same with the above

was such a drag man

a much considered offering to church( that is, to alternatively i.e) and (I) have been working on this on and off from , actually, highschool era, the time when i thrived little less than golden, to be honest, completely shit time,, all except for dear friends. dear friends i say, very distinguishing term , friends that were not dear to me, were also part of compete shit.

I first attempted colouring with watercolour set, but , as for everybody, moneys tight and there were insufficient materials, (such ridiculable price they have!) so i moved on using the magic marker set that i FORGOT to return to my previous art teach miss big N.  turns out that its not as easy mixing colour with the marker and the colours contrast each other so damn mush it looks rather shitty.

NOT only that, but also all the paintbrush i had for watercolouring were small , unbearable size for covering large area like that

photo lighting and quality is trash,, im not a photographer.  though i am, the photographer,

-sorry madam.. i have a mockable brain

Finished something different yesterday. Intended to be just a quick one (although not so quick in the end), this is a testbed to try out techniques I picked up from some digital painting tutorials plus a bit of my newly acquired extra anatomical knowledge. The latter point is the reason of choosing muscular built & minimum clothing (what an excuse! ). Albeit simplified and just from mid-thigh and above, it may have some grave errors I haven’t realize yet .

Click for a larger version:

Bocetos que fueron realizados por Yoshitaka Amano para la versión final del logo de Final Fantasy X para Playstation 2:

Resultado final:

Hokay. My class has just finished and now can continue doing her royal highness the Red Queen.

Now 95% done the engines, left is the arm spars to join the center body and some heat dispersing vents. You’ll noticed that I’ve added the under-wings.

Next:

The toughess hurdle yet: the center body. Its complicated, odd looking and can get confusing when doing it. But…
There’s very less data regarding on what the lower half looks like… -_-;

p.s. correction to my previous post, the game is called RayStorm which I accidentally type it as RayForce. This due to listening to “Penetration”, a BGM track of RayForce, in endless loop. Orz

Hey guys, I’m back with yet another artsy post today (you may have noticed that the Unsorted Page was updated again a few days back with all the updates of recent times).

As per usual with my sketching arm, it seems to be most inspired shortly after I’ve completed a spree with reading novels. In this case, I recently finished Brandon Sanderson’s The Final Empire, which I thought was most intreguing. And I decided to sketch the other important NPC from my long running 4th edition Dungeons and Dragons campaign: Zakura Fafnir, the so called ‘White Devil’ of Renais, heir to the trade union great house of Fafnir, and Dark Warlock superior. Check her out:

As always, click it to get a bigger version.

As you might guess, she is done in a very similar style to the similar sketch I did of Alicia Silverscale (whom is also in the party)

As explained in an age old post, my setting, Retoria, has no elves, but instead has a few non-traditional races of my own devising: Auricans, Drakahn and Necrists.

Zakura is an Aurican, which is a race of half-Human, half-Yinn (spirit) borne from a magical cataclysm that occured in the final days of the Spirit Wars. They appear human, but are slim like Eladrin and yet also tall like Drakahn. All Auricans have shock-white hair but their eyes can be practically any colour of the spectrum. Their other distinguishing features are their star-shaped pupils and pale white skin which glows luminescently in moonlight and the presence of high magic. You can READ the race article I created for the campaign HERE, if you like. It goes into more detail about the biology and stats.

She showed up in the campaign somewhat later than Alicia did. Shortly after returning from the Western isles of Golgotha, the party re-entered the service of Gordon Rosalind, and after some diplomatic process found themselves in charge of the re-development of the island of Hassan, which is a natural fortress (and which they had cleared a necromancer out of previously…literally blowing the top off of one of the castle towers in the process -_-;)

Of course, to prevent dissent, this reconstruction had to be approved by each of the three great Houses of the mercantile islands of Renais: Rosalind, Veruna and Fafnir. Naturally, Gordon Rosalind was not an issue (an early part of the campaign involved them rescuing his young daughter whom was going to be used as a sacrifice and then also basically becoming privateers for Rosalind in his employ).

Christopher Veruna also wasn’t too hard since they had already gained the trust of his lover, Liliana Lunlun LuGunther.

Souten Fafnir, however was a much tougher nut to crack. It was only through some expert diplomacy he even conceded. Then, Zakura, his daughter and heir, was sent to find issues with the project. Amazingly, however, she gained grudging respect for the party after the Fighter managed to out-intimidate her (!) and then she was defeated in one-on-one combat by the Swordmage.

After this, she decided it would be amusing to follow the party, much to their chagrim. However, since she is perpetually surrounded by reverent flunkies and minions, at least they didn’t need any new crew for the ship for awhile. LOL. She seems to continually be chasing the Fighter of the party and either beating the crap out of him or showering him in arcane worms ever since the incident when he walked in on her in the hotsprings (LOL). She also seems to have a strange friend/foe/rival/enemy relationship with Alicia. Nevertheless, she also became rather useful when the party needed to get into Hell, being a Warlock and knowledgable about such things.

Her manner is haughty, arrogant and ill-tolerant of idiots; but quite willing and able to use all the tools at her disposal to achieve maximum impact in her own agenda. That obviously includes her natural beauty~ the 40 odd minions she has that get used as basically cannon fodder and footstools obviously have some reason for being that way, eh?

I guess it should also be noted that Warlocks of all varieties in my setting gain a ‘Fzvir’ (pronounced Veer), which is a large tattoo along their right arm as an expression of their contract (usually with an angel of a certain deity~ Infernal Contracts with Saulm, Star with Kinah, Fey with Corticarte and Dark contracts with Dahlia). It seems to be a pseudo-living thing, which writhes, snake-like, along the skin, when a Warlock casts a spell.

And, to match Alicia, I also made Zakura into a Wallpaper version:

Just in case you want an Arousing Aurican for you desktop (makes a set with the Desirable Drakahn, LOL).

Anyways, thats all for today. Stay tuned.

A friend of mine showed me this video of Golan Levin in TED (subtitles available). I laughted so much with his 2 last artworks though the presentation in the beginning wasn’t That entertaining.. I think “Opto-Isolator” is the best artwork I’ve seen by now! Enjoy!

Membaca buku adalah hal yang cukup sederhana, terlepas dari tingkat kerumitan buku yang kadang membuat kita harus mengulangi membacanya hingga beberapa kali. Namun ada kondisi yang cukup menantang dan tidak biasa ketika harus menebak isi buku lalu menuangkannya dalam bentuk grafik berupa desain sampul buku. Hal ini baru saja saya alami ketika seorang sahabat memberi tawaran untuk membuat desain untuk sampul depan buku bertema Motivasi Islami karya ayahnya. Sungguh merupakan hal yang sangat baru, padahal saya telah terbiasa membuat desain, hanya saja bukan sampul buku, dan biasanya sang pemesan desain memberi gambaran global hingga detail teknis yang harus dituangkan di dalam desain yang dipesan.

Kemandulan ide saya alami ketika melakukan riset dengan informasi awal tentang buku yang sangat minim, padahal dalam pikiran saya, hal pertama yang dilihat pengunjung toko buku ketika mencari buku di rak-rak yang berderet itu adalah bagian terluar dari sebuah buku, yaitu sampul depannya (front cover). Jadi bagaimana caranya agar saya dapat menghasilkan desain sampul depan buku dengan kualitas yang memiliki kekuatan memancing mata untuk melihatnya. Akhirnya saya memutuskan untuk berkunjkung ke toko buku Gramedia BSM, disana saya langsung menghampiri buku-buku bertema motivasi sukses Islami, dan mengamati apa yang menjadi ciri khas buku-buku tersebut. Ternyata ketika saya amati lebih secara seksama, ada kemiripan dari satu desain sampul depan buku dengan sampul depan buku yang lain. Warna yang digunakan dan kombinasi huruf serta efek cahaya hasil editan menggunakan photoshop dan lay out yang sederhana menjadi pilihan banyak penerbit buku. Lalu saya berfikir, “mengapa saya tidak mencoba hal yang berbeda?” Maka saya memutuskan untuk memilih warna sebagai penekanan yang sekiranya dapat membedakan buku yang akan dirilis ke pasaran ini dengan kebanyakan buku sejenis yang lain. Saya putuskan untuk memilih warna biru sebagai pembeda dengan buku yang lain, sehingga asumsi saya, jika buku tersebut bersampingan dengan buku yang lain, ia akan selangkah lebih depan dalam hal memikat atau bahkan mengganggu pandangan calon pembaca yang akan membeli. Ia akan sangat kontras dengan buku lainnya.

Hal berikutnya yang membuat saya harus berfikir lebih panjang adalah perihal grafik yang akan ditampilkan, karena tidak mungkin saya hanya memberikan desain dengan warna biru polos, ini akan sangat mengganggu dan tidak dinamis. Setelah memilih-milih objek apa yang akan saya pilih, akhirnya saya memutuskan untuk menggunakan objek air yang bergelombang dengan tumbuhan berakar  mengapung di atasnya. Pilihan air saya analogikan dengan konsep Iman. Aqidah Islam mewajibkan kita meyakini hanya satu tuhan yaitu Allah subhanahu wata’ala, artinya aqidah islam membersihkan seseorang dari penyembahan kepada apa pun selain Allah. Hal ini sejalan dengan fungsi air yang suci dan mampu membersihakan dan mensucikan..sedangkan pohon yang tumbuh dan mengapung di atas air yang bergelombang menggambarkan tentang keadaan iman yang naik dan turun dalam hal kualitasnya, serta kemampuan iman jika ia tumbuh dengan baik maka ia akan membawa kesuksesan sejati.

Itulah pengalaman pertama saya, semoga tidak terlampau menyimpang. Berikutnya akan banyak sampul buku yang akan saya buat. InsyaAllah..aamiin..

Or something like that … btw, her attitude is inspired by the illustration of The World is Mine. This is a picture left unfinished and untouched for like 6 months and only very recently that I  worked on it again and finished it. Err … although with mixed results >_< … There are still bits of stuff that can be added, but I’m too lazy to work on it. Time to move on to the next stuff .

Click to see a bigger version:

The first thing that I don’t like with the result is that the lines for Miku are too thick to what I think would fit with this kind of coloring, or at least my feeling is telling me so. Not so noticeable in small resolution, but when it goes to like 1080p or so, it looks ugly. Plus, I should’ve just drawn the lines aliased in Manga Studio (as in the BG), it would make it easier later on to select areas using the wand in Photoshop.

Second, I got this paranoid feeling that the piece is quite sensitive to monitor changing due to the high contrast. Since every monitor have practically different color response, I’m afraid some parts could get too dark or too saturated or … something . In fact, I just tried to display the picture on a shared monitor connected to a shared PS3 outside my room and it looked quite ugly with the orange flared up and the mid-value colors washed out -_-. Well that happened with all the pictures I fed onto it, so maybe it’s just that that particular monitor’s behavior, but mine had the ugliest color transformation >_<! Maybe it’s because of the large orange portion or … maybe just because I’ve become too sensitive to its color since it’s my own stuff anyway. Oh well, whatever … but please tell me if the colors look plain wrong (according to your judgement) in your monitor

I posted a bit of the making process at SD forum.

Right, sinced I forgot to bring back my lovely Aya file from the office, I’ve decided to re-create the R-Gray 1 starfighter from the game RayStorm by Taito.

Along the way, the model is fine (just done the thermonuclear-attached afterburner engine nacelles) but… There’s a problem, major problem. I’ve found out that there are <b>TWO</b> versions of R-Gray 1, the in-game and the cutscene/model versions. Both of them are “slightly” different.

Now here’s a good top down picture (taken from http://axts10.web.infoseek.co.jp/kusunoki/rgray1/ page, good reference, this) as reference. All nice and clear, right?

Not so.

Notice the red circle? Do you see a wing protruding from the engine? Well, here’s another shot:

Again, the red circle. As you all see, those two shots are from the in-game cutscene and the in-game model also uses this form. But if you looked in the Internet, it uses without. Odd eh?

Well, here’s my version so far…

And yes, I’m using Google Sketch-Up. Easy to use, have the things that I need and quite easy on the PC requirements. Started doing the central fuselage of the fighter now and it 12:03 am now, I better stop and continue after teaching my class tomorrow.

After inauguration though the death of inactivity, the gallery was moved to consider other limits to the duration of indeterminacy, like breath, or how long you can hold a camera still for.

A participant was invited to extend the unstressed and toneless mid-central neutral vowel sound schwa by singing it for as long as she could until she ran out of breath. Schwa looks like an upside down e in the phonetic alphabet, and it sounds like the ‘uh’ at the end of ‘hammer’ or the start of ‘about’. At the edge of breath it tends to collapse and become something else.

Each sound constituted the duration of a shot of video.

The Ideal Gallery contacted six artists who, for varying reasons, had made no art over the last year. The idea was to produce an exhibition based around this central absence of art. After a series of meetings and discussions it was decided that the proposed exhibition format would constitute a violation of the potential afforded by an extended period of non-production. Also, people had other things to do. As such nothing would be reported and nothing would be exhibited.

In contrast with Metzger’s call for an art strike in 1974, one feature common to all the selected artists was the lack of any political or critical motivation for their inactivity. From another perspective, one thing in common was a shared concern for both the inadequacies of existing art institutions (both molar and molecular), and the inadequacies of existing modes of politics or critique. From a third perspective, the artists all shared a common desire for the formation of new modes of expression and the production of new subjectivities irreducible to existing modes of capture. From a fourth perspective, life had crawled through their jaded skulls leaving remnants of drippy goo slightly warm to the touch like a weird post-evental sex worm.

Through naming the exhibition and writing this description The Ideal Gallery invalidated its own contract, throwing potential to the wind, and made itself ineligible for the non-exhibition anyway. It therefore, quite painlessly, enacted the moment of its own inauguration.

Some areas of a painting require many layers of color. I make sure to allow time (at least a few days, but sometimes it can even be weeks) for each layer to dry. If I add too many colors of paint at one time it all starts to blend together into a muddy mess, and you loose the clearness of colors that give my oil paintings their vibrancy.

I did a little more work painting the center of this sunflower.

After adding some highlights to the center, I painted the shadows using dark brown and navy blue.

For those of you who didn’t make it to collect your art works at the advised designated time please email renee@leeloo.com.au to arrange delivery of your artworks. They are no longer at the gallery and can no longer be picked up. Thank you!

Its finally done. The black sheep of the Mazinger series is now in its fully glory (bashing up some unlucky kikaiju, that is ):

(click “continue reading” to get a bigger version )

Now, what you see there is just a medium quality version (for viewing purposes). If you want the high quality version, can get it below:

Great Mazinger (HQ) 1280 x 900

Great Mazinger (HQ) 800 x 562

Done the base colour and base effects with some simple generic dark background (I’m focusing the fight only, ).

Now, on the tough part: adding the lighting and shadows.