Drawing girls is fun

The blog has moved...

2008-04-05T19:15:00.004-05:00

I've decided to finally move over to Wordpress. From now, new entries will be on the new blog, at http://blog.charlenechua.com

The new blog is pulling data from this one for older posts, so links may look funny if you search them. I am trying to tag and categorize everything (which is something that really bugged me about the Blogger blog, I couldn't tag it because I used an older template).

Please update your bookmarks and I hope you enjoy the new blog!

Long long ago...

2008-03-28T22:31:00.005-05:00

I was asked to submit some stuff to MOCHA (Mueseum of Childrens Art) in Oakland, CA, for consideration into their Once Upon a Time show. The show features art by childrens book illustrator, and the art they created when they were kids.

These are some of my really old drawings and paintings, done when I was 12-14. Though most of my early works make me cringe these days, I personally am still fond of the underwater dragons one, which is going to be in the show. More details later.

Bax Bear

2008-03-23T17:31:00.006-05:00

Keep 6 Contemporary, a contemporary/ low-brow/ pop-culture gallery a few streets down, is having an upcoming exhibition for these vinyl toys called Bax Bear. They gave me one of the 'DIY' versions of the bear to paint as I wished, to be part of the show.

So, seeing how I've never painted a toy before (unless you include the really awful paint jobs I did on model aeroplanes back when I was a kid), I decided to document the inaugural process.

Got started at the 'other' table in the studio. Normally the light box occupies this area. But since it's basically a plastic box, I move it around sometimes so I can do other things at the table.

I didn't really plan out the bear. I've had a really busy last month so I wanted to do something a bit more organic. That and I didn't feel like getting stressed over designing something and then having to replicate it perfectly on said bear.

I got some gold acrylic paint and a couple of opaque acrylic markers. I didn't use the white one in the end and the gold marker tends to smudge if you rub it, so mostly I ended up working withthe paint.

The arms look like little pieces of poop when they're on their own. I sorta tattooed them.

Gold acrylic and some red acrylic I mixed with the gold. You can't really see the red on the paint job, it's more of an undercoat.

Left over stencils. I used some plastic wrap thing mostly, since it was cheaper than airbrush stencil film and it was at the shop. It's probably too tacky for illustratino board but it worked surprisingly well on vinyl.

An array of small brushes used.

The bear was designed to pull apart for painting. Annoyingly, it wouldn't fit back together again when I was done. A call to the curator revealed that several people were also having this problem. Rafi suggested trimming the edges of the joints to make them fit. These are the little plastic shavings resulting from that. Amazingly I did not trim off the tips of my fingers in the process.

Yay. Bear's done. Coupled with a katana, and he looks pretty cool!

Bear-vertising. These are my buttons. Buy them - the power of the bear compels you...

9Tails colored

2008-03-01T22:17:00.003-05:00

I think I like it... and Kristal gets the original inks, so too bad if you wanted it, nyeh nyeh.....

Ok, juvenile petulance aside (ah heck, who reads this anyway), other inks are still on Etsy for sale.

9 Tails

2008-02-28T15:49:00.003-05:00

The idea was about fox spirits. According to legend fox spirits who live to over a thousand years old have 9 tails and are generally benign. Before this they are tricksters who sometimes shape shift into beautiful women to tempt and mislead men.

Loss - Process

2008-02-28T01:05:00.003-05:00

I originally called this piece Cheating, since the idea was to show a girl who was upset about finding our her boyfriend was cheating on her. I prefer 'Loss' now since it's more general and describes the general theme of the picture more clearly I think.
This was the original sketch. I wanted to make it a silhouette piece at first with a red and purple color scheme.

When I started working on it today I changed my mind about making it a flat silhouette piece. So I also flipped the image as I think it works better with the girl on the left. I tried some new coloring techniques in Illustrator - well not really new, just in a way I don't usually work in.

I brought the artwork over to Photoshop in layers. Normally I export pieces as EPS files and import them, but I got lazy so I just did a cut-and-paste job. I started messing with dropping textures and changing colors.

Several hours and a whole bunch of layers later, the final piece is done. I am quite happy with the more organic feel of the piece. Normally brushwork on top of my vector work doesn't really sit well, but with a simplified vector base, it seems like it's easier to work in effects in Photoshop. It would be nice to have a bit of a film stain effect too but I don't have a texture like that on hand and I'm too tired to go looking on the net or make one now.

Various tutorial work

2008-02-26T15:22:00.003-05:00

These are the final images for several tutorials I have written for Photoshop Creative and Painter magazines. They are usually tailored to the needs of the tutorials which describe different techniques and tools, and usually do not represent my usual style which is why these images have never been on my main website.

(Stock images provided by client from various sources.)

(Stock images provided by client from various sources.)

(Stock images provided by client from various sources.)

(Stock images provided by client from various sources.)

(Photo reference courtesy of Lockstock.)

(Stock images provided by client from various sources.)

More belated tidings

2008-02-26T02:36:00.002-05:00

The very belated post

2008-02-26T00:42:00.005-05:00

Been busy is all I can say.

Happy Holidays

2007-12-20T04:53:00.001-05:00

Ninjary

2007-11-12T13:23:00.001-05:00

moommooomoo

2007-11-12T02:13:00.001-05:00

Yeah ok so she has massively weird moo-moo lips. It's hard to control a brush. Sketch in like 10 seconds just for general idea, hence the weirdness.

This is what happens when you work without a sketch. It looks a bit weird, but I still like her anyway. And she will crawl out of your TV and eat you like a salami sandwich if you disagree.

The callgraphy doesn't mean anything, apart from me trying to pathetically remember what few words I managed to swallow during the 10 years of forced Chinese language class. I was always scolded for my bad handwriting. Interestingly I actually think my brush writing is not bad now, if illegible. It looks good, who cares what it says!

...

2007-11-11T09:16:00.002-05:00

This week in world news....

2007-11-04T22:26:00.001-05:00

I want to switch over to Wordpress so that I can categorize my posts! Ugh, I hate migration.

Fall Fare

2007-10-26T19:58:00.001-05:00

stuff

2007-10-23T04:50:00.001-05:00

I had a panic attack and wondered if I could still draw girls. Although they are not as fun anymore. Well okay they are still fun if they have like 8 arms and all. Normal girls are getting boring.

Happy Halloween

2007-10-13T21:48:00.002-05:00

etc

2007-10-13T15:30:00.001-05:00

Mane

2007-10-13T02:47:00.001-05:00

Too many things to complete, but I really needed to paint something. India ink, watercolor over blue pencil.

On days where I hate everyone

2007-10-10T02:37:00.001-05:00

To be honest, I don't hate everyone, if only because it would be too exhausting to personally hold a grudge against every single human being out there.

That said, I do somehow find it quite easy to begrudge artists, particularly those of the abstract conceptual sort, and those who are too fashionable to be able to tell their toes from their arse. If you are one of these unlucky creatives, chances are you don't know it, and thus will enthusiastically agree with my distaste. Oh well, life's unfair. Anyway, my thoughts on the subject:

And now, for other nonsense...

Girly

2007-10-09T03:50:00.002-05:00

Playing with custom brushes in Photoshop.

Fishy fishy

2007-10-03T00:07:00.002-05:00

Playing with Photoshop watercolor.

Skate!

2007-09-26T15:52:00.001-05:00

Skate, or rather, Fall, is like, the funniest game of the year.

More sketches

2007-09-25T11:31:00.001-05:00

Various sketchbook pages

2007-09-24T14:09:00.002-05:00

Watercolors

2007-09-19T03:43:00.001-05:00

Messing with inks and watercolors.

Fenn vs The Tentacles

2007-09-19T03:15:00.001-05:00

I love my elf.

21

2007-09-17T23:34:00.002-05:00

For my sister's 21st birthday.

Brushy sketchy

2007-08-24T21:46:00.001-05:00

Perhaps I should switch my sketch blog over to Wordpress like my other blog, Illustrophile...

Xerox

2007-08-13T16:18:00.002-05:00

Can't decide which is more interesting. The above is with edits in Photoshop, mainly color fixing. The lower image is the original Illustrator file, with imported textures of course.

The original sketch is here: http://sygnin.blogspot.com/2007/04/from-sketchbook_23.html

Hell

2007-08-10T01:55:00.001-05:00

Hell is other people. Or trying to get Google ads to show up on your website.

Disco

2007-08-03T03:28:00.001-05:00

Look enough like HedKandi for you? :P

Now someone give me a CD cover job...

Very hot

2007-08-02T23:51:00.001-05:00

MMVII

2007-07-17T10:13:00.001-05:00

Watercolor + india ink + Photshop

Sad Fairy

2007-07-16T14:53:00.001-05:00

For lack of a better title. Ink, watercolor + Photoshop.

Watercolor

2007-07-15T05:19:00.002-05:00

More mischief with watercolor. Norman Rockwell would club me over the head.

Painted this.

Prefer the Photoshop 'edition'.

Base sketch.

Cherry Pie

2007-07-15T02:25:00.001-05:00

Testing out new styles. Illustrator and ink.

Trinity

2007-07-14T05:33:00.001-05:00

Trying out new vector-raster combos. Still not sure where this is heading.

Hail Illapalazzooooooo!!!!

2007-07-13T09:59:00.001-05:00

Makes no sense unless you've seen Excel Saga, in which case, it makes a tiny bit of sense. Did a quick doodle, did colours in Photoshop. Trying to see if I can make my work more organic without it looking amateurish. I quite like the textures but I think they can be quite overpowering, or at least distracting.

Devil lady

2007-07-08T05:10:00.002-05:00

I really should take more breaks in-between painting.

Painter 10 (trial) and Photoshop.

Pool

2007-07-05T03:50:00.001-05:00

2.5 hours of Illustrator and Photoshop fun over an old sketch. I really need to take more breaks in-between.

Lalala

2007-07-05T01:32:00.001-05:00

Mea Culpa. I dunno, it just came to mind. Quite like it though.

Something. Was playing 'Let's pretend we can do a cover for a fantasy RPG sort of thingie...'

Misc

2007-06-25T01:33:00.001-05:00

I have the most boring blog post titles on earth. And my arm is beginning to ache again, even though I haven't been drawing like crazy. Stupid mortal shell.

Edit: Ok, since NOBODY seems to remember the story of the Goose Girl, click here and go read it. (By the by, I actually forgot most of the tale, which is why there's only the geese and the dead horse. I totally forgot about the lock of hair and the stupid other goose boy).

I said I wasn't going to draw Lara but at the end of Tomb Raider: Anniversary, it was just too fun to pass.

Angel

2007-06-20T22:39:00.001-05:00

Tomb Raider Anniversary has made me really lazy, but now that that's done I am back to work and drawing. So we have this angel, and then there's a sketch of a couple of gay guys on my table. This time I do mean for them to appear gay, not like just be mistaken for gay or girlish or whatever. Oh you'll see.

Brush pen

2007-06-13T00:33:00.002-05:00

Playing with a brush pen I bought, it's nice for brushy strokes.

Ultra Butter Woman

2007-06-05T16:42:00.002-05:00

Defender of high cholesterol foods. Champion of churning. Wielder of the mighty Butter Knife of Justice. Justice League reject.

The things you do to avoid real work....

Randomness

2007-05-24T02:20:00.002-05:00

Random sketches...

Fen with some wierd dog things...

Something.

Charlene paints more... and still badly

2007-05-19T02:31:00.002-05:00

Quick paints in Photoshop for the girl. Over a sketch I did on impulse.

Charlene paints... rather badly

2007-05-18T22:20:00.001-05:00

Playing with watercolors. I think the scans look better than the real artwork, so if you think they're rather crappy well, it's not the scanner :s

The weird part about trying something new artistically is that the first time you do something, it always seems quite nice. Probably because there's no frame of reference. Then you do another piece, and another, and by the 10th you're convinced you're the lousiest artist on Earth. Then you keep at it and by the 100th you're comfortable with whatever it is you've been doing, and then someone comes along and tells you how much they like it. And then you feel happy, and then you feel scared that there's some magic formula you've invented that you now have to replicate, and then you go back to thinking you suck.

Orrr..... perhaps that's just me.

Gale

2007-05-03T04:01:00.001-05:00

Kinda-sorta quick paint of Gale from DDS. Straight in Painter, tried doing it the good ol' fashion paint-as-you-go way.

Salve

2007-04-30T01:19:00.001-05:00

It was actually a nice day for the most bit. There was a bit in the evening that got me down; it's just one of those things that leaves a bitter feeling. Anyway, a quick paint to get it off my chest.

Arena

2007-04-27T02:10:00.001-05:00

A few of the new pics I did for Arena Singapore.

Raindrops

2007-04-27T02:04:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure if it's done yet, but I'm not working on this anymore today.

Raindrops

2007-04-25T19:05:00.001-05:00

"Raindrops keep falling... but nobody loves me..."

Girls, bunnies, tentacles

2007-04-25T14:15:00.001-05:00

Wierd, troubling images. I warned you. Click image to view the larger version, and the titles scrawled below.

From the sketchbook

2007-04-23T00:50:00.001-05:00

I draw these in my sketchbook at night while I'm in bed. Which explains why they're rough. And sometimes wierd.

A head. And a girl with a ghost bunny.

Creative uses for Xerox machines...

Random scribbles.

Some sketches. Did a job for Arena, but the stuff that came out was a bit more comical coz I thought it should be considering the article (or what I thought I read of it since the a/d didn't send it to me in its entirety). Was wondering whether I should have done it in my normal stylish-posey thing, but I dunno, it just seemed like it was better served with a bit more humor. Or maybe I'm just selfish with the posh-sluts, I dunno.

Graf**k

2007-04-21T22:23:00.001-05:00

Hey don't look at me, I just make the pictures...

For submission to the Grafuck project, hopefully it gets in.

Final artwork:

Base sketch:

Mmm..Beer...

2007-04-19T22:16:00.002-05:00

Glug glug glug. Original sketch

...

2007-04-18T00:56:00.001-05:00

See, this is why you don't see me drawing guys a lot. Personally I like drawing guys, but generally the public doesn't seem to like the guys I draw...

Bad student. Bad.

Easter Bunny

2007-04-10T02:07:00.001-05:00

Bunny bunny bunny bunny....

Happy Easter

2007-04-07T23:47:00.002-05:00

The Easter Bunny loves you all.

From the sketchbook

2007-04-04T12:40:00.001-05:00

Test scan for the Mustek scanner. I didn't realize it had some color correction tools. Maybe I'll switch them on next time. I don't normally use the degausse function, I find it blurs things. Paper's a bit grainy so I'm not sure if it the scanner or the tooth showing, but I think its the tooth since the lines are not so smooth to begin with.

Stuff I have been drawing before bedtime.

Geisha with teacup.

Some slut goddess.

Hey kids, it's Serph! Serph and Argilla, DDS. I kinda liked the way the scan worked out even if it's not supposed to be that dirty.

I felt like drawing the Endless again. Wayne says Desire is too female. Well some guys have hips...

...

2007-03-29T00:06:00.001-05:00

'Twas a dark and stormy night...

Hiiii-Yahhh!

Kaya is hot. Jack Frost is not. (If you actually know what I'm talking about, you get a cookie. Husband excluded.)

Psylocke sketch. Hey I don't draw for Marvel, so I don't have to be perfect. :P

Twisty

2007-03-18T18:11:00.001-05:00

Twisty done. Sad, artwork being stolen by bad, bad companies. Can't do anything, too poor to fight. On the other hand, I can safely join the time-honored ranks of exploited artists now.

Velma

2007-03-16T17:54:00.001-05:00

Oh Scooby, where art thou...

stuff to cook up

2007-03-15T22:18:00.001-05:00

happy secret project!

lesbos. the island, dammit.

Thinking of doing this for the Grafuck sub.

I just like her.

Illustrator test

2007-03-14T00:56:00.001-05:00

It's abstract, in case you were wondering. Testing functions in Illustrator.

Wired

2007-03-10T12:45:00.001-05:00

'Wired', Illustration Friday. Mostly Painter, color adjustments and vector in Photoshop.

Hide

2007-03-05T02:17:00.001-05:00

Painter with adjustments in Photoshop. Got lazy so Mr. Rat will just have to deal with not being rendered.

...

2007-03-04T21:34:00.002-05:00

...

2007-03-01T02:53:00.001-05:00

Big gal

2007-02-27T22:44:00.001-05:00

Test paint

Hat girl

2007-02-20T23:12:00.001-05:00

Beer

2007-02-16T02:33:00.001-05:00

Oh yeah I like Toronto. Toronto and beer. Seems natural. And gals. But not always hot.

The Bird Lady

2007-01-12T11:52:00.001-05:00

Feed her pigeons.

Grrrr

2006-12-30T12:57:00.001-05:00

Female demons need a hobby too...

Not-so-little mermaid.

Wings 1

2006-12-26T13:52:00.001-05:00

Wingsy

Gown

2006-12-25T06:44:00.001-05:00

Merry Xmas from Fen

2006-12-22T11:13:00.001-05:00

Well not really. But who cares to argue with a guy with a katana?

Wendy the Good Witch

2006-12-20T05:13:00.001-05:00

Casper's best friend. For obvious reasons.

Fairy

2006-12-19T12:22:00.001-05:00

Big wing fairy. Fly fly in sky. Wooshy.

Oops, forgot to post her up earlier. Graphic-y.

Wendy Witch

2006-12-19T11:26:00.001-05:00

Casper's female friend. Plus 15 or so years.

dark angel

2006-12-18T19:09:00.001-05:00

...

2006-12-17T11:22:00.001-05:00

Chun Li - done

2006-12-16T13:58:00.001-05:00

Chun Li

2006-12-16T11:44:00.001-05:00

Because i hate the way everyone draws her with stupidity steroid enhanced thighs.

That and because I hate how everyone draws her the same bloody way.

She also has a really stupid attack.

Sitting

2006-12-15T12:48:00.001-05:00

Quick sketch.

Pencil marks

2006-12-14T13:17:00.001-05:00

Some random Medusa

Fairy!

Scooby & Daphne. Scooby Snax. Nevermind, I didn't say that.

I love my elf

2006-12-07T13:54:00.001-05:00

Sorry, I just do...

Doodly

2006-12-07T06:20:00.001-05:00

Daphne & Velma minus Scooby.

Velma in a more appealing sketch.

A viera. FF12. Bunny girls rock.

Smurfy

2006-12-02T08:53:00.001-05:00

Smurfalicious. Or something.

sketchy wetchy

2006-12-01T13:22:00.001-05:00

Finally got some time to draw something of my own. I wonder if I begin to suck more when I draw more sometimes, because I have to draw faster and neglect errors to get stuff done, and then I wonder if the habit carries over into the things I do care about.
Yeah I like drawing girls in this position. I never seem to get tired of it.

Gift wrapped or something.

Was wondering what Smurfette would look like if I drew her in the way I draw girls. Then I checked google and discovered a whole bunch of people asked themselves the same question...

Asha

2006-11-18T15:42:00.001-05:00

Trying to do fashion-y illustration that looks kinda retro.

Joe

2006-11-17T12:19:00.001-05:00

Just a quick doodle for fun, in Painter.

Sketchy

2006-11-14T06:30:00.001-05:00

I call her Wings.

Bunny trailer trash.

Stuf

2006-11-11T14:20:00.001-05:00

Geisha

2006-11-08T10:13:00.001-05:00

Went to Krabi. Then back to work. Then Final Fantasy 12. Time = 0.

Fangirl from Hell

2006-10-13T21:04:00.001-05:00

For Illustration Friday's 'Smitten' theme.

The first idea was to do a girl who was in love with a rockstar. Then my husband kept on playing his Guitar Hero 2 demo, so I kinda decided to turn the guy into the rocker that comes with the game. Then I thought it would be kinda funny if the girl was a devil, since you know they say metal rock is satanic and whatnot. Then I thought the title would be kinda neat. So here you have it.

Hand inked, line colored in Photoshop, paints in Painter.

The day I drew a town...

2006-10-12T17:21:00.001-05:00

Some time ago, I was contacted by the nice people at Robina Land Corporation to do an illustration for their new office, and a billboard somewhere in town. The illustration was to be of an imaginary cityscape, promoting the town, Robina, as a futuristic, high-tech but fun place.

Altogether, there were over 30 real and imaginary buildings, and over 60 additional elements (more actually, since a groupd of people was considered 1 element). The smaller image, at full size, was supposed to be 5mx2m. The billboard was 10mx4m.

I had done artwork for large format reproductions before, but they were not as big or complicated. From start to finish, the project took me about a month to complete. It was fun, very tiring, and I thought I'd share how I put the proejct together, in case anyone was interested.

So here goes:

Step 1: Concept

After receiving the brief, I mulled over the concept and played with some very rough layouts in my head. It was quite boggling to try and envision everything, so I simplified things to the bare minimum. My first take was that there was no way I could fit everything onto one plane, and I didn't want to deal with too many perspective issues later. So I suggested tiering the illustration, relying on varying depths to get everything into place.

Step 2: Initial sketch

Conceptualizing the layout was easy; getting it into a workable sketch was another matter. I toyed with the idea of drawing the whole thing straight into the computer in Painter, but the file was too large even at 72dpi to work quickly. So it quickly went back to good ol' paper.

I decided to do the sketch at 1/10 of the main image size (50x20cm). In retrospect, I could've done with a bigger ratio, but I didn't trust my math enough to go with a wierd number.

I drew in all the buildings first. For the exisiting ones, I referenced photos of the buildings. For the imaginary ones, I cooked them up with what basic architectural knowledge I had on hand, pus various other funky building references. When I sent the first sketch over to the client, I labelled the buildings to let them know which ones were which.

Step 3: Sketch refinement

The client liked the sketch in general, but there were some changes. We went through a couple of rounds of changes, which went by slower than I expected because I had to redraw things relatively carefully because of the scale. The changed items were draw on a seperate sheet of paper or tracing paper, and I recomposited the image in Photoshop.

Step 4: Elements

Once the buildings were approved, I got to work on the elements. There were a lot of them, and again it was hard to fit them in. What's more I realised that there was no way I could draw the elements on top of the scaled building sketch - they'd be the size of rice grains.

I contemplated blowing up the building sketch, but I found that in order to comfortably draw the elements, I would have to enlarge the building sketch a lot, making it very cumbersome to work with.

In the end I just decided to draw all the elements on seperate sheets of paper. I scanned these in individually and resized and placed them on top of the buildings.

It wasn't the most accurate solution, but fortunately it worked out in the end.

Step 5: Vectoring

I knew from the start that with the way I work, Illustrator would not be able to handle all the elements in one working file. I make use of a lot of gradients, lighting effects and clipping masks, and when you have literally hundreds of these in one file, the system just can't keep up.

So I divided the artwork into different parts. There were 8 different files just for the buildings, and another 6 files for the elements. In addition, I also created about 30 files for traced logos that I needed to use on the buildings.

Step 6: Making a MAMMOTH file

This worried me till the very end. I wasn't sure if the computer was up to the task of rendering such a large file. After several tests, I decided to create one master Illustrator file which had all the artwork in it, on different layers. I exported these layers one by one as hi-res EPS files.

I created a new Illustrator document and re-composited the image again, this time by importing the hi-res EPS files. This file I saved as an EPS as well, including the linked EPS files. The size of the final EPS file is something like 300mb.

However, I've always been kinda distrustful of linked EPS files, so I decided to create a hi-res TIFF of the file. In Photoshop I created a 1:2 scale file at 300dpi and placed all the hi-res EPS files. And waited and prayed that the computer would not hang.

Thankfully the investment in a new comp paid off and the file did eventually render out. The hi-res CMYK TIFF version of the file weighs in at a hefy 1G.

All in all, I supplied a CMYK EPS, a CMYK TIFF and an RGB TIFF file for both the wall mural and the billboard.

And there you have it, in a nutshell. The day I drew the town.

(Thanks to the kind folks at Robina Land Corporation for letting me talk about their project. )

Scary dream

2006-10-11T18:17:00.001-05:00

I had a dream last night and I just wanted to get the jist of it down. Bad artwork I know, too tired to do something nice.

I don't know what the dream was about exactly, all I do remember was at some point I was with a large group of people and we looked up at the sky and the sun turned red or black or red-black. It had these black dots in it and the sky turned dark. I know I was near a church that I used to go to when I was a kid. I was trying really hard to hail a cab and I got one and I made my mum get in it and told it to go to my grandma's house. For whatever reason I decided to walk. Except I couldn't really walk, the ground was slippery or something, and I had to grab on to stuff and pull myself along. It's the oddest feeling, as though the world were suddenly vertical instead of horizontal, and you had to cimb to get anywhere. Needless to say it was slow going, what with the additional rain and wind and black sky, red sun and people rushing about trying to get to church or something.

That's all I remember from it. I don't like dreaming of black suns... I sometimes do, but those dreams are never pleasent.