Saturday, 23 January 2010

Come on over to WORDPRESS!!

Hey Guys! I've moved blog...



Check it out! I've finished the portrait of David Tennant/The Tenth Doctor.

I will be also posting my updates there from now on. Sorry to drag you guys with me... but I think Wordpress has heaps more features. And I'm hoping to integrate it into my website as soon as I figure out how to do that...

Meet you on the other side! =D

Wednesday, 30 December 2009

Squee! Finally broke into Darker Projects! >__<

I'm so happy right now, I could randomly blog!!! So I am.

This year, I've been a bit more active (and open) about doing voice acting as a hobby. In fact, I've been so active, I actually got a gig doing voice over for a TV commercial advert back in September! It was soooo fun to do, I'm seriously considering going professional. But slowly... steadily. And drawing will always come first.

Anyway, that's not the big news (although it's probably bigger news than what I'm about to announce... I don't think anyone out there would really care about this news but whatever.) So... I've been cast in a Darker Projects production! (Big whoop! 8D) haha... well, it's a production house I've been itching to break into ever since I listened to The Falcon Banner. I've been cast in their upcoming Doctor Who episodes (starring David Ault and M Sieiro Garcia) as not one, but two roles! One of the roles being the one I wanted the most! (When I was recording my auditions I imagined it was kind of like playing River Tam from Firefly.) XD So... should be fun!

Hahaha this will be my 4th and 5th Doctor Who roles. Here are the first two. The third role is still in production.

(Giant Gnome Productions) I play Margarete

(Brokensea Productions) I play Cally

Lego Kid!

I went to the Olafur Elaisson exhibition today at the MCA. It was definitely one of the more memorable exhibitions I've been to in a long time! His ideas are so simple yet so very profound... and I just loved the way I could interact with his works of art.

'Room for one colour' (1997) was the first work my friends and I saw – and as far as I'm concerned, the most memorable for me. It was just so unusual walking into a room and turning analogous (light being orange, shadows/darks being purple). My friends and I amused ourselves looking into each other's purple mouths. It was probably one of the strangest visual sensations I've felt in my life.

Anyway, not to ramble on too much, there were quite a few things I liked in there... I just wish there was more to it.

One of the other works that was memorable was 'The cubic structural evolution project' (2004) which was essentially... a mountain of white lego on a table where visitors can make their own lego piece. A lot of gorgeous lego pieces were displayed against the walls of the room... pieces that must have taken people hours (and years of practice.) Now, there's no photography allowed in the exhibition so unfortunately I don't have any documentation of what my friends came up with (I destroyed my lego attempt because I thought it was ugly). So here's a random drawing I did... as crap as I am at building lego, it brought out my inner child.


Tuesday, 29 December 2009

It's the doctor! =D (WIP)

So I decided to do The (10th) Doctor... well, the Christmas Specials came out recently (haven't seen them yet) so I thought it was a good occasion to do this.

Work in Progress... to be completed. And ARGH I can hear birds chirping outside... I knew I should go to bed but I couldn't stop painting.


This is actually my second attempt. My first attempt was with the grid method and... that didn't work out (I got bored and it looked like crap. XD) So I tried again by eye and I think this is closer...

I just know I'm going to cry when I watch the specials...T^T

Avatar ... I have mixed feelings. (Spoiler Alert)

I watched Avatar (3D) today – finally after everyone else around me has been raving about it. I tried my best not to get my expectations up too much before the film. As everyone said, it was spectacular. Visually beautiful and I love the ideas with all the creatures in the forest and the tiny little details that went into everything. It is definitely something everyone needs to see... BUT...

It's just a little heart breaking to see such a visually rich and beautiful film be let down by it's core - the story.

I walked into the cinema knowing I'd be incredibly skeptical about the story (thank you Cynthia Whitcomb, I will consequently henceforth always judge a movie by it's screenplay... haha). It's like Avatar had all the right ingredients for the perfect film – just the wrong flavours were accentuated.

OK, let's do away with the metaphors...

I thought the story would have been better if Grace was the main character. She understood the Na'vi the most and was the one who originally sought out for a way for both humans and Na'vi to live peacefully together. It's like she was the history of the human invasion of Pandora - a whole other tale that we could only build from a little detective work – the book she wrote about creating Avatars, the photos she had on her fridge of the Na'vi missionary school she must have worked with a long time ago... etc. So what I don't get is why some jarhead got most of the screen time and she got, what, 20 minutes? I felt like her story was more important but it was practically buried.

Cynthia Whitcomb has a whole chapter in her book Writing Your Screenplay about character evolution. (I highly recommend anyone interested in understanding stories to read this book). She talks about character transformations between five stages of being: 1. for yourself, 2. for your partner, 3. for your family, 4. for your community, 5. for humanity and how rare "complete transformations" (characters evolving from level one to five) are but how much we love to tell (and retell) these stories. (For example, Dickens' A Christmas Carol or Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life.) Grace went through all these stages. She started off caring only for her scientific mission (level one) but soon opens up and accepts Jake as part of her team (level three - okay, she skips two). We learn later through the photos Jake sees on the fridge that she once worked with the Na'vi in their villages and (somehow... I must have missed it) joined Jake and became a part of the Na'vi community (level four). Then she dies for her belief in finding a more peaceful resolution between the two races (level five). I thought to myself, "is that it?" Surely, she deserved more than that? Sure Jake had it all too, but it was Grace's passion that drove her. Jake was just doing his job (then doing it for the chick.) And Grace made the ultimate sacrifice... Jake falls a little short on that. He gets to live in a brand spanking new blue body.

The film would have worked just as well if Jake and Grace's character were meshed together. So Jake, instead of being an ex-soldier was a scientist who had studied and tried to understand the Na'vi all his life. Then his twin brother dies... so he takes his place. Then he almost dies because he runs out of air... but the Na'vi save him by moving him into his Avatar body. Ta da! (one less character to model/rig/texture/motion capture and actor to pay.)

In terms of conclusions, I liked the ending of District 9 better. Wikus chose to hang on to the hope of one day becoming human again but at the same time, fought for the weak. Whereas Jake practically discards his humanity in the end and the rest of the humans are sent home, tails tucked. Essentially there's no hope for human beings to ever evolve beyond the primal instinct of invade and conquer. So we have to become something other than human to be good? Jake (the human protagonist – and therefore our main human representative) had a choice and he chose to be one of them. I guess perhaps it's a lot of gamer's dreams - to become their avatar which is "hotter than reality by far." Well, I guess Jake will be able to move around better in his new body... not to mention breathe the air. We humans suck.

Oh well. Who cares, right? It's an epic and gorgeous film.

On the plus side, I'm looking forward to seeing how this will affect the film industry. Crossing my fingers that this means more jobs for creative types.

Saturday, 26 December 2009

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do

Ok... wrong movie. XD

Nathan Fillion - Malcom Reynolds from Firefly/Serenity. (AKA Captain Hammer in Dr Horrible's Sing Along Blog).

I know... it STILL doesn't look like him. Blah, I'm really bad at this. =_=;;

I will try the grid method for my next one. Which I am going to start right now! 8D

Question is... should I do Jessica from True Blood... or The 10th Doctor first.... hmmmmm... ^^;

guh... T-T

This one's more detailed... and is taking a while... but dammit doesn't look like him. If someone guesses who this is, you'll make me a happy person.

But I plan to work it more with fresh eyes. This is a work-in-progress. Guh.



Looking at the Codex painting in my previous post.. ugh... I could have done so much better. >.> I rushed it way too much... being too impatient to move on. My WIP was heaps better. I might do another one later because Felicia Day rules. But still got lots more people I want to paint first!

Monday, 21 December 2009

Final Codex... and the rest of the ballerinas

I proclaim this finished because I want to move on.. even though I don't think it looks like Felicia Day. >.> Guh.. I really need to learn how to draw portraits properly.


Didn't get the book illustration job. But I don't feel bad about it, I just feel like it's not meant for me and I got something bigger coming. Anyway, here's the other ballerinas. Unfortunately I did something silly and accidentally cropped one of my PSD files while the layer with ballerina #4 was invisible... so I had only her right leg and a bit of her arm left. ^^;;;; But lucky it was only a sketch.


Anyway, this means I got a couple more illustrations in my portfolio and I can go back to concentrating on my goal: aim for more realistic-style paintings, get better at life drawing so I can get a gig on a feature film! >8D Fight on!

Saturday, 19 December 2009

Codex preview

Argh... I couldn't wait until I finished this. So I'm posting a WIP. Here's my next subject... hopefully will finish this early next week and move on to a Firefly character. =) (Aren't I such a Joss Whedon show nerd?)


I still think it doesn't look like Felicia Day... so this might take a bit of tinkering.

Thursday, 17 December 2009

Moar Ballerinas...

Well, just one.

Another reject. Well... this wasn't rejected by the clients - I don't think I'll send it to them. I thought it was too anime-ish for the style they were looking for, compared to the other two I managed to do today. So I coloured it in my lazy-colouring rushed style and posted it here. =3