Some Updates

Ok, so The short movie is done, we shot it last weekend, but we couldnt make it to the 48hours competition, the render time took 30min too long. We missed de deadline by a hair. Nonetheless the movie was still screened tonight, but unfortunetly I missed it... duh... yeah I know, I was already absorbed by something else... the other short movie I'm working on. Below are some recent studies I've been doing.

10,000

There is saying, every great artist has at least 10,000 bad drawings behind them. Considering another theory, to be excellent at something, you'll need 10,000 hours of practice. At 5000hr you can teach, at 8000hr you're good, but at 10,000 you're excellent. I tried to make a count... of how many hours I've been doing all this, since... 2001. I've reached a gross average of 6000hours. Considering my daily job is kinda related and the amount of actual practice I'm doing outside of the job. What is seen on this blog, is maybe 1/20 of what I'm actually doing. (All failures are usually tore to pieces before the water has dried out.)

There are 8760 hours per year, in which 2/3 is dedicated to work and sleep. The last third is to eat, leisure, transportation etc... so there isn't much left for self improvement. If you're lucky enough to work in your field of interest, you can leverage some of the 2920 hours you spend in the office for self improvement. Otherwise it's really hard to get off the office, reach home, be good at parenting, and then find some time to improve. But not impossible if you believe in it. And remember that....The only way for an artist to fail, is to quit too early.


 Below is a study for a character research I'm doing for an animated short. More to come later!

Xu Hui

Char Dev #4

Few research today on this project, I find it too stiff and not fluid enough. I will try something more misty, blurred and moody.

Pulpish Mae West

I always been attracted to old master from the impressionist era, but i'm getting more and more attracted to the american illustrators of the 40's to 60's. Like Robert McGinnis or Mitchell Hooks. They were giants in the business of mystery books. I wouldnt be surprised if Sienkewicz or Ashley Wood were both inspired by these two. Especially Hooks, with his more graphic style. So I was fooling around in my studio. Nujabes was playing loud, and I decided to try something in that genre. I used a black and white photo of Mae West as reference.Now i need a bold super long cheesy title, like... "Don't wait for me, i'll be dead by then." or "Kiss me twice then die."

Char Dev #3

So again, saturday, locked in my room and forcing down something. I did some figure studies, browsing history books, reading about the Kwantung Army. I wanted later to make a full render in Watercolor, but I felt too exhausted after 3hr of drawing\researching. My concentration stamina is quite low :).

Character Dev #2

Again this saturday, went and sat on my desk, with grapefruit juice and Bob Marley. Few days after my previous post on 1938, I was unappealed by the characters I drew. They were stiff, and complicated. The whole week I promised myself to try to simplify them. I like the 3rd Yamamoto, but somehow I can't keep the consistency drawing like this. Unnatural to me. Honda is better than last time, but can be simplify more. The bigger I draw the more complex things are. Like if empty space on the paper was beging for a pencil stroke or a wash. I also felt the need to expand my palette with Raw Sienna, a nice yellow was missing.

Character dev

I've done 2 concepts today for my graphic novel, 2 characters. I barricaded myself in my room, with some grapefruit juice and loud music. Very limited palette, burnt sienna and french ultramarine blue, I kinda like it, and probably will stick to it. I have a problem keeping the pace with this project, the time spent on it is too random.

Singapore Turf Club

I took my brushes for a walk today, went to the Turf Club on Bukit Timah. I have to make horses studies for my graphic novel. It's the perfect place for what I need. After few quick sketches, I noticed a young one holding still. Gotcha! Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine, Indian Yellow.

Saturday is Shisha Day!

I took a cab to arab street, sat at Usman Restaurant on the sidewalk. Order 1 double apple shisha and a mint tea. The game was on, I unfold my palette, and started sketching. I used a Maruman Soho 301 paper. Very light but can get a decent wash. Force you to avoid reworking too much.