Happy halloween!

Hope everyone has a kickass Halloween! To celebrate, here's a quick doodle I did in Photoshop class a couple of weeks ago (not what I was supposed to be drawing :P) that I texture-abused afterwards. 8D

why, hello thar.
Adobe Photoshop CS4
texture abuse made possible by CGTextures and princess-of-shadows

With Halloween gone, I won't have an excuse to draw bloody chainsaw pictures anymore, will I?! D:

Return to the (now cystic) nephron forest

For pathology class, I didn't enjoy the tissue cube study very much, so I decided to return to the nephron forest idea for my final illustration depicting autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD)! Because the target audience is the educated layperson (who would read Scientific American), I wanted to create a lush, immersive forest for the viewer to step into. I think cinematic design class is influencing me - I plan on using some pretty dramatic lighting and atmospheric perspective for this piece!

Autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD)
graphite + Adobe Photoshop CS4 + Adobe Illustrator CS4 for layout, 11x17" double-page spread

The clean lineart is going to be a real pain... Oh vasa recta, how I dislike drawing you...

EDIT: Just received some feedback today, I will be adding a timeline at the bottom and making the right side more "jungle-y"!

Making babies (part II)!

It's midterm critique week which means drafts everywhere! Here are my final sketches for medical-legal class. I've been working on a medical malpractice case. The physician is accused of negligence for his allegedly premature decision to perform a forceps delivery, which may have led to a skull fracture and cerebral palsy. The position of the fetus' head during labour is highly relevant to this case. However, the maternal-fetal relationships present serious challenges to understanding and viewers not familiar with anatomy can get easily disoriented. My solution: contextualize everything by relating the anatomy of the fetal head, maternal pelvis, and maternal body to situate the viewer. I did these illustrations with the defendant (physician) in mind, so I wanted everything to look objective and to conform to medical conventions (e.g. obstetrical view).

Illustration board 1:

Illustration board 2:

Maternal-fetal relationships during labour

Adobe Photoshop CS4, illustration boards 4x3' each

Next steps: redo the lines in pencil and fully render everything...

Storyboard!

If I had to pick the most intense course of the year so far, it would have to be my cinematic design class. With deadlines every week, I was forced to sit down and really think about my Master's Research Project (In a nutshell: Over the next eight months or so, I will create a short 3D animated film to explain how pain sensitivity increases in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The film will target pharmacology/pharmacy students to both educate and inspire). After weeks of racking my brain and sleep deprivation, I finally have something (somewhat decent) to show

Perpetuating Pain storyboard

Adobe Photoshop CS4 + compiled in MS Powerpoint 2003

I was pretty proud of my accomplishments in the past two months. It felt really good to see my story come together. That good feeling didn't last very long, however... I met with my committee members this past week and there are many changes to be made - both in terms of visualization and scientific content. Well, the storyboard is meant to be a very fluid thing, so changes are to be expected! So back to the drawing board...literally!

Hopefully the next thing I post from this class will be my 2D animatic with narration (Adobe AfterEffects, here I come)! :)

Cubes of...pee?

For pathology class, we continued to explore our topics through tissue cube studies. I am working to visualize the progression of autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD), a condition in which numerous fluid-filled cysts develop in the kidney from parts of the nephron and/or collecting ducts.

Tissue cube study

graphite on paper, 11x14"

To be honest, I wasn't overly inspired with this assignment compared to my "nephron forest" (my initial sketches are equally uninspired, so I shall spare you, dear reader ;D). Perhaps it was a mistake to try to draw the details of every single little cell (talk about tedious work!) - I'm not too thrilled with the overall result. The perspective also got a bit wonky... Ah well, we shall see where the final pathology illustration takes me!

PS. Happy Turkey Day! :)

Cute, but deadly

My brain has pretty much been reduced to mush by school. This is the extent of my artistic abilities right now:

untitled

Adobe Photoshop CS4
(These are based on online avatars, designs are not entirely mine)

Now the question is: back to tearing my hair out over layouts on a Saturday night, or go out and check out Nuit Blanche? or stay in and draw more bad anime art?! I think we have a winner... 8D