Gimeor, The Legged One and the Parrot Fish

Gimeor sits on top of a high rocky cliff and contemplates on his lonely life. The birds look yummy though.


Story: The Giant Parrot fish seeks some advice from the Legged One. In this art, I wanted to capture a dreamy fantasy mood, with a hint of mystery by having the Legged One in dark silhouette. Some underwater caustics effect were added to bring in a bit of life and magic. This was my second attempt.

My first attempt below did not look right; I think I overdid the highlights on the Legged One, so much so that it is even brighter than the water's bright areas. The results almost reminds me of those glow-in-the-dark puzzle arts.

The Beautiful tree

There's a really beautiful tree at a small park near where I work. It has millions of tiny leaves and trying to capture that on paper was a real pleasure.

Gimeor the Wildman and Fat Robot

Gimeor the Wildman takes a walk among the summer grassy fields...


It's after work now; there's someone walking with a Robot (Big Fat types again), his only friend in a future where industrialization has gone overboard. No time for going Green here...

T-Rex, Tarzaness and Mr. Caterpillar

Here's a painting of a T-Rex trying to attack a Ceratopsian dinosaur. I wanted to portray a ominous mood, by setting the scene at dusk and having a deep red orange hues with long dark shadows. I looked at some references for the colors because I couldn't get the colors right with only my imagination. My first attempt didn't quite work out the way I wanted, mostly because I had too bright of a Fill light and too saturated Key light on T-Rex.

My first attempt below:


Yes, it's a Tarzan wannabe...But he is a she here; so, it's Tarzaness! I wanted to portray a mysterious mood in a deep dark jungle setting. And a little bit of translucence in her skirt-wrap. (which I think nobody will notice anyway because it's too subtle)


Mr. Catepillar says "Whatcha Looking at?" Someone's gonna be someone's snack soon. I kinda "cheated" by applying blur on the background, but it's for the good of the art. And also because I'm lazy to paint it out-of-focus manually. I'm not sure if the too realistic outcome is good for the art or not. I just wanted a cheerful mood by having a sunny day setting with strong colorfully saturated colors.

Gimeor the Wildman

"Gimeor" is a wildman who lives in a prehistoric world. He is now eyeing for a real big egg for his dinner.


For some unknown reason, Big evil bunnies seem to make good subjects to paint. Here Gimeor challenges Evil Bunny to a duel...


A big scary old castle. Hopefully it's scary enough.


I wanted to paint some "sub-surface scattering" lighting on the man's nose, but I guess it could be better.

Mood!

I've was reading an art book entitled "Disney's Tarzan Special Collector's Edition", and I came across an inspiring sentence: "Staging story ideas and capturing various moods all fall within the visual development artist's realm, helping to inspire and build the storyline and settings for the film". It made me realize suddenly that that's why some of my previous paintings lacked something, and that something was capturing moods! As I looked back at those paintings, those that I did like were those that somehow portrayed a mood. This is a mini-revelation for me, as I will from this day onward try my best to capture a certain mood for all my paintings, so that it will appeal to people at an emotional level.

So, here's a re-paint of "There You Are Nessie" art. It's got a more mysterious and eerie mood to it. The simple story is this guy who tries to find his pet Plesisaur in the middle of night, in the midst of the lake's fog.

And also here is a re-paint of "Mommy's Home" art. It's closer to what I had in mind, which is two baby Therapods at a forest bed being happy and excited when their Mommy comes home after a days hunt.

Junk Wars

Ah..a new art, which I'm not really satisfied because I couldn't get it out the way I imagined it to be, after spending 1 hour plus on it. I wanted the Junk-contraption in the foreground to have more cheerful colors but in the end I resorted back to dark blackish colors to define some values. Back to the drawing, (or rather painting) board.

People, Birds and Cars

Here are some sketches I made last week. Some done while at the MRT, some while visiting my favourite hangout - The Library and drawing from books, and some at home.





Here's another feeble attempt at cartooning: One Dog and an Iguana character.


I was working as an Industrial Designer 2 years back, and I worked for this amazing company called Orcadesign Consultants. Just wanted to stretch my design muscles and came up with a smallish-cute car design.

Four quick paintings

Today is a very productive day for me, as I managed to paint 4 pictures. They are not very detailed as I just wanted to practice composition, lighting, mood and values. I'm not satisfied with some of them, so I will re-paint them soon. I also timed myself to paint each of them in less than an hour, so that I can psyche myself to stay loose and not be bogged down by the details. Yay!

Elephants!

Elephants have a remarkably flexible trunk, which can twist and turn in all sorts of direction. I wanted to capture the elephant trunk's flexibility in this sketch. Apart from that, elephant has thick legs but yet they can bend easily, in which the joints inside the legs are kind of similar to dogs.


I was never very good at cartoon characters or comics so, this is my feeble attempt at cartooning.

Monster Attack Team (MAT)

Just had a fun idea about Ultraman and his sidekicks-MAT (Monster Attack Team). They used to show a lot of Ultraman series on Malaysia's TVs, and that silver-red big guy is very much part of my childhood memories.

Life Drawing

This time around, I'm sharing some life-drawing sketches that I did one week back in one of the classes I joined after work. It is my second class, and I think I've made some improvements in my sketching skills, especially at capturing the pose of the model. The Model posed positions for 3 minutes each, then 5 minutes, then 8, and finally 15 minutes, which allowed me to capture more details in the sketch. Can't wait for the next class to come!

Well, here goes a bunch of sketches again, in which I've accumulated over the past 2 weeks. I've found out that looking at Youtube videos of animal or dinosaurs gives me an opportunity to sketch as if I'm looking at them in the wild. I'm making quite rough gesture sketches as I try to capture the essential characteristics of each animal I see. I also try not to click the pause button because that will be counter-productive in my efforts. One day, I'll save some money and head to the zoo to draw animals on the spot.


Some drawings while looking at videos of Cheetahs and crocodiles. The Cheetah is a most remarkable mammal, and the way it runs is so very elegant and powerful, until it's almost impossible to capture the dynamic movements on paper!




Well, I love dinosaurs as well. Watching those "Walking with Dinosaurs" videos allows me to imagine as if I'm looking at real-life dinosaurs, and trying to sketch them on the spot. Below are some drawings of mainly Giganotosaurus, Tarbosaurus and a bit of Argentinosaurus, and Pteranodons.




Some drawings while looking at "Walking with Beasts" videos. Prehistoric mammals, after the dinosaurs...