LOOK!

Lats night while I was sitting down and trying to do my paper for an online class, I got "creative". I reached for my nearest sketchbook and did this little doodle for a 45 minutes. All micron. I was thinking about another style I've come very familiar with but have never really given it a try.

So, I would have to say that inspiration comes when you least expect it. I couldn't finish my paper after this. *SIGH

(based loosely on an actual event)

Tribute to Sergio Toppi

RIP Sergio Toppi (October 11, 1932 - August 21, 2012)

Today, one of my favorite artists passed away. So as soon as I heard that, I went to the studio and started sketching while I was looking at his awesome illustrations and sequential pages in my tiny smartphone. As I promised, this blog will 'record' my process rather than only display my final art so for this one, you might see it as it is, no Photoshop magic, no touch up, no nothing.

Here you see I was already halfway inking the head --I almost forgot to take picture!-- on top of my blue/pencil lines. Usually, I don't like using the blue pencil because when you ink on top of blue lines, they sort of get in the way or make the ink not absorbed/distributed well on the paper and it drives me nuts. 

The tools I was using were Rotring rapidograph 0.25 --one of my favorite. I like it better than soft tip tech pens because it makes a single line weight no matter how much pressure you put. I think for technical stuff, Rotring and marupen are always my first choice(s). Well, a head is not actually a technical stuff but Rotring gives me the nice steady line weight I need for this illustration. As you can see, the pencil lines are pretty rough but I put more details for the eyes and face. 

 I went on with my Rotring rapidograph 0.5 to make thicker lines on the weird collar thingy and marupen to for the more thicker likes near the shoulder and sleeves. As the black area, I used my 'ol faithful Raphael 8404 #2. As the black area turned into white, I used marupen to create different line weights. I like marupen since it can created line weight as easy as it will give you a steady, nicely distributed line weight if you have a steady-light hand --which I happen to have.

After I was done doing the gradation, I didn't really like it --too bad I forgot to take picture of the first version I did -- so I just went in again with my brush and black almost all of the coat/shirt. Luckily,that also help me to pop out the fingers/hand better. The mark makings I did on the fingers were kinda tricky but I tried t do my best with it. I used various tools here back and forth; from Rotring 0.25 to Raphael 8404 #2.

When I roughed out the background, I did the overall outline of the fortress then I drew several random horizontal and vertical lines using my mechanical pencil (Rotring --I'm a sucker for this brand). After that, I went in with Rotring 0.25 for the outline of the bricks then for the fine lines inside the brick (the textures of the bricks), I used marupen. When I was done with all the texture, I went back in with Rotring 0.5 and or marupen to thicken some part of the bricks.

Here's the final one after I cleaned it and did some level adjustments in Photoshop.

RESSURECTION

HEY, FRIENDS! IT HAS BEEN A WHILE INDEED!
I am gonna activate the blog again. Whatever goes here, I guess, hopefully, more like my process, photoreference, and my sketch/thumbnails/rough I will not post to my deviantart or facebook.

I was doing some pencilling then I got bored.I decided to revisit my and my friends' old blog. Then I got this urge to revamp my character we did for the challenge more than 6 months ago. To refreshen your memory, here's the original character:

original post here

There you go, Bryce and Ava, in December 2011, my first quarter in SCAD. Fun to look at your old drawings, huh? Well, not so much :D. Anyway, last night I sat down and kinda doodled for a while --which would finally take my like 4 hours of kinda-finished-pencil. Here's what I came up with:

I looked at both of them last night and I couldn't help smiling. I remembered one night before I posted the original one in Winter Break; I didn't have the courage to do so until someone came over that night and insisted that I posted it anyway. Here's for you, friend! Have an awesome weekend!

create your superhero : mr. shadow

create your superhero - mr. shadow

alrighty, here's my super-badass-villain for maxine and max! no, i don't think i'm gonna draw a villain for bryce and ava; i have stuff to do. i present:

mr. shadow (yea, yea, cheesy as hell :D)

he (or she??) is made out of darkness and shadow. he can appear anywhere; he can materialize when there's light because light casts shadow and he can easily embody when there's only darkness because that's what he is. tricky, eh? his only goal is to destroy all kind of happiness, joy, liveliness, comfort, felicity, amusement, or anything close to it -even the sound of laughter hurts him badly-, from the world. he hates every happy ending story so that's exactly how he starts. he plans to destroy all the heroes in every book he ever comes across.. he has power to call his dark minions, every antagonist you can think of and ever believe in -whether they are in folk stories or modern children storybook! 

i should say, dessert "sake" is the best drink to have when you're trying to do sketch like this lol :D

create your superhero : bryce and ava

create your superhero - bryce and ava

okay. i promised i will post my previous ones. somehow, they remind me of something i avoid doing lately but whatever. so here they are, kinda lame, but i've tried lol:


bryce, 24
what is more powerful than information these days? bryce can download and or extract information, just by simply touch the devices. any information, data, memory, restored in the devices will be downloaded in a milisecond. he is not entirely the good guy because he does not give a damn about who's buying the information; he's selling it to the highest bidder. well, data, can't be just downloaded without storage. here is where ava comes in; he doesn't really care either how dangerous it is for ava to keep saving gigabytes of data and extracting them again.


ava, 18
she's a younger than bryce but her hair are all almost white due to the 'misuse" of her power. she is able to save, restore, and extract every bit of data transferred or downloaded by bryce easily BUT it costs her a lot: fatigue, severe migraine, and exhaustion. she knows exactly that bryce is with her just because of her ability. although their action endangers her life, she'd do everything for the man.

create your superhero : maxine and max

create your superhero - maxine and max

after a few desperate trials trying to do some "mainstream superhero" which failed sadly, i came up with this. i will still gonna post the previous sketches i tried to pull though, i was just not happy with them. anyway, here goes some background for the character and her sidekick :)


maxine, 10
she has the power to summon whatever characters -human, non human, or even creatures- from any books: comics, novel, graphics novels, etc. not just that, she also can summon any weapons, vehicles, props, you name it. the only problem is, she has to draw them fast enough to summon them. not so comfortable but even a hero has to have weakness.


max, 2
max is a siberian husky dog; he can communicate with maxine. he talks but only to her; he keeps quite most of the time. his endurance and agility are way above the best trained dogs and max is particularly strong too; he has this superdog power :D. he usually buys maxine time to draw whatever she needs to when they confront the bad guys. 

BATMAN : A Time To Mend

batweek - arkhamcity - batman

a time to tear and a time to mend

ecclesiastes 3 : 7

well, here it is me trying to portray the dark knight. i am not really into superhero stuff but i think batman is kinda dark somehow. that, actually, is something you find in every human being. even when you don't realize it or when you don't want to admit. in batman, it is quite obvious; he's not actually modest about that for sure ;)


oh, this is something to finalize everything. i can't include catwoman and robin for some reasons. they just don't fit LOL.

batman | joker | poison ivy

JOKER : A Time To Laugh

batweek - arkhamcity - joker

You’re someone who’s different, but who wants to be the same as everyone else. And that, in my view, is a serious illness.
~ Paulo Coelho, Veronika Decides to Die


'Nuff said.

my poison

batweek - arkhamcity - poisonivi

ha! who doesn't want to draw sexy characters? i do. i love drawing sexy ladies; especially when they are bad and wicked. some people have problems about women being sexualized in comic books but i don't. i love the way they are actually "naked" with clothes lines and little folds here and there to "indicate" skin-tight-costume. i think the male characters suffer the same treatment but iron man LOL. 

i remember my first time drawing a sexy wicked female character. it was LADY DEATH when i was 17. wish i could scan it now. i left it in jakarta. too bad.

oh, in indonesia, it's already my mom's bday so i posted another sketch just for her. she is THE BEST MOM an artist can have; she keeps reminding me about my deadlines, helping me scanning everything, doing every nitpicky things i couldn't handle by myself, reminding me of my every meeting with my clients, going places to find me every piece of crafts i need for my exhibition, etc. THE BEST. PERIOD. i love you, mom, always.

just another CAT

batweek - arkhamcity - catwoman

i decided to scan it in anyway; i made this one after my first sketch. this one was done a bit faster than the first. i think i do need practice on dynamic poses and stuff. blagh.

Robin.. Who?

batwek - arkhamcity - robin

well, i've got to say that maybe robin is the least of my favorite characters in batman family BUT in arham city, the costume is just the coolest robin costume i've ever seen. i have to agree with jorge. after trying for more than 15 minutes, i came up with this. don't kill me yet. LOL.

Ooopps!

Hi, y'all! So there went final week of Fall quarter without me being able to post ANYTHING! Shame on me! But this week, Jorge decided to give us all hell by doing the Batman: Arkham City. I have NEVER done any super or anti- hero character, besides a stupid sketch of Spiderman I did when I was 7, so we'll see. On Monday, we all gonna do Catwoman of our version. Let me be honest here, this sketch takes more than 15 minutes, mind you :D.

Have a great winter break to you all and have a great Monday!

don't judge me

yep, i grow up with "japanese-style-comic" -which is actually an understatement to "manga" because actually there's no specific way to describe "manga"-, tho i am not a big fan of animes. manga has hundred of styles from realistic to graphic. the only problem is, only a few or just the old-mainstream-japanese comics are available here - as happens in the rest of the world; i can go on and on and on about this. anyway, i've tried to tone it down since a few months ago before i start producing some bad manga stuff. but yeah, japanese-style-comic is my first love. :D

liquid lunch is LEGIT

correct! i stand by the title! they are liquid, they are easy, and they have the same fat, carbs, protein, and whatever stuff you find in a PIZZA but different taste. probably even better. :D

did you see my id card?

i missed issue #3 yesterday. so this one is issues #3. my problem with stuff is i can't get to keep them organized in one particular place which I can remember. that leaves me with misplacing my stuff all around norris hall! awful!