Gamelan Sorceress

Did this about a month ago for a small Deviantart contest.

I was inspired by the traditional music ensemble instrument called gamelan. The gamelan featured here is the Malay Gamelan. As a Malaysian, I will not deny that the gamelan originated from Indonesia, but the Malay Gamelan has its difference from the Indonesian one. 

Anyway, it doesn't matter where it comes from. Let's just share each other's culture and treasure them because they are both rich and should be preserved.

I was going for an evil sorceress kind of character, with the gamelan as her weapon. I was thinking of the concept of having her playing all those mallet bells (which is usually played by a team) and that it would be kind of creepy.

Meaning of Art

I just had to record this down.

After three years of technical art training, I was getting tired of what I was doing. All the fancy sci-fi concept art, environments, characters...I felt that it was all mere eye candy. I was disgusted. There is no meaning in what I was doing. People look at the final product, and so what? They are entertained, given visual pleasure and awe. Then what? They forget about it and move on to do their own things. I was on the verge of giving it all up and go into writing instead. Seriously.

But then I entered a degree course in art.

At first, I was overwhelmed by the amount of theory work involved. Inch-thick books, pages and pages of theorist' journals. When I started studying on some artists, however, I finally began to realize that art is something more than meets the eye. Particularly, when I chose Hayao Miyazaki as my subject for an essay assignment, I was fascinated by the depth he puts into his movies. His films are not merely for visual pleasure, though they are exceptionally beautiful, but they provoke people's thoughts, and both directly and subtly insert messages into people's minds.

That is what I want to do. Not just draw and paint blindly, thinking of technique, lighting, composition etc. I want to create art that has meaning.

And it took a whole lot of theory research just to realize that...

Manga Studio

Recently I bought a program called Manga Studio and started using it for a comic project. It wasn't until I worked on some line work in Manga Studio that I found it absolutely incredible! The brushes here has auto correction and keeps the lines nice and neat even with your unsteady hands, unlike Photoshop, which makes me take ages just to get a curved line right. The way it helps you create straight lines is also MAGICAL!

I'm so glad I got this tool. It saves so much of my time!

New Portfolio

You would have noticed that this site has changed and is combined with my portfolio! Welcome to this site, and feel free to browse through my work. Remember to follow me and I'll try my best to keep you updated!

Rough sketches

Some really rough environment sketches.

Just wanted to do some practise. I might explore further, and refine either one, but we'll see which one will work.

Steampunk Nutcracker

My entry for 2D CharacterFORGE challenge in CGHub. We were required to draw the Nutcracker in a machine suit.

As a child I watched The Nutcracker in a cartoon movie, and it was one of my favourite stories of all time. Recently a movie entitled "The Nutcracker in 3D" came out, and OMG, it's the most disgracing thing that's ever happened to the Nutcracker story! They butchered it and worst of all, they turned the charming Nutcracker prince into some stupid wooden puppet character. Don't these guys know that visual effects is not everything? It's cool to know that they did so poorly at the box office =P

Anyways, still experimenting with styles. Referred to Tatsuyuki Tanaka's work for this. His work is awesome!

Details:

Orthographic view:

Castle in the Clouds

This painting took longer than I should =S. It was actually a topic in CGtalk, and it was supposed to be a 40 minute sketch..lol...and I wanted to do some practice on drawing buildings, but I took tadddaaaaa: 2 weeks! and couldn't stop my itchy hand from adding too much detail. I should really change my painting style T.T.

I posted 2 colour schemes, because I like both and can't choose between them. Well, both have different kinds of moods, sometimes I like the warmer one, sometimes I like the cooler one. Which one do you like best?

Kebaya girl

An experimental illustration. Tried to play with patterns and textures.

The subject is a Malaysian girl in a traditional kebaya. What race is she? Well, she's a Malaysian. =)

Oriental Masquerade

My entry for a small challenge on CGHub. This is the first time I ever participated in a challenge on CGHub, and I was really excited. It isn't a big competition or anything, but it is a good opportunity for me to challenge myself and do some experiment.

The theme is masquerade. I am inspired by the Chinese "bian lian" or "face changing" perfomance. It originates from Sichuan, and is a very secretive art form, as it is passed on only from master to apprentice or father to son. There is a story about a Robin Hood like hero who used masks to confuse the feudal guards when he was caught. So, in a way, the mask was used for survival.

My concept is, there's this ancient Oriental Kingdom where the government is corrupt and treats the poor badly. So a secret society/organisation was formed among the people, and they were scheming against the government. (Oh, boy, I really miss reading and watching wuxia stories!)

The masks that they wore identifies their different post/ranks in the society. The president/chairman wears the Old Man mask (middle), which signifies wisdom. The advisor/mastermind who schemes and plans strategies wears the Maiden mask (right), and the person is usually a woman, though not always. While the Beast mask (left) is for the leader who leads the members into the field, for example a mission or a battle. He is the "action guy".

The individual masks:

Old man mask

Beast mask

Maiden mask

Richie McCaw

Did this for rugby fans, especially All Blacks and Richie McCaw fans. Found this photo in a magazine, and I loved his pose and body language. Took about 7 hours in Photoshop.