Wendi Chen

elusive mini totoros

2011-11-03T21:22:00.006-04:00

a quick mini-print for Youmacon, featuring those adorable mini-totoros... I used to look for them in the woods when I was little! :>

sketched with a pentel pocket brush pen on Canson bristol (my fave inking surface)

brush pen sketch

Girlfriends vs. the World

2011-11-01T18:57:00.003-04:00

finally decided to see what this convention biz was all about, so I got a artist table at Youmacon! I'll be there this weekend from Nov 4-6, selling prints and sketch commissions. If you're heading down, do stop by my table and say hello!

I'll have a bunch of Sequence prints for sale, as well as some prints for various games/movies/comics that I dig. speaking of which, here's a Scott Pilgrim print that I'll be selling, featuring the super-boss girlfriends :P

finished line art

Sequence Steam Promo + BGs

2011-10-28T22:12:00.001-04:00

here's an artwork I made to promote the PC version of Sequence, which has been out on Steam for just over a week now. Prior to this, I had not realized just how incredible Steam is as a platform for indie games. It was pretty cool seeing this banner on the front page for a week!

and here are some more backgrounds from the game... it was quite fun coming up with all the tech-y ones, got me out of my comfort zone!

honeymoon photos

2011-10-24T23:56:00.000-04:00

it's been a crazy few months! I got hitched, had an amazing celebration in China and America with my respective families, and spent the better part of the summer/fall months traveling. here are a few highlights from my trip across China with Sam! all the pretty mountains/waterfalls are from a national reserve called Jiuzhaigou Valley, probably the most inspiring place I've ever visited. *o*

Adelle

2011-05-10T01:29:00.002-04:00

portrait/lighting warm-up from the other day, featuring one of my favorite characters in Sequence. you can buy the game through Xbox Live Indie Games for just $3; it's only been out for a few days and has already gotten rave reviews!

here are some sprite alternates for the character... she's an astrologer who tries to read your fortune with tarot cards :P

happy mother's day

2011-05-08T18:53:00.002-04:00

wishing all the awesome mothers in the world a happy mother's day! this illustration was part of a card that i made for my mom, who always took care of me when i got sick as a kid, by making me lots of hot tea and letting me walk around the house wrapped in a giant blanket. moms really do know best!
i'd also like to note that the blue bathrobe/blanket thing in the drawing was a surprise gift from my mother-in-law, who is totally awesome and sweet. i was feeling really sick and under the weather for the last few weeks, but apparently that gift was all i needed to be cheered right up. :)

here's the initial sketch without the text... this style is really fun to work with!

Character Sprites

2011-04-27T23:29:00.002-04:00

eep, it's been far too long! life's been busy on the personal front, but deadlines have loosened up a bit so i can get back to posting again... here's some backlogged character sprites from last year. these were made for Sequence, a rhythm/rpg game by Iridium Studios that's out on Xbox Live Indie Games! i also designed all the backgrounds, which i'll post later~

brush tests

2011-01-26T01:44:00.001-05:00

Royal Guardians, wip illustration

got a new computer and finally installed the newest versions of Photoshop/Painter, so i'm playing around with brushes like always (cross-posted from my art tumblr)

... hope everyone's been having a great 2011 so far! :)

Pixar Times TS3 tribute

2010-11-04T19:01:00.002-04:00

Ken & Barbie disco party, drawn for The Pixar Times to celebrate the DVD release of Toy Story 3! i was invited to this project by the very talented Jerrod Maruyama, you should definitely check out his work!

here's the thumbnail sketch for figuring out the placement/gesture

pumpkinman

2010-11-03T10:42:00.011-04:00

hope everyone had a fun halloween! here's a little fall-themed illustration to celebrate my favorite season... i was probably the only oddball who did this after halloween as a kid, huh~ :P

loose sketch + color test ... this step's always fun!

layout sketches

2010-10-24T17:55:00.001-04:00

quick update, just some vizdev sketches for a story. done in corel painter on one layer with large brushes (no sketch underneath) ... this helps me keep things basic and impressionistic~

lone traveler

2010-10-05T17:44:00.003-04:00

environment layout for a story, also a style/mood test. here's a close-up~

Juxtapoz Ad for Canson USA

2010-09-29T18:45:00.004-04:00

one of two illustrations commissioned by Canson USA for an advert about their new line of marker paper. it was featured in the Oct 2010 issue of Juxtapoz magazine, out in newstands and bookstores right now!
since the ad used the b&w lines, i guess i'll post the marker + texture version~

light me up

2010-09-27T19:00:00.004-04:00

ink sketch on Canson marker paper + photoshop color overlay (original sketch below)

conceptual sketch for a full-page ad for Canson USA, maker of high-quality fine art papers. i ended up going in a different direction for the final illustration (which i'll post later), but i wanted to share this anyway~
incidentally, it does fit quite well with the Illustration Friday weekly topic of "old-fashioned." how convenient! :)

Cretacolor on Canson

2010-09-26T21:17:00.001-04:00

i just realized i haven't posted any life drawings in ages! i still find these studies to be immensely helpful, but they're such a pain to scan... anyway, here are my best sketches from yesterday's session. same model as the last post, woo~

sketched these with a Cretacolor "Monolith" pencil (6B) in a Canson XL mixed media pad. this paper has a really great tooth/texture for taking extra-soft lead! i received a sample of it a while ago, now it's my favorite sketchbook~ :)

fall evenings

2010-09-24T21:08:00.000-04:00

sorry to go so long without an update, life's been hectic! here's a brush pen doodle turned lighting test sketched on Canson bristol paper, my preferred surface to ink on ... i'm having lots of fun testing out new papers and mediums lately~ :)

kudos if you can guess who the characters are...

dreamworks fine art: master & student

2010-08-20T10:38:00.007-04:00

here's a print i made for the new release over at Dreamworks Fine Art. the Chinese phrase reads, "as one piece of firewood burns out, the flame transfers to another." it refers to the skills passed on from master to student!

Po & Shifu eating noodles in a forest... one of the first sketches i sent in

starlight geisha

2010-08-19T10:30:00.005-04:00

fun with corel painter and origami textures... also, here's a close-up~

Illustration Friday: Caged

2010-08-13T00:46:00.006-04:00

eep, talk about a late submission! in any case, here's a little illo i made for this week's Illustration Friday topic: caged. i tried to think outside the box since the topic was my suggestion and i intended for it to have an "emotional" connotation.

the illustration is about shyness, which i believe is best described as a self-imposed "cage" around those who suffer from it. it is both ubiquitous and all-encompassing; for many people, it underscores every social interaction they take part in. i think that the best cure for such a condition is to learn to love yourself, and only surround yourself with people who accept you as you are. don't let it prevent you from being all that you want to be! :>

painter oldies

2010-08-07T08:13:00.010-04:00

some ace attorney painter studies from late '09... these served as a fun, no-pressure means of learning corel painter, color theory, and lighting~

and HOLY COW, i got the topic of the week for Illustration Friday! the topic i suggested was "caged." it's my hope that people will aim for an emotional interpretation of the word, rather than a literal image of a caged animal or something. go crazy and be creative!! :)

if you came here via the IF link, i'd like to thank you for visiting my blog! now i want to draw a nice piece for this topic since i'm the one who suggested it! :>

green spirit

2010-08-02T16:54:00.003-04:00

just a quick corel painter warm-up... i'll post some better updates after i hit my deadlines this week!

classy lady

2010-07-27T23:57:00.005-04:00

been super duper busy with deadlines! just a small update~

environments

2010-07-22T18:12:00.001-04:00

haven't posted environments for a while, so here are some loose color/lighting studies for a personal project

inkity ink ink

2010-07-22T00:20:00.000-04:00

threw some photoshop colors over that previous sketch ... also, have some nude ink studies! that left pic is one of my best freehand figures, so i uploaded it in high-res :)

random inks

2010-07-18T12:11:00.036-04:00

here's something hot off the scanner! been testing out all kinds of paper lately... this was sketched on Aquabee hemp sketch paper. it has a really nice texture and is made from 100% recycled materials~ :)

pocket brush pen

2010-07-17T01:48:00.003-04:00

these sketches were done with my trusty pentel pocket brush pen that i carry with me at all times. this pen really does the trick if you want to loosen up your lines!

click the right image to view an animated gif of the coloring process

character studies from months ago that i never posted here

family fluff

2010-06-03T19:32:00.010-04:00

this blog needs some color and variation; too many 'figure study' posts on the front page. so here's some less rigid junk that i forgot to post from last year. :S characters are from capcom's ace attorney, some of you may be familiar with this game as one of their best!

these were sketched w/ pencil, brush pen ("pentel pocket"), and corel calligraphy tools... it's important to shake things up! ;)

these guys are my favorite fictional family ever, so cute ♥

figure studies

2010-05-31T16:43:00.010-04:00

here are some contour studies from a while ago that i forgot to post... sketched at an open studio life drawing group i go to on fridays~

i find that if i don't keep up with regular observational studies, then my drawing skills deteriorate quickly... life has been stressful lately, hopefully this month will be better T__T

Dreamworks Fine Art Gallery: Tigress

2010-04-07T20:47:00.004-04:00

so i was fortunate enough take part in a Dreamworks-sponsored gallery program a while back~ made this print of "Tigress among plum blossoms" (inspired by traditional chinese watercolor) for the gallery opening, hope you like it! more prints are on the way for the second launch, so stay tuned! :)

sketch studies in pencil & ink:

Conté on Canson

2010-03-30T06:30:00.000-04:00

... is my new favorite drawing medium! :p started drawing w/ Parisian conté in late '09, thanks to a tip from an artist at life drawing. it's a very challenging medium, because unlike vine/compressed charcoal, conté is wax-based and nigh unerasable. definitely makes you slow down and think harder!

finally got back on track w/ life drawing after being out of it for so many months... now i'm really close to having a full sketchbook, woo! will try to photograph it soon, digitizing artwork is just so tedious to me :/

also, here are some corel painter brushwork studies... gotta keep up with this stuff or else i'll forget how it works. now if only i could figure out how to get corel brushes to work in high-res...

one more because i'm forgetful

2010-03-07T13:03:00.005-05:00

ack, forgot about this one! finished this when i got back home to the States... added some vague shading this time, although it's still meant to be a contour line study.

i started doing these observational contour studies thanks to a tip from an artist i admire, and it really does help train your eyes!! plus i think my lines feel a bit more fluid now...

from Beijing to Yueyang: train sketches

2010-03-07T07:32:00.002-05:00

greetings all!! just got home a few days ago from my 3-month sojourn to China, visiting my entire extended family over Christmas, New Years', and Chinese New Year (Feb 14)! it was a pretty sweet trip overall, although the internet censorship thing got kind of infuriating by the end... Blogger, Youtube, Livejournal, and pretty much every website i use regularly were ALL blocked - which is why i've been MIA for so long! @_@

that being said, i think i set off a lifetime's worth of fireworks with my cousins over the last few weeks, heh~ ;D gotta admit, it was pretty incredible to see the entire city skyline lit up with fireworks!! i hope everyone is having an AWESOME Year of the Tiger; may all your hopes and goals for 2010 come true!

i've got plenty of backlogged art, so i'll start by posting this batch of contour sketches i did during a 19-hour train ride from Beijing (mom's hometown) to Yueyang (dad's hometown) ... been doing observational studies for many months now, so it's about time to post a few!

first sketch i made when i got off the train, this is my pretty cousin BeiBei~

i got these kids to sit still long enough to draw them... their mother was very impressed, haha ;p

man, you have no idea how happy i am to be able to browse art blogs again!! :) more stuff is on the way...

study buddies

2009-07-30T20:02:00.013-04:00

ack, i've been so busy drawing but i still can't show anything yet... @_@ so here's something quick and sweet for now... drawn with corel's calligraphy tools, which i love to pieces~ i really like how deliberate you have to make your lines, i find it takes a bit more thought than just regular pencil!

goddess commission

2009-07-27T23:55:00.021-04:00

here's a simple b&w commission i did of chinese goddess casting a spell. used painter's pastel brushes as usual, lately i've been trying to make the strokes and textures look more noticeable~ also, that red "signature" is from a traditional artist's seal that i got from China! :)

these are the sketches i sent the commissioner... spent too long on that first one before i realized that i didn't like it!

Sequence character art

2009-05-24T09:09:00.038-04:00

here are some of the first character sprites i did for Sequence... it took quite a while to figure out all the technical stuff - they had to be transparent so they could be placed right over the BGs from the previous entry, and that created all sorts of perspective/composition issues that hurt my head. D: but thankfully it's figured out now!

clean lines + quick color test for Ky, the protaganist

some pencil concepts

edit '10: touched these up and re-uploaded them :)
here is the finished sprite with a few subtle expression variants:

this mexican matador is one of the first bosses... i had sooo much fun drawing him!

seqeunce artwork

2009-05-10T12:47:00.024-04:00

edit 2010: touched these up and re-uploaded them, now that the game is coming out soon! :)

hooray, i finally have time to post again! been working on a bunch of freelance commissions lately, the toughest one being a bulk order for an independent video game called Sequence. i'm drawing all of the character sprites and bgs; it's lots of work but i have a good deal of creative freedom, so i'm having fun with it!

also, someone asked me what painter brushes i use, so here's a screenshot that has the entire list in the "tracker" window. that's a wip of the main character by the way, i'll post some character sprites later!

Painter practice

2009-03-31T01:22:00.002-04:00

here are some older head/color studies from when i was learning corel painter~ i really love working with this kind of simple brushwork! most of these are from capcom's ace attorney, the top one is from disney's mulan.

this last one was made in oekaki shipainter, not painter... but i like the colors enough to post it :)

Gestures

2009-03-30T02:56:00.009-04:00

here are some silhouette gestures i do to loosen up, before i draw a figure... been super busy lately, but in a few more days i'll have plenty of time to draw to my heart's content! just gotta hold out a little longer~

haha, wtf is that pink warrior carrying... some kind of misshapen can opener or something XD

Landscapes

2009-03-12T23:18:00.027-04:00

wahhh, so many months without an update... is this really my first post of 2009?! crazy. @_@ anyway, here are some environments... i like drawing mountains/trees and organic things cuz it's so easy to just make it up as you go along :p

this one's an oldie, the first landscape i posted here... i fixed up the drawing & deepened the colors, now it looks way better. always nice to revisit old pieces :)

a speedpaint you may remember from a few months ago, finally decided to finish it!

and these next two pieces are WIPs that I'm working on right now:
that's all for now, more to come later~

Life Drawings (pt.1)

2008-11-23T22:41:00.020-05:00

so my Uni hosts a free "open studio" life drawing session every weekend at the art school, and I've made it a point to attend every single time for past few weeks. and as a result my contour line drawing skills have improved A LOT! all of these are made with a Cretacolor charcoal set in a 18"x24" sketchbook~ working at that size really helps you control your arm and wrist movements!

All of these are 20 min poses:
The proportions were HARD so this is all I could do in 20 minutes. normally my drawings look a little more complete.

This is the first time I've ever drawn a pregnant woman - and I swear, she was positively glowing. So I tried to capture her likeness in the last 10 minutes instead of working on the rest of the figure.

I really liked this guy's dreads, they were fun to draw. :p I worked on this for a few minutes after time was up b/c it wasn't dark enough.

Anyway, it always feels great to make big strides in just a few weeks, so I'll keep attending these sessions. =) Hopefully I'll have some real art to post soon, though...

Warmups + Character Design

2008-11-20T17:36:00.015-05:00

So I've been taking quite a few commissions lately, just for single character concepts/illustrations. I should probably figure out a price table for this soon so I can start doing it on a larger scale...

Anyway, here's the piece that I'm working on right now. The initial sketch phase went super smoothly, and I like how it looks overall, but now the details are gonna be a HUGE pain to finish. I really want to finish it tonight though~

edit: here's the finished version, totally forgot about posting it lol

also, here are a few 15 minute doodles that I do to warm-up before I start drawing. I got the idea from going to regular figure drawing sessions at my Uni - they really help me get into the "fast sketch" mindset! :D
heh, I just needed to draw something to get me into that "fantasy swordfighting" mindset :D

Samurai Champloo fanart

2008-09-24T03:47:00.007-04:00

oops, it's been too long once again since my last post... I've got some commission art in the works that I'm not quite ready to show yet, but for now here's a fanart for one of my favorite shows ever:i have a lot of awe for extremely well-animated action sequences, so this show really hit the spot the first time i watched it. then once i got into it, there was the amazing characters, story, music--the whole shebang! This took a lot longer than usual (usually fanarts are pretty quick for me), but I learned a neat coloring trick while making this, so... things balance out. :)

Character Illustration: mafia wife

2008-08-31T00:29:00.006-04:00

trying my hand at a semi-realistic, illustrative style. this is one of my better attempts.
she's an original character for a furturistic mafia story... i drew her first because all the other ones will be a total pain in the butt to draw. -_- (I suck at drawing guns...)
here's a couple of progress pics for this piece:
i like how in the beginning the block-in was so skewed and off balance that I had to rotate the whole canvas... thank god for digital tools like "lasso" & "free transform" to counteract my utter lack of planning =P

Emperor concept sketches

2008-08-30T00:43:00.012-04:00

here's some tonal concept sketches, once again for the chinese fairytale project. i'm trying to plan out my pieces more (and just do more studies in general) to improve my composition and tones.it's IS helping a little, so far... i just need to remind myself of that constantly so i can keep plodding on and not get discouraged!

this blog needs some color

2008-08-24T00:09:00.007-04:00

okay, so i just realized that my last few posts have no color in them... D: AHHHH what a travesty! in fact, this bothers me so much that i'm going to post some color doodles/WIPs right now to remedy this grievous error. (nothing against b&w studies, it's just that i've been doing them so much lately and I LOVE color too much to have a monochromatic blog!)

this is for the "chinese fairytale project," it's the goddess with a white dragon swirling around her. i think i made the pose a little TOO sexy.

i really suck at cityscapes. but there's no way around it, i just have to practice... i'm trying to work out all the basic shapes/composition in this picture right now.

i really love painting mountains! gonna add a figure, and a bunch of architecture to this

man, it's gonna suck to finish all these pieces, doing all the detailing is always so hard for me... i love the initial "spark" of inspiration that makes me attack a blank canvas with so much confidence, but it always tapers off once I have to start adding detail! -_-

A Chinese Love Story: character designs

2008-08-23T23:06:00.005-04:00

posting the finished b&w concept designs for the Chinese fairytale project that I've been working on. these two designs are for Niulang (cow herder, the mortal) and Zhinu (weaver girl, goddess from the heavens). they're characters from a very ancient and well-known chinese love story.i really want a top with gold embroidered dragons like the one that ZhiNu has...

busy busy busy

2008-08-22T21:24:00.009-04:00

well, once again it has been a while since i've posted here, but in my defense the past 2 weeks have been some of the busiest days of my life. I had to move out of my apartment (am now in the of searching for a new one -- the suspense!), plus my best friend got married and I was the maid-of-honor, PLUS my parents are in the middle of selling their house so i've been helping them prepare. so yeah, i've been kinda burnt out lately due to lack of 'art time' (art = best de-stresser ever). this weekend's gonna be like a vacation for me with all the art i'm gonna do. :P

in other news, i finally received my amazon order for Henry Yan's Figure Drawing book, and it's simply AMAZING. *__* For those that don't know who Henry Yan is, he's a long-time instructor at the Academy of Art University in SFO, and he's as good as they get when it comes to figure drawing:
this is one of my favorite drawings by him... very classical, yet so loose & painterly. he's seriously skilled at handling charcoal, so I'm trying to learn from him... I even bought a bunch of vine charcoal a few weeks ago and tried out his technique at the AA model sessions. i'll post my attempts after i get a bit better! (right now I kinda suck at charcoal :X)

will get some new art posted soon! it's always so hard to get around to it D:

character sketches (Chinese fairytale)

2008-07-31T16:24:00.009-04:00

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

2008-07-25T04:10:00.005-04:00

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)

2008-07-24T01:03:00.003-04:00

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

2008-07-19T14:18:00.009-04:00

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

2008-07-19T06:05:00.009-04:00

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!