
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Tutu Much, Too

Whee!
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Pastel Dreams
Friday, January 28, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tutu Much
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
Stormin' Ahead
Monday, January 24, 2011
Zozo

I spent a lot of time shopping the Japanese Zozo sites this past Fall/Winter, and I saved one image to sketch someday. I thought it would be a pain to do, but sometimes, the best thing to do is just copy/sketch something without thinking, because, like yesterday's hair exercise, the instincts just kick in. I think it looks like the guy, but I didn't aim to make it so - I just have a thing for capturing likenesses. I was chatting earlier with a fellow artist about how I take issue with some fashion illustrators who do elaborate pencil sketches based on runway or magazine photos. When they just draw what someone else has styled and photographed, I don't feel like they add something new to it. To me, it's just , well, what would the word be? Rendering? Portraiture? Especially when it's hyper realistic. I suppose I'm much more old school that way, and love an expressive line, even when you're basing it on a model. One of my favorite fashion illustrators form the 80s, Pater Sato, had a way of rendering faces that was reminiscent of Richard Bernstein (of Interview magazine's original painted covers fame) even when they were doing portraits. There was always a skilled hand that showed through...
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Posed, Part 3

Saturday, January 22, 2011
Posed, Part 2

Friday, January 21, 2011
Posed

I had to have an MRI earlier tonight because of an injured shoulder, so while listening to the drone of the Magnetic Resonance Imager (at least, that's what I think it means) I got lost in thinking about the techniques I've distilled for the Urban Bride illustration - i.e. taking what I would normally render in natural media brushes into Photoshop, with its harder lines and more solid colors. Because of the MRI I was missing the opening of a fashion illustration exhibit a few blocks away, so my mind was filled with illustration possibilities. It helped that going to the exhibit at the last minute I was still able to see all the work, which inspired me to do more of my own. So tonight I have two entries... the finished version of the piece I've been working on, and what hopefully will be a future polished and finished piece (as opposed to an abandoned sketch, of which I have many).
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Urban Bride, Part 4 - Skyline
Urban Bride, Part 3

I got so caught up in work emails last night I forgot to post this. Little details make the drawing for me, and I refined the urban bride sketch some more after seeing someone's Facebook page online with their fashion sketches (the eyeshadow and hair details do a lot for me here). My style isn't a very modern one since it's steeped in Gruau, but I decided it's what I do so I should see how I want to develop it, instead of trying to make it look modern. I think just using Photoshop gives it a harder edge, and updates it a little than if I was just using watercolors. Still, the René Gruau/Danilo Franco influence is unmistakable to me.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Weird Kid
Monday, January 17, 2011
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Alice and her friend Heron
Urban Bride
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Pattern Forming

Friday, January 14, 2011
Thieving Bitch
One of the aspects of being ill that often occurs for me is the prevalence of dreams. I have tons of them, and I can usually remember them in some detail. Actually, I remember most of my dreams, but perhaps because I have so many in series from short bursts of sleep when I'm sick that they seem more vivid. Last night, one of the five or so dreams I had involved me in possession of a slew of vintage shoes and clothing that for some reason I was selling on a sidewalk, like in a flea market. A Chinese woman, pretty, and slim, had tried on a pair of vintage designer clogs (I even remembered the name of the brand within the first few hours of waking up, but forget now), and walked away presumably to get a feel for them. The next thing I knew I was told by a companion that she had run off with them, the clogs on her feet and her own shoes in a plastic bag, and I followed her out on the street to catch her. This is what she looked like.

What's interesting to me is that I recall these colors quite vividly, because her outfit matched the black, red and gold clogs perfectly. Supposedly you only dream in black and white, but this is certainly not the first dream I recall being in color.

What's interesting to me is that I recall these colors quite vividly, because her outfit matched the black, red and gold clogs perfectly. Supposedly you only dream in black and white, but this is certainly not the first dream I recall being in color.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Joey

I found myself in the old hallway going to the bedroom Joey and I shared in our childhood home in Manila. Everything was pitch black, and I was kind of afraid. I entered my old room which was also cloaked in near total darkness, then like a movie, a slight illumination focused on where Joey's bed used to be. I could see the mosquito netting over his bed, the netting we used pretty much all the way until we all left for the States. Joey was inside the netting on his bed, and he sat up, and put on a shirt. I immediately knew it was him, although he appeared to be the age he'd be if he were still alive. I was also aware how much this was a dream, one of those rare conscious moments while asleep. I called out his name and told him how we weren't always the closest of brothers but that I missed him, but he didn't respond. Instead, we both got distracted by a mouse playing amidsts some toys at the foot of his bed, and when he activated something by remote control to turn on some of the other toys, I woke up.
Sick Day Make-up Drawings
A few days ago, I actually made several drawings, but posted only the boufant hairdo. Since yesterday my head was throbbing so hard I could barely muster a line, I'm bringing in the excess from that day to make up for lost time. I figure if I can draw an extra drawing to make up for a missed day, I can also draw extra for credit days.
I'm being entirely too anal, aren't I? Sue me, I'm still sick.
PV and his friend Heron share a similarly warped point of view.
I'm being entirely too anal, aren't I? Sue me, I'm still sick.

Monday, January 10, 2011
Sickbed
Retro Modern 'Do

This is a hairstyle that the mannequins at the Rootstein showroom are currently featuring. I like the fact that it's very 60s (since it was a Halston themed showroom) but also a bit 80s in that lioness look way that I found so fun way back when. The main (mane?) difference is that the crown is flat in the beginning before it gets full - I really like that bit. I also like how quickly this drawing flowed - there wasn't much retooling, and all in all it took maybe less than 15 minute to render.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
The Bride

More Brides

Below is an initial concept I thought I'd go with, but the top one looks much more 'right.'

Thursday, January 6, 2011
Nostalgic Birthday Greetings

Gym Guy: The House Elf, continued

So I went back to the gym today and made all sorts of pretenses to be in front of the Huse Elf: asking him questions about my membership renewal, pretending to be looking at my iPhone in front of his desk, moving my lips as if I were calculating something while staring (purportedly) blankly in his general direction. I then tried noting the changes down on a sheet of paper, but that kind of note-taking rarely works for me. It took me so many retries to retool his face to look more like him. And I still might do so yet again.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Gym Guy: The House Elf

I originally had a very definitive idea of how to draw him, but man, did translating what I saw in my mind take a long time! I thought I'd make it in less than 15 minutes, but it took me over an hour of fiddling with the proportions of his face til I was satisfied. Naturally, I'll go back to the gym and study his face after the fact, for further refinements...
Storm 2011


I figured out what I was feeling about yesterday's Storm drawing: it was me trying to draw the way I used to, which was the way my former comicbook idols used to draw. But I have a different style now, with a different way of positioning figures, drawing faces, and setting a scene. So I just had to recall what I felt was great about the time I used to love reading and drawing comics, but channelmy newer sensibilities into it, and see if it works. So far, I'm liking it.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Classic Storm

Okay, the lightning is definitely not stylized the way I would have done it in the 80s...
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Storm By The Numbers

Happy New Year, on 1.1.11! Here's hoping for beautiful new things to happen for all of us.
Oh and for reference, here's the Storm drawing I did in 1988:

1.1.11

I didn't want to draw anything and I wondered to myself if using preset brushes, despite my applying them in strokes like I was actually daubing and/or painting, was cheating. So I did a quick sketch over it just to make it qualify as a drawing.

Today also marks the fourth consecutive year I've been posting - I had no idea I would be posting so long, drawing pretty much every single day. Cheers!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)