(Click here for painting process)

What planned to be a 1-hour speed painting exercise turned into a 3-hour exercise. It was truly a pain in the butt...especially the cactus stem in the middle foreground. So why didn't I just drop it and move on? It ended up becoming a huge challenge and I think that's really what drove me to finish. After the first hour, it was all about exploring layers of colors...wait, what colors? It's just black, green and yellow? Hahahaha. Somewhere in there are browns, 3 shades of green, orange and maroon. It's the 2nd hour that I started to enjoy the process. Then the it was the last hour that I just wanted to finish the darn thing. Great lighting exercise overall, I look forward to the next one.

Boxer

Awhile back, Olivia attended a dog & cat photo shoot for work out in Contra Costa. I tagged along for the trip, but unfortunately did not get a chance to sit in on the photo shoot. I did drive around Concord and checked out a couple comic shops and got stuck in traffic, but at least Olivia made a new friend. Her name is Gretta...the friendliest Boxer in the world. Hopefully we'll play with Gretta again at future photo shoots :)

(Click here for painting process)

Here's a 1-hour digital speed painting of Gretta. This was a fun exercise!

I had an opportunity to sell an illustration back in May and I wanted to share a few details in the process. I did a ton of thumbnails and kept hitting a wall when it came to adding brush pens. Here's a simplified Seattle Space Needle that didn't make the cut.

Next, is one of the many failed attempts at the Coit Tower. I made so many version of this famous San Francisco landmark that I ran out of ink in both my brush pens with just 24 hours left from my deadline. I stepped away from the drawing board and took another stab at it the next day.

After a trip to the art store for ink refills and two Red Bulls later, I decided to create a night scene instead. So this is the illustration that I was able to sell (wiping sweat from forehead).

It was truly a great exprerience and I look forward to sharing more stories of current/future commissions.

Tuk Tuk

Quick doodle just before eating Thai food in Vallejo, Ca. It's a Thai tricycle, also known as a "Tuk Tuk".

IF: baby

My parents adopted a toy poodle a couple years back and they just love him like a new born baby. Introducing "Max".....A fairly new addition to the family. I guess that makes him my....brother? Cool.

My mom has been dropping hints forever....for me to sketch lil' Max. I thought I'd surprise her with this huge painted bowl for Mother's Day. Shots out to the United Postal Service in delivering this in one piece (wiping the sweat from forehead).

"Rise, Lord Vader"

(Click to replay sketch process)

I always loved drawing Star Wars characters as a kid. Luke Skywalker was my favorite hero and Darth Vader was my all-time favorite villain....well, he still is.

Rice shortage

Brush Pen doodle

I came across this Vocabulary game online where each correct answer donates grains of rice through the UN to end world hunger in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Uganda and Nepal. So check it out, exercise your mind and do it for a good cause. It's a win, win for everyone!

http://www.freerice.com/

Sketch dump for the week. I missed using my brush pens so I thought I'd sketch a lil' puppy.

(left) Someone at Starbuck's reminded me a paper boy. (right) Quick sketch of my sneakers.

Caricatures

Here's a couple caricatures done while watching a bunch of webisodes & TV over the week. Top is Chester, lead singer for Linkin Park.

Sketchcrawl 17 - Chintatown

Sketchcrawl 17 was held in Chinatown-San Francisco, Ca. The sun was out, but the air was chilly. Here's a sketch of an intense game of cards.
I then moved onto a bridge overlooking the park in one direction and the Transamerican Pyramid Building in another. But the Coit Tower caught my attention. I stayed about 45 minutes before my hands froze from the cold breeze.
I now regret not staying to finish inking the whole sketch, but here's a closer look at what I was able to finish.
I didn't realize how long I was hanging out at the park so I walked onto the main street in Chinatown and looked for a place to eat. I found some food at a nearby corner store. I did a couple sketches while I ate. Here's a few people walking up and down the hill or waiting to cross the street.
Here's the last few sketches on my way back to the park to share sketchbooks.
I missed greeting a few people: Emma, Dice, Amelia and Leeroy (LA). Glad to see Winona, Kevin, Enrico, Ronnie and Nate. Mitch and Jim drove up from Los Angeles. See ya next crawl.

MacWorld Expo 2008 - Day 5 (final re-cap)

Here's the last painting demo for the Expo. I only had time to complete the sea-turtle on Friday and later added a background when I got home.

Thanks to the Axiotron crew, thanks to Emma for bringing the creative promoters together, and thanks to the kind folks that stopped by to say "hi". It was a privilege to meet Sheldon, artist for Cartoon Network's "Foster's Home of Imaginary Friends". Story Artist - Mitch and James from Los Angeles introduced me to a Pixar great, Floyd Norman. It was great to meet a Pixar artist that started with Pixar back when they were still located in Point Richmond. I used to work in one of Pixar's older buildings, but now belongs to a Biotech Co. and Software company.

Thanks to my friends that dropped by to give the Modbook a whirl: Glen, Ari, Daniel, Marie, Anna, Carolyn, Olive, Elizer and Ocho.

I wish I could have done a sketchcrawl every night with the Modbook, but I was so tired by the time we closed up shop, ate dinner and headed back to the hotel. It was very difficult to say good-bye to the lovely Modbook that I got to take with me every night.

On a lighter note...I see that customers are slowly receiving their own Modbooks....that they ordered last year! Can't wait to see all their new illustrations.

Ahhh....the last day of the Expo. I've been on such a creative high everyday this week, but had to wake up a tad early to finish packing - so I'm a little sluggish. I decided to keep the aquatic theme going for today's demo. Here's a sneak peak....looks like a big brown blob for now.

MacWorld Expo 2008 - San Francisco Day 4 (re-cap)

Not sure why I decided to draw birds the other day? I may have subconsciously thought of the roosters & hens that my late grandfather used to raise.

Day 4 - I decided to attempt a fully rendered painting today. I was zipping through photos of tropical fishes and gravitated towards the shark family. They're such an amazing species and are known to hit high speeds, breech into the air, attacking their clueless preys (I watch way too much Discovery Channel/Animal Planet). Nothing is creepier than a shark staring you in the face with water reflections trickling over the top of its body.


With answering customer questions and doing this demo on Photoshop, I finished up the painting around 4pm. Someone inquired last minute if they can have it as a wallpaper for their computer, so I cropped the top and bottom....but I wish I made a more creative background.

Here's a small clip of the Modbook put to work during MacWorld. It's a small segment at the beginning that mentions the pens' 512 levels of pressure sensitivity. It's a glimpse at a unicorn design by Steph...

and a little fishy I started painting on Day4 (Thurs).
The final painting will be posted soon.

MacWorld Expo 2008 - San Francisco Day 1-3 (re-cap)

Just arrived at the MacWorld 2008 Expo in San Francisco, Ca. It took place in 2 separate halls at the Moscone Center. I'll be working as a promoter for the Axiotron booth, whipping up some digital illustrations on the heavily awaited MODBOOK.

(photo provided by Mitch)

The Modbook is a Mac book laptop with the Wacom technology slapped onto the top. It's not a touch screen, it responds to the pen stylus. The feel is very natural when you draw and write (no delyed response). You'll notice that the the modbook does not open to reveal a keyboard?! That's because there's a virtual keyboard on the screen. Yes, you can still plug in a keyboard into the USB port, but you can also use a wireless keyboard thanks to the built in bluetooth feature. Did I mention it has a built in GPS system? How about the "hand writing recognition" ability? Whoa! Louie was right, this is an incredible machine.

Day 1 - had a chance to settle into the hotel and head on up to get a crash course on the specs and usage of the Modbook. I'll be working along the sides of talented artist: Emma Coats, Kevin Hucek, Steph Labaris and Winona (Nonnie) Nelson.

Day 2 - Wake up...I hear on the news that (since 6am) there has been an extremely long line that went around the corner. Many of you may already know that 9:30am - 10:30am was the anticipated keynote speech by Steve Jobs. So the doors did not open to the public until 11am.

I was still adjusting to all the cool features on the modbook and did more promoting than sketching today. There were attempts on caricature sketches of customers...but I disliked any of them.

Day 3 - The morning crowd was a lot slower than yesterday, so I started sketching a tiny quail as a warm-up.

Then continued working on a rooster.

That takes us into the end of the day. Still feeling good and energized from the unbelievable talents all around me.

To see a full re-cap on this day with photos & art, check out the post on Emma's blog.

Life Drawing Session

Acrylic on Canvas 9"x13"

First off, Canvas SALE at Aaron Bros. Buy 1 get the 2nd for a penny.

Just received an awesome Holiday/New Year's gift from my AIS alumni buddy, Josh. A perfect addition to my art book collection. It' s not heavy literature, but I've already gone through the first 10 chapters. It's sort of a "back to basics" drawing for animation type information, but I liked the section about "staying loose". I've seemed to have kept that mo-jo going with this latest portrait painting. I liked the way I was able to capture his beard,without painting in every strand of hair.

As for his necklace, I tried to make the mini cross a different color but it drew too much attention. I probably should have added a slight highlight on his necklace because it's totally lost in his chest hair.

Life Drawing Session

Here's a second take on portrait painting in my life drawing class. I felt pretty good painting the first 20-30 minutes, blocking in the shades and shapes. But then the struggle began around the cheek, lips....all the way down. Layers upon layers later....I was only happy with the hair.

IF: Soar

Happy New Years!

The coordinator of my life drawing session arrives to the studio on a cool motor-bike and awesome looking helmet. This was a quick sketch done during one of the a breaks. Next time, the motor-bike...

"Happy New Year's to everyone!"

My life drawing session ended a little early the other night, so I headed to CCA to wait for Olive's typography class to end. CCA has this dinky waiting area behind the front desk, where 4 Corbousier chairs face each other. Luckily, no one was sitting across from me.

I didn't think the colors would work since everyone already knows what a black leather Corbousier chair looks like, but I really had fun with this water color/brush pen sketch.

"Happy Holidays to everyone...everywhere!"

Bookstore doodles

Here's another doodle page during a visit to Border's Bookstore. I started with a few head sketches and just continued til' I found something I liked.

It started raining yesterday and parking has been horrible. The regular lot and valet spaces were filled. Customers were parking on the dirt areas and red zoned sidewalks. It was so bad I decided to risk parking in the back of the building. I just made sure I didn't block the loading dock for either of the stores.

Flute Master

Still exploring acrylics in my life drawing sessions, but I've been practicing some painting techniques from home as well. Trying to stay loose in my approach to the canvas because it's so easy to tense up and work too close to one area.

I did struggle with the flute placement while working with photo references....I probably ended up re-painting the flute and hands 3 times. But I think I'm happy with the end result. Still thinking of adding a more interesting background, but for now I will leave the painting as is.

Harijuku

Morning warm-up pencil sketch.

Inspirations comes from the strangest moments. My life drawing session was canceled for the night. Since I carpool into the city, I drove back to CCA to wait for Olive's typography class to end. I was looking forward to all the art on the wall, but unfortunately they were in the process of cleaning/setting up for a show. I ended finding a nice chill spot to wait and had these stacks of folding chairs smack-dab in my face. I was planning to just sketch a couple chairs but ended up going for the whole fixture?!

Fore!

Spent some time sketching at the practice area of the McIness Park Golf Center in Marin. This was a great place to get some quick gestures. The top sketch was my first sketch on the page and was very spontaneous. I sort of regret dropping colors on it...I really enjoyed the loose lines.

Sketching on the side made several golfers pack up and move on, but I was luckily left with one golfer to stay on the green and continued his putting practice.

Portrait

I started working on portrait paintings in my life drawing class.
I'll be sure to upload more. Acrylic on canvas 14" x 18" (1.5 hrs)

Here's a sketch I included in a greeting card to my grandmother. The inspiration was from my visit to Lourdes, France. The building in the background was inspired from the main church in the center plaza of Lourdes. The warrior was inspired by a 12 foot statue (St. Michael defeating the Devil) that could be scene outside of the cafeteria.

Lunch break

Sometimes it's just nice to get some fresh air during
lunch, rather than the normal routine lunch in the
cafeteria. So I decided to head to the park the other
day and came across this interesting guy and his dog.

Life Drawing

Morning warm-up.

A quick sketch while waiting
for some bubble tea.

Another warm-up sketch.

Berkeley, Ca.

Here's an older doodle from Sketchcrawl 14 in Berkeley, Ca.

Morning Warm-up's

(top) Amidala sketch from Star Wars art book. (left) Took a random person from a magazine and tried to make him look like a Jedi. (right) Fairly new villain from Star Wars: Legacy comics.

IF: open

"Are the ski slopes open yet?"

I didn't get to do much snowboarding last season due to my hectic work schedule. It seemed like an eternity for this season to come around, but I hope to snowboard at least twice this year. Here's a collaboration with Olivia. The corner where her snowboard lays to rest, looked a little lonely. So she designed her idea in Illustrator and threw it my way. It's a great reminder that snow is shortly on its' way.