Wallpaper Wednesdays: Double Peachiness

Welcome to the first post of Wallpaper Wednesdays of 2014! The end of this week brings us a special double event: Valentine's day of the western world and the eastern Valentine's, also known as Chap Goh Mei. Both lovely events fall on February 14th this year.

In conjunction with the double Valentine's, I came up with two lovey-dovey wallpapers to grace your devices! No, it doesn't come with hearts and cupids with shiny buttcheeks. I drew my inspiration from peaches as they are the perfect epitome of Valentine's day: soft, fuzzy, and oh-so-sweet! Also, peaches symbolize longevity and immortality in Chinese culture. So here's to a celebration of long lasting love and friendship all around! *throws confetti*. 

imac template by Jozef Mak

widescreen | 1920x1200

1600x1200

iPad | 2048x1536

iPhone 5 | 1136x640

Lumia | 480x800

imac template by Jozef Mak

widescreen | 1920x1200

1600x1200

iPad | 2048x1536

iPhone 5 | 1136x640

Lumia | 480x800

There hasn't been a conditions for use in the previous wallpapers, but just for the record, you may use the wallpapers on this 'ere blog, past and future, for personal use only. If you like them enough to want to share them with your friends and family, thank you! But please only send them links to pages on my blog, do not repost onto your own sites. Please don't claim them as your own work, alrighty? And if you've any special wish to use the wallpapers for other purposes, don't hesitate to comment back or email me (of course, let me know before you actually do the deed and not after). Thanks for taking the time to read all the boring stuff!

Stay tuned to the next Wallpaper Wednesday, and hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine's day :).

Wallpaper Wednesdays: Preview!

Wallpaper Wednesdays will continue next week, but I am so hyped up I must share a little peek of it today! Over the week long break, I enrolled on a quick class on Skillshare to learn how to create print-ready patterns out of hand drawn sketches. The class was quick and easy to follow; more on that next week, with the lovely new wallpaper, of course! Happy Wednesday!

Birthday Corgi

Photo credit to Esmond

I painted this little fella for Esmond's 21st birthday card! Isn't he cute? I'm so happy with how he turned out; it feels almost as if I gave birth to him myself :D. I bought a set of cheap watercolour pans last month and so far I am enjoying painting more than I have since I was a child. I never liked messing around squeezing tubes and mixing colours because it's so cumbersome. It's so much easier and hassle-free with pans! Unfortunately they aren't too popular round here so I don't think I can get my hands on a more decent set anytime soon. 

The little Corgi's name is Gherkin by the way. He is a fictional pet-to-be, if all goes well in the future! If you haven't seen pictures of Corgis, Google them now and your day will be perceptibly brighter! :D

Flowers and Whales

A long long time ago, I drew a whale floating through a field of flowers... subconsciously I repeated this theme when I was doodle-painting today. I was thinking about a Jacqueline Wilson book I'd read, The Longest Whale Song. It's about a mother who falls into a coma after giving birth to her son, and her daughter struggles to get along with her stepdad. Of course, I've no experience whatsoever in the step-parent department (neither the comatose mother's, either), but I can relate to that feeling of helplessness and sorrow when your whole life turns upside down, when the woman you thought was superwoman suddenly shows you just how human she really is.

Anyway, it's been a long while since that day, and I dedicate this wee doodle to my dear mother, and to all mothers out there! Some of us may not have them close, but we will have them always in our hearts, and hopefully a bit of them will show through us, and in our children (if any). Happy Mother's Day momma! May you live long and healthy for many more mother's days to come!

Today's Special: Heal The World

It's here!!!

This is my final assignment for Illustration. We had to do an A3 marker rendering on the theme 

'Heal The World'. I chose to focus more on the result of the actions of global warming, such as melting polar ice caps and habitat destruction. The melting caps was useful to lead into my concept, which was a melting sundae. The ice cream scoops was juxtaposed with endangered animals to symbolize the creatures suffering from the destruction, and the sundae glass was built out of cramped houses and narrow streets, a nuclear plant and a train spewing black smoke. 

I was greatly inspired by Mattias Adolfsson, a fantastic fantastic artist I've been following on deviantart for many years. You know the kind of artwork that just pulls at your heartstrings and makes you want to cry? Mattias' works gets to me that way. His incredible detailed imaginative drawings are explosive. You'd wish for extra hours in the day just so you can sit and pore over his works and drink down every last detail. Do pay his site or dA page a visit, I assure you it is very much worth it :) .

I used coffee to paint the sundae glass! Started with a weak one, then added more coffee to get stronger, darker shades. The even darker shades I added with markers. Oh, the best wake up smell ever is an orgasmic cocktail of coffee and Copic ink! :D. One could get high on it, not like I did, but, yeah. Haha.

To update, I have aced the final presentation of the semester! Now there is a final group compilation project that will headache me for the next few days, and the semester will be utterly, completely completed! I can't say I didn't enjoy the semester, though I thought it dragged on for a tad too long. I'm glad I did all that I did, and I'm just as glad that it's soon to be over so I may concentrate on some personal work and self-reflection :).

TGIF everybody! And have a great great weekend! 

Sneak Preview!

Today (or yesterday...since it's been today for half an hour already), I made a new friend:

He is a useful friend, but probably a very formidable enemy. I'm surprised I never got one of these precision knives earlier in my 'artsy-designy' life. It isn't very cheap, though. But it's nice and heavy, and it feels reliable. And being new, the blade is gloriously sharp, so that I actually cut what needed cutting quickly and effortlessly. 

Here's a sneak preview of what I was cutting, more of it very very soon!

Two more blog posts till I celebrate the 400th post on this 'ere blog! Come around for the party, everybody! I shall unveil something pretty awesome then :D. It's the 25th right now, which marks exactly one month to Christmas and my birthday! So many things to do, so little time ><. 

Hope I'll be feeling better than I do now this time next month. Till then, have a happy happy Sunday!

Longitude

Longitude

Just a random thingy I did the other week. I was bored and in the mood to draw something. It's weird, though. Back then I got all hyped up drawing and drawing without a care in the world. Whatever I wanted I just doodled down however I fancied. I didn't give a toss about things like composition and complimentary colours and linear weights and what-have-yous.

Of course, looking at it now there's good and bads to just drawing however you want. Of course you want to make it visually appealing, get the message across, evoke feelings and emotions from whoever is viewing it. For that to happen you need to follow some basic rules. 

But then I remember when I was doodling and messing about with my markers and paper and pencils, I was happy. Very happy indeed. Of course there were certain little hiccups here and there, but I felt a genuine sense of accomplishment when I'd completed some drowned-in-colour thing. It was kinda like me, my ideas, paper and music. Nothing in between, nothing that can create some sort of distraction.

Right now when I look back at my old works, I can find fault in every single one of them. Of course, every creator will do so. But at the same time, I can't seem to find that blind, mindless drive to just doodle down everything and anything. I'll start to think about all the rules, and how to break them or bend them in different ways. Not like that's a bad thing, but of course you can see for yourself just how unproductive I've been since I started uni. 

My theory is this: back when I was completely oblivious to the foundations of design and art, I was like some wild monkey with a pencil. I threw everything down without putting much thought into it. Could you say my artwork then was and is shallow? Most probably. Because there isn't a rationale or a reason for it. It exists because I wanted to create it. That's all. But now, with the metaphorical chains of knowledge, I know better than to just go gadding about. I suppose, with more hard work and effort I won't call the knowledge chains, and instead call them steps and ladders to creating more beautiful and meaningful artwork.

It's like the transition of child to adult. When the world was so innocent, and when you reach that certain age, you just look at the old things so, so differently.

Excuse me for the big big wall of text. That's enough rambles for one night I suppose.

Nodin

Good morning my fellow brethren! Only two more days left of April. Another month just passed us all by yet again.

It feels to me that this semester is all about Native Americans, lol. First it was the dreamcatchers, then the presentation for Design Heritage, and now my marker illustration assignment. Even the comic one had feathers and sacred talking trees. Guess the tribal-native in me is coming to life =P. It came alive enough for me to work on this anyway!

Nodin

Nodin is the Ojibwe/Chippewa word for wind. And that was what I was trying to get at in this picture. Basically it's a non-too-conservative girl having a race with her spirit deer in a forest. I tried hard, lol. Yes I did. I wanted to do something a bit different, hence the oval frame. And I tried as hell to do something different with the markers. I realized I never really mastered the technique of gradients, particularly with two completely different colours. That's why I tried it out in this piece, blending lots of colours that are usually not so compatible with one another. I think I still need to work on my colour palette $k!lLz, lol. 

I love the feathers of the headdress tho ^^. And the bikini. And her skin though you can't fully appreciate the soft shadings I did. For some blardy reason the no-good scanner in Miso sucked the colours out of this and now it looks a tad bit unflattering. In the real thing the oval frame is almost glowing, but here it's a bit hard to see because it's kinda dark. Nevermind, stare harder and sink into its magical beauty :D.

Yet again, I realized that in comparison with the other submissions I saw, mine did not look like the others. Not that I can tell if it's in a good way or not. Oh well. What do you have to say about this? Comments and critiques will be greatly appreciated :D. Better yet if you could amble over to my deviantart account and hit the fav button, lol.

I shall wander away for the night, as I will be going for the Avenged Sevenfold concert...wait what you didn't know? .___. Oh well. Now you do. Here's hoping I'll get some pwetty shots this time, haha. Whee! Happy Sunday everybody!

Fate

I present to you my 4-page comic, ladies and gentlemen.

There be many flaws but I still think I did a good job. 

First time working on a tablet and digital painting seriously. I tried my best to go into details for the shading and all the little elements. I must say, it took a lot longer than I expected. Halfway down the road I was wishing I made only one page and/or used cell shading. But then this came out and I was like 'hm, okay'. 

I wanted to type out a synopsis to the comic, but I think something that is only 4 pages long with probably only a movie review's worth of text doesn't quite need explaining =P. Just read it and be amazed by its awesomeness. 

I'll be absolutely honest and say that the idea is not completely original. It was based on a true story, something I heard from someone. Of course, I added my own twist to the tale. Because obviously trees don't glow and talk and turn into pretty girls. Not in your world anyway =P.

But the loneliness is true though. It is true that sometimes, somebody could feel alone enough in the world to talk to plants. And if they are lucky one day the plants would talk back.

Anyway, enough rambling. On with the comic!

Back to Fundation

It's the three day weekend again, yay! Be prepared to see a minor avalanche of posts from me due to much boredom and wanting to do anything else but assignments, lol. 

My morning was spent pottering about the place cleaning the floor and washing things and pooping. Haha. The need to clean and rejuvenate tend to overcome me when I'm bored or in one of these evil moods of mine. At least that's something good coming out of it all. 

Anyway, I was poking about my harddisk when I came upon my files from foundation. And I was like...whoa. Joanne. You made that .___. I did remember feeling a tad bit depressed when I working on my stuff; I kept thinking they weren't good enough. Now I'm looking at them again and I'm thinking 'man I should do something more epic than this now'. 

Analytical Drawing with Ms Yen Huei! It was all perspective and quality of lines and stuff. I looked at the Inspiration Machine (v 2.0, lol) and...well. I haven't actually done any artwork that incorporated such perspective before, lol. And I certainly should, for it makes all the difference.

In the final assignment we had to do some pencil portrait which I can't quite remember anymore. But I certainly remember working on this Beijing opera performer. Ye gods, all those details were quite the killer. But looking at it now, I know it could've been a lot better, particularly at the headdress area. I should've darkened some parts so that the little details would stand out more. Oh well. I thought it was pretty darn awesome when I finished it, and I guess I still do now. Haha.

Here we have the magical finale of the class that I can't quite remember its name (Creative Studies was it?) we had to juxtapose ourselves with something else and I chose an Oscar because I'm awesome that way =P. That's me on the rainbow dragon by the way *points*.

This whole thing was done in markers. Which I honestly darn well thank God I did because it took me ages to do, lol. Without the speed of markers I don't think I ever could've submitted it.

Little collage I had to do over sem break for Design Fundamental class (with happy Mr Eric! Oh those were the days). I had a lot of fun doing this, though I am perfectly aware how terrible this photograph is. Oh well. 

Then there was the second semester where we all went gangsta on paints in Colour Studies, and Esmond, Shakir and I made this awesome four panelled thingy (I did two because I had too much free time) .

And then there was Creative Technology with Ms Koosha! And the whole comic thing that took up ALL of the CNY holidays! This was the poster for it (I'm too lazy to post up the comic panels):

 I think it's blardy awesome, lol. I don't care what everyone says. 

And here are pages from the art journal we had to make. Mine came in a wonky blue cardboard box.

                 

Apologies for the bad photo arrangement. I should be ashamed of myself, but I am not. Haha. 

Were you happy with your time in foundation? I know I was! I had so much fun it really sucked that it had to end so quickly. I'm glad I have so many colourful happy memories of my time in foundation. 

This is a very image-heavy post, lol. Enjoy it anyway and have a happy Friday! TGIF for everybody!

Rainbow Letters!

Cha-chang! It's me! In typographic form! =D. Yeah, this was assignment 1 for Typography class, and surprise surprise we had to make a self portrait of ourselves. Mine is more or less straightforward as hell, lol. As you can see I did not bother with multiple fancy fonts; the only one I used was Champagne and Limousines. Basically I am made out of words that I think represent or describe my personality/hobbies/interests. The fiddly part is when I converted each word into a brush and 'stamped' each word out, making sure that none touched the other and varying sizes. Tedious as crap, but the result was certainly satisfying. I don't really like how some typographic portraits have words just thrown about every which way so that you can't actually read anything. Not to say that it is bad, but it's a personal preference, yeah.

I like how the shading turned out though :D. The shading, now, was words jumbled up on top of each other to create depth and more solid form. Makes the otherwise plain portrait pretty darn spiffy, if I may say so myself. 

I'm happy with the result, I shall say that proudly. There're probably heaps others a lot nicer than mine, but I had the image of what I wanted to do in mind, and I'm glad the result came out almost like it, if not better. 

Stay tuned to more posts of my fancy shmancy assignments folks. I shall leave with this adorable Totoro gif in my wake:

via suzywire

Grin big all this week everybody! =D.

Soothing Saturday

 Last day of March friends! And here I am peacefully alone for the day again. I love being able to have some time to myself during the weekend. Of course, too much of it will sour my mood and just turn me into an unfeeling crabby person, but it's nice while it lasts =).

I actually want to go out shopping, but I'd have to rush for assignments and cry later if I enjoy myself now. So I've decided to be a good girl and work on my assignments quietly. Here's a few shots of what I'm working on!

You'll probably see a new story in my other blog soon enough =D. Or should I just upload the completed 4 pages of comic up there as a short graphic novel? What do you think?

And here's the beginnings of my blog header! I'm also trying to design the little buttons and sidebar headers as well. Also (heroically) planned to try my hand at designing a font to be used! But maybe if it takes to long I'll do the header first then work on the whole font later XD. Right now I'm very eager to get this header completed and up! What should I have in the background? Does anyone have any suggestions? I'm starting to have far more simple tastes than I had in the past, so maybe just a solid colour with a light canvas/paper texture to it. 

The marker streaks at the bottom are not colour ideas, they were practise for Illustration class when I finally unearthed my magical Copics and decided to see if I still knew how to hold a marker XD. I'm not sure if I'd still want a pale pastel theme (told ya! =D) but I'm quite sure I still want turquoise somewhere.

I was reading a post on Oh, Hello Friend! and I was brought to this game called Kern me! It's a fun little game that trains your eye for kerning! If you're on your break from your fun Saturday, you might want to give this little game a shot =).

Have a good day, folks! 

O^O

I feel this great longing to work with markers now. To do something light and airy-fairy with the smell of Copics up my nostrils. I may be addicted to that nostalgic scent, lol.

Sordid | 2010

Looking back at my artwork, I am very much drawn to Sordid for reasons I can't quite fathom. I actually like the composition and the soft colours, though the background could've been a tad less cluttered. I'd like to try something similar again! A soft central focus with accompanying random and repeated elements. Only maybe this time I'd like a to have some sort of colour palette, lol.

Today I shall work hard at completing my assignments, then I shall attempt to work on something 

marker-y! ^O^. Go Joanne go!!

Hope it'll be a productive weekend for everybody~! Cheereeooo!

Beautiful Strength

It is completed!

The lion is looking very very dandy indeed <3. Regretted inking in Stabilo, definitely. I shall bear in mind that unless I want to have completely melted linearts, I should avoid using Stabilos for inking in the future, no matter how captivating their colours may be. Guess I'll have to save up and get those coloured Zigs I saw in Art Friend next time I'm in the Gardens...

  I really liked how the colours turned out, though they are a bit messy here and there. Originally I intended to only have blue and purple and pink but after awhile I realized I definitely needed something to make the overall thing go pop, so I added a contrasting orange. What do you think?

I made the most amazing mistake, really. What with the longest semester break I'd have and I leave my markers behind, hence having to resort to watercolours. It's a nice change, though. Might as well sharpen my painting $k!lLz since I'm in no mood to practice my digital (didn't even bring my tablet back; Joanne you be awesome yes you be) and I've no markers to practice upon. Oh well.

First artwork of 2012 by the way! May the passion live on strong and beautiful =).

WIP

...I remember a time ago, an incident (aka a really rainy day when I had to run in the rain that resulted in my notebook-cum-organizer being drenched and half the things written inside were all runny) led me to come up with a life motto: 'Say No to Stabilo'. Reason being all the things written in said notebook with a Stabilo pen ran as if all the king's horses and all the king's men were after them. Yeah. I guess it doesn't need to be said that the king's entire cavalry regiment were unable to restore those lost words in the rain-swollen notebook, so yeah. Say No to Stabilo became the slogan when anything important needed to be penned down.

And here I am, inking an A3 drawing entirely with a pretty lilac Stabilo pen, with plans of watercolours after.

Not sure how the end result will be, but I think my safest bet would have a clean, digital copy secured before I proceed with the whole painting with watercolours business. Yeap.

Tune in to more updates, folks~!

MANGGA

Still busy as hell, but managed to come up with another odd drawing.

Hope to see you bunches at GACC!! If fate will allow things to go as planned, I'll be selling prints and doing commissions!

D'ERLANGER's Masquerade song is

Jewel

Finally I'm coming back to normal posts instead of random snippets of absolute boredom XP.

Jewel~

Anyways, yes, this is the lil' something I made for my sister's 21st birthday last December (her birthday's on the 26th, a day after mine and a day before my mother's =D). She's a big Ayu fan, hence the all-white sparkly theme. And its name being Jewel, after the song by Ayu-chan of the same name.

I completed this whole thingy in a day. Couple of hours. Of course the actual idea for it and the buying of the many materials to make it took around two months here and there. Originally I wanted to construct a bird cage out of wire, then spray paint it white...but then I decided to use what little logical thinking I had and came to the conclusion that it'd be too heavy and will warp the canvas eventually. So..yeah. This came out. Inspired by Ayu-chan's Jewel MV, particularly the closeup shot of her very well manicured hand holding a jewelled...thingy. Lol.

Made this thing at my aunt's apartment. The lift wasn't working, so I had to lug the canvas, my Nike shoebox (Just Do It! XD) filled with the bits and bobs, sketchbooks, and hot glue gun up six flights of stairs =_=. And it was at the final stage of completion when I realized I forgot to bring my bottle of PVA glue. Good thing my uncle unearthed a little bottle of it in his toolbox. Haha.

It's also suppose to have a key pendant hanging over the outstretched palm (sister found the pendant in DP so I got it for her Christmas present. Christmas and birthday presents are two different things in our household, yes). After the pendant was removed to be worn, it looked pretty bare although I designed it to still look good even without the pendant. Then I came across the super-duper awesome bird from a shop somewhere in town and that became the substitute. It's pretty fancy, the bird. Haha.

So today I finally decided to go round with taking a couple of shots of it to be uploaded on my dA account, but not before putting it through Photoshop to restore its original colours and adding some fancy sparkles like the ones in the Jewel video (XD). Then I decided that while I was at it, I might as well try some technique for faking aperture in Photoshop that I'd read in one of my magazines (no, sorry, I don't read seventeen or any of those gossip mags. The magazine I'm talking about here is technically The Ultimate Guide to Digital Photography. Hahaha.). Pretty simple, really. Making use of the pre-loaded Gaussian Blur in Photoshop, and layer masks. So you have something like this:


Then you put it through its paces, and you get something like...

This!!!

It's a simple way of getting swanky effects =D. Though of course mastering the aperture in your camera still achieves the best blurred-background effect. For those Photoshop fanatics eager to try this one out, a little hint: set the pixel count of your Gaussian Blur to 8~10 (in this case I went for 8.5). It makes your brain go woozy if the shot is too blurred XD.

So, yeah. That's all for now folks. Stay tuned to my next post- think I'll come up with some peacock-feathery tutorial. Or maybe I'll put up pictures of my Christmas tree if I can find the folder. Haha. Goodbye nao~

僕の大切な宝物 ...

The Turquoise Emperor- in the making

Hello, folks! Back again, this time dragging my latest drawing along! I actually wrote a story to go along with it, so the process of it was draw-write-draw-write-draw-write, until I completed both, but the story later because I wanted to add in lots of descriptive bits here and there. Didn't turn out quite so bad, I suppose, though it is a bit long.
The only reason why it took me a couple of days to complete the drawing is that colouring peacock feathers is effing hard. No, seriously. It's actually quite a challenge trying to come up with a plausible colour palette for the iridescent feathers, and yet I still think I haven't quite got it spot on. But, oh well, for a first shot I think I did okay.

Here are some pictures that I took while colouring! A tutorial-ish step-by-step process, if you will ^^.

Back feathers-base coat.


Train eyelets base coat- outer ring is Letraset ProMarker in Grass Green, teardrop centre is Copic Y19(Napoli Yellow), and circle centre is Copic BG15(Aqua).
The top-left feathers (the completed ones), are made up of: YG03(Yellow Green), G05(Emerald Green), Prismacolor Light Olive Green and a green Pilot gel pen for the outer streaks, Y23(Yellow Ochre) for teardrop centre streaks, and B06(Peacock Blue), B29(Ultramarine Blue), B02(Robin's Egg Blue), and E49(Dark Bark) for the circle centre.


Completed peacock headshot.

Completed peacock with train.
The whole picture is slightly larger than A3-size, so...yeah. You can imagine the amount of feathers I had to colour. But it was really fun and absolutely satisfying =D.

Snazzy closeup of completed flowers. Main colours used are Copic Y21(Buttercup Yellow), Copic Y11(Pale Yellow), Copic RV21(Light Pink), and YR09(Chinese Orange).
....Holy cow I just realized I typed all that out from memory. Have I actually memorized all the colours I have in my marker inventory?!

Close-up of completed train feathers and flowers.

Completed drawing! With a simple background using my birthday pressie from my sister- Blasta airbrush! It's technically a kid's version of an airbrush, really (you attach a water-based marker form the set into a air-squeezer thingy and blow the marker particles onto the paper). It's pretty good for a kid's plaything, and if airbrushing is this much fun, I'm SO saving up for the Copic Airbrush System =D =D =D.

Throw the completed picture into Photoshop CS, add a spiffy texture, sparkles, and...

Tadaaa!!!! =D.

I realise that this is quite an insubstantial step-by-step. I'll attempt to make a tutorial soon for those who'd like to try colouring peacock feathers for themselves! You don't neccessarily have to have a swanky collection of markers (though those certainly help ;D), but you can try it out with colour pencils or watercolours; it'll turn out swell nontheless. Afterall, it's not the materials that make the art good- it's the skill, right? ^^.

Off I go now. Farewell!