Figure Drawing - Sarah

Getting used to the colored pencil a bit.  The pencil got short and it made me change the way I used it, it felt kind of like using a short charcoal or something. Felt kinda right.

Figure Drawing - Vaune

Haven't been super stoked with any of my drawings in recent weeks' figure drawing sessions.. Haven't felt "ON". Feels like my hand doesn't know what to do. Oh well.. For you I have some fragments of figures...

Happy Halloween!

I had a lot of fun this year for Halloween. My friend Jasmine and I went as Circus Twins (the party theme was "Carnival of Horrors").  The design was highly inspired by one of my favorite artists, Michael Hussar.  I have always loved his painting "Morphine", it is so haunting and beautiful, I really enjoyed doing a sort of cosplay on it.  And luckily for us, Gino Acevedo was willing to do our makeup!! He's incredibly generous and kind, people were stopping by during the 4 hours we were at his studio (well, he had to paint us both!) to pick up some Halloween help from the special effects master!  Thank you thank you thank you Gino, it came out exactly as we had dreamed- cute and creepy as hell at the same time!  Thanks Joey for putting the contacts directly in our eyeballs!  Thanks Jasmine, it was sooo fun making the costumes with you! Less fun- scrubbing all the makeup off!!

And here's the inspiration from Michael Hussar - Morphine, Daddy's Girl:

Studies - Aoi Miyazaki, Rinko Kikuchi, and Jose Renteria

I decided to do a few asian girl studies, since I realize I actually haven't done that too often.

Here's a simple sketch of Aoi Miyazaki, a Japanese actress who plays one of two girls named Nana in a show called..well "Nana".  I haven't really seen any of this show, but Nana was based on a manga by Ai Yazawa, the creator of one of my favorite manga - Paradise Kiss, about students of a fashion school!

Miyazaki Aoi

Here is a sketch of Rinko Kikuchi. I was watching Babel recently, and I had also seen The Brothers Bloom, and well, I really like her look! I'd like to do more studies of her, and better capture her unique mouth.

Kikuchi Rinko

And here's an extra I did the other night, not an asian girl, but a doodle of a girl who has shared her fashion sense with the internets.  I'll dedicate it to Jose Renteria, because his inspiration is my inspiration sometimes.

Not-a-hipster girl

Figure Drawing - Matilde

I tried watercolor again tonight. I think I'm learning a bit.  I think I learned that it's sort of a good idea to lay down the shadow/darkest parts first, so that that part is a bit dry by the time you can wash over it with a lighter color.  At least..for one type of result...  

I put away any pen/pencil for most of the evening, so I wouldn't be tempted to draw lines, but instead pay attention to shapes of light and shadow.  I warmed up to the idea a bit more this time I think.  But for the final, 30 minute pose, I wasn't yet comfortable to do detail work in watercolor, so I did lines first and had time to wash over with color.

Chiaki Kuriyama Study

I did a study of Chiaki Kuriyama tonight in pencil.  She's the Japanese actress who played Gogo Yubari in Kill Bill vol1, and the track runner in Battle Royale before that.  Found a pic of her looking a little bit sweeter than the characters we know her by.

Chiaki Kuriyama (Kill Bill, Battle Royale)

Figure Drawing - Kim & Thania

Didn't get around to uploading last weeks, so here's 2 weeks worth of figure drawing.  I am aiming to try different things each time, though I do fall back on my comfort zone pretty easily when I get frustrated :P  Should try harder...


 See this is my trying watercolor, then trying watercolor as "lines", then skipping the watercolor and going back to a pen, and faking a splash of watercolor on top :P  

Attempting to be watercolory:

And then This week's. I tried with a brush pen, but I didn't like any of em and will show you the one done with a teeny tiny hiTech. These are like 1.5 inch each

Figure Drawing - Kate

Figure Drawing with Kate tonight. She did excellent work, lovely strong poses and she held them well.  Great session.  I tried drawing with a prismacolor pencil tonight.  I like that you draw a little differently depending on the tools, tho this wasn't a big departure really.  The pencil gets dull so quickly I practically sharpened it halfway down tonight...

here are the ones I liked from tonight.  Nothing too mindblowing... Wish I could have captured Kate's dynamic poses and structures more fully.

cghub challenge sketch

This was for cgHub's Character Forge activity 2.5 
Basically it's a weekly challenge to draw characters/illustrations based on descriptions from an ongoing story.   I got on board too late to finalize my image in time for the deadline, but I'm going to submit it anyhow, and finish it in my own time this week, just for kicks.

"At the center is a small fountain of light. It is there that the crew members are thrown before a young woman garbed in bright fabrics and studded with small gems. She bears resemblance to an exotic bird of prey and her gaze suggests that the crew members are to be judged by her...harshly."

That is the given description. My drawing doesn't veer too far from the expected "sand princess", as the location is described as a desert. And while borrowing elements we've all seen before, I hope I mashed them together somewhat interestingly enough.  I've got my own little story behind the design choices, but I hope to make it more clear by the time I've finished it.

And um, let's just consider the blue color, and "all seeing eye" symbol temporary placeholder for now..

Figure Drawing - Darren

Tonight we had a new model, Darren. He was excellent! Great poses.  Didn't feel like sharing my drawings from last week, but this week went alright.  Feel like the rust is shaking off. Feels good.

lazy collage work and uneven scans. hm.  next time...

sketch experiment

Just messing around with a pencil sketch and photoshop. I'm really pretty newb at photoshoppery magic ... I'll keep experimenting I guess!

Cuaron, Del Toro, Inarritu - Charlie Rose

Pretty old, but I just watched this Charlie Rose interview with Mexican film makers, Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Alfonso Cuarón.

It was a beautiful interview, and an entertaining and enlightening conversation. Very inspiring. My favorite quote of the conversation was when Rose asked if the 3 were ever competitive, and among Cuaron's answer was this - "When you can transform envy into admiration, that’s incredibly liberating." I would like to apply this wisdom to my own life.





I just want to be friends with these guys, don't you?

Ghibli Ghibli Ghibli!

Yesterday a couple of DVDs I ordered arrived!

  Joe Hisaishi in Budokan - Miyazaki Anime to Tomo ni Ayunda 25 Nenkan. This is a recording of the live orchestra performance conducted by Joe Hisaishi, celebrating the 25 years of collaboration with Hisaishi and Miyazaki in Ghibli films.  They played thru the major songs from each of the films.  I nearly died when I found out such an event existed! These Ghibli soundtracks are so dear to my heart, and I listen to them all the time..  If I really could see anything performed live, perhaps this would have been the most meaningful to me...   Joe Hisaishi is having another concert in Hong Kong this December.  I will just have to keep dreaming, with the help of this DVD!

 I also picked up  Oga Kazuo Exhibition: Ghibli No Eshokunin - The One Who Painted Totoro's Forest  .  It's a video documentation - and slideshow I think, of an exhibition of hundreds of Ghibli background images.  You know, I'm kinda wishing I jumped on the Blu Ray bandwagon already.  Maybe a PS3 is in order...

I'm so excited for this next Ghibli film! It looks so gorgeous. Screenplay written by Miyazaki, and directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi- Looking forward to seeing how this new director does!



(why do my youtubes get cutoff :(  somebody fix it!)


And in other Ghibli related news, I may as well use this opportunity to show off the Movie Moguls team - Studio Ghubblies!

 Lindsay, Haejin and I support the team as the "Ghublettes".  Here's a better look at the Tshirt Jance designed.  Very very mature, guys...

sketch

sketch from a magazine image i've always liked.  maybe i'll try again for a better result, but i guess i'll learn from any attempt

Figure Drawing, portrait session

We had Renee in for an extra drawing session tonight, and had her dedicate to 2 1hr poses so that we could focus on her portrait and get some more serious drawings out of it. Well.. i felt like i needed about 5 more hrs to be able to do something right. The drawings were HORRIBLE. so. I took pictures, and went home and drew from the photo :P

Figure Drawing

Here's some stuff from tonight's figure drawing session. We had the lovely Renee dressed up as a pirate slash gypsy!

Perhaps at some point I will catch you up on the rest of my life..maybeee..
Meanwhile, listen to THIS!!!