Jordan and his friend Heron

Jordan and his friend Heron were all smiles and eager to begin their forest hike, blissfully unaware that they would spend the next hour being pursued by a bear.

Fashion Favor, 4

She looks pissed, doesn't she?
I didn't really draw it like I think I would like, but maybe it's because I wasn't so sold on the design and the details. I usually like rendering something I find to my taste, but since this was a favor for a friend and it was his design and color scheme, my reluctance shows. I didn't really come up with a fresh pose or consistent painting techniques. Still, the friend is really happy with it, so I guess there's that.

Fashion Favor, 4

My old college classmate's fashion show is coming up, and he finally sent me the pics of his showstopper' outfit. It's not quite what I expected but I'm trying to make it as dramatic as possible, although trying to maintain something of a fashion flavor so it doesn't end up looking like a comic book costume, which the design already feels a bit like, with it's Matrix-y long coat and turned up collar.

edit: Yeesh, what a night away will show! One normally draws overlong bodies for fashion but yesterday's entry was atrociously scaled, so I scaled the body down and am re-posting this image.

Robbie's Outfit

I spent most of the day with my friend Robbie at the ICFF, shopping for new furniture. He was dressed and ready for breakfast in all his own designs, and it really worked, so much so that now I need to find the pants he was wearing at some retailer to see how they fit me. I have to say, I kept looking at him throughout the day just loving how he put himself together, that it was so nice to walk the Javits aisle with such a stylishly dressed companion. Fashion designers often design cool clothing that they themselves usually eschew for some sort of simpler uniform, but Robbie designs clothing he likes to wear, and as such, you can totally get the aesthetic and the sincerity of vision behind it.

Thor Kitty

When we were growing up, one of our cats, the last of our bastard kittens from our purebred Siamese, Mother Dear, was named Thor. Which should remind me that I haven't seen the movie yet.

Real Watercolor

Okay, my control of real watercolor for this particular style sucks. My technique was definitely not there, and watercolor used to be one of my media of choice back in the day. Ugh, gotta practice again. I think with enough practice I can churn out things I would be happy enough with. Plus, I kinda miss natural media. Just the feel of trying to do specific effects with my 20 year old Chinese brush was almost... nostalgic. And just the results of my work... kinda pathetic. Even my anatomy suffered from my careless application....

Really Fake Water

I didn't get to post last night because Blogger was doing some site maintenance. I did, however, actually pull out my watercolors and tried a wash technique to once again test out the posible rendering for the possible illustration job. But along the way, waiting for Blogger to get back up, I did some wet brush techniques from an older version of Photoshop, just to see what might work best. It's all so confusing if you don't practice...

Watered Up

I thought about taking the watercolors into a more commercial/pop sphere by adding pseudo 50s/60s brush work to outline the woman's features, which is more my style. I think the ethereal quality of the watercolor effects gets grounded more, and makes this much more commercial yet still freestyle. Hopefully it's a direction that can prove viable for this job...

Inspired By Mats

Mats Gustaffson is a master. His unique style is famous and famously his, and the client I am negotiating with wants something in that vein. I was able to approximate the look using Photoshop textures overlaid on a very simple sketch of mine, but I really don't want to knock him off. It's an insult to both Mats as an originator, and to myself, as an artist. SO I'm trying to see what details I could add to make the look more my own, and the quick face lines are a step in that direction.

Wash Your Face

Totally just playing with the digital watercolor effects. Does this look like natural media to you? I think there's a dryness that needs to be softened up a bit, but perhaps with a bit of practice it can totally appear like real watercolor... maybe...?

Haim and his friend Heron

Haim and his friend Heron clearly need more practice with this cheerleading lift.

Wash Your Mouth Out

This is just a light wash because it's more about rendering this view of a mouth. I had pulled a photo from some website just because I liked the angle of the face, and the way how it showed the model's mouth corner resolving as it got closer to the side of his face. These 3/4 views were always tricky for me, because I could never figure out how to resolve the eyes, or cheekbones, or the shape of one's teeth underneath the cheeks. Now I just need to find a way to incorporate it into my skillset without having to use reference photos...

Happy Bird Day!

It was my friend Rainer's birthday today, and while I already told him I was taking him out to a fancy lunch at a very posh favorite restaurant of mine later on this month, I did meet him for dinner at my favorite downtown wine bar for dinner. Naturally I didn't want to show up empty-handed, but instead of flowers I decided to do one of my quick, silly cartoons as a card. This is a colored, digital version of the birthday card image I drew for him.

Saturn Girl's Hairdo

When I was a kid, I was enamored of the way Mike Grell drew Legion character Saturn Girl's hair: it was a very symmetrical and unvarying look, a specific identifier in comics (much like Suerpman's 'kiss me' tendril identifies him). Now that I think about it, it was a silly hairdo, all flips and waves. Just so 70s... considering it was supposed to be a 30th Century 'do.

Wash and Wear, 3

Been researching watercolor brushes online using Photoshop instead of Painter, because of Painter 11's sluggish response on my Mac. Might be able to get away with presets instead of really painting...

Wash and Wear, 2

I downloaded a trial version of Corel Painter 11 to try out and see how it worked. It lagged and lagged like some elephant trying to squeeze into a pinhole. I have no idea if it's my system or the program itself, but I could barely experiment with all the features for waiting for that damn progress wheel to stop spinning. Might have to see if there's something wrong with my Mac...

Wash and Wear

I might have a job doing watercolor illustrations for a bath line. And they want it in watercolor. I wonder, though, if I can get away with doing everything digitally? They'll certainly want a looser style, I imagine, and I haven't perfected one for this medium. This was an experiment, but her face looks really dated...

Bong and his friend Heron

Bong and his friend Heron make a grand entrance.

Girl With The Glaser Hairdo, Washed

I just went with my initial impulse and decided to do a watercolor wash on her. I'm getting more confident with how I render these washed faces, drawing on old Antonio Lopez influences but also channeling modern day comic book coloring (especially with the redness around the nose). But I'm still keeping everything very faint. I do need to get more aggressive with the color. But I've been battling nauseating neck and body pains all day so all things considered, this is a nice enough amount of work on this sketch. Chin needs work, though...

Girl With The Glaser Hairdo

Milton Glaser's famous Bob Dylan silhouette/poster was on my mind when this image popped into my head. Originally it was going to be a guy, but for some reason when I put pen to pixel tonight I decided on a woman. I revised her face a few times, as originally it was looking very Linda Evangelista in Bazaar, an image that is indelibly inked in the minds of many a gay boy who grew up in the 80s and 90s. So I softened up her features to make her more current and less perfect, and in my mind, her pose and expression now echo that of the Vermeer painting of the "Girl With A Pearl Earring." So many references, right? It's funny, the Glaser poster was itself the sum of two influences on Glaser: a Marcel Duchamp silhouette and islamic painting, as detailed in this excerpt online.

Blurry Bowl

I had too much to drink tonight, and can barely draw. I went to an art benefit dinner, and while the booze flowed freely, the food was sorely lacking. As such, I'm left with an ill-at-ease feeling from mixing vodka with red wine. No wonder that bowl looks so blurry...

Zoe's Cat

My niece Zoe doesn't have a cat, so I made her one. So, Zoe, what do we name it?

Awash With (digital) washes

I'm intrigued with the watercolor brushes again in Painter. With my exposure to different artists who use the natural media, my attempts at recreating their techniques aren't exact but have produced interesting results for me. My work hasn't been this loose yet exacting in a while. Worth playing with...

Fashion Favor, 3

Still waiting on my friend Oj to send me the sketch of the final outfit he wants me to draw, especially since I can't understand how it's supposed to look when it's finished... so I'm just playing with the possibilities in the meantime. And with some of these watercolor brushes! I wonder why I haven't tried these in a while... or ever??

Hope You Had A Happy Easter!

Jake and his friend Heron

Jake and his friend Heron paddled furiously, but the anaconda was still gaining on them.

Back to Watercolor

Doing yesterday's face I discovered a couple of brushes I hadn't been using whenever I used the watercolor tool in Painter, so this was a quick sketch to play with them.

Fashion Favor, 2

My friend who asked me to draw his design for him hasn't forwarded the full outfit yet, so I have no idea how to proceed until I get the look. So in the meantime, I'm just playing with makeup... she's getting that very sultry, looking-away-into-the-distance, Rootstein mannequin look for the moment.

Tired Monster

I'd been designing all night trying to send off a resume with some work to a potential client, so I'm pooped. As I've told many people before, my design muscles are the same as my drawing ones in some ways, so when I exert those too much, I have nary any energy for the other.

Fashion Favor

An old classmate from Manila asked if I could render a design of his in my illustration style, so this is the beginnings of the face. I'm sure I'll retool her features over and over as I go on, but this is my somewhat sultry tough gal look...

Craned Neck 2

Today was a very busy day for me and I'm rather exhausted tonight. I got a ton of things done, but really didn't have much energy left at the end of the day to draw. Fortunately, just 'doodling' by copying a photo without really caring how much of a likeness I get, is always easy. And often, garners the best results. The work in progress...

Craned Neck

I dunno why I'm so drawn to this kind of pose - between the slightly cocked profile and the sloping neck, I seem to keep coming back to this look again and again. I seem to recall as a child, trying to forge a pre-Raphaelite painting with a similar stance, but I can't recall why that should affect me so. Anyhow, this was a pic from Forward, an ecommerce website. It's a shot from a product page featuring my friend Robert Geller's hat for SS2011.

She Can't Control Her Lust For Shoes

I'm negotiating via phone and email with an overseas seller of some shoes that I am desperately wanting to buy. Neither high cost, nor inability to try them on, nor thousands of miles distance is deterring me from purchasing this footwear. Behold my length measurement diagram, the latest effort in trying to make certain that I get the proper size for a pair of shoes made in Belgium, sold exclusively in Japan and unavailable in New York, with a possibility of size variance of anywhere from a half to a full size down. I've interviewed the maker from Belgium, as well as two sellers of the brand who own pairs of their own in San Francisco (but not these two toned beauties) as well as the sellers in Japan, just to make sure I don't make a wrong size choice. I've taken pains to measure out all my best fitting, similarly-shaped shoes, gotten the most consistent measurement, and am sending a diagram to the Japanese sellers who barely speak English, in hopes of taking as much doubt out of my impending purchase. Yes, I'm quite mad. But I've done this several times before in the past (with Berlin and Milan respectively) so I'm quite hopeful it will work out.

Johannes and his friend Heron

Johannes and his friend Heron were concerned they might have gotten the date wrong after an hour passed and none of the guests had arrived.

P is for Penguin Prison

My current fave band, Penguin Prison, has requested that Facebook fans send in "P's" for some graphics project they're undoubtedly working on (perhaps an album cover?). I've been listening to Chris Glover's excellent mixes while I do cardio, so I've got Penguin Prison on my mind. In any case, I thought I'd draw one. I had all sorts of design concepts I wanted to do but they would have been more graphic design than drawing, so I resorted to my usual draped-and-wrapped letters. Not my favorite, but I was running late (literally: I was running on the treadmill at midnight earlier this evening).

Oh Kaye

My friend Senen posted a video of Charlene Kaye singing a duet with Glee sensation Darren Criss (that oughta keep her 90,000+ views a-rising), and there was something really innocent about the song that inspired me to draw this image of Kaye in her outfit from the video, but done up as innocently as the song sounded, with more than a nod stylistically to Julian Opie. It's a cute tune, and speaking of "stylistically," Kaye sounds a lot like a female Jason Mraz... she even scats in some of the other songs in YouTube, so maybe Mraz is an influence.

Still Tired

I was up until 2:30 sorting receipts for my income tax return, then up again at 6:30 for fear I wouldn't finish in time for my appointment. So I'm rather pooped... and being exhausted can make you draw strange things.

Tired Kitty

I spent the entire day doing tax receipts... well, except for the meals I took breaks for, as well as the 2 hour gym visit, but otherwise, 17 hours at the computer and on my table, tallying receipts. I'm a tired kitty.

Uniform Experiment SS2011 Tee

I'm inexplicably obsessed with this tee shirt from Japanese brand Uniform Experiment. I love how the banded red, white and blue ribbing on the short sleeves are half-sleeve length, allowing them to peek out of short sleeves. I'm obsessed with finding and buying them...

Erickson and his friend Heron

Erickson and his friend Heron discover the allure of a particularly wild mushroom.

Decorative Feesh

I was looking at various ecommerce sites and one of them had a printed pattern involving fish. I can't recall the exact print, but the impression that popped into my head was a simple, very fluid linear drawing, so I decided to try and reproduce the feeling. I had thought I would do a Heron drawing, but the fish kinda took over.

80s Amazon

Being a child of the 80s, I tend to draw women the way they were portrayed back then - strong featured Amazons. It's something I try to consciously get over, since they can look a little too butch and more like drag queens sometimes. But between the strong features of models of the time, as well as my love for comicbook super heroines, it's hard to get past the programming.

Ikaw ay si Maria Makiling

One of the stories we made up in college involved the Filipino fable of Maria Makiling, a spirit who inhabited Mt.Makiling and whom legend said would waylay travelers until they were lost forever. Our version involved Ikaw, the ape, as her apprentice...

Maria Makiling, having found the baby ape abandoned in the mountains, took the orphan in and named him Ikaw (as in, "Ikaw, huwag kang patanga-tanga diyan!" and that sort). Eventually Ikaw became something of her apprentice. But when Maria Makiling (in our story) died after she was hit by a truck carrying illegal logging, Ikaw decided to carry on her legacy of waylaying hapless travelers on Mt.Makiling. But his feeble disguise didn't fool anyone and no one was attracted enough to follow him, so business was bad. Ikaw eventually left Mt.Makiling to earn money in Manila, where he found employment doing demeaning catalog modelling work.

Not-Quite Geller Outfit

So I'm not loving this sketch as it progresses, at least for the original concept I wanted to do. But as an experiment, it's fun to just render without really thinking, and just going forward to see what works. And a lot of it doesn't in my eyes, especially with the colors... I can't seem to build the depth of undertones I did when I had a photo reference, because I just don't have the skills. Still, a fun experiment. We'll see where this goes...

Here's a closeup of the face...

Ikaw Si Phoenix!

Ikaw ay Apoy! At Buhay na ginawang...er...Katawan!
Ngayon at kailanman, Ikaw Si Phoenix!

A little in-joke for my friend Senen. ;)

Geller Outfit, Undertones 2

I am so not sure where this drawing is going. I don't like the face for the sketch that I originally had in mind, although I certainly don't mind it just as a sketch in and of itself. Although I dunno where my colors are going with this. Ah well, someone posted on Facebook that to get to a new place creatively, ya gotta make some mistakes...

Ali and his friend Heron

Ali and his friend Heron were both enjoying their dip at the beach... until Ali suggested they reenact the scene from "From Here To Eternity."

Boozey!

A friend and I decided to go on a bar crawl earlier tonight, and now it's 3 am and I've just gotten home. Don't think my drawing's gonna get any better than this...!

Geller Outfit, Undertones

After doing Bobby's portrait, I was wondering if I could do a similar treatment to the face in this illustration without any references. So this are the initial undertones I laid in.