U P D A T E S

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I finally won something!

I’m the contest winner for Jesuisfei’s Banner Contest. Ain’t that awesome?!?!  The original photograph of the banner is below.

I’ve also started a beauty review blog and will be launching it some time this week. It’s called “sugarless.candy. A Beauty Blog” haha. You can check it out here

Chinatown

Happy Chinese New Year!!! It’s the year of the Ox which is my Chinese zodiac so hopefully this year will bring me many good luck. haha. Above is a drawing that I did for the Moleskine exchange that my cousin and I are doing and coincidentally completed the drawing on Monday (Chinese New Year) isn’t that funny? Sorry about the picture, the lighting wasn’t very good where I was at and this was the best I could do.  The building that I drew is the Dragon City Mall located in Calgary’s Chinatown which I always go to whenever I get a chance to go downtown. I love that mall! I’ve been going there since I was eight or nine years old, I would go there with my parent and brother to buy Anime posters like Sailormoon and DragonBall Z and other cute stuff. (I still do that now btw. haha) They now have a Japanese beauty products store there on the second floor for those who love Japanese cosmetics like I do. I also get my haircut there ($25.00 for a haircut is a good price!) and the BEST Bubbletea IMO is there too. Calgary’s Chinatown is a bit small but even though I think that everything that I need is there.

As for the drawing I did it all in pencil. I haven’t done a pencil drawing in a while and I forgotten how messy it can get. haha. But I love it though. If you are wondering what’s that strip of words on top of the drawing, it’s actually double sided tape for the tracing paper that I’m going to attached so that the pencil drawing doesn’t smudge off on the next page. I’ll take another picture of it when I apply the tracing paper for my next post so that you can see what I mean. Also I’m selling a bunch of printer Laserjet ink cartridges (HP and Lexmark – Brand new) on Ebay. If you are interested in buying here is the link. Gong hei fat choi!!!!

What’s this?

Are my eyes decieving me or did I got a lot of hits today? haha. I usually get about 30 – 40 average hits a day but this is pretty cool. The most hits I ever got was in Feb 26, 2008, 107 hits. lol. This is not the first time I’ve hit around the 80’s but its nice to see it jump like that. haha. Anyways, here’s another sneek peek on our Moleskine exchange between my cousin Derrick and I.

This drawing is based on Nanton’s two beautiful fully-restored Grain Elevators on north-bound Highway 2 here in Alberta. I’ve been only there twice but I’d like to go back.  I drew this with Winsor & Newton watercolor, Staedler pigment liner, and Prisma Pencil Crayons. Usually when I draw, I don’t plan out how the drawing should look like in the end, I just go as I go along.

I’m pretty suprised by the outcome (that’s usually the best part of drawing – seeing the finish product). I was going to leave the sky with just blue watercolor that I painted on but I decided to scribbled on some white pencil crayon to give it a bit more characteristic and a bit of purplish blue crayon to blend it in with the blue. It was pretty risky but it turn out pretty darn good, dont ya think? =)

UPDATE: I ended up having 99 hits at the end of the day. lol. I was just one hit away from 100!!!

My Workspace

Wacom Cintiq 21ux, Dell Laptops, Cintiq pens.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Sorry for not posting this sooner been busy with Holiday stuff.  As promised I have posted up some pictures of  my new Cintiq that my brother Lennard got me as an early Birthday present around mid November (my birthday was on the 26th of December).  He also got me the Art pen and Laptop to go with it as well (Ain’t he the best?)  He says that this would be something that can help me get my career started. How nice eh?

Adobe Illustrator CS3, Cintiq Art Pen (left), and Cintiq Grip Pen (right)

I don’t know much about Digital Art ’cause I’m more of a traditional artist but I think this would really help me get me into the art industry.  I’m teaching myself how to use Adobe Illustrator at the moment, got a whole bunch of books at the Library which I think is alot cheaper than going to courses and all.  Apparently with Adobe Illustrator you can make really realistic drawings almost photographic images, which I find really intrigueing. Hopefully soon I can do that. haha.

All furniture from Ikea. haha.

I also bought myself a SmudgeGuard glove to prevent smudges on the tablet (you can see it on the second picture next to the Moleskine). It can also be used while drawing with traditional media as well so you won’t smudge out your drawing.  It’s pretty awesome.  I’m also planning on buying the Corel painter X, heard some good stuff about it, but I’ll probably buy that next time once I get the hang of Adobe Illustrator CS3.  Anyways, if your a Wacom, Cintiq, or Adobe Illustrator user please drop me a comment and maybe give me some good pointers. Thanks!

Moleskine

Yikes! I haven’t posted in awhile! Anyways, my cousin Derrick and I are doing a Moleskine exchange. We started it around July.  I thought it would be a great art project for the both of us, plus it’ll get me to do more drawing. haha.  He lives down in Conneticut and is an amazing artist.  You can check out his flickr page here.

I’m almost done my 10 pages so I’ll be sending it out in about a week or so.  I put a preview of one of my drawings up there.  I’m not too sure yet if we are going to post the drawings online but keep checking back for updates.

Also, my brother got me a Cintiq 21ux! Can you believe that? I had it for almost a month now, I’m still learning to use Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.  I even got some books from the library to learn from. Maybe in a few months I’ll get good at it. =)  I’ll post up some pictures some time this week. So check back soon!

I love my Reese Peanut Buttercups!

Ru Journal. Pencil Crayon and Ink.

I’ve only liked two kinds of chocolate bars, Reese and Oh! Henry.  Those were the only chocolate bars I ever reached for when I have a chocolate craving or when I needed an energy boost.  Also, I think it’s the biggest reason why I gained an extra 10lbs this year. haha.

The drawing was done using ink and pencil crayon using the continuous line technique.  If you do not know how or what a continuous line technique is it’s basically drawing without taking your pencil/pen away from the paper.

It’s really fun to do because it’s a great drawing exercise and you don’t have to make the drawing so perfect . Plus it looks great at the end.

Copic Markers – Using The Hand Color Chart

CopicMarker.com has a hand color chart on their website that you can print out.  So today, I want to show you guys how I use it for my Copic markers.

Materials: The paper that I use is the Bienfang Graphics 360 paper, it’s a thin translucent paper so it does not suck up too much ink from your marker. Some brands have the right side of the paper on the back so if you use the wrong side of the paper you get a more streakier and more translucent grainy effect.  But if you use the right side, you get a more blended effect (see below). You can use either side depending on your liking.

You will need scissors and double sided adhesive or any kind of tape or glue.

I used double sided adhesive tape for this example. I cut out a small piece of marker paper based on the size of the chart and put several small adhesive tape on the sides where I want the paper to be glued (see photo below).  I then place the marker paper on top of the adhesive and since the marker paper is translucent you can see through the paper (see second photo below).  I suggest using the same type of paper that you draw with instead of drawing on the chart that you printed out so that you get a better idea of how your colors will turn out.

For this chart I’m using the Original Copic Markers that I bought in a 36 set and I find that using the broad end of the marker is a lot easier to fill in the area of the chart.

When you have completed coloring in your chart, you then can use a black ink pen (for the lighter colors) and a white gel pen (for the darker colors) to fill in the names of the markers you colored in.

Then Voila! You got yourself a color chart!

You can have it on your wall or with you when you draw and if in the future you buy more Copic Markers you can then add them easily on your color chart.

If you have any suggestion or even better ideas on creating color charts for Copic Markers please leave a comment.

Link: Copic Colorchart download, CopicMarker Website

Mosh

This is a drawing that I did for the July ‘08 Drawing Jam at the Drawing Board.  The model is Miss. Mosh from Deviantart.

You can see the original photo at the July 08′ Jam at the DrawingBoard or the deviantart page.

I wanted the drawing to look sort of like a fashion Illustration. I colored her dress using Faber Castell Pitt brush pen in red and embellished it with gold flowers and white highlights to give the dress some color. I purposely did not color in her skin and hair because I thought it would be too much. I then used Prismacolor colored pencil for the background.  After finishing the drawing I realized I wrote the date wrong, haha it should say ‘July’ oh well… lol.

Please check out her deviantart page there are alot of great photos!  I’m hoping they’ll do another Drawing Jam soon ‘cuz I had alot of fun with this one.

Link: Drawing Board – Drawing Jam O8‘, Miss. Mosh Deviantart Page

Finally, a new drawing!

Now that I’m back and finally settled in Calgary, I’ll try my best to post more often. So here’s a sketch that I did when I was in Rankin.

I never had the chance to finish it because of the move but I believe the model was from a Seventeen magazine, I’m not too sure.  I no longer have the reference photo of this model so I don’t think I’ll be able to finish it any time soon.

I haven’t done a pencil drawing for about ten years now, pretty long time huh? But I must say I did pretty good job for a person who hasn’t done a one in a long time.

I drew her hair in the very low light while watching a movie, that’s why the hair doesn’t look very realistic.  I had to use a Q-tip to blend because I couldn’t find my blending tool at that time and a kneaded eraser to do the highlights on the face, lips, and parts of her hair.  If I had known that you could use an eraser to do highlilghts when I was younger I think drawing portraits would have been a lot easier.

Link: Glamour Magazine Website