Happy Holidays~

It's Myra's first Christmas, see how happy she is? :)

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everyone!

Click for larger version:

Idea: Holomatter Projection

Most of my comic books are reference heavy, not just on objects and places, but also human characters. In Transformers, Autobots have this "holo-driver" that reflects the persona of each of their counter parts. Simon would write a brief discription of what the driver looks like, and I would find a real life actor or famous individual to "play" this part. I don't like to shoot for exact look of the say actor, but rather the characteristic and hopefully capture his or her personality.

One of the holo-driver that really took everyone by surprise is Bumblebee. I was surprised to find female Bumblebee holo-driver myself. Simon really put a nice spin on this one I think. It also got me thinking, what if Bumblebee was a fan of Herbie? maybe it's why he picked the classic alternate mode? then it makes perfect sense for Bumblebee to project his driver as the driver of Herbie. At the end, I decided to based Bumblebee's holo-driver loosely on the driver of Herbie on the latest Herbie movie, Lindsay Lohan.



and you may wonder who protraits the role of Optimus Prime's driver. The answer is Ulysses S. Grant.

Update: Gallery

I finally got a chance to look over what was wrong with my gallery software before and got it up and running again. There are only a few artworks in there right now, mostly recent covers I've done, and I'll be uploading artworks to the server in the coming weeks.

Click on the "Gallery" link above, check it out and let me know what you think. :)

Cover: Transformers Devastation #5

The cover of Devastation #5 calls for the return of our favorite back-stabber, Starscream. Often times, I would try on new techniques on every cover that I worked on, mainly because I am still searching for the technique that works best for me. I am beginning to think the search will never ends, but I still enjoy experimenting.

I must've went through dozen of sketches, most of them I didn't even save. I ended up going back to my original sketch.



With this cover, I tried to leave out as much lines as possible, I'd like to let the color do most of the talking in this case. Pencil was done entirely in Alias Sketchbook Pro 2, and intentionally leaving the lines somewhat sketchy, and minimum useage of ruler so that the line would feel more organic.



Normally, I would like to color in OpenCanvas4.5, but I've been experiencing weird errors with it. I started color about 2 - 3 different versions in it, and for some unexplained reason, when I tried to save the document, it just quit on me, as if I have just clicked on the "quit" button. Recently, I have been kind of in love with the whole splatting brush effect, and Oc4 has implemented this texture brush function that I really liked, but I can't work with something that would quit on me for no reason. So I ended up turning to good'ol Photoshop for coloring.

Without giving away the plot of the story, the idea is to create some kind of powerful image of returning Starscream. The base lineart of the screaming Screamer is pretty standard, but I try to push the perspective as much as I can with this. Most of the emotion I'd like to convey it through the environment and color scheme.

News: Baby Myra

Well, it's been a long time since the last time I did anything with my website. Life has been busy, and it is especially so when my wife and I have a new addition to our life to deal with. Our first child Myra was born on September 12th, 2007. Healthy 8.5 lbs and 21" long. She gave her mother quite a trouble for 10 hours, I guess she was too comfortable in the womb that she doesn't want to come out. My wife started to have fever after a few hours of pushing, so she had to go into surgery to get our little girl out.

Despite of all that we (actually just my wife really, I didn't do much other than cheer her on) went through, little Myra brings such a joy to our home it's unbelieveable. The feeling has to be experienced to know, there's just no words to describe it.

Welcome to our family, Myra! :D

Back to the groove

Updating blog seems to be one of the most difficult thing I've ever done. You would think spending a few minutes a day to write something would be quite simple, but by end of a long working day, laziness takes over.

Sometimes I give my excuses like "oh nobody ever reads any crap I put here anyways.", and I assume as much; however, I am surprised to get emails once in a great while asking when I'll be updating my blog. To those who has encouraged my rambling on mindless stuff, I really appreciate your visit, and your encouragement really fuels me each day. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I am just going to ease myself back to this blog thing with 2 quick color sketches from last couple of weeks. I'll share some of the stuff that I've been working on when I get the time.

Cover: Infiltration

So the six-part Transformers: Infiltration covers are complete. I think I've learned quite a bit from this experience. It is so difficult to not being able to paint them all at the same time.

Update: Gallery

The Gallery section is not exactly updated. I got the software back up and running, I need to figure out how to categorize the artworks that I want to upload. A lot of old drawings, unless they are significant to me, will probably be left out of the gallery this time just to keep things compact and manageable.

One thing that was fixed was the archives of the blog. Aparently I messed up the setting that the archives were not linked correctly. It's all working now. I wish Blogger would provide a "category" function, it is a very common function in most blog software. I can't understand why blogger choose to left out that feature.

Here's a little experiment that I am doing with my art style.


I kind of like the lines being colored over like I did on the right.

Another experiment with coloring. I grabbed one of the panel from a page to see how fast I can color one simple panel. Not counting flatting, it took me about 20 mins or so. The time wasn't bad, next time I want to try to color entire page and hopefully try to push for a better time and still retain a decent quality.

Scribble: It's a bird...

I am too busy for anything these days.

Just a quick color sketch of the Man of Steel in mid fly.

Year of dog

This Sunday is the new year on Lunar calendar, also known as Chinese New Year. It is the year of dog, I was born in the year of dog. Normally you would think it's your year, so everything should go smoothly right? not so.

According to tradition, Jupiter is the God of Ominous, and regulate our luck. When your zodiac sign came upon the year, it comes in direct impact with the God of Ominous, so another words, when it's your year, your sign is colliding with bad luck.

Supposely, there are things you could do in the first 15 days of the year to make peace with God of Ominous, to avoid the impact.

so.. anyways, Happy New Year. I hope.

News: How to build a better Mickey Mouse trap

In the further news of thePixar/Disney combining, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, the Pixar's creative chiefs, will be taking over the creative operation of the combined studios of Pixar and Disney.

"Disney also will surrender control of its world-famous animation studio, the birthplace of Mickey Mouse, to Pixar creative chiefs, Ed Catmull and John Lasseter. The companies will combine their animation operations.

Catmull, who is currently president of Pixar, will become president of the combined Pixar and Disney animation studios. Lasseter, who is now executive vice president of Pixar, will be chief creative officer of the combined studios.

Lasseter will also become the principal creative director of the Walt Disney Imagineering group, which designs theme park attractions."


I gotta say, this is a good thing, I am looking forward to see the new Disney.

News: Pixar joins Disney... again

It's official, Disney dropped 7 billion to buy Pixar, which in turn makes Steve Jobs the biggest shareholder of Disney.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/01/24/news/companies/disney_pixar_deal/index.htm?cnn=yes

I love "The Incredibles", the pretty near perfection full feature animation, but for the very same reason, I wish there's no sequels to be made, especially with Pixar broke away from Disney. At least now it would be handled by Pixar. I hope all the creative decision making will stay with Pixar.

Cover: Infiltrating

Happy New Year everyone!! Hope y'all having great holidays.

It's the holiday seasons, but it really doesn't make too much difference for me. Eventhough I visit my brother in Northern California, I still take my work with me. I am so glad I got my TabletPC fixed right before I leave, so I get to do some work while I am there.

Transformers: Infiltration is getting ready to launch. I got around to connect the first 3 of my cover together over the weekend. I noticed my own technique has been altered a bit, mainly because I am trying new things, new ways to do things. Now that I look back on my first cover, I wish I have the chance to go back and repaint most of it, but that won't do any good now since it's already gone to the printer.

My sincere apologies to those fans SuperTNT and Super Patriot who has been asking about my other 2 projects and what happened to them, they are both being worked on, but there are things beyond my control. You should hear some update soon, I can't deny that I am taking advantage of the situation though.

Other: I broke my gallery

I killed it!! >_<
I was updating the software, and it didn't work. Now I can't go back to the old one. I'll just have to make another one from scratch..

Movies: Creature Legacy

Since I was a little child, I have always been facinated by classic monsters from the 50's, from time to time, I catch some of them on late night TV's, but somehow I've always managed to miss my favorite one of them all, the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Universal has started to release their classic monster movies in DVD collections, needless to say, I gotta get my hand on a Creature DVD collection.

The 2-disc legacy collection set comes in a nice die-cut window sleeve, very classic, and deserving so.


Taking the DVD box out of the sleeve.


First Disc contains the original movie, "Creature form the Black Lagoon" and the second Disc contains the next 2 Gill-Man sequels "Revenge of the Creature" and "Creature walks among us". They also comes with extras like interviews with the actors and commentary from film historian.

The original movies were shot in polarized 3D images, unfortunately, these versions are flatten version, I wish they would release the 3D version someday, the underwater scenes were beautifully shot despite being black and white, you can really tell the films were pushing for a lot of shots that would work effectively with 3D.

Watching these films is whole different experience, you have got to appreciate the kind of work that went into to making these films worked. I've never seen anything of the Creature other than still photos and toy figures, finally getting to see the Creature swimming in motion is nothing short of amazing.

Scribble: Prehistoric Lizard

I've finished my mechanical pteranodon for awhile, but never got around to post it.
Again, for those who are interested in supporting the cause, please keep your eye on Nic Carcieri's Autism Project. Besides getting the artbook that was contributed by numbers of well-known professional artists, there will be original artwork to be auctioned off sometime next year. Check Nic's blog for update.



Also couple of recent artsy sketches.
The link contain nudity, don't click if you are offended by this kind of stuff.
Girl A
Girl B

Scribble: Mecha Ptera

I've heard stories of women gotten into fight during Black Friday shopping craze. Now there's a part of me wish I was there to see it. Maybe next year I'll just walk over to the mall (there's one just 15mins walk from me) to see if I can spot any shoppers fighting over some small items, just for entertainment value.

So. I've decided to go with the mechanical Pteranodon. I think there will be a lot of people contributing female robots to the project, there's no reason for me to adding any more fembots.

Other: Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! and for those who are going shopping on Friday, GOOD LUCK!!

I was driving home passing Best Buy and the Mall around midnight, amazingly enough, the mall parking lot was full of cars, and there's long line in front of Best Buy. I never realize how crazy the after Thanksgiving shopping is, I mean I've heard of it, but never realize how much untill today. Thanksgiving shoppers have something in common with Star Wars fans, crazy!!

Scribble: flying lizard

Continuing my development on the robotic Pteranodon.

A very rough structure of Pteranodon spreading wings. There's not enough movement in the sketch for some reason. It looks more like it's posing for photo than taking itself to the air. Perhaps a different angle or better gesture will create more movement to the piece?


I really liked this pose, here it is "crawling" on all four in an ape-like posture. The camera angle will probably need to zoom out a bit more to show more of the creature to be effective.


Detail on the mechanical parts. Still not quite happening yet...


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This is entirely different project. I am working on a cover for a vampire comic book.
A lot of the times, before I go into a full blown illustration, I would draw a small black and white value study, mainly to work out the composition and contrast. Then scan in the value study, blow it up to the finished size and use it as template for the final piece.
I am thinking the floor will have blood smearing all over it, but I am not good with blood, so we'll see how it will turn out, hopefully it will somewhat close to what I have pictured in my head.

Scribble: Weekend Mechanic

I was asked to contribute to a robotic themed sketchbook that will rise money for Autism Society of America, the deadline is coming up REALLY fast, so I have to get in gear and get that done.

I figure to have some fun and design some mechanical dinosaurus. Although technically Pteradon aren't dinosaurus, but they are my favorite when I was a kid, I didn't know any better at the time.

The design is pretty crappy, and the head is way too small on the full body drawing, but I just wanted to get some basic structure down for now.



This second one is just a doodle.