Inktober Owls

It's been a while!

School has been a bit overwhelming theses days, but I still have time doodle birds! Yay owls!

I used a pentel brush pen and some watercolor.

Until then, "Owl" be back!

Sketching away the weekend

Actual Inktober time!!!! I sketched my friend Sarah at the animation student collective meeting.

I used my brush pen to sketch her out and then I used photoshop to arrange all the sketches.

THE BIRDS PROJECT - Great Blue Heron

It's finally October! (+3 days)

I know a lot of people are celebrating inktober, and I decided to jump on the band wagon... -ish.

I decided to illustrate birds. Any kind of birds. Small birds, big birds, fancy ones, ones that fly, that don't fly, etc. 

I don't digitally paint enough, so I decided to try different digital painting methods as well.

I borrowed a field guide from the library and picked a bird.

First stop, the Great Blue Heron!

I remember watching Magic School Bus as a young kid and I saw this episode when Wanda's frog? toad? escaped. I learned that Blue herons EAT frogs and I was terrified that Wanda's frog was gonna get eaten. So I tried to draw a smug version!

Thanks for looking! :)

Design for Media project final!

The Menagerie project for my design for media project has come to an end. Unfortunately, although I had designed and sketched out 5 characters, I could only finish the West, the South, and the East in the given time. Which is still according to the project, because we only had to design 3 characters that are related to each other. I plan to finish the other 2 on my own time though.

Guardian of the West, Guardian of the South, and Guardian of the East.

(sketches of the 4 directional guardians)

(Hair styles for the guardian of the North)

(early designs for the guardian of the West)

(designs of the trident for the West guardian and costume designs for the North guardian)

(sketches of the Center Guardian)

(Sketches of the Center Guardian)

Update on Design for Media project

It's been 2 weeks! (I didn't update late week because I was quite sick)

My research materials arrived though!

I did not expect them to be in Korean.... Thank goodness I know how to read Korean!

Basically all I did last week was read read read. There were so many interesting materials of Korean mythology! It really was a shame that I don't have enough time to do more research and have a really solid background and meaning for the designs of the project.

I've decided to create designs for the Obang Sinjang myth.

Below is an image from the book "An Illustrated guide to Korean Mythology" of the Obang Sinjang, the gods/guardians of the directions. According to the book "Uri Sin Iyagi" (The Story of Our Gods), there are five guardians that protect people. 

1. The Guardian of the East, Dong bang chung jae. 동방청제

It protects the household from diseases and unfortunate events. It is recorded that he carries a spear-like weapon. He is usually represented with the color blue/green.

2. The Guardian of the West, Suh bang baek jae. 서방백제

 It protects the dead. Like guiding them safely to the right heaven/hell. (There are like 10 hells)

It is usually represented with the color white and and it is said it carries a trident. 

3. The Guardian of the South, Nam bang juck jae. 남방적제

It looks after the wealth of the household. It is recorded that it carries a long sword and represented by the color red. 

4. The Guardian of the North, Book bang hook jae. 북방흑제

It looks after death itself. It is recorded that it carries a mace and represented by the color black.

5. The Guardian of the Center, Joong ang hwang jae. 중앙황제

It is the one that is in charge of the ancestors of the household and rituals that are for the ancestors of the house hold. It is represented by the color gold and it is said it carries a fan.

So I decided to design all 5 (or 4, depending of the time). I have designed the layout and color schemes for the Guardian of the South and the East. Below is the documentation.

I decided that the Guardian of the South would be the jolliest of the five, and that he would look like a rich merchant that eats way too much. He would be wealthy, because he is the one that takes care of the fortune. He is also the wildest of the most, so he doesn't really like wearing armour much. However, he does like to have it luxurious. He has a beard, but barely, because he always burns it while work. (He deals with fire)

Then I decided that the Guardian of the East would be more stern and proper. He deals with sickness and unfortune, so I figured he'd be quite solemn. I tried to give him the most military-ish uniform. His uniform would be the most basic and traditional out of all. He even wears a hat, something that other guardians don't like wearing because they feel like it just has ceremonial value, but nothing that actually helps in combat. The Guardian of the East doesn't really get along with the Guardian of the South, ha.

Sketch

Line Art? Cleaned up skethes

Color Schemes

I plan to paint them digitally.

It's not something I'm used to, so I think I'll be spending a lot of time in the cintiq labs...

New Design for Media Project!

My previous attempt of the Design for Media Project was to design 3 characters that had the same purpose/color/design didn't really fit what the project was asking the students. So I decided to scratch that idea off, and branch off to another one.

I have always been interested in Mythology. I loved reading Greek mythology as a kid, Egyptian/Norse mythology as a teenager, etc. What I realized through this project is that I wanted to focus on Korean mythology this time, and perhaps render 3 designs of gods/goddesses/mythical creatures. Unfortunately, my local library (Columbus Metropolitan Library-Main branch) did NOT have ANY materials on Korean mythology. I was disappointed, but the more I tried to research information, the amount of material that was out there about Korean mythology was nothing compared to any other kind of mythology, including neighboring countries like Japan or China.

I did however, request a lot of the books on OPAL (Ohio Private Academic Libraries) of Korean mythology to CCAD's library. So hopefully I can start digging into these books when they get here. In the mean time, I did go on the internet to get some ideas to begin with. A starting point. However, the internet being the internet (too many things with too little organization), did not really offer information that I was looking for. Instead, I went back to the stories I read/listened as a kid and tried to think of a concept for the menagerie project.

(The Story of Our Gods, Jung-O Suh, left. An Illustrated Guide to Korean Mythology, Won-Oh Choi, right)

These are some of the books that I requested! I really like the color palette of the one of the right. I think it is supposed be a Moodang, a shaman that connects the two worlds (the land of the living and land of the dead).

post.... "oops summer came and my brain just logged out."

Whooooa. Sorry for the inactive-ness for the past month... or two?

After school was over, I came back to Vancouver. (after a crazy time of "packing" (more like scrambling and flailing my arms midair shouting "I QUIT" a thousand times))

After a few days of peace, I had to start packing (AGAIN) for moving and shipping my stuff to Korea.

So that went on... for a couple days weeks. (6 years worth of stuff.... just crazy.)

and during that crazy, hectic time, dad and grandma came to visit us.

Then my little sister's grad!

and then actually moving!

Not gonna lie. I'm SO GLAD everything is done. (well almost. I'm going on a missionary trip? are those how they call it? like volunteering 2 weeks from now.... fun stuff!)

SO.

I finally got to catch a breath and got really pumped for art! (It's been a while, wow. Well, I did do a lot of sketches, I guess)

and VOILA!

So my little sister just graduated high school this month.

It was also her birthday 4 days ago.

Oh the dress that she wore to prom was just absolutely stunning!

So as a graduation gift-ish?

I drew her this pic.

Mastercopy for Michelangelo!

Ever since we started figure drawing, my drawing teacher doesn't give us a lot of homework (bless him)

I mean, while I love drawing with all my heart, painting class has just been giving me so much homework, I am quite overwhelmed!

Anyways, this was one of the homework assignments that my drawing teacher gave us. He is just an amazing man! I really enjoy learning from him.

So the project was to pick three artists from a list and study their figure drawings, and do one master copy.

I picked Michelangelo, Pontormo, and John Singer Sargent.

There were a lot of awesome drawings, but I decided to go for Michelangelo.

We were supposed to find the similar medium too, and I tried to have red spots, because the original had them... but they don't really show much. Aw.

Turns out this is only part 1 of the project!

The part 2 of the project is.... making a piece that is based on the figure, but in our interpretation.

For example, my mind first went to some Greek mythology inspired, Zeus going crazy over some beauty and Hera furious. Maybe I'll go for that one. Maybe I won't.
Who knows! :)
I can't wait til I start it! I just gotta finish this paper first... haha..

Figuring out figure drawing

Toned Paper, Sanquine pencil and white charcoal.

Storyboard: Hans Zimmer-Under the Stars

This was a school project that I did for my Visual Narrative class.

We had to create a video matching/inspired by a piece of music that doesn't have any lyrics.

Originally I was going to choose another song, but I felt like this song really spoke to me.

Everyone in their life goes through a tough time. but even those times will pass.... right?

Thanks for watching! :)

The music I used is Hans Zimmer - Under the Stars.
it's in the Lion King soundtrack!
I sped it up a bit too!

New Beginnings

Spring is the season of new beginnings, right?

Well happy start of spring! :)

I made it so it can be used as a wallpaper for iPhone....

if anyone... wants to use it?

Thanks for watching!

Critiques are always welcomed! :)

Figure Drawing

These are pieces that I did during Drawing class.

My instructor is really awesome.

The drawing of the man was marked, and I did pretty good, so I'm quite happy with it, honestly.

I wish I could've done a bit more on the legs, but oh well.

The one on the top, the woman was the latest one. It was our first time using toned paper.

While I had so much fun using white, it was also kind of a nervous feeling, because I didn't want to mix up my values. This one hasn't been graded yet, so I don't really know.... but I like it?

storyboarding?

This is a story board project I was assigned at for school. We were supposed to do an outro/intro/PSA/commercial thing for 30 seconds (Mines almost a minute... oops!)

I decided to do an outro of a film that I was thinking of! It's a story of a bear that wants to be a human. Etc, etc. It was originally based on Korean mythology. (It is said that Koreans are descendants of a bear)

There was supposed to be a tiger as her friend, and a sky god, but I felt like I was trying to put in way too many info in one small project. Honestly, I don't even know I did this the way the professor wanted it.... I hope she likes it though!

It was influenced a lot by the ending credits of Tangled. (Line quality, and how the ending was basically a summary of the whole story.)

This was also my first time using After Effects, so that was interesting... ha...

Critiques are always welcomed! Thanks for watching!

Silhouettes and Ace

Today was friday, which meant Animation Student Collective day! Yay!

We have this thing called the weeklies, where we meet an hour early and just draw, draw, draw. Today's focus was silhouettes.

We used this website to draw silhouettes of dynamic poses of people.

I got some great advice that I should push more! Like be more aggressive? and exaggerate that bootie.

or the shoulders. 

The last page is the collective's mascot, Ace. I didn't know how many we were supposed to draw... so I drew a bunch.