Yet Another Totoro

Yet Another Totoro

Totoro (character design by Hayao Miyazaki) - graphite

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One of my favorite characters to draw, because the shapes are so simple that proportion is the key. He's basically a big oval with arrows on his head. Been wanting to show texture with his fur. In earlier posts I had used a looping pattern for shading fur. This time I was referencing a Tim Flach photograph of a panda bear from his book "More Than Human", and decided to shade with contour hatching. Great book by the way if you want beautiful references of animal skin/fur/scales textures.

A Toy Story

A Toy Story

mixed media: pen & digital

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This is a character design sheet for Danielle Ameen of Treefort Five - plush designer. I had backed Treefort Five's Kickstarter campaign which had a pledge option to have a plush custom made based on my own design. I decided to use an existing character - Mr. Muchacho! with a few design modifications for a plush (subject to further changes). Can't wait to see what she does with it!

Dumbo

Dumbo

pen & marker

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Do or Do Not

Do or Do Not

digital media: Procreate app on iPad

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Another drawing test using the Procreate app on the iPad. I wanted to keep the sketch fairly loose, close to a scribble. And play with the hilights like I would when sketching with a liquid white out pen on ink. It was comfortable working in this technique as it feels somewhat familiar. I think i've found my prefered style for drawing on the iPad, but I'll continue exploring other methods.

Gobble Gobble...eh?

Gobble Gobble...eh?

step 3: digital media: Procreate app on iPad

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step 2: digital media: Procreate app on iPad (unfinished)

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step 1: digital media: Procreate app on iPad (unfinished)

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My tribute to Canadian Thanksgiving was inspired by my desire to test out drawing on the new iPad using the Procreate app with a third party "Macally" stylus. The hardware (iPad/stylus) does not support pressure sensitivity. When compared with drawing on a Wacom tablet or Cintiq, the iPad lacks refinement and accuracy. The app "Procreate", is the best I've used on the iPad. But saying that, it still has a ways to go.

Moor or Less...

Moor or Less...

step 4: digital media: Photoshop

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step 3: digital media: Photoshop (unfinished)

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step 2: digital media: Photoshop (unfinished)

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step 1: digital media: Photoshop (unfinished)

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Another design created for the serigraph printing workshop. This one is based off a design created for a tattoo 10 years back, a Black Moor goldfish. It was always meant as a silhouette, but I've wanted to play around with the detailing of fish scales. I had started off with the traditional flat asian tattoo style of overlapping scales. But decided to try something a bit different while incorporating the circle motifs of the bubbles. Which was the same reason why I had gone with a round background stabilizer as opposed to the rectangular one. After adding colour the blue was too intense, and decided to break it up with the radiating lines within. Helped to balance out the negative spacing within the fish as well.

Serigraff-iti

Serigraff-iti

Mr. Trooper - mixed media

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Just signed up for a serigraph printing workshop at a local studio called La Bourgeoise Serigraphie. The course requires us to supply our own design (2-3 colours) which will be printed on any surface/textile of our choosing, up to a maximum size of 8.5" X 11". For this I wanted to try a few designs which incorporate a heavy graphic element. One of which is this design based on the Imperial Stormtrooper character design by the late great Ralph McQuarrie for Star Wars. I'm a fan of stencil graffiti art for its pop/comedic sensibilites and strong imagery. The image was composed of 2 photographs which I had shot. One was from a wedding, the other was from the Star Wars Identities exhibiton. I'll let you figure out which was which.