Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Harping about Harpies





Everytime I see beautiful women painted in art, harpies and sirens always alights upon my mind.

The top one is just my attempt at drawing an old woman as a harpy. The bug eye and the gnarled hands kinda reminds me of the witch in Snow White. Or maybe that's Cinderella?

A little tidbit about the old woman harpy.. Back in her day, she had a voice that was to die for. She was a rising songstress in the Harping Harpist Full of Harpies Orchestra until an unfortunate incident one day left her vocal box strained/shattered. Who knows how? They won't say. Now she just screeches incoherently and snatches the villager's pets/kids out of spite (or for food).

Friday, May 27, 2011

Another W.I.P



Edit: Dec 8, 2011. Wow, it's been months since I last worked on this WIP haha. And, it's still not done. Still gotta get the feet in there, the rest of the wings and the hand. Maybe add a weapon too, I don't know. Then touch up the rest of the background as well. Hopefully it will get done soon.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

WIP Alt Version


Ok I got carried away, but in a good way. I wanted to copy/paste a portion of the work since my working file is about 100 megs which was slowing my computer down. It had like, 30329 layers. I was only working with 2 at the moment so I transfered it onto another file and well, it's head was missing since I was working on the torso and arms. Wanted to elongate the torso and I kept going with that. Some other shapes suggested itselves and yeah, so now it's got a new head and shoulders.

Kinda like this version better but I will finish the other one too.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

WIP Update



No idea if this is going to stay but I'm liking it at the moment. Some bits are confusing to me and bugging me atm. It's pretty tough to work this way with blurry splotches, especially looking at it up close from the initial roughs. It's really taking some time to refine the shapes and the lines even further. Either that or I just work sloooow.

There are some floating limbs that are undecided but it's there to be worked on later. We'll see how this ends up as I'm pretty determined to finish this piece.

This post continues from here

Monday, May 23, 2011

May Mayhem









I think I am deeply disturbed by those "cute" dogs.

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Messing around with Pareidolia



This is what happens when I stare at something for too long, either from something I'm working on or something I'm looking at. It usually ends up spawning another idea.

Sometimes I do random copy/paste sections from various works of mine to create something new for fun, to generate ideas or to create chimaera-like creatures. However this one was a little planned because I did see a snailien-like creature in the first place.

Take yesterday's digital speed paint of the bird creature top left for example. The numbered boxes are individually copied and pasted onto another new file to create what you see for the middle and far right sections.

By copying and pasting, this exercise makes it easier to isolate and see new images seperately to give you a better idea of what you're looking at. In the box numbered 2 is a face, very vaguely what appears to be teeth and there is also an eye way up there too. I darkened some bits, added some wetness on the gum/mouth parts and white outlines somewhere to punctuate things a little more and so on. Then I got busy with the shell and that's all I got for now.

Friday, May 20, 2011

Chirpa Derp


A not so speed paint that started off as a speed paint. Still a long ways to go before it even looks finished. At this point though, I'm already hating it.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Coming up with titles is hard


Bic pen on paper, touched up on Photoshop.

What is the stork creature saying at top left?

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Thought Du Jour

"The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. No big laboratory is needed in which to think. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born. That is why many of the earthly miracles have had their genesis in humble surroundings."

— Tesla


Keep up with the shower thoughts, people!

Some Plant Creature



Angry Franken-food plant creature?

Another envelope drawing with some Photoshop love. The last one there with the helmet had the head copy/pasta'ed and flipped upside down to create the new visor look. The teeth part of the visor has part of the hair cropped off. Can you see the upside down face on the helmet?

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Sketch Dump





Bic pen on mostly envelope paper. I gathered a few days worth of doodles and decided to put them all together as one big post.

One drawing is a partial collaboration by Joverines. It got me thinking of mailing doodled envelopes to random addresses around the country or around the world to have people doodle on them as part of a collaboration of sorts. Then they in turn send it out to another random address and on and on it goes. Inside the envelope will have instructions. It'd be interesting to see where they all end up.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Visual Journal


Every morning when I wake up, I would just wake up but not get up from bed. I'd just lay there for awhile and imagine while my mind's still fresh from dreaming. I'd take the time first to recall any dreams as I can, and then sort of fall back to sleep somewhat this way to semi-lucid dream what I want to imagine next. Sometimes this fails and I fall back to sleep again, but when it works, it gets me back to seeing things visually again like the way it was back in childhood. Eventually you get excited enough to get up from bed to draw it all down.

Usually I have a topic/theme (i.e birdmen, snailiens are the most frequent themes for me) that I want to imagine the night before just so I don't waste time thinking of what to imagine. The more time you think in words, the more awake you become, and the harder it is to get back to that dreaming state of mind which thinks in moving-pictures. This isn't always art-related as sometimes I use this time to find solutions to current problems or find answers to something philosophical in nature, etc.

This activity also helps to get back into daydreaming as well which is where this drawing comes from. Daydreaming is something that I haven't done in a long time since I was a kid and something that I had problems getting back until now. They're coming back slowly in brief glimpses, a little flash of insight showing me some creature's skin with all of the textures, or just the colours, or even the way it moves. I reckon it's just a matter of time before this develops into a waking dream.

The above is not the greatest drawing ever but it's something I had to jot down quickly onto paper before I forget. They are perhaps... working ideas to be worked on later. And as per usual in my case, later means never. But at least it's all there!

Anyhoo, it all happened during a funeral at church. I couldn't hear a damn word the priest was saying so what's there to do? Daydream? Yeah, kinda. I kept staring at random props at the altar, at the statues of angels, all the way up to the stained glass images (which is where the ant thing comes from), to the candles flickering nearby, until something sets me off to lalaland.

That weird turkey bodied, shakespear'ish looking head figure drawn above was from staring at the way the sunlight was reflecting off the pew. The colour of the pew, the texture of the wood with its wavy lines all helped to form that image. I really didn't do it justice though, but it amused me with its bastardised shakespearean monologue. If the priest was speaking in latin, then perhaps that is where that monologue was coming from. Perhaps at a subconscious level I was hearing it. After awhile the silence was getting to me and tired me out, so I stopped daydreaming to recollect what those visuals I had were about, just like recalling a dream. I numbered them and memorised them as best as I can with the details to draw them later on.

Annnnd, there you go~

Friday, May 6, 2011

Best of Both Worlds


If this isn't out yet then it needs to hurry. That is all.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

More of the Same


Playing around some more with sn@ils-inspired creatures.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Cyborg bird? Cybird


Photoshop

Playing around with dark to lights again to shake up the rust in my brain.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Inside the Artist's Loft

There really ought to be an artist version of Inside the Actor's Studio but with interviews of artists from all over the world instead. Possibly with a similar atmospheric setting on campus or maybe with a gallery theme, with similar engaging questions, and substance over style.

It's really hard to pick out any favourites from that show, but I personally love the one interview with Jim Carey in it. Nice final words at the end too, which I feel speaks for all of us and not just for the actors themselves.

part 1
part 2
part 3