It’s been a while, and I feel short on words today.
Here are some things done for fun.
Here are some quick studies
And here is some merch I’ve developed.
Thanks for looking,
Cheers!
Time and Tide
Hi Folks!
I’ve been thinking a lot about “the journey so far”. It’s been quite a ride. More twists and turns that anyone could have foreseen (a wiser person might say that it’s just how life goes).
I’d love to do a retrospective on my artistic development one day, but the task seems too daunting at the moment. Maybe one day when fame and riches have come to me someone will bother doing it for me.
For now, I will settle for a more succinct (although a bit masturbatory, I must admit) retrospective on the self-portraits I’ve made throughout the years.
This is more or less all of them, in chronological order.
These first were really early, when I started being serious about studying. I must have been about 17 at the time.
I had no idea of what I was doing.
Seems like I paid better attention on structure with these two. Unfortunately, as you will see, I am wildly inconsistent, and later portraits have poorer structures. Apparently learning and doing it right a couple of times isn’t enough. You need to pay attention to it always. It was a lesson that took me years to figure out, and it came with the realisation that drawing will never get easier, only harder for there are increasingly more things you will need to keep track of.
A bit of play with lost edges here, but doesn’t seem to do much for the “stepping”of values when rendering forms
Seems like I was mostly struggling with staying focused. Ouch.
It would’t be learning without some major fails along the way.
This here seems to be a small time jump. You can probably tell from the haircut. At this point, it was my first summer vacation from college. I managed to shut myself in a basement for about 4 months and did not much but paint and read Color and Light. This was by far the biggest jump in skill I’ve had so far.
These two mark the end of that summer. The left one was done after reading notes on Sargent left by his students. It was a big break-through moment for me
This is were things start to get interesting, and the reason I wanted to do this blog post. As you might have noticed, all portraits so far are strictly concerned with principles, technique and execution. This marks the first departure from that (within my self-portraits) but more importantly, it delineates a shift in my concerns and values when thinking about art.
BAM! stylization starts to happen.
From about 3 images ago the time in between portraits jumps from 2-4 weeks to about 6 months.
A special guest! Seems like I’ve only had guesses in 3 specific occasions and, not surprisingly, probably the 3 souls I’ve been closer with in my life so far.
This first one was with my partner at the time. It was used as a signature for a small zine we did together. Both of us show up as Mukuro and Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho. The zine itself was about the manga, and both the manga and the zine mean quite a bit to me.
I suppose much like before, this signals another change of what values I care about in my art. Here I start to pay more attention to symbols and meanings that are important to me.
During a particularly hard winter. It was essentially the only thing drawn in that 3 month hiatus, and to this day, one of the pieces I am most fond of.
A brief return to technique. Under the request of a teacher.
At some point in time I became really addicted to a remix of Sexual Healing for weeks on end.
The second appearance! Featuring another partner, and her lovely dog.
This one is one of my biggest frustrations, and I think it represents well my current struggles of technique and execution overpowering and smothering the emotional value of the piece, as well as the difficulty of working on a piece while conjuring strong emotions. I started it when I received the news that the cat that lived with my family (the 3rd guess in my self-portraits) had his days counted, and finished after he had passed. The piece ended up being a lot about me and the room, and not enough about him like I intended.
I miss him dearly.
Light-hearted short little stories about misfortunes.
A self-portrait without myself in it.
I kinda like to play Overwatch, in case you might not have heard. I actually designed this pre-Brigitte’s announcement, and the gameplay design for both are incredibly similar, except for I wasn’t thinking of having healing output.
PunPun is a F A N T A S T I C read.
And to close things up, one from a few days ago. I read His Dark Materials when I was but-a-wee-little-lad, the idea of Daemons has always fascinated me, and I’ve spent countless hours trying to figure out what form they would take for me and my friends.
If you made it this far:
Thank you immensely for reading.
Life, uh, Finds a Way.
Greetings!
Forgotten are the promisses of regular posts.
I come today as a test of courage. The scorn that unfinished pieces or projects leave in ones mind can be a dangerous thing. I am deeply unsure on how to overcome this predicament. And so here I am, exposing work that is unfinished, incomplete, and unsatisfactory in the hopes that it will somehow make me more comfortable with my own work in its ugly stages. Maybe this will give me the boost I need to push through the remaining necessary labour.
Maybe not.
Complexity is a growing desire in my work, and day by day impatience becomes a more salient obstacle. I shall find a way, either through or around it!
I briefly revitalised my WitchHunt game idea after playing Darkest Dungeon. Deeply inspired by its art direction, I transposed my own characters into that universe, and produced a WIP of a storybeat.
Right at the first level, as Iria helps Abgail escape her fathers castle, as thus beging the campaign journey.
A castaway Witch. Much of the interesting work of figuring out her day-today utensils is still to be done. Not to mention fixing lots of design issues.
The “Drake Tower”
Working simultaneously as a University dedicated to the study of Dragons, as well as a incubator and nursery for said Dragons.
This was “WIP” for the longest time. Some are further into completion than others.
Its part of the Lokrus universe, to which I have created several characters in the past.
It follows the ill fated adventure of an Herpetologist and his field guide as they decent deep into a cave occupied by cultists.
Biggest thanks to Sean Yang for all the guidance with this project.
(and a bigger apology for never finishing it.)
Here are the last few of the bikers. Admittedly the success rate diminished drastically as the project went on.
~~Whew~~ …..and that’s it for half-done things.
Hopefully this takes a load of my conscious, or maybe I’ll just delete it a few minutes from now.
Here are some lighthearted doodles
And here are some mostly inconsequential studies.
Thanks for looking~!
This post was heavily inspired by Jon Tiong, a good friend that recently started posting on his blog. Unlike me, he puts effort into his writing and is very selective of what images get posted, which seems like a good formula for a high-quality blog.
So go check it out.
I bumped into this quote from him, and I think it’s the perfect end note for this post.
“Sigh… Well, it’s good to move on. As a concept artist, I should probably be better at drowning my babies.”
However You Get There, Foot It, Cab It, Iron Horse It.
Greetings folk!
My apologies, as I feel less and less inclined to transform my thoughts into words, these posts are getting quieter and quieter. Most of my energy is going into putting thoughts into shapes, so hopefully that suffices your needs as an audience, whatever those might be.
A couple of characters belonging to a personal project
Transportin musicians into a Rick and Morty universe
Little nods to IPs I have enjoyed
Something quick, for the 2minds challenge over on facebook
Studies!
All Secrets Known
Hi Folks!
I shall keep it brief today
Here are the last 2 of the Berserk pieces.
A little exercise in transposing characters into different settings
Assorted Sketches
First assignment for the character design class with Stephen Silver over at Schoolism.
Assorted Studies
Assorted studies, looking at the work of masters.
‘Till next time,
Cheers!
Griffithdidnothingwrong.jpg
Greetings!
Graduation date draws nearer each and every day!
Excite!
Lots of questions about whats going to happen afterwards, but we will figure that out in due time. For now, we keep working away at what brings us joy. Right now that mostly means interpretations of Kentaro Miura’s ongoing masterpiece, BERSERK.
Design takes on “modernising” the characters. It was fun coming up with symbols and analogies for the things that couldn’t be transposed literally, e.g. Guts massive sword turned into a graphic T was my of my favourite moment.
Blizzards Overwatch is still stuck on my mind, and the OWL is coming up soon! Sad to see the *birnoises* team finally splitting, but excited to see what unfolds.
Here is a sweet blog run by JAKE (former *birdnoises* main DPS player and current team USA captain) on e-sports and the competitive scene.
And at last, assorted sketches and studies.
PS: I’ve been gushing like a fanboy over Ahmed Beyrouthi work non-stop.
Spared a joke, barely spoke.
Greetings!
Quick update: I’ve been working the past month or so at DHX studios, designing things for the upcoming Megaman TV show. It’s been really exciting and challenging :D
Kinda of a dream come true to me
Here are a couple of characters for a bigger project, that I decided to discontinue. Exploring a more sci-fi-ish look has been fun!
Some Mahou-Shoujo shenanigans! (try saying that quickly)
I’ve been ridding my bike a lot this summer. The sunshine, wind and the smell of the ocean all feel so good!
- I got my hands on the Zootopia art book: Cory Loftis is a JUGGERNAUT! (and a funny one too)
- If you have a chance, go read SKIM by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki. The day I’m able to produce something half as heart felt as their work on This One Summer and SMMA I’ll consider myself accomplished for life
- I’ve been a sucker for MF DOOM for a while, I love his flow, but his dry production was always a weak point for me. This made me shy away from The Mouse and The Mask and Born Like This until now. I was missing out.
Smile Bomb
Days of Future Pedro
Greetings!
I come forth today with more casual works. Quicker things executed with the intent of acquiring new skills, rather than demonstrating virtuosity.
First, experiments in colour and shapes.
Secondly, experiments in character, acting, and storytelling.
Logan and Laura
Hiei and Kurama
Yusuke and Kuwabara
Ryuko Matoi
And last, experiments in gesture and motion.
Old Man Pedro
WitchHunt
Osma
One out of the 5 characters I came up for a game design document I’m working on. It’s an action adventure game revolving around witches storming castles as a backlash to the prosecution of innocent women under unfunded accusations of witchcraft. It’s called WitchHunt :D
Abigail
Our starting protagonist. After noticing that her father was a cruel leader, murdering women without concrete evidence, Abigail makes a sweet little deal with a black goat by the name of Phillip. She gets the power necessary to protest her father, and in exchange all she needs to do are a few favours for her new friend, including giving him his fathers extensive library.
It was TONS of fun to work on her.
Gwen
A really fun character to work on, from her it came the idea that instead of a traditional attribute/equipment system, there would only be a ring system. 10 slots, 5 on each hand, all rings are interchangeable, but their slots matter. Dominant hand rings affects the Heavy Attack moves, rings on the non-dominant hand affect the Light Attack moves, and both hands affect the Area Attack moves.
A little nod to Miura-Sensei
Agnes!
The first character to pop into my head. Apparently I really like drawing gross things.
I was thinking that for the game you would only control one witch at a time, but you could “tag out” with another witch at any point. The catch is that it would require a fairly long spell cast time to do so, and therefore making it a risky move when enemies are nearby. If one of the witches dies, during the casting or at any other point, she is out of commission for that level. So for practical effects, the player has 5 lives per level, but the lives are attached to specific move-sets.
The last of the Witches, and the oldest of them!
A victim of persecution herself, Iria along with her four sisters were captured, tortured and killed under false accusations of witchcraft. During the torture Philip snuck in and offered the 5 siblings a way out if they became witches, but their feverish spirituality forbade them to do so. After days listening to her sisters desperation, each locked up inside an Iron Maiden, the cries faded, one by one. Iria was the last one alive. Moments before her last breath she called for Phillip.
A little nothing. Had a proposal for an illustration where I had to mash up 3 wildly different characters into one narrative image. This is the result.
I’ve been listening to quite a bit of rap lately and decided to paint some of those faces after I had a talk with a friend and embarrassingly realised I could’t paint darker skin tones at the same level as lighter ones.
The resemblance and facial structures here are really lacking, but since the goal was simply achieving and learning about skin colour, I think these were fairly successful.
Give those guys a listen!
Denzel Curry
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tULwXYKVkTs
Joey Bada$$ – His new album All-Amerikkkan Badas$$ is fantastic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOEHqkGFYCs
Chance The Rapper – I still like AcidRap much better than his other projects :3
https://youtu.be/e67Q-sTHVhc
A random assortment of studies. Feels like its been a long while since I’ve done any real painting.
I got my hands on a Cintiq 12wx! It’s an old model, but it works great! I’ve been doing some morning gestures to get used to it. I haven’t used it for any real work just yet.
