Asia Comic Studio Contest

This comic was created during June 2010 for Asian's Comic Studio Competition. We submitted this in the "Future Short" Category. The theme was "Adventure" and thus we selected a short adventure base on the trial software "Comic Studio 4.0 EX" which we use to create our work. (Using the software was a requirement) We were lucky enough to win the 3rd prize of this contest competing against regional artists from Malaysia, Thailand, Philippine, Indonesia and of course Singapore. We happen to chance and read it again after organizing our portfolio as school's mid-term came to an end. It reminded us how badly we wanted to do story creation and all the things we went through to get ourselves here in Savannah.

Planning ahead: We're currently planning two short comics to be completed for competition and portfolio sake. There's also a picture book that we've started painting. Though our schedules are packed with homework due back to back, we're still avidly drawing comics. We have also been selected to showcase our illustrations in two separate exhibitions at the end of the year and we're planning for a few series of illustrations hoping for more gallery shows ahead. Do drop us a note if you know of any call for entries. (^__^)

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3D Study: Lines, Planes, Mass & Volume

Studying of Lines, Planes, Mass & Volume in 3D Design: Our latest journey in the study of 3D Design got some good grades and result that we're pretty satisfied with. (19.5 out of 20) For this project, the requirement is to create a piece of work that includes the four mentioned properties. Of course to meet the basic requirements, we just need to put together a long strain of wire, a hollow cylinder and a square block and the 3 items would contain those four elements. That would just give us a barely D grade. This project is to test a student's understanding and ability to create a unified work that contains all these elements while making it exciting.

Our Thought Process and Approach: During the research phase of our work, we were both inspired by traditional Japanese Paper Lanterns. Through developing the design, we wanted to take some of the elements beyond conventional interpretation; such as that of volume seen in our final product which is actually created in the negative space contained by triangular wooden blocks. We use long wooden blocks to create the exterior structure which incorporated line as a design element. The contained space as mentioned previously creates an imaginary volume. Mass is identified by the multiple wooden square blocks floating within and of course with mass, planes would be present. The fishing wires that are holding these wooden blocks ain't that visible in reality and the illusion is created by having the transparent wires running through the square blocks. (If you look closely, you'll be able to see the marks cut off from the wooden blocks) It took a lot of time to cut out and stick the pieces together from the wires to the wooden base holding the triangular "frame".

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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.

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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

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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.

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