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.

Chinese flute

A photo I captured outside my house. I saw these beautiful red flowers near the gate, and saw that the green grass around it really creates a contrast in the colours, so I brought out my G Chinese flute, with its nice decoration and put it near them. And I finished the image by adding a short poem (I don't know the meaning in depth, but I do know it's about flute and nature, haha).

Domestic Dinosaurs

A speed painting of dinosaurs! Just a practice, took about 2-3 hours in photoshop.

I was inspired by the farming environment in New Zealand, which is absolutely beautiful. But instead of using sheep, which can be seen everywhere here, I used the long-necked dinosaurs (no, I don't know the scientific name)! This species is one of my favourites since childhood. So, I created a dinosaur farm LOL, for what use are the dinosaurs bred for, well, for their skin? I don't know haha, up to you to intepret!

Commissions

Having been caught in the monster of assignments for 3 years, I regret to say that this is probably the first time I did commissions seriously, and know what I am doing.

Here are the 2 commissions I did:

My piano

I have graduated!

My days ahead are still blur, as I await my takeoff to the land of milk and honey, but for now I am just filling up my portfolio, compensating the bad pieces that I would soon remove from my original portfolio.

Here is a new piece I did, to remember my beloved first upright acoustic piano, which I am about to sell off soon T.T

Hang Jebat

My semester is over!

I just can't believe I survived this sem! It was a total disaster for me. Partly because of my crazy schedule, maybe. Another thing is my lack of creative ideas. I'm still working on fixing that problem.

Anyways, this is one of my assignments for digital illustration. You have no idea what I'd been through working on this. I shed tears several times, and even regretted choosing this extremely hard topic - Hang Jebat. References were hard to find because you know, people hardly pay attention to history and appreciation of art and culture in Malaysia. Or maybe it's just me failing to get enough recourses.

I was on the verge of going insane, suicidal even. My dad came and comfort me, praying to the Lord for help. And, just like many times before, it worked. My God calmed me down and delivered me from the psychological tribulations. And that is why, this project is so significant to me for this sem. There is another similar case in another project, and it's coming soon in the next post!

Hang Jebat, the true hero. He fought for justice for his sworn brother Hang Tuah. People misjudged him of betraying the Sultan, but he is actually the truthful hero who dared to fight when others were blindly obeying the king.

robert downey jr.

I'm back with my 1st ever digital illustration! Er, 2nd actually. Okay, 1st, because the one I did during the holidays was merely copy. Anywayz, this is the 1st portrait that I completed using Corel Painter, with the palette knife tool (I have yet to research on how a palette knife actually looks like in real life, lol). Took about 6 to 7 hours? Because of some distraction, I started doing this assignment late, and ended up finishing it at 4 am...blek.....

Well, I know Iron Man 2 sucks (but because I loved the 1st movie, it's forgivable). Robert Downey Jr. acts in another movie here, called "The Soloist". I heard it's about music. I wanna watch it! See if I have time to catch it online hehe...

Enjoy!

Holiday Assignments

It's the starting of my 3rd year!!! I can't believe it. Now I'm in my final year, and I'll be graduating next year! Haha...okay, it's still a long way to go, even if I didnt fail any semester. So, this year I'll work extra hard, for this will be my last chance ever.

LCK, our lecturer, gave us some holiday assignments. I was prepared to finish them ALL. I was greedy. I wanted to do as much practice as I can. But. But it was really impossible to do so many, at least at my stage, as I discovered during this one month of holiday, that working on one artwork is no simple job at all. Planning, sketches, thumbnails...they are all more important than anything. I think LCK has gotten tired of repeating himself so many times. These were what he stressed on EVERY single time we visited him during the holiday.

Anywayz, it turned out that these assignments were forgotten by our lecs, and I might not even hand them in. That's not the point anyway. I'm happy I even made myself complete them. So I'll let you guys critique, if any of you visit this blog...

Street Race.
I don't have a strong concept here, really. My planning was bad. But I chose the background to be a bridge inspired by Penang bridge. And the explosion behind was meant to be impactful, while the focus is still on the front red car.


Fight Scene.
Sigh. I took 3 weeks to plan for this. And it became such a dragging work that I almost gave up doing it. I'm not very satisfied with the outcome either. Even with pages and pages of sketches, my planning is still not enough. I get what LCK means now.
I chose a kind of wuxia setting in ancient China. The dragon is actually the power element of the hero in the foreground, while the villain's power is the black smokey monster behind him.

Digital Portrait

Been having a "wuxia" craze lately. Probably influenced by the TV shows. What can I do? I'm on holiday now right? Haha... But honestly, I've been a huge "wuxia" fan since young, and it is one of my favourite - if not my ultimate favourite - genres of all time.

I haven't been doing a digital painting for a few weeks now, and moreover, I have never painted a portrait digitally before. I know, I'm such a lagging artist. Sigh! So, I decided to create this painting of a character from some wuxia show that I gave up on watching after the first episode. LOL. It was a pain to watch, really, but this particular character was the reason why I looked up for the show in the first place. She looked so beautiful, elegant, and outstanding, very much like a real Chinese goddess.

No design was being involved in this, sad to say. You may accuse me of painting it blindly, yes, but I was basically carrying out what I call a "painting study". I hope that is enough for you to forgive me...hehe...



P.S click on the pic for a closer look








.

Drowning Earth

Wow, I did this piece AGES AGO! It was during my 2nd semester in TOA, when we first learned how to use Photoshop.

The theme given was something to do with saving the earth and environment issues, expressed using surrealism. I have forgotten the exact title, but it was something like that. I chose to illustrate the earth drowning because of all the pollution and harm human did to it.

Well, I had fun doing it. Since then, I had a great interest in photomanipulation and photo retouching stuff. I know that at that time I had no sense of composition, colour and whatsoever, but it just brings back memories looking at one of the very first few digital art that I did.

My 方炯镔！！！

I did this portrait quite some time ago, probably December 2009.

So glad I can draw my favourite singer, Fang Jiong Bin, formally from the Malaysian group NianShao (Island). Go check out his songs now!! His voice is just simply mesmerizing...