Merry Christmas

Shampoo and Cigarettes

Not exactly a Christmas song, but hey shut up and listen to it.

Collateral

Sharing some of the panels that didn't make the final cut for one reason or another. Most of these pictures won't ever see the light of day, which is kind of a shame so here they are. Enjoy.

Perspective

Beh.
Client with shitty taste likes your work, should you be happy?
Happy Thanksgiving you yankees.

Dear Beloved Stranger

Latest chapter *almost* done. Lots of fine-tuning lately, rephrasing sentences, moving panels around, taking out panels, adding panels, and constantly trying to re-read it pretending I've never read it before. I feel like a tube of toothpaste down to its last drops trying to squeeze this shit out of my ass.

Much needed change of pace

I went out for an afternoon of reportage at the park drawing sk8er bois. It was a much needed change of pace, and now the balance is somewhat restored between the two sides of my brain again.

"Plastic Dynamism" portrait series

After a fruitful study trip to Florida in August, I made a series of illustrations when I got back in the studio to sum up and remind myself of what I learned.
The result is a series of portraits with emphases on capturing the motion and body language of their subjects rather than physical likeness. We all carry ourselves with our own unique ways in our everyday lives, and the way we carry ourselves reflects our personalities perhaps as much as our physical appearances do, if not more. This series of illustrations are based on my observations on that of the subjects - their movement, their pacing / timing, their dynamic, and how their personalities are reflected through these characteristics. The portraits are displayed in the same order I completed them in - Lars Ulrich (drummer / Metallica), Maria Sharapova, Robert De Niro (as Travis Bickles), and Kobe Bryant. Lastly, a brief explanation of the term "Plastic Dynamism" from my main man Boccioni.


"Plastic dynamism is the simultaneous action of the motion characteristic of an object (its absolute motion), mixed with the transformation which the object undergoes in relation to its mobile and immobile environment (its relative motion)."
-Umberto Boccioni

Song and video

Dear Beloved Stranger update

After a lot of drawing, writing, rewriting, and redrawing, I have finalized the first 60 pages of my comic book "Dear Beloved Stranger" and scripted the rest of the book. It has been a painfully long process, but considering that I was a novice in the field of writing when I began this project and how much I've grown (and enjoyed working) in that area, I guess it makes a little bit more sense that it took me so long just to get this far.
Below is a link to the first 60 pages of my blood, sweat, and tears. I do hope you find it enjoyable. Feedback welcomed.

http://dinomight.net/dear_beloved_stranger/01.html

Figure Drawing

Been going to a studio on Main Street for some figure drawing sessions to get ready for Florida. Poses are 30 seconds to 5 minutes long.

May

Lots of stuff happened in May. I had a flu early in the month so I slept and read. Fortunately it wasn't the H1N1. I spilled wine on my laptop and lost a bunch of my valued files, including a lot of writings for my comic book, which, at that point, was almost ready to be presented, and spent the rest of the month rewriting the materials. While my computer was down a potential client contacted me for a potential gig. It didn't fall through in the ended but kept me busy while I was still under the weather. In mid-May I caught a Diana Krall gig. She was elegant, beautiful, sexy, smooth, and nothing short of spectacular. I would write more about her but words probably won't do her justice. I had made plans a couple of days after the Krall show to drive with my buddy Philip down to Seattle to see my favorite musician Utada Hikaru, but she was sick, just like I was, and had to cancel/postpone her appearance. I started growing a goatee again. I wrote a new song. The Los Angelas Lakers are back in the NBA Finals after defeating the Denver Nuggets in an entertaining series. I made up for the files I lost on my comic book and my agent is on the verge of approaching publishers. Attached are some Sky Train drawings I did during May of random riders. Oh, and it's been decided that I'm going to Florida this summer. Hells yeah.

It's that season again!

It's basketball season! Michigan St. is going to play UNC for the NCAA championship tonight and the NBA playoff is just a couple of weeks away. Here are some preliminary studies and sketches for a storyboard that I'm working on and might possibly turn into a short animation. It's a scene of basketball actions juxtaposed to classical ballet music to point out the beauty and elegance of basketball players and the discipline they apply to themselves to be good at what they do, as well as to stretch the definition of dance that many people might possess.

Here's an image I found interesting. This is a page of choreographical notes for Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. It's got a very nice energy to it because there are drawings made in order to figure something out, but what I found especially intriguing is that the arrows and circles look so much like the x's and o's drawn by a basketball coach, matching exactly with the central idea of this project.

This is a great project to work on on the side because it's about every fundamental aspect of an illustrator's practice - drawing people, drawing hands and feet, drawing body language, movement / motion, dimension, graphics (styles), research, and communication. I'm beginning to look into William Kentridge and his animation. Also, I want to push the graphics a little more in the next round of sketches and thumbnails.

The Black Album

Had a good day in the studio yesterday as I was able to work on my comics and took some time to work on a couple of side projects during the breaks. Here are a couple of selected drawings I made for Metallica's The Black Album while I listened to it.

What I love so much about Metallica and heavy metal music from that time period is that these artists are so musically savvy and have extremely solid fundamentals and backgrounds in classical music, their techniques are impeccable, and all the while sounding so heavy and with so much attitude. What they do with rhythm, structure, and dynamics remind me a lot of Jackson Pollock's paintings, so you'll find it evident in the first drawing.

Lots of room to explore further with this project, so sleep with one eye open and watch out for more to come.

album artwork

Spent most of the day listening to Norah Jones and working on this album cover art for my friend. Not so satisfied with the way the face turned out 'cause I know I can make a prettier girl out of her, and probably could've used better execution especially with the headphone, but oh well I don't feel like redrawing it. Even though I didn't get paid, this turned out to be a fun thing to have worked on. It got me thinking about drawing figuratively vs. abstractly, about translating music into graphics, and about branding - representing somebody else's personality. For this particular project I only needed to do the front and back cover, but making artwork for a musician could involve a whole campaign - websites, posters, the artwork in the booklet that comes with the CD, and even the artist's appearance. After working on these two pieces it occurred to me that it would be a great idea to re-design campaigns for some of my favorite albums in my own way and with my own interpretation of the music. I'd get a chance to improve and show off my understanding and appreciation for music, too.

Drawing in Gastown listening to Bob Dylan on St. Pat's Day

I've been pressing hard lately in my studio trying to make progress writing-wise with my comic book project to a point I was barely writing at all. I just sat in front of my desk staring at a blank piece of paper or a blank Word file until I get distracted by something lame like FaceBook eventually (I'm sure lots of people can relate). In the end I managed to squeeze out the last bit of substance I had left in me to finish this round of writing, but I took today off and went to downtown Vancouver for a relaxed afternoon of drawing and visiting the Vancouver Art Gallery to freshen things up and I'm glad I did. It's way past high time for me to do this!

I picked Gastown as my location today, it's the oldest part of Vancouver, named after a dude they used to call "Gassy Jack". Gassy Jack used to run a steamship but his greatest contribution to Vancouver was opening the first bar here EVER! (Kudos to him, and what can be a better day to talk about him than St. Patty's Day?) They have a statue and everything for this guy, but what's fascinating to me about old Gassy is all the wackiness in his vibe from his nickname to the lipsticks someone put on his statue.

I also went and drew the steam clock - Gastown's most famous sight. The clock itself is pretty fun to draw, but what's also fun is that every fifteen minutes it whistles and draws a few tourists next to it, of which I've made a couple of drawings today.

I chose to listen to some Bob Dylan tunes on my iPod while I was drawing, they just match well with the energy of the area. "The Times They Are a-Changing" is still ringing in my ears. Now let's see if I can follow through and make some storyboards out of this trip today.

What a good day it has been. I feel so refreshed and just know that tomorrow is going to be a great day going back to work on my comic book with a fresh eye. I really ought to do this more often!

This Winter

As the weather starts to warm up the dreaded winter has finally started to go the hell away. It's been a relatively cold winter here in Vancouver (and pretty much everywhere in the world), with lots of damn snow piled up in front of your drive way and falling on you when you're drawing on location. Where the hell's global warming when you need it?

I had done quite a bit of traveling this winter. Two trips, and both times to a familiar place. In December I was able to see some old friends in New York, where I went to college. None of my friends wanted to go see the ball drop with me in Times Square on New Year's Eve so I went there by myself. It was as cold and as crowded as everyone said it would be, but I stuck with it and stayed in below zero degrees Fahrenheit for five hours and saw the damn thing drop. The ball-dropping was totally disappointing, yes, but I followed through with something I set myself out to do, which leads to my 2009 resolution. In 2009, I am going to follow through and finish what I started in 2008 - namely my comic book "Dear Letters".

In late January and late February I was back in Taiwan where I grew up, and back there for Chinese New Year for the first time in ten years. I was glad to spend some time with my family, especially since it's been a while since our family got together. It was a very comforting feeling.

I had done some drawings on location this winter, but they were pretty much all for my comic book. These drawings are mostly executional, meaning that I have a pretty good idea of what I want to get before I started the drawing, as opposed to going out playing and experimenting and figuring things out along the way. I need to get out and do some of those, especially now that the weather is getting better!

Images from the winter coming soon.

Biggest Mofo EVER

I was browsing the New School website (for what?) when I saw this dude in this bizarre video (that somehow turned into an ad for Apple. Wtf? You can find it at the school's homepage if you're curious)  and I just feel compelled to tell you this story.

One day, when I was still a senior at Parsons (thankful now those days are a-over), I was riding the good old elevator down to the fourth floor. The school elevator is small, slow, and always crowded at the beginning and end of classes. So the dude in the picture comes in with a group of five or six obnoxious people, talking loudly as if nobody's around.

By the time we got down to the fourth floor and the elevator door opened I was at the very end of the elevator and this dude was standing in the very front right next to the elevator door. I said 'excuse me' so he would step out for a second to make way for me to go through but it seemed like he didn't hear me. That's okay, I said it again a little bit louder, and he still didn't hear me, maybe it was just because the other people were talking too loudly. 'COMING THROUGH', I shouted, worried that the door was going to close pretty soon, and this time I'm sure he heard me because the muthafucka turned his head, looked at me, turned his head back, and resumed the conversation that he was having. The elevator door closed and I missed my damn stop. It didn't seem like he had much problem hearing the f-bombs I dropped him afterwards since he tried to give me a lecture on how to be less RUDE.

Later on I found out he is actually a teacher at Parsons. Unbelievable. Seriously.

In memory of my yellow nib holder...

Please enjoy this little experimental three page comic, starring my yellow nib holder and drawn with my yellow nib holder. I drew it maybe about a year and a half ago. It's very Freudian, as I was trying to say something about art and sex but I couldn't remember what exactly. Nonetheless I find it still interesting to look at and I hope you do too.

Worst day of 2009 (so far) - goodbye yellow nib holder

Before I get whiney, Happy New Year to everybody who's reading this blog (how many of you are out there? Three?). I hope you've had a great holiday, I sure am as I'm spending mine back in the big apple.

I was spending my day in the Rockefeller Center making drawings for the comic book I'm currently working on. The Rockefeller Center has a lot of cultural significances and is loaded with art and information, which make it a great place to draw. I've already been drawing for a while and my fingertips were starting to freeze and that's when I dropped my yellow nib holder and it fell into the sewer...

For those of you who don't know, a nib holder is a stick, most of the time made of plastic, which... well, holds nibs. This way you can change the nibs of your pen when they get worn out or change different types of nibs that make different types of marks.

This yellow nib holder has been with me for a very long time, so long that I can't even remember how long I've had it. It holds nibs that are slightly differently sized than the one's you'll find in North American art stores. My favorites nibs are the Maru-pen and the G-pen, which are commonly used amongst Japanese manga artists, especially the G-pen, which is capable of making a wide range of marks like a musical instrument that has a wide range or high and low notes and a variety of tones.

Rest in peace, my beloved nib holder. I guess at least I'll have a whole lot of drawings that we made together to remember you by.