Study of Value and Chiaroscuro

Master Copy of Seraut: This is a class assignment we did recently to study value and chiaroscuro through Seraut's illustration. The medium used was charcoal on white bristol paper 18 by 24. We've been using charcoal in classes for around 2-3 weeks and its still a relatively unfamiliar tool for us. In this particular assignment, the toughest part was getting those charcoal to stay on the paper. (which they obviously didn't because we use cheap paper -__-) It is really a pain to work in this medium because with our sweaty palm, the charcoal get stained pretty easily. Working on the drawing for 2 hours, the paper gave way. It came to a point where the surface won't hold whatever we try to draw and smudge.

What we've learn: We've been drawing for a long while now and have always been working on two things primarily: line work and proportions. Since the start of 2010, we were sketching everywhere from Starbucks coffee, train stations and Dr Sketchy sessions. Because of the nature of sketching "live", ( "live" because they are not just real people but humans on the move) we were forced to add a lot of information base on our understanding on human forms. Going beyond that to Value has always been our dream. Because we believe you can draw something out of proportion, but if you get the value accurate the illustration or sketch will still have energy and strength within. To attain that level of skill is the hardest in drawing. Value is also the foundation for color theory and if an artist can master this craft, he'll be able to give form and the illusion of depth to a drawing.

The problem with most artists is we draw blindly trying to render shadows and light with absolute precision in different parts of our drawings while giving up the overall look and composition. In our upcoming assignment, we have to draw landscape with value and chiaroscuro. This problem and bad habit amplified immediately in most of us; we couldn't render convincingly what we see. An example can be said of a white matte painted house that has a mild maroon rooftop. If you were to draw on the side of the building that is covered with shadow, can you accurately tell if the white surface of the house (which has turned grey due to shadow) is darker than the clear rooftop? Which would be darker? What about that tree beside the house? Is the green on the tree darker than the white or even the rooftop? Such is the flaw in most of us who refuse to think before we draw; trying to determine which part of the composition is darker in value and where is the lightest first. It is pointless to copy and render a piece of beautiful art if we're unable to understand, observe and pick out what is important to draw. That itself is the essence of drawing and the hardest to achieve in our opinion.

Share on Tumblr

San Diego Comic Con 2011

The end of the year is coming. For most of us, it means getting prepared for the December holidays. But for some of us, it means we have less than a year to prepare portfolio for conventions like San Diego Comic Con. For San Diego Comic Con 2011, the registration for 4-day pass will start selling on November 1st 2010. The thing is, preview night is sold out this time. We have no idea why and how it had turn out these way, (this year comic con sold out all the preview night tickets...which is a little unfair I mean... the rest of the public don't even get a single chance) but we'll probably be going. That means if we're essentially taking summer classes we'll need to cope disappearing for 4 days and also turning up homework on the following week. Anyway, looking at how SDCC is getting bigger and bigger, we suggest you grab the tickets before it sells out on Nov 1st. More information an be found here:

http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_reg.php

Share on Tumblr

24 Hour Comic Challenge

Here's our challenge for Scott McCloud's 24 Hour Comic Day on Oct 2nd 10am to Oct 3rd 10am held at Norris Hall Savannah College of Art and Design. We didn't know it was this tough and here's some after thoughts from the event. You can read the comic here and we're writing what our story is about because we've got feedbacks of confusion regarding the last part of the story and if you did get what we're trying to tell you we're glad, if not, its really our fault for not doing this better HaHa!!

A little History about the event: the 24 Hour Comic Day started as a challenge from the famous comic artist Scott McCloud who dares his friend to create a 24 page comic within 24 hours after seeing how fast his friend drew. Thats one page per hour trying to tell a complete story from scratch and you're only allowed reference materials. They both make it to the one day challenge at home and were completely surprise by the possibilities of their success; the fact that it is DOABLE to make 24 pages out of 24 hours.

We did this challenge with other students in the school's hall and a professor was so kind to lend us his wacom pen because ours didn't work in the school's cintiq!! ( He didn't even know us OMG... we really need to thank him!!!) Another student whom we knew is Corey who's in our drawing class and we manage to finish it almost exactly at 10am Oct 3rd. We did this from scratch !! ( some students didn't, they came with pre-rendered images) And this exercise is really intense and tiring. ( it gets very tough at the 20th hour when one needs to keep awake while doing work) During the process a lot of others gave up while the remaining crazy freaks like us held on encouraging each other. Of course the school's free donuts, pizzas, drinks and coffee kept us all night long!! Really have to thank the professors who took shifts to come in and look after us bringing all this food!!!!!!!!

The Process: We challenge to ourselves to create a comic that tells good storytelling together with compelling visuals. We decided to take the challenge on using textless words (again) to see how well we can do it under 24 hours. Skipping a lot of process to prepare for the finish piece including character design and thumbnails, we went straight ahead sketching the story and figuring how to can keep the rhythm, pace and flow well. We eventually clean it on Wacom Cintiq 21 UX using photoshop.

The Story, "I Love Art": This story is about an artist who doesn't give a shit about young budding artists and focus more on fame though he feels he is passionate about art. An accident happened and he broke his arm. During his stay in the hospital he is visited by this young boy who wish the artist would review his work. During the examination of his arm the doctor told the artist that his arm is dead (page 16) and the only option left is to cut another arm and attach it to his. (page 17) The boy then appears and says his willing to do it. (page 18) The artist have flashbacks of all the things the young boy did and he doesn't understand it; why does such a passionate boy who never gave up on something he likes is willing to give up his arm? And give it up on him who has rejected the boy over and over again. Then he remembers what the boy say "I love art". ( page 20) Knowing how good the artist is, this boy is willing to sacrifice his arm for the greater good even to the point of giving away what he loves for a bigger cause. The artist didn't go through the operation and finally emerge as the best artist of the year on the following year. And this time round he really did what he did because he love art with the inspiration of the boy. A lot of the things we've explained is not in the comic and we're leaving it to the audience to really catch, feel and interpret what they see. We recognize there's definitely means and ways to make it better (for one, using text and dialog instead of symbols) but we took the challenge trying to tell a story without a "real" dialog. Whether we did it successfully or not doesn't matter, its a learning process. We'll edit this piece later but currently, we're really happy how it turn out within 24 hours. Hopefully you enjoy what we created and do think through about what you're doing in life everyday or at least for the next 24 hours because we really can achieve a lot of things if we decide to commit ourselves.

Share on Tumblr

What is Creativity and Originality?

Have you been ask that question numerous times or hear that question being asked numerous times? Or maybe you have heard someone made that statement on many occasions on someone else's work. And then just maybe, some of you out there have receive that recognition by others. Many of us has been seeking that divine power and talent that we feel will cut us out as one step ahead of the pack.

Creativity and originality has many forms and interpretation. To many of us, both of these term tends to link together because if you're creative, you tend to create something that is original and same goes the other way round. But is there really such a thing call original in this world? What then is creative? The more important issue at hand is, how do we become creative or original? And is that pursuit really that important? Many times have we seen artists or even students go about with this phrase,"Oh I'm not going to try this because it has been done before." Then the particular artists or student goes around asking everyone else how to make his work look "different" or "unique"? What seems interesting to us is that it seems like a drug fest to constantly seek individuality out of one's work just for the sake of doing it because... just because it seems "cool" to be different. To us, the closest creative or origin form of expression in this world is probably "Abstract Fine Art"; that weird looking painting or crazy sculpture shape. But even for that, it is not original, because somewhere in that art piece I see familiar colors, recognizable shapes, things that we have definitely seen before. Is there really original and creative work in this world? Probably creative works, but originality? We don't think so.

The next time we have that hunch or feeling that we saw something original, just try asking ourselves if any part of the work is recognizable? Our interpretation of the term creative and original work is actually not literally original in its sense. It is a work that is being "re-organize" and "re-represented" in a new way that is seldom seen. That re-organization and re-imaging of the old is what will create the new just like how cars evolve from carriages that was inspired by wooden-carts. Never neglect the power of something that is already present for it is that, that will help you develop into something that hasn't been there.

Share on Tumblr

Hello & Welcome

Thank you for taking your time stopping by here. This blog is yet one of our many creative attempt to address our views and thoughts towards art. We found it very important to document everything right now during this particular moment of our lives as we're learning the art of Story Creation. Currently as students, we feel the tremendous need to question and create. As we try to observe, understand and investigate Earth daily, we seek to find that "special" formula which will work for us in creating our work, in perfecting our story creation skills.

With our peculiar taste and philosophy, we believe that there is no bad or rotten story in this world. There is only poor articulation, representation or understanding of a story because we believe its not what you say that matters, its always how you say it. The end product doesn't necessarily leads to a wonderful message or beautiful high-end visual effects. It might just be that meaningless but compelling experience you get out of the film or book. Follow us on our journey and quest as we share what we feels necessary important in developing that wisdom and hopefully in time to come, share our wonderful work in this space.

Viola, here's the new start to our era in art, Sequential Art.

Share on Tumblr