New Studio

This past weekend, I've done nothing but manual labor. I've moved to another apartment and it has caused 2 days of work purely on my own bedroom. Luckily, I have two friends coming over to help pack the house and right now I'm left with 40% more to go.

So here's a look at my new "studio" which I am EXTREMELY Happy. I've ditched lots of unwanted stuff and packed whatever I need. In these two years, I've accumulated lots of unnecessary stuff: stationary from friends who left school, food that my mum insist on mailing me, tonnes of sketchbooks filled with lousy drawings, crazy stacks of paper with my sketches that doesn't make any sense, etc.

I'm glad I took the opportunity to move to a new place. Its like starting afresh and I've decorated my walls with some of my own artworks and those that I've been inspired. Now that I'm slightly settled in, its time to WORK!!!

I've significantly increased my desktop space with just two fold-able tables. They are extremely heavy but durable. My idea of the room is to be as "Minimalism" as possible.

Another view of my working desk.

My Okami wardrobe! They are packed to the inch. Unlike my girlfriend, I don't have a wide range of clothing so packing the wardrobe was really easy. If I'm given a choice, I'll choose my idol, Steve Job's simple wardrobe style in the future: Just black/white long sleeve shirts.

The other end of my room is simply my floor bed, wooden cabinet and drafting table. I couldn't take a better angle of the entire room but you can tell that I have a lot of room space. (^__^)

Share on Tumblr

Alicia in Lalaland Sketches

Hey guys! Have been really busy for the entire week! (Actually every week (-__-) Wish I have more personal time to work on my own project~) Got some breathing time today and took the opportunity to jump straight into the making of Alicia. There's a possibility that I might be at Baltimore Comic Con! Crossing my fingers. Will keep my updates more frequent!

pages 1 & 2

pages 3 & 4

pages 5 & 6

pages 7 & 8

Share on Tumblr

Alicia in Lalaland

Hu Ha! BUSY X 100000. I've been working on an NDA project with Mircosoft Studios and haven't had the time to draw any comics. So today I manage to grab some time to work on the travel comic that I had intended to do. Its about my experience and trip to comic con in both an artist and fan's perspective. There are a lot of things I want to cover in this travel comic. Hopefully it'll give a fruitful experience to those who couldn't go and encourage them to. Here's the cover!

Share on Tumblr

Post SDCC 2012

Hey everyone! I just came back from San Diego Comic Con 2012 last week and has been tied up at work! Sorry for not posting any update as my workload has been piling (significantly) up to the point where I had to stay in the hotel during one of the Comic Con days to work. I am so fired up to work from my SDCC trip and the experience is just overwhelming! This trip has been extremely fruitful and radically different from what I've heard by artists/friends: The fact that SDCC has become a convention for movies and film. (which I think isn't totally true)

First off, I met a few great people one of them being Jason Caffoe, (who remembers me!) a SCAD Alumni and current lead production artist for Kazu Kibuishi which some of you might know is my idol that I've been a fan of since a decade ago. (Yes, right where he started his first comic strip "Copper") Unfortunately, Kazu was sick and couldn't make it to the con. Jason was too kind and gave me a portfolio review. Seeing how much a true geek fan I am, he gave me an uncorrected proof copy of AMULET 5!!! IT LOOKS REALLY GOOD and since I'd already ordered my copy via Amazon, I can't wait to see the actual colored version! You can pre-order Amulet HERE. Highly recommended! I've posted reviews of Book 4 before HERE which also includes an interview of Kazu talking about story.

 Jason Caffoe and me with the Amulet 5 proof copy! SWEET!

I also met Tom Richmond who is a MAD Magazine artist and got a sketch from him! He came to SCAD this year and I've gotten the opportunity to talk to him. So meeting him again was fun!

Tom Richmond  drawing me a sketch. I requested for a cupid drawing.

I also went over to Sean Galloway's booth (better known as CHEEKS) to show my geekness! He too gave me a portfolio review full of encouraging words. I bought 2 prints for him which comes along with a FREE TOY! MUAHAHAHA

Me and Sean Galloway. He is HUGEEEEeee

A lot of SCAD students/alumni was at San Diego too and we hung out for a beer session. It was really fun meeting all the gang and I had lots of great convention tips from great friend Phillip Sevy who taught me about what to do during the conventions. Check out his work! I also met a few Alumni whose works just blew me away.

 The Sequential Art Department Gathering at SDCC.

There were also lots of panels at SDCC but the unfortunate thing is that you have to que up for almost an hour to get into them. But its well worth the wait because some of the panels had really good content.

The Blizzard Panel which was mainly about products with no trailers.

I wasn't prepared for any portfolio review but I had my iPad with me and decided to join in the fun. As usual, I had different kind of responses towards my work ranging from extreme positive to negative. I'm glad I went for the reviews which gave me an opportunity to talk to Oni Press that might lead to possible follow-ups. Crossing my fingers and toes~~~~ 

There was a guy in cos-play that came for portfolio review and 

reacted like a madman to each of the editor's comment. 

And finally, tonnes of free swag from shirts to posters to comics and bags~!!! Some of the stuff require queuing and trying out games while others were up to grab. 

My SDCC treasures~!!

Share on Tumblr

CFSL.NET Artbook 06 by Café Salé

Publisher: CFSL Ink Publishing, Edition: 1st (May 10, 2012)
Format: Softcover (304 pages)
Collection: Café Salé
Language: English, French
ISBN-10: 2359470302
ISBN-13: 978-2359470307Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 9.5 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 4 pounds
Price: $30 (EURO) ($28.50 EURO on Amazon.fr)

CFSL.Net is an online french community website that has its own forum, gallery, online shop space showcasing (you guess) french artists. For a number of years, they have been publishing this series called CFSL.NET Artbook and Book 6 just came out in March 2012. It took me around 3 months to hunt down a second hand version which costs only $19 USD. Specifically for book 6, there are 3 main sections of the book namely 1) Environments, 2) Character Design and 3) Misc (which includes things like vehicle concepts, robots, etc.)

The book is thick and huge containing I guess more than 500+++ images. There isn't a whole lot of text going on in the book and the only place you would find them is at the preface, initial spread page of every section in both French and English. The images of the artwork contains the artist's name, the title of the work and the year it is created. There is a great section at the end of the book with an index that features the various website of the artists mentioned in the book which is a really neat feature that allows you to track your favorite artist down. 

I give this book a 4.5 out of 5 score.

Pros

• Lots of artwork in from Environments to Character Design and Vehicles.
• The feature works are fairly recent created mostly in 2011
• The huge amount of varying art styles from cartoony, realistic to futuristic designs.
• The Character Design sections include animals not just human characters

Cons

• Some artworks are really small with some pages having as much as 4 illustrations.
• Wish they would add more of the misc artwork which includes vehicles and robots.

Amazon.com |  Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.fr | CFSL Ink

Share on Tumblr