5-10mins sketch at home

i saw gao put Santa CLAWS. just a quick char design from the theme lol. A not so frenly santa claus who is in charge of elves gift during christmas, having a claws build in his hand.

so there u go my contribution for donno his typo or what :P

Some Sketches

Here's my first contribution. Not sure if these fit the theme though:





Just some sketches of my "imaginary friends". :)

New theme for December

This came rather late, but I thought I'll update the theme for this month.

Go, show us ur christmassy drawings :D

Thaa daaa~

Yozzz~ First post, cool blog u guys come out with~

Some of my sketches. All original characters with no reference
I'm a huge fan of hong kong n jap comics style, u can see my drawings r greatly influenced by them :)
I'm pretty weak at shading, so u will find most of my drawings with little or no shadings. Here goes~






Did i mention that i love blades?

First post !!!

Sharing some of my recent WIP. Too long never paint, kinda slow >.<

Trying very hard to get back my painting skill after all this while just doing TD work ^^.

Wanted to try out with a diff style of painting from those on cgtalk, so going for a softer look.
And i'm not gonna draw a causasian! :P

Face Practice 04

Part 4 of my continuing face practices, this is the closest Ive ever got to my ref photo, am I actually improving?!

Things learned: Get the face shape and facial landmarks absolutely right first before even starting to detail anything. Previously I didn't pay much attention to it, thinking "Heck Ill fix that when Im rendering the shades". Wtf was I thinking?

Highlights, previously my lips and noses lack strong highlights to sell the idea of a realistic reflective surface. Maybe the super low res pictures has something to do with it but still, a bad oversight.

Eyebrows, erase some parts away and feather the sides to give it a less artificial look. This advice was actually given to me by my mum when she saw me drawing heh.

Erasing outlines in general, I normally draw rough outlines of the cheekbones/noses/lips before I move on to shading. I also usually don't erase them away. Since I'm trying to get it look as realistic as I can, I cannot have strong lines around them.

Lights, be very aware of where my lights are coming from, bounced lights especially. Exaggerate them a bit. Following too closely to the ref results in a less lively look.

Shading, working with the darkest color with a very low opacity works very very well. Also, use a lighter color to describe light, reserve the default background blue for the harshest highlights.

Alot of things learned this time, no coincidence this also took me the longest, around 5-6 hours

Edit: I realized I made another mistake with the eyes, they're suppose to look straight but I've accidentally made them look to the side instead. Whoops.

Scatter

Hmm... Still looks kinda flat... And I still dun really know how to paint the reflective layer of the eye...

Website

Ive taken some time aside to do a simple design for my website, I'm keeping it as simple as possible while still working some of my works into the design. Is it appealing enough? Also, anyone have good hosting to recommend?

Face Practice 03

Another one, again from photo ref. I didn't exaggerate her chest, it -is- this huge. Approx 2 hours.

Things learned: Instead of blocking the shadows and shades with solid brushes, going slower with low opacity brushes seemed to give a nicer shadow transition. Ill will have to do more experiments.

Foamy Latte

This is the September VO for 11 sec club. I did it in October however, since I was busy then but I liked the dialogue enough that I decided to do it anyway. Approx 20 hours.

Grimacing Faces

Yo, all. This is my first post. These are some faces of soccer players, they make good studies for facial expression as there is a lot of drama. I also tried to give a fist of north-star muscled twist to lab doc, lower right, except his sternomastoid neck muscles are not proportionate. Enjoy!

Elven Magi

A quick doodle I did during the boring NIE lectures. I think the weasle thingy looks like shit. The character resembles too much of Cardcaptor but it wasn't intentional. It's a try on floating capes and pose.

Face Practice Part 3

I opted to draw an open mouth expression this time, shes suppose to be laughing but somehow it turned out more like a grimace instead. Note to self: Draw more laughing people. The light and darks have more contrast in this photo ref, I dont think I've really brought that out. In fact i think the shoulder turned out nicer then the rest.

Things learned: That I cant draw opened mouths, and Im bad at extreme expressions like this laugh. Keep in mind about working from dark to lights, I tend get impatient and start shading in the lighter tones before Im ready.

Face Practice part 2

This time I'm trying tonal values instead of scribbling all over the drawing. Again, from photo ref. Time taken is approx 4-6 hours, I left for dinner and a bunch of misc stuff halfway so I cant really be sure. Photoshop this time, same as the post before.

Things learned: Blending with smudge and eraser works pretty damn well. And cleaning up the base drawing more before starting to add tones will help reduce going back and forth trying to erase stray lines. And getting more adept at looking at tonal values on skin,

Face Practice

This is hardly finished, its not very pretty, but I've done what Ive set out to do so this will be the final version. Lets see if I can draw at least a few of them a week. Done with photo ref.

Things learned in this piece: Its easier to draw noses if you imagine them to be blocks. A triangle-ish shape coming down, and two more triangle-lish shapes at the sides. This all sounds abit technical right now but it helps me to see better.

Edit: I just realized this piece actually ties in with this month's theme haha!

Cursed

chio trio

I feel guilty having spent so much on figures recently. Merely 2 days after orc shaman i bought SOTA WoW fig of 3 at 60 bucks. I've always love SOTA's jungle troll priest since it first surface donkey years ago, Tauren was still ok but I tot they will make a great trio with DC's orc shaman. So here it is, the three shamanic race tat made up The Horde!

1 fig about 20 bucks(quite cheap), now i'm left with the undead warlock which i'm selling at 15 bucks. lelong~

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbeng/329676589/

Work

My latest toy additions: WoW Orc Shaman and Dementor.(Desktop wallpapers Beowulf's son btw."

Finally started another chapter in a new environment. Nice studio, even nicer corner for us character modellers. Pantry is juz below, we can literally jump down n make kopi. The place is very new, in fact renovation is still underway. Boxes of newly bought equipments stacked on the groundfloor. Think by now I would have told most of the ppl here what we are provided, so dun hao lian further liao. Wahaha! Yes I veri show-off. Cannot?!

Both art directors are aussies, ang mohs are very picky. Its a pain at first but It should be a gd learning experience for me. Afterall, thats what I expect in this co. Learn and improve. Have to get used to the way these ang mohs tok, and have to tok to adapt them too.

Ah, I missed my previous studio.

WIP - Creature's head...

WIP here... Argh...

Deformation

So much things is happening in my mind, that has put me in a daze lately. Being an artist really isn't easy. Doing things that we like and eventually make people suffer with us, will we be truely happy in the end? Sometimes I feel that life is so simple, why do us dwell so much into complication when in the end we realise what we really want is something so simple, so insignificant. Its always a huge detour and we ended up in the same spot. Humans can never be satisfied, once they got what they want, they start to feel empty again. Anticipation sometimes is a better form of happiness. Some people waited all their lives.

Now must get back to right track and continue to improve.

This one is really nonsense, it started with hand practice and gradually become like that. So might as well post.

Tumbleweeds

I've finally decided to get off my lazy butt and scanned in my bunch of doodlets. Those that can be seen anyway :D. I usually draw in pen, and when the mood stikes me, I'll shade them in with my copic markers. So far that was happened for a grand total of....twice. Heres one, enjoy :)

Maybe soon I'll be motivated enough to post some pics of my recent Melbourne trip to the Pixar travelling museum wooo

Jeanne D'Arc

Hours of playing Jeanne D'Arc have lead me to this piece. Maybe I'll color it in when Im done playing. K, back to saving France from the English.


Done in Sketchbook Pro. (which I think is the bestest sketching software out there)

Temple of the Masturbating Monkey

In the Ubud Monkey ForestBali Indonesia

Hmm.. I cant believe us asians also think masturbation can make us blind.

In accordance to the Theme and in memory of a friend whom i luved and i asked to Fark out of my life

bigger image
http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e121/bj03/slut.jpg

incase u guys cant read clearly wat she said, "Going back to your wife n kids, honey?"

Lust and Sluts - Ruby & Jeanette

This is my entry for this month's Theme....Enjoy !! This one is for you Gao and Bjo3 !!!!

State of the nation

Quality = Time = Money = Quality = Time ....

Recently I've had several discussions with my fellow artists about the state of the industry, this has lead me to several thoughts. First and foremost, animation is a business, in order for a studio to exist, it has to make money. And in order to make money, you need to have a compelling product. And to get a compelling product you'll need the appropriate talents to nurture one. And it takes time and lots of loving care to grow something special. And that time takes money.

So we're back at square one. Its a full circle that depends on each other.

So why do most people just primarily just focus their business decisions on step one, "make money"? Perhaps because its the easiest to comprehend, perhaps its because to do otherwise would be to leave the process of making money, in the hands of the artists. And artists know jack-shit about making money, right?

Maybe. But we do know how to do our jobs well, and we take pride in our work. We _will_ product quality work if you give us the time to do it. And that translates to a much better product. So please, look at the bigger picture when making your next move k?

No reference to the place I work btw, thankfully we suffer lesser bs then most executive run studios.

Organized Chaos

I've been slow in putting this up. Shelldon, the TV series I'm involved in is finally getting launched. On the web anyway. First thing first, please refrain from any comparisons to Legend of the Sea, I mean, look, they're a multi million budget feature quality film :D . Oui?

For the past 8 months it has been one heck of a ride, I doubt theres anything I can put in words that would be enough to describe the herculean effort involved in this, the journey we just went through, but Im going to try anyway.

If anyone here has ever seen those behind the scenes DVD extras on an animated film you would get a pretty good idea of the amount of work and coordination involved, we have story, concept, modeling, texturing, lighting, animation, effects, rigging, rendering, layout. Now imagine having all these work broken down further into smaller sub categories, and then letting loose all the artists on them. Its kind of like seeing floodgates open in front of you, except that its mud. Add in the need to adhere to artistic direction, client requirements, datelines, technology tripping you up, and the need to consume lots and lots of coffee, and you'll be almost getting there.

Next, sprinkle generously with countless sleepless nights and lots of "Whodunnit?" moments. Like when you spend days rendering a shot only to realize that someone forgot to swap out the proxy model with the final mesh, and everyone has been rendering the wrong object. Like when we overwrite one another's file on the server wondering furiously who on earth is the one doing it. And it turns out its that guy sitting behind you glaring at the exact same folder. Whoops. :D

Thats "behind the scenes" for you.

*cough cough*

The brother-in-four-arms

I'm not a starwar fan, but i just love general grievous. A purchase from foxfoo, I have to thank him once again. Part alien and part droid, part organic and part mechanic. Simply love it~ miang might be nice reference for u!

http://images.google.com.sg/images?gbv=2&svnum=10&hl=en&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=0&ct=result&cd=1&q=grievous&spell=1

Who's next?!

My submission for Voodoo.

This is my first ever piece done completely with a tablet. I know it's strange. Anatomy's strange, shading's queer and composition is crooked. :(

Voodoo of Miho

Was thinking of creating my own stealth ninja,sneaking into the castle,eventually caught by the voodoo of Miho,and death falls upon him.

Voodoo Dolly !!

This is my submission for this weeks Theme....

nothing fancy..just a Voodoo doll.

11second club

This month's new 11 second club audio clip is up. Even if you guys can't animate well do try to submit an entry. Because really, it gets boring real fast if Im the only person posting animations all the time.

Besides, this month's clip is from freaking Zoolander. How can you not animate to that?!

Now go forth and ANIMATE.

PS: Side note. Anyone have a good female 3Dsmax rig with facial controls?

Water World

The future - the polar caps have completely melted. All landforms on planet Earth have been destroyed, covered with water. From here, humans that are not killed in the catastrophe evolves slowly to the environment. These aquasapiens are grown with gills to survive underwater. Those who did not evolve had built artificial structures above sea level so as to keep themselves alive in the aquatic world.

Now this is really a quick n crappy one i manage to whip out. Future cities? urgh i hate drawing building...

Remake of old Crap

From the Right to Left.....Oldest to Newest.This is one of my characters i did during my student film..There are much worst ones but those may cause permanent eye damage.

Anyway I see there is a new theme...

I'll see what I can do.

Holy Mother of Mammaries !!!

This is for my pal Gao !!! Great minds think alike however...I think this is quite scary....

K 1st post for me~ did this drawing at the request of alex :P