Portraits from Rome

I took Rome to be a good exercise in drawing my friends. There are other sketches in my sketchbook, but perhaps another time.

Can you guess who's who? :D

BBC Sherlock -- Ooooh, cute!

OMG! I need to fangirl about this. SO ADORABLE!

*turns off switch*

Okay, so basically I'm a big Sherlock Holmes fangirl. (Not that that wasn't obvious.) In fact, my unhealthy love for Benedict Cumberbatch stems purely from the new BBC Sherlock series.

http://y0do.deviantart.com/art/Sherlock-Visual-Novel-203366010

Basically it's a visual novel (you know, kind of like those Japanese sim games where there are some different outcomes but in fact it's just a lot of clicking and reading...um...not that I really play Japanese sim games) and it's a case set after the first season of the series. Kind of a mixing and modern take on the canon stories 'Charles August Milverton' and 'Devil's Foot'. Clever!

The art's pretty cute too! Although I'll admit they take a lot of liberties with cute-ifying.


Check it out even if you're not really a fan! If nothing else the concept of creating a visual novel like this is pretty interesting from an illustrator's point of view. I kind of want to make my own now...

Narrative Project: "I just don't understand women..."

My idea's changed so much, it veered off the brief (*in a whiny voice* But it's not my fault, Sion suggested those changes himself...), but this is one of the first projects where I actually feel really proud of the result. Once again the style is not my usual (it's a bit more simple and cartoony)...a la Chris Ware, Luke Pearson. One day, I'll do a project in my actual style. Haha.

Basically: two people have a banal conversation about the fair sex. But wait! There's more than meets the eye...

If you're interested, here are the changes I made:

- Originally, this was meant to take place in a bus, both of them on the journey home. Sion suggested a more intimate setting where they could talk without inhibitions and get to know each other better.

- There was a third character - a woman with a baby - who we were also supposed to learn about, but I cut it due to it being too much content. And I also wanted to work on the 'woman from a man's perspective' angle.

- Originally, the businessman was simply supposed to stalk a random woman walking down the street, corner her into a dark alleyway, kill her, then jump on the bus home. But Sion wanted something even more sinister and over-the-top, thus (with Jason's suggestion) the addition of the call-girl.

- The drunk broken-hearted man is supposed to have done more wacky hijinks in his inebriation, but I decided that if he had a night typical to what any other dumped guy would have, the contrast between him and the businessman would be greater.

Prapim's Inspirations: J.C. Leyendecker

I only discovered J. C. Leyendecker recently, when I was browsing in a book-shop in Soho. I swear, though, it really seems like I have known his work forever; it just fits so perfectly into my folder of influences almost as if I have always been using his works as references. I suppose this is partially because his work is comparable to Norman Rockwell (another artist I love) although he was before Rockwell's time, but I do prefer Leyendecker for the fact his subject matters appeal more to me. That is, pretty people.

It's a bit of a shame that he isn't more well-known, since his illustrations during his time were very popular and he has influenced illustration tremendously. Los Angeles Times even says he "virtually invented the whole idea of modern magazine design".

What I do certainly love most about his work are his very hot men! Haha! So, I am shallow. But I hide this behind the facade of pretentious art snob. Hem hem.

Also, his works (although unnoticed at the time, those innocent people) had subtle layers of homoeroticism, Leyendecker being gay himself. Myself: sold!

-----

Prapim's Inspirations: Robert Fawcett

Apparently one of the things the tutors want me to do is to start to veer towards a consistent illustration style, so I'm planning to blog artists that influence me in the hopes this might help me somehow. Also, you can get to see what my influences are (since my work is all over the place this might prove interesting...or not. Haha.) and hopefully you might like them too!

---

Robert Fawcett is an English-born artist I discovered recently whilst on the prowl for Sherlock Holmes illustrations (yes, I know...sad right). I didn't know true love at first sight could exist, but it does. Head over heels was I as I clicked through scans of his illustrations. I found myself swooning, holding imaginary handkerchiefs to dab at wet, awestruck eyes, feeling faint at their beauty.

Apparently he was partially colour-blind, which makes his full-colour illustrations even more impressive. But I remember reading about how this actually made it easier for him, since he could put emphasis on strong form and lineart as well as detail. It's easy to see that his sense of composition and lighting, coupled with a limited colour palette created extremely expressive, detailed illustrations.

Venus of Urbino, my take

Back to blogging! Heavily based off Titian's Venus of Urbino, except lacking all the details (because I'm lazy). For my poster, I had typography before, but it didn't go so well. Need to rethink my slogan...

Anyway I feel really accomplished with this piece since this is the first time I tried proper 'painting' with Photoshop :D

Slavery Is A Hokey Concept

Haha, that reminds me of this one time in high school when a guy blurted out during class 'Only Third World countries like Indonesia and Thailand have animal abuse!' I wonder why I didn't sock him at the time. Huh.

Impromptu solutions for everyday dilemmas: the bathroom!

Haha, the title is totally misleading. When I mean an everyday dilemma for the bathroom dilemma, there is no toilet humour nor TMI involved. Heave a sigh of relief!

An idea for a point-and-click game for a school project. Basically, we have to show how we have used an object in a way that wasn't originally intended for it (improvisation etc.)...I was originally doing a card game similar to 'Memory'...but it seemed the tutors didn't really like it that much. Huh.

I tend to use a toothpaste tube as a paperweight so I can read while brushing without having to hold the book. Hopefully...other people won't find this too weird?

Had some other ideas (such as using a hat to keep the lunchbox warm), but this actually requires more drawings and animation. And I can no longer be bothered. It's interactive design. Who cares (that much)?

XD

Also I am a total n00b at pixel art, but I love it anyway. (Who knew it took so long?) SO. FRIKKIN. CUTE! Will learn how to do it better! It's like virtual candy! I really love this girl's stuff. She's amazing!

Objects of Undesire.

'Objects of Undesire': My Four Annoyances (Ranging from the Utterly Trivial to Extremely Profound)

Hmm, how do I explain this one without sounding like a total whiny emo tortured sensitive artist type? Sometimes I feel like I feel and care too much. Throughout my life, I find that I become very affected, upset, angered, or hurt by things that most other people simply don't care as much about. It's resulted in a lot of resentment, hurt and disappointment on my part.

I thought: how I would love those people to understand how I feel; yet, I know I can sometimes be extremely irrational in my feelings. This paradoxical rut usually ends with me concluding: if I could be more like these people and somehow just not care or feel as much, then I wouldn't hurt so much, either.

I absolutely abhor baby buggies on buses during rush hour. Sure, there is an alliterative appeal in that phrase, but believe me, when you are on a packed bus, your face squashed next to some guy's armpit, the last thing you want to see is a huge baby buggy (complete with bawling baby) being heaved onto the bus by a parent - who, forgive the unfortunate implications of eugenics and racial breeding and whatnot, probably shouldn't be reproducing in the first place - with an infuriating sense of self-entitlement. There are other hours on which you can ride the bus, why pick the busiest ones?

Good-looking people who whine about how they're ugly (and therefore unloved, worthless, not of value, so on and so forth) (you know who you are) as a ploy to receive heaps of praise, reassurances and compliments. I understand there are genuinely some good-looking people who have self-esteem issues or don't really believe they're good-looking, but believe me, if they didn't believe it, they wouldn't whine about it all the time, either.

It's like, dude. Everyone gets insecure, whether it's about their looks or anything else. If someone as good-looking as you whines about how 'ugly' you are, what hope do any of us normal people have? The fact most of these people I've met seem to equate lack of looks with lack of worth also profoundly disturbs me. Have most of them grown up so long living on nothing else except their physical appearance it somehow became true for them?

Need I go into detail about this one? Creepy men.

All girls (and guys, shudder), come here. Give me a group hug, and we'll go and have a pigging-out-on-ice-cream session together.

Love your experiments!

Drawn for that manifesto given to us in Illustration, of which I can't recall a single word, except three: "Love your experiments."