Candy crushin' mom

Happy Mother's Day! My mom is pretty obsessed with Candy Crush nowadays. I personally don't play the game but my mom keeps trying to talk to me about it anyway. :'D

Candy Crusher

water media

Sorry for the inactivity (as always). I'll be posting some process shots in the next post!

Happy holidays 2012!

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday this winter! :)

Sorry for my inactivity - will catch up on my posts before the year ends!

Happy Mother's Day!

This year's card features my mom with a group of dogs. Although we don't have a pet, my mom loves dogs and pet-sitting for friends!

Hope all the moms out there had a wonderful day. :)

the doggie treats are coming
watercolour, watercolour pencils, and col-erase pencil on paper

My drawing process below :) 

Happy holidays!

Wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas and Happy New Year! :)

It's been a busy time at work, so I don't have too much personal art to show lately! But I am learning a ton about modeling and animation. :)

Convocation!

I'm finally convocating this week! I wanted to give some thank you cards. :)

thank you!

PaintTool SAI + Photoshop CS5

It might sound crazy, but as much as I draw them, I often have a hard time getting chibi proportions right (what "proportions"? lol)...

This is closer to what I really look like. Awww yeaaaaa :'D

Going to print these tomorrow!

one fish, two fish...

Another birthday card! This one's for my dad. :)

a fishy birthday

brown Sharpie + watercolours on paper

I used a different watercolour paper this time (Strathmore CP 600 series) and the surface seemed to be repelling water. Very strange behaviour... I still swear by Windsor & Newton HP 150 lb watercolour paper! I was just too lazy to cut the large sheet I have...

EDIT: whoa! Blogger finally updated their picture viewer? Looks a bit like Tumblr/Facebook now, but I like it. :)

Crabby

Here's a quick birthday card I drew for my mom! She really likes eating snow crab legs, so I decided to draw her a crab (snow crabs were a bit difficult to draw in a cute way so chose another species...).

This was originally the back, but I decided it was a tad morbid and didn't include it in the final card. :'D

untitled

Sakura brush marker + watercolours + watercolour pencils on paper

Shark-loving couple!

Finished the new shark card! I must thank the enthusiastic engaged couples who have contacted me about using my shark card for their wedding. This wouldn't exist without their support. :)

I wanted to make it as close to my original shark card as possible (yes, I reused the border and background :'D), but I quickly realized it's hard to draw the same way you did a year ago!

If the text is too small to read in the picture, I am basically allowing couples to use this illustration for free as their wedding card, etc. as long as they show me their commitment to the cause. :)

Terms of use and instructions on how to get the high-res file from me after the jump:

Teddy bear wedding :)

I'm happy I had a bit of time to draw a card for my dear high school friend's wedding! I haven't drawn much - let alone paint - lately. So I made quite a few blunders in the process and the illustration ended up a lot tighter than I would've liked. I've forgotten how unforgiving water media is!

Congrats to Kitty & Danny!

watercolours, watercolour pencils, white gouache & Copic multiliner on W&N hp watercolour paper

(sorry for poor photo quality, didn't have access to a scanner D: )

I always make cards without thinking about the envelope... so I had to make a sketchy one out of a generic brown envelope. I tried to make up for it by adding some decorations. :)

1. I tried out different bear drawings - was trying to find the most charming one. :)
2. I got carried away and ended up drawing everything with watercolour pencils (Steadtler)...
3. ...which was a big mistake lol! The colours got a bit dirty as a result of all the mixing and that brown pencil looked fine when I tested a small patch, but looked horrible in the real deal! I ended up adding a lot of watercolour to balance out the colours.
4. I often add a warm glaze over the painting to unify the colours a bit more.
5. This is the point at which the painting started getting too tight. Is this what medical illustration has trained me to do? :P
6. I often find myself asking the same question at this point in the process (aka I never plan properly beforehand...). Should I line it with markers or leave it as is? Looking back at this shot, I probably should've left it alone and lined it with brown col-erase. I have this bottle of brown ink that would've worked really nicely, but I haven't been able to open it with my weak hands/arms for several months now. :(

More holiday fare!

Here is a simple card I drew as part of a secret santa gift exchange. :)

From your Secret Santa

watercolour + water-soluble pencils + sakura microns

Paper texture is digital! lol!

I realized how much I missed traditional media after doing this painting! One day... one day I'll have time to get back into painting...

Happy holidays!

Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and best wishes for the new year! :)

yuki

Adobe Photoshop CS4 + texture from CGtextures

I was trying out a different style here. It didn't really turn out how I envisioned - I was too torn between the flat style I was going for and the rendering I'm used to. So it ended up in between (which is almost always the worst place to be)... Will try again later!

I have more Christmas card ideas brewing - we'll see if I get a chance to work them up. :)

Say no to shark fin soup II

Shark fin soup is a very popular dish in Chinese cuisine and is a standard item on banquet menus. However, my sister and i have been boycotting this delicacy for several years now because shark finning is a cruel and unsustainable practice. So for my sister's wedding, i designed this card to explain why shark fin soup was absent from the menu and to educate wedding attendees about shark finning. Although a realistic, gory depiction would likely have been more effective in deterring people from consuming the dish, i decided to keep the design cute and pleasant - this was a wedding afterall!

This is the much reworked final version of the illustration i started a year ago...

say no to shark fin soup!
adobe photoshop CS4 + paintTool SAI 1.01
background textures from CGtextures.com

We printed 250 of these suckers (10pt coated, 4x6"), but i forgot to get one for myself...! D:


Here is one of my cards in action! :)


For more information on shark finning, please visit www.sharkwater.com

be my valentine!

Happy (early) Valentine's Day!

My colleagues and i are really excited about the upcoming tri-campus exchange at Georgia and the annual AMI meeting in Portland. However, these trips are going to be insaaaanely expensive (especially the AMI meeting) so we're hoping to raise some funds by selling Valentine's Day cards on campus!


Be my valentine!
Adobe Photoshop CS4, 3x5"

i will be posting a compilation of everyone's designs once we get them all in. Look forward to it! :)

cardiac surgery!

These past two weeks, our class has been observing and sketching in the O.R. @ TGH and TWH for our surgical illustration course. Initially, i was worried about things like getting in the surgeon's way, touching something blue (my greatest fear), or feeling queasy. However, this all changed when we got there! My colleague and i observed an incredible cardiovascular surgeon who made us feel welcome. i think his enthusiasm was contagious - i ended up falling in love with cardiac procedures and went back for more! :'D
(i also fell in love with scrubs... they are so comfy...)

We really appreciated his kindness, so i painted this card for him:


cardiac surgery love
watercolour + col-erase pencil on watercolour paper

(Unfortunately, i only had crappy student-grade watercolour paper, so it didn't absorb the colours well. It also got wrinkly and refused to scan properly. So i'm a little disappointed with the results. ;-; )

chillin'

Here is a Secret Santa painting for my dear ex-canmate from university. :)
i meant to paint her something serious, but it didn't turn out - hope she likes this anyway!
Whenever i think of Mauritius, huge turtles always come to mind...


chillin'
watercolour + water-soluble crayons on paper 8x10"

If i don't manage to squeeze in a quick doodle before the end of 2009, Happy New Year!
New year's resolution: make time for non-school art!

strummin' a tune

Here's another birthday card! This one's for my dad. :)
i tried to emulate my mom's birthday card so that they'll match when i print them out, but this one's a bit messier as i was shorter on time lol!


strummin' a tune
Photoshop CS2

The next post should be full of medical illustration goodness... That is, if i ever get my assignments done properly...

freddie the turtle

So i've been sidetracking a little bit during my studies (and am currently paying for it)... Here's the birthday card i drew for my ex-canmate (i.e. we were joined by a washroom!). She's from Mauritius, and she had a pet turtle named Freddie (who was very speedy) there. It just occured to me that perhaps Freddie wasn't one of them massive tortoises from Mauritius i keep envisioning... lol!

And i used to draw nekkid chibis of myself (i swear i'm not a narcissist) all over her stuff, and i'm pretty sure she got pissed at me for it at one point... But hey, i'm sure she misses them by now. Maybe...

the adventures of freddie the turtle

Photoshop CS2

birthday doodle :)

i did this super quick CG for my mom's birthday. The proportions are kind of funky (yes, i believe there can be funky proportions in chibis!). But ah well, it was a last-minute job and that's how it's going to be! i was also messing around with colours a bit, definitely out of my (very limited) comfort zone... And i actually used Photoshop CS2 instead of SAI 1.01 for this - i figured i'd better get used to the hotkeys, as it will be the program of choice in my field. :(




















tranquil
Photoshop CS2

Carbon dust update next...!

ganbatte!

ganbatte!
watercolour + colored pencils on paper, ~6x8"

The process:


Unfortunately, i haven't been drawing at all recently, as i'm in the middle of moving and preparing to start my Masters! So this painting is actually from a few weeks ago. i have a lot of drawings and paintings planned in my head, but there is never enough time i spend too much time playing video games and watching Korean dramas...

On a more positive note, my Deviruchi tee came in the mail! More on that next time. :)

Say no to shark fin soup!

say no to shark fin soup!
SAI 1.01 + Photoshop CS2
b/g textures from www.cgtextures.com

Shark fin soup is a very popular dish in Chinese cuisine, but the fins are attained in a very inhumane way - conscious sharks are tossed back into the water once their fins are removed, and are basically left to die. Shark finning also plays a leading role in decimating shark populations and disrupting ecosystems. Please check out the SHARKWATER website for more information on the consequences of shark finning (as i can't seem to write properly today...) and what you can do to help stop such cruelty.

i was going for a paper cut-out sort of look with this one. i was inspired by Dric's incredible artwork that i first saw in volume 2 of Apple. This image will be used in the future sooo will probably post the finalized version then. :)