Nan's sketchblog

Impressionism Landscape attempts

2012-03-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

Pastels: 3-4 hours

This is actually my 2nd attempt (which then makes this a total of 6-7 hours). I goofed and used black to get the shades and darks whereas in pure Impressionism black is never used. I am finding water really, really, really hard to render. I've got a feeling that paints are a better medium for impressionistic style than pastels.

Speedpaint: 35 minutes
Somehow I am having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around this impressionism thing. The most difficult thing is not using black and trying not to render every detail. Color mixing in Paint Tool Sai is loads easier than in Photoshop but it doesn't quite feel the same as with real media. Maybe I'll try something with gouache some day.

20 minute Monet Study
So after the repeated frustrations, I felt like I needed to do more studies. The low contrast in the original caught my eye, but somehow I find that I'm making my colors too saturated and can't quite get the subtlety right. Still a good exercise to help me loosen up.

Historical Clothing

2012-03-08T10:00:00.000-08:00

A few of my refs here: [link]

I love historical clothing and seeing how it evolves. I’ve longed to see the evolution of Vietnamese clothing but always came up empty handed due to lack of information... until now. I owe a lot of the references to the documentary “Searching for Vietnamese Clothing” (which impressively took the filmmaker’ 3 decades to research) and sources from the Internet ([link] [link]). I created this timeline because as a visual person, I like to know how clothing changed by seeing it side by side.

I attempted to make a timeline with only primary references (i.e. paintings, sculptures, and photographs from that time period). I tried to stay true to the original sources’ as much as possible but I can’t say that this is completely accurate. A few art pieces were really hard to decipher (the sitting Buddhist statues in particular) and not being able to see them in person required me to take some educated guesses. I used my own color preferences with the statues that did not have color to reference from. Regrettably I had to skip a few early dynasties because artifacts of those eras seem to have been lost to time or were too stylized.

Continually a work in progress and more may be added.

Artist Observations:

*Due to approximately 1,000 years of various periods of Chinese domination, the clothing inevitably shares qualities with Hanfu. Regardless, there are tell-tale differences. Dong Son Culture (fig. 1) is the time period before any Han influence takes place.

* The colors and textile in Fig. 1 is largely hypothetical. I have a feeling that the Dong Son culture resembles the ethnic tribes still in VN and took inspiration from there. The pattern on her yellow sash thingy (words fail me, bah) came from an Ao Dai which coincidentally had a pattern that came from a Dong Son drum. Coming full circle here. Lol.

* On average, people wore 3-5 layers of clothing. The climate could be cold (e.g. the Northern regions) and 16-18th century scarves and gloves have been excavated. [link]

* Sleeves could reach to 40cm and were typically the length of chin to waist in the Le Dynasty.

* Skirts were banned in 1826 as they were deemed to be “unseemly”. Not all women followed suit as it was easier to work in skirts than pants.

* Buttoned up collars and buttoned clothing does not seem to appear until the 19th century (perhaps late 18th century at the earliest). Interestingly this change seems to coincide with the advent of French Imperialism/Colonization. Collars started rather low but gradually got higher and closer together.

* The Ao Tu Than (Fig. 9, 10 and 12) is still around today but as it stopped evolving in the 20th century I decided to concentrate on the Ao Dai (long shirt).

* The conical rice hat was originally worn by men (which can be seen in many photographs with Nguyen dynasty soldiers) and only became part of women’s wear sometime in the 20th century.

* Le Dynasty wins for being the most stylish and varied. IMO.

Head, Ear, Mouth studies

2012-03-03T09:00:00.000-08:00

Refs from other artists. The top right is ref from a photo in Secrets to Drawing Realistic People. I find working with the pastel pencil to be a bit of a pain.

Ten Kingdoms

2012-02-21T13:00:00.000-08:00

Tang Dynasty-inspired character art commission for MJ Bridger’s fantastical Ten Kingdoms.

You can check out the book at Amazon and read the continuing story of one man’s quest to defy his fate in Forbidden History, the second book of the Khalduni Wars series.”

Impressionism Studies #2

2012-02-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

Study from a Monet Painting where I'm just trying to capture the essence of the original painting. This time I tried mixing complementary colors together to get the shades. Mixing the colors most certainly gave me a richer palette. I feel like I'm starting to understand color a bit more now.

Sailor ChibiChibi

2012-02-17T18:55:00.000-08:00

Color and painting exercise. Been having a bit of Sailor Moon nostalgia and wanted to see if I could paint in the dollfie style. But the more I colored it, the worse it seemed to get. Eventually I had enough and decided to call it finished. >_<

Sketch version here. I tend to not see the mistakes until I start painting. >_>

Impressionist practice

2012-02-16T09:00:00.000-08:00

I want to do so some Impressionist style paintings of my own because I really hate the way I color and want to do something new. Was too lazy to make these studies on real canvas so I did them in Paint Tool Sai instead.

Red, Black, White

2012-02-15T18:23:00.000-08:00

Started as another face practice. The patterns on her back are just random scribbles for now. She looks like like a geisha or something...

I don't draw enough guys

2012-02-14T09:20:00.000-08:00

Face practice (aka I just wanted to draw a pretty bishi + have been binging on too many Wuxia flicks).
Happy Valentine's Day!

Pastel Silk Fabric v2

2012-02-13T11:51:00.000-08:00

Revised the pastel blouse. Added some red because the blouse is more violet + more white for highlights. Also added a background (my kitchen floor) to create more interest.

Setting Sun

2012-02-09T23:57:00.000-08:00

I thought the sky looked really beautiful today. The pinks and blues were so stunning. I don't think I was able to capture it well with my camera though. The rain clouds will be coming tomorrow, so who knows when I'll get to see another sky like this.

Lips Studies

2012-02-08T11:51:00.000-08:00

Ref studies from Bridgman's Heads, Features and Faces + Secrets to Drawing Realistic People.

Monochrome Pastel Studies of Satin Fabric

2012-02-07T12:51:00.000-08:00

I've have never been able to successfully render satin. I'm not wholly satisfied with it, it's tough trying to render texture with pastels.

Another Half-Finished Page

2012-02-05T09:00:00.000-08:00

Some SotFM comic stuff that's just languishing on one of my backup drives.

Nose Studies

2012-02-02T19:39:00.001-08:00

Ref from other artists.

Pastel Studies - Egg Shell

2012-02-01T23:39:00.000-08:00

Study of egg shell in pastel.

Watercolor Goldfish Attempt #2

2012-01-31T09:00:00.000-08:00

I decided to try out watercolors again, and this is part two of my attempt to paint goldfish. The top fish turned out terrible, hence I cropped it out. I think I've made some improvement. Just a tad. However, I need to use better paper.

Gouache Doodle

2012-01-30T10:45:00.000-08:00

Playing around with gouache on a piece of scrap paper.

Eye studies

2012-01-29T08:55:00.000-08:00

Top: Study of my eyes
Bottom: ref from a drawing book.

To be honest, I've always had trouble getting that darn minimal epicanthal fold right.

Studies of Eyes - Refs from other Artists

2012-01-28T08:55:00.001-08:00

Ironically it was the Asian eye that I had the most trouble with. The original drawing I referenced from in "Secrets to Drawing Realistic People" somehow seemed... weirdly slanted. Maybe it was just me.

Hands Study - Pastel

2012-01-28T08:55:00.000-08:00

Study of my hand in pastels.

Self Portrait - Pencil

2012-01-27T08:55:00.000-08:00

Working in charcoal definitely helped me get a better handle on pencil.

I think I spent about nearly 5-6 hours on this one. Yeesh.

A few areas need a bit fixing though.

Charcoal - Revised Drawing

2012-01-25T08:55:00.000-08:00

Definitely had a lot of trouble with last charcoal piece.

It was too complicated and visually unappealing.

Simplify... simplify...

Charcoal - Crumpled Paper

2012-01-24T11:58:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I've done anything with charcoal.

Am a bit out of practice.

Year of the Dragon

2012-01-23T16:31:00.000-08:00

Happy Lunar New Year!

A quick sketch for now, though I'd like to do a more detailed celebratory illustration later.

Texture Tutorial Part III

2012-01-22T17:11:00.000-08:00

The final part in the texture tutorial: How to use the textures! Setting the texture layer to OVERLAY usually does the trick but not always. As with anything using texture in moderation is key.

Texture Tutorial Part II

2012-01-21T17:11:00.000-08:00

How to create Brushes in Photoshop and create a more organic digital texture. IMO, using filters to create texture does not look very good at all. I would avoid that if possible.

Texture Tutorial Part I

2012-01-20T17:11:00.000-08:00

Creating and Utilizing Textures Part I

Doodles

2012-01-19T20:00:00.000-08:00

Playing around with some watercolor and color pencil

Blackout

2012-01-18T14:12:00.000-08:00

No to censorship! No to Sopa and Pipa!

Flowers

2012-01-17T23:59:00.001-08:00

This post a day resolution is starting to turn my artblog into a photoblog.
Well.. as long as I'm being creative. *shrug*

Origami

2012-01-16T22:44:00.000-08:00

Fun with Paper Cranes

Glub Glub

2012-01-15T17:43:00.001-08:00

I liked the fish's funny looking face...

Speedpaint

2012-01-14T19:05:00.001-08:00

Kind of been in a artistic state of "meh" lately...

Hummingbird

2012-01-13T22:50:00.000-08:00

Bird watching.

On my walk

2012-01-12T20:41:00.001-08:00

Practicing my photography

2012-01-11T19:57:00.000-08:00

Panel

2012-01-10T20:01:00.000-08:00

Bud

2012-01-09T23:53:00.000-08:00

There are buds on the peach tree. Spring is coming. Granted it hasn't been much of a winter...

Bokeh Experiment

2012-01-08T23:20:00.000-08:00

Just playing around with a DIY heart bokeh filter and some lantern lights.

Gobble gobble

2012-01-07T18:58:00.000-08:00

The computer wouldn't boot up today, and I thought the hard-drive had malfunctioned again! Thankfully it wasn't the HDD. I think the culprit may have been Windows Updates. Spent the day updating my backups. I'm not going through another massive file loss again!

Backup! Backup!

Hum

2012-01-06T18:15:00.001-08:00

Eh.

Speedpaint

2012-01-05T20:00:00.000-08:00

Speedpaint

Cartoon Faces

2012-01-04T09:30:00.000-08:00

Someone asked me if I still drew "cartoons" and my eyes bugged out in disbelief.

Lol.

2012-01-03T13:30:00.000-08:00

Studies from pose maniacs.

Speech Bubbles

2012-01-02T08:30:00.000-08:00

Working on comics again? Maybe...

I hate drawing speech bubbles, and normally use PS to draw them in. So the speech bubbles are always perfectly round and perfectly mechanical. But I've finally come to realize that the less than perfect hand-drawn speech bubbles are just much more organic. Guess I should just hand draw them from now on.

Another Dragon WIP

2012-01-01T15:00:00.000-08:00

WIP

Happy New Year!

My New Year's resolution: Update this blog once every week.

Dragon WIP

2011-12-30T16:28:00.000-08:00

Current WIP.

2012 will be the year of the Dragon.

Recovered Sketch

2011-12-14T17:30:00.000-08:00

Found this old sketch from a pile of .psd I managed to recover from that computer wipe-out a while back. Felt like giving it a dab of color.

Star Wars VS Star Trek VS Twilight

2011-12-13T18:58:00.000-08:00

Stress makes me draw the most idiotic things. U_U

2011-11-19T18:46:00.001-08:00

Watched a documentary about Ancient Vietnamese costumes and the Buddhist statue of a Le Dynasty Princess (1533–1788) caught my eye so I thought it'd be fun to recreate it. Original statue here:

I haven't been painting much and I am so out of practice. Grrr!

2011-11-18T17:22:00.001-08:00

I know, long time no update. Tsk tsk!
Well, here's a doodle, a kirin in the My Little Pony style. MLP was a childhood favorite and someday I'd like to watch the new/updated series.

More Pastels

2011-06-30T18:57:00.000-07:00

Still life in complimentary colors. I don't really care for this one. :/

Study and copy of another artist's technique and style (Bill Creevy, The Pastel Book). I really like his use of color and learned a lot from his techniques. The Pastel Book is a really great book, the step by steps procedures was easy to understand and follow. Highly recommend.

ATLA: Portraits

2011-06-29T19:58:00.000-07:00

Decided to finish up those old sketches that have been laying forgotten in my harddrive (minus the Jet one). This basically sums up what I think of The Last Airbender. Yup.

ATLA: Portraits by ~lilsuika on deviant ART

Painting in the Dark

2011-06-29T17:32:00.000-07:00

An expriment with painting with light. Basically I was trying to draw in the dark with a flashlight and nightlight. It felt really weird not being able to see what I was doing (this is why the image got cut off on the top) but at the same time, it was soooooooo fun!

ATLA: Iroh

2011-06-28T17:30:00.000-07:00

Originally an ink brush drawing that I had forgotten about and now have decided to turn it into a portrait practice.

ATLA: Jet

2011-06-25T19:05:00.000-07:00

Quick Practice Painting in Paint Tool Sai.

Complimentary Still Life: Apples

2011-06-18T16:24:00.001-07:00

Still Life progress:
I wished I had taken more progress shots, but my hands were covered in pastel and I don't like interrupting the flow when I'm working on a drawing.

Finished Version:
Halfway through I really started regretted having the patterned fabric and the basket. The squares patterns were relatively simple, but balancing the grays and capturing the texture was downright hard. I redid the darn thing so many times, it took more effort than the apples, cherries and basket combined!

Next time I really want to do something with more rougher strokes. Capturing the realism is great and all but I can't help but long for something more "artsy".

My still life setup:

Apples - Pastel Studies

2011-06-11T20:52:00.000-07:00

Studies of green and red apple. I starting to get the hang of feathering in pastel. Instead of blending colors, laying colors on top of each other gives a much richer appearance.

Study of a Cézanne painting

Pastel, pastel

2011-05-23T12:38:00.000-07:00

Copy of a master drawing.

Lemons and Oranges

2011-05-20T21:35:00.000-07:00

More studies in Pastel.

Toph the Vagabond

2011-04-29T17:52:00.000-07:00

Another commission for gossymer:

Toph the Vagabond by ~lilsuika on deviant ART

Progress of my working methods:

Toph the Vagabond: Walkthrough by ~lilsuika on deviant ART

Ginseng Pastel

2011-04-29T17:42:00.000-07:00

Publish Post

Pastel study of a ginseng

Pastel Still Life

2011-04-19T22:58:00.000-07:00

Still life studies + trying to get the hang of NuPastel. Like charcoal, I really love smudging and blending with my fingers. Unfortunately I tend to smudge pastel everywhere. I am also not enjoying the dust flying all over the place (esp. in my mouth), bleh.

Simple things for now, will move on complicated objects later. Limited to Earthy colors/5 colors:

Rant + WIP stuff

2011-04-04T19:08:00.000-07:00

Because this is really irritating me:

Just because a drawing is a created with a tablet and Photoshop does not automatically make the art a lesser effort. Just because you have the ability of layers does not mean you can create a great drawing with only a minimal amount of effort. There is no magical button that you can press in Photoshop to make amazing art.

An artist who whips up an amazing drawing with minimal effort owes it to skill. He/she possesses that skill because of blood, sweat and perseverance. Not the medium.

/rant

Anyways...

Some ATLA stuff. One is a commission in progress, the other is just a doodle.:

Wanted to do some inking, just something purely in black and white. I miss working in a manga-esque style. I think I'd really like to go back to it.

Charcoal Still Life

2011-04-04T13:47:00.000-07:00

Step 1: Thumbs
Step 2: The underdrawing. I start with a gray middle ground and draw in the objects with vine charcoal.

Step 3: I reworked a few areas and added more shading using compressed charcoal and charcoal pencil

Step 4: Next I further the shading and highlights. And done!

Watercolor fail

2011-03-31T12:42:00.000-07:00

Last year I bought a set of watercolors but was too afraid to use them. Recently I decided that I was going to learn watercolor once and for all, so I took them out and painted this. I knew it wasn't going to turn out well, being a first try and all. Still, it was a good practice piece, hopefully I'll get the hand of watercolor with the next dozen or so tries.

It looks like I'm going to have to invest in some masking frisket though.

Love and Hope

2011-03-20T18:15:00.000-07:00

A prayer for the Earthquake and Tsunami victims.

Color Collab

2011-03-04T19:03:00.000-08:00

Shenshu Adventurers by ~lilsuika on deviant ART

Collaboration with Mayshing on DA. When I saw her gorgeous lineart, I just had to ask permission to color it. <3

Charcoal: Box

2011-02-22T19:46:00.000-08:00

Cardboard box in charcoal. I almost wasn't going to draw in the "texture" but changed my mind at the last minute. I think the drawing benefits more from it.

Zuko's Scar

2011-02-18T20:36:00.000-08:00

Zuko's Scar by ~lilsuika on deviant ART

Started as a painting exercise but morphed into a comic-ish thing. Maybe this idea has been overdone, but I just couldn't help myself for being such a romantic sap. :D

And here's a bonus pic to counter all that fluff:

Improvement Meme

2011-02-17T21:45:00.000-08:00

Improvement Meme I've been meaning to get to for a long time now...

Charcoal: Metallic Pot

2011-02-15T19:56:00.000-08:00

Didn't really care for this one. Eh.

Happy Year of the Cat

2011-02-03T23:48:00.000-08:00

Year of the Cat by ~lilsuika on deviant ART

Happy 2011 Year of the Cat, Rabbit, or Cabbit!

Charcoal Wine Bottle

2011-02-03T18:43:00.000-08:00

Wine bottle in charcoal. I think the cast of the shadow is more interesting than the wine bottle, haha.

Charcoal: Soft objects studies

2011-02-01T18:52:00.000-08:00

My charcoal drawings have this scratchy look to them... probably due to the charcoal pencil I'm using. I kind of like it.

Serenade

2011-01-28T20:21:00.000-08:00

Serenade

Commission for gossymer

Charcoal Apple and Pear

2011-01-25T12:35:00.000-08:00

Pear and apple in charcoal. Admittedly it's been years since I last touched charcoal, and it was not a favorite medium to work with. I think I've changed my mind since then.

Red Sky

2010-12-17T16:47:00.000-08:00

1 hour speedpaint - PS

Brush Ink Eagle Colored

2010-11-29T20:33:00.000-08:00

Wanted to see how Painter's Oils and the digital Ink Brush fared together. Not too bad.

Brush Ink Eagle

2010-11-18T21:28:00.000-08:00

Playing around with Painter and Photoshop to see if I could emulate the brush ink look.

GoldFish

2010-10-15T11:56:00.000-07:00

I was looking at some amazing watercolor paintings of goldfish and I was inspired to try to and paint one myself. Just played around in Painter and Photoshop and came up with this. I'm quite pleased with the result.

Digital Apple Studies

2010-10-14T18:44:00.000-07:00

Experimenting with different media in Painter - Acrylic, Gouache, Watercolor

Panda doodles

2010-10-06T11:52:00.000-07:00

Playing around with some of the offerings in Painter. I'm really amazed at the versatility of the program, now that I'm attempting to try and understand it.

Adventure Time

2010-09-30T23:05:00.000-07:00

Toko: Adventure Time by ~lilsuika on deviant ART

CG Talk DailySketch Waterfall

2010-09-21T13:55:00.001-07:00

Idea was monkey (king) doing Tai Chi under a waterfall.

2010-08-28T21:48:00.000-07:00

CGTalk Topic - The Black Swan

Lady Yurimi

2010-08-19T20:07:00.000-07:00

Lady Yurimi by ~lilsuika on deviant ART

Toph Portrait

2010-08-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

Toph by ~lilsuika on deviant ART

After finishing the Zuko portrait, I was inspired to try my hand at a Toph piece. I didn't like the last portrait I tried to do of her, so I hope this one is a better improvement.

Kinda forgot about that she shouldn't been looking straight at the "camera"... Oops.

Semi-Realistic Zuko Portrait

2010-07-30T22:11:00.000-07:00

Zuko by ~lilsuika on deviant ART

Portrait that sat around on my hard drive for nearly a whole year before I got the motivation to work on it again. I think red is my favorite color to work with.

Speedpaints

2010-07-02T13:19:00.001-07:00

CGSociety Daily Sketch Topics.

Moss Creature - 55 minutes:

Apple and Mug

2010-06-13T18:02:00.000-07:00

Daily Sketches: Stick Figures

2010-06-12T17:58:00.000-07:00

Eyes

2010-06-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

Sketch: Stuffed Animals

2010-06-08T15:55:00.000-07:00

A sketch I found.