character sketches (Chinese fairytale)

The bamboo illustration I posted earlier is giving me some trouble... the problem is with the leaves. i absolutely LOVE the way bamboo leaves are painted in traditional Chinese watercolors, but I don't seem to have a good PS brush that can emulate that sharp, tapered look. if anyone has any suggestions or a brush they could give me, i'd be eternally grateful!

i've been working on a few character sketches, once again for the Chinese fairytale project... trying to nail the designs for the Peasant (Lang) and the Goddess (weaver girl) before I tackle Emperor Jade's design. I love doing the "sketch" step the most... it's fun trying to get a good silhouette/pose before the detail rendering. gotta love the spontaneity of it!
this is the goddess/weaver girl... definitely the better of the two designs.

the peasant boy, Lang... no detail yet, just trying to get the pose to look laid-back

for the love of Batman

I *finally* saw "the dark knight" today in an IMAX theater, and i'm struggling to avoid just gushing praise and sounding like a fangirl. so i made this real quick, just had to get it out of my system! (also got a chance to try out a couple new custom brushes, wanted to keep it rough & painterly)

i can't get over how amazing this film was... this movie had my #1 favorite incarnation of Batman ever, save for that incredible animated TV series back in the 90s, which i LOVED as a kid and would watch everyday after school.  point is,  i don't think i'll ever get sick of Batman.  :p

Bamboo forest (chinese fairytale)

well shoot, I'm already way behind on posting in this blog! it's kinda funny how motivated I was to set aside time for art back when I was totally swamped with school, cramming for exams and standardized tests. quite frankly, my work ethic since the beginning of summer has been abysmal, and there's just no excuse for it. -__-; so it's time to get off my ass and make some portfolio-worthy pieces!

here are a few WIP illustrations i'm making for my Chinese fairytale adaptation. i'm sooo excited about this project!


more to come soon!

more sketches

got some more art to post, 'cause I really wanna fill up this blog! here's a quick fanart I made when i was taking a break from original art:

my friend jeremy recommended "Kung Fu Panda" as one of those super-cool movies that one needs to check out...  i haven't had a chance to go see it yet unfortunately, but i did watch every clip i could find of it and it looks AMAZING!! very authentic scenery, and the character expressions/designs are top notch!

and there's also this kinda sad excuse for concept art:it's an wip for my adaptation of a famous Chinese fairytale, but I accidentally lost a ton of progress on it (stupid laptop ran out of batteries). it's just as well since it looks like crap anyway... composition/scale is totally off. I wanted the dragons to look HUGE, but the composition just doesn't work for that purpose.  oh well, I'll start anew and see if i can do better~

first art post

so I've decided to start an artblog! i'm gonna try to update this thing as regularly as possible so that I can gauge my progress over the next couple months. I'll start with posting these sketches I made a few weeks ago in ArtRage, this nifty new program I bought 'cause my Painter trial ran out (NOOOO D=). i'm still trying to get the hang of it, but from what i've seen it's a fairly decent program to use until i can shell out the money for Painter~
this one is my take on a famous chinese love story, was trying to go for a "sad" mood because he's waiting for someone who's not showing up. gonna make a whole series of illustrations on this idea that i have, so more to come later!

here's a warm-up piece i did when i was trying to learn ArtRage... i need to do a LOT of anatomy studies before i'm up to speed. the proportions are ok for the most part, but i got really lazy and didn't finish her hands, sorry!