Drawings from Italy

Florence, Venus, Dawon, Ethel, Lerayne, Inkee, Margaux and I went to Italy for a few days to attend the Children's Book Fair in Bologna. Here are some drawings I did there!

Superheroman v.II

Hm. So we got our dissertation marks back. Pretty happy with mine, so I went back to look at my Mode of Design, which I am now perfectly happy to post a full version of. (I'm weird like that.)

I do realize now that I've had more time between this project, that the chin IS definitely distracting, but I'll take it in stride. No more point in emo-ing about it; I'll simply tone it done enough to appease the tutors without, hopefully, compromising my style. After all, I'd like to think I'm confident enough that it'll still be distinctive enough afterwards.

This is actually a summary of my second case study (which, in its way, is the main one, since the other two case studies go into more specific situations described in the second one in-depth), but with elements of the other two included. You cannot actually believe how long the scripting for this took - it seems so simplistic, eh? It really was a struggle to condense everything into an appropriate 'comic-book' language whilst communicating my main points.

Also, I'll be happy to let you know my lettering has improved since this project (oh, some of the speech bubbles do look painful). But anyway, you probably don't really care about that. Enjoy!

It's simple, we invite the Batman for tea.

I can't believe I have both a 'Batman' and a 'tea' tag already for this. Huh.

Anyway, I hope you guys all had a breezy hand-in today, and a good night's rest tonight. You all deserve it for working so hard! Of course, there's still the vivat, the work-in-progress show, our current projects, oh goshdarnit!

This is my design for a tote bag I want to screenprint on. I hope it'll go okay!

I mean, he has to get all that energy fighting nocturnal crime somewhere, right? Luckily, he's got a butler to brew it all for him. 

I was considering drawing other superheroes doing mundane activities. Maybe later.

The Mediocre Hiatus (ha, ha)

Hm. I feel a bit stuck. I'm just wondering whether to even colour this in at all.

The first one is the original, unaltered lineart (save for some cropping, levelling and colour-balancing);

As you can see, Holmes is very distressed as he climbs up the mountain.

On this one, I've added a bit of shading (since this scene takes place at night) and shadows. 

And for this one, I've just overlayed an old paper texture over to give it a bit more colour and well, texture. I do quite like this one, although I feel it may be a bit unnecessary and a bit cheap-looking (as in, oh, she just slapped on a texture, that lazy lazybones).

So as you can see, I am a little bit stuck. It's just, I feel like something is missing -- I think it might be a lack of a definitive light source or the contrast between the darkest and lightest shades isn't strong enough or...something. And yet, when I do attempt to do that, it somehow also looks very forced and unnatural.

What do you think? *flails*

I'm using this artist for reference -- she does it so beautifully. Maybe you can look at her work and tell me what she's doing that I'm not!

Just wanted to draw a pretty girl.

Never need an excuse for that, now, do we?

Also practicing colouring.

Um

I know my blog background immensely sucks, but I am bored. Sorry for your eyes. It's hard to find something that can fill a whole background, look nice, and still be less than 300KB in size. I'll figure it out, eventually. For now, stick with the pink.

I feel tempted to rant about the utter dejection I feel about what one of my tutors has said about my work, but I probably shouldn't, lest I regret my emotional outburst later. Besides, it's 3AM, meaning I should sleep.

Bechdel Test, pt. 6 (I think I'm done)

I think I've got this down pat.

To reiterate, my project is on the Bechdel test. Of course, it's in no way an indication of the quality or feminist subtext of the work; it simply shows that, in the fact that a surprisingly large amount of mainstream works fail the test, that the exclusion of works that do pass the test is deliberate on the part of the powers that control mainstream media, which is still a largely male-controlled and -dominated industry.

My project is in no way meant to disparage men, or even women. It's not meant to be a malicious attack on any agenda. My intention is to simply show - both to myself, a female brought up on and a fan of many mainstream works that don't pass the test - and to others - that interesting female characters in interesting environments are possible without having to resort to putting them under a masculine ideal or resigned to stereo-typically 'female-oriented'  territory.

A positive reinforcement, one might say.

Hopefully the text added helps to give more context and depth to the illustrations. I really struggled to come up with what I thought would be appropriate.

Om nom

OMG! First post of the year! Huzzah!

Well, there's a work-in-progress show coming up soon and apparently there will be an opportunity to sell some zines. My flatmates and I have decided to collaborate and make a calendar for the new year - considering the fact we kind of need one anyway since we obviously threw the old one out and the living room needs some sprucing up.

And of course being the gushy fangirls we are, it was no contest the theme would be hot guys. So we got three months and therefore three guys each. No prizes for guessing who they are! We'll be screenprinting them, so hopefully I've got this all right...

What a surprise, huh? I actually have only seen him in X-Men: First Class, but his angsty tortured  anti-hero/anti-villain multilingual Magneto was enough to make me love him instantly. Plus, he tends to spend most of his roles in suits looking suave and smokin' (literally and the other one).

I had the most trouble with Mr. Fassbender - I just find his face really hard to draw for some reason. The above was my fourth drawing, and even then it took a few hours of editing in Photoshop (and a few bouts of hair-pulling) to get it to a point I was happy with.

Also, that's probably a really stupid quote to choose considering all he's said, but I couldn't resist. I'll let you find its context!

A very recent falling-in-love. I watched I Saw the Devil a month back and couldn't help wondering: "Who is this deep-voiced, intense, angular man? Must...wiki..."

He's apparently very famous in Korea (some of you would probably know him as the villain from The Good, the Bad, and the Weird), and has a role in the GI Joe movies as Storm Shadow. Gosh, I remember when the The Rise of Cobra came out, my dad tried to drag me to watch it with him. I adamantly refused (it obviously being a stupid action-flick) and went to watch Orphan with my mom instead. In retrospect, if I knew such a specimen of manhood was in GI Joe (no, Channing Tatum doesn't count, blah) I would have let myself be happily dragged along. Well, its sequel is coming out soon, so there's my chance!

Yeah, you saw this coming, didn't you? When I answer people's questions as to my celebrity crush, he will always be the first name on my lips. I'll get a quirked eyebrow.

"Isn't that the guy who freaked out on the set of Terminator?"

"Yeah."

"Have you seen American Psycho? He like, kills prostitutes and stuff."

"Yes, I have seen it. I thought it was brilliant. I have also read the book."

--

So, it seems I have a thing for angular features, a nice jaw, suits, an intense demeanor and a propensity for brutal violence. Um. Should I be signing up for a shrink?

Bechdel Test, pt. 5

Last one for today, I promise!

This one's just a compilation of scenes I brainstormed:

Epic/fantastical/dramatic situations that pass the test

Mundane/everyday situations that would pass the test. (Some of them are from my own personal experience, ho-ho)

Situations that wouldn't pass the test, but I think women would appreciate

Bechdel Test, pt. 4

Wow, this is really racking up, isn't it? Anyway, I wanted to showcase one more example I think passes this test really well. I'll probably sound like a giant dork right now for saying it's a video game I've been obsessed with lately, Dragon Age 2.

There's one character, Isabela, who is, um, quite promiscuous, but that's not all there is to her. She is a rogue, and the pirate captain of a ship that has sunk, and she spends the majority of the game looking for a new ship. She's devious, cunning, and selfish, and doesn't care much for other things outside of how she'd personally benefit from them. She's witty and very funny, and can be occasionally compassionate and caring. I personally don't like her too much, but I can believe she can be a real person and I'm happy with that.

In this game, one's gender doesn't come strongly into play in terms of opportunities or how you're treated. Hawke, the protagonist, can either be played as a male or female character, and outside of that there's also Aveline, who eventually becomes captain of the city guard, and Meredith, the leader of the templars. Meredith is extremely powerful, but is also kind of crazy, and loses her sanity and becomes an eventual villain at the end of the game.

In that regard, I like that the female characters are diverse (they can be good or evil, friends or rivals, allies or enemies, and everything in between, much like Lauren Faust's quote) and that there's no normative 'male' default. There are random people in positions of power such as guards and assassins that are women, and no one questions that. All of these women, regardless of whether you like them or not, are given the opportunity to be equally as competent (or incompetent, in some cases) as their male counterparts.

Another thing I appreciate is the costume design. They look functional and practical; something I could envision women of their occupation would actually wear. While they can be sexy, you certainly don't get the vibe that they're trying hard to make them look so.

So, I thought I'd give creating my own characters a go...