More Acrylics

This was nice. Someone is gonna get lucky this Christmas.

Acrylics (The Letter T)

This is another project for my Illustration Materials and Techniques class. The assignment was to paint a two-page illustration focusing on a letter and objects that start with the letter. I chose the letter "T", and one of the first things to come to my mind was the Tusken Raider from Star Wars. One requirement for the assignment was to use a collage element, so I collaged the birds on the right, a bear trap, and the tulips. After I finished painting, I went back in and added a glossy sheen with gloss medium to the highlights and some shapes. The gloss on the light pouring from the tree looks awesome when you look at it right. I also painted "invisible" glossy twigs scatter throughout the painting. I also got a little carried away and painted some tattoos on the tits... that's what the birds are... they are tits...

It's too bad I can't really show a good photo of the gloss medium in action... photos don't do it justice.

Oils

My first time using oils :D
This was an assignment for my Illustration Techniques and Materials class. First we made a "random"collage (I say "random" because I actually planned out my collage to a certain degree...) and then we used the collage as a reference for our painting. It was frustrating and difficult at first, but I progressively learned as I went along. If you knew the order of the faces I painted, you would see a lot of improvement... but I'm not gonna tell you! My instructor said that the people looked like they were at a party and had too much to drink (or stoned out of their minds! lulz). I painted the faces as if they were hollow shells/mask and painted the swirls to represent thoughts and memories escaping their hollow shells. Cool. Expect to see more oil paintings by me in the future!

Flutter @ Teefury

My design "Flutter" will be available at Teefury for 24 hours starting at 9pm (Pacific Time) October 18th-19th!

BuhBuhBuhButtons!

Courtesy of the folks at Purebuttons.

MASTER OF TIME AND SPACE!!!

not really. This is another class project for my art class. We had to choose one of our pieces from our last project and color a copy of it using color pencils.
At first I wanted to make the chameleon bursting out of a tear in the space time continuum in space (hence the title), but that was too complicated. I drew the chameleon as if it were semi transparent and made his organs and innards visible. I didn't plan on making the organs anatomically correct since that would be boring. His innards are just a swirl of ribbons and loops, giving the final piece an air wonder and making it a little more interesting.

I also realized that the ribbons inside remind me of the work of James Jean.

Art Class Stuff: Updated

4 hours of nonstop work. MY BRAIN HURTS!!! OWWW MY EYES!!!!!

We had critiques the other day in class and I found out some ways to make this piece better. I darkened up most of it and added more shadows. I also added more detail to the eye turret. Looks cool.

Art Class Stuff

For my first project in my Illustration Media and Techniques class, I had pick a topic and create 4 drawings using ink and a variety of techniques listed for each of the drawings. I randomly chose chameleons for my topic.

^Tonal drawing using crosshatching and stippling

^Graphic use of line

^Expressive use of line

^Scratchboard

P.S: I've updated the black version of the Witching Hour design. I spent a lot of time making it work because I wanted to have two working colorways for the design. It garnered a good amount of votes and support, so hopefully it'll get printed in the near future.

Witching Hour

More trees!!!!
I've been wanting do a much larger piece based off the last piece I posted. This piece is 11''x25'' tall, and it looks pretty cool up on my wall. I started this piece just for the sake of doing art, but I didn't really have anything to lose so I mocked it up on a shirt and entered it in Design By Humans' Halloweek 3 contest: http://www.designbyhumans.com/vote/detail/62929

The Tree Line

I'm starting to realize that I make something cool every time I do a warm-up painting or drawing. I had another drawing I was going to work on and initially started this as a test page to try out the new ink I bought. It ended up looking cool, so I set my other drawing aside to focus on this one. The purple branches were done using brown ink, but the ink turned purple when I added subsequent washes over them. I used masking fluid for the stars. They came out a little bigger than planned, though. The wet on wet technique was perfect for making the clouds, and that's the main thing I'm proud about in this painting.

Diviner: Updated

Redid colors, got rid of the distressed overlay, and made several variations. I went with a more toned-down color scheme. Three color count goodness. I like all of them. Now up for voting at Design By Humans: http://www.designbyhumans.com/vote/detail/62214

Diviner

I've been working on this for awhile now. I had a sketch of this idea in one of my really ancient sketchbooks and decided to revive it. Came out nice, but a little too top-heavy for a shirt, design wise. It's something I should have caught early during the sketching process, but overlooked entirely. Some ways to alleviate this would be to drop out the color in the hands or shrink the design so it would fit smaller on the shirt. Other than that, I would have to make drastic changes to the design to get rid of the top-heavyness, which I don't have the heart to do. But it could have been worse: it could have been bottom-heavy, which I despise :D

Zach Johnsen study

My classes started this week, so you'll be seeing a lot more school projects and a little less design work *sad face* I do however have one or two completed designs, but I'm gonna keep them hidden for a little while ;)

The only hands-on art class I have this semester is Illustration Materials and Techniques. A lot of instruction on traditional mediums such as pen and ink, acrylic paint, and oil paint. For a homework assignment, we had to pick an ink drawing from one of our favorite artists and re-create it using the same mediums the artist used, in this case ink and ink pens. I chose to re-create a piece by Zach Johnsen.

I didn't bother scanning it, so perspective of the photo throws out the proportions, but other than that the drawing is pretty dead on proportion-wise. It came out better than I expected, but I need a lot of improvement when it comes to crosshatching and taking my time.

I'm AWESOME!!!!

This mass of cardboard and twisted wire is my attempt to make a working live trap to catch the mice that have decided to hang out in my kitchen. Funny how I used a fatal spring snap mouse trap as the trigger mechanism for my non-fatal mouse trap. Go ahead and laugh, this thing works!!!


Edit:
I was still full of energy, so I made another one! This one feels more refined, even though it still looks like crap. I like the arms closing the door better on this one.


If you look carefully, you can see the trigger bar inside the trap... which triggers the snap trap on top... which closes the door.



Edit: yea, it works. Caught the mouse last night!

CHUUU (Pika Post)

Yea I know, the skin wouldn't hang onto the skull like that. I wanted to give it a "face melting" look, hahaha.

Decided to draw this because my kitchen has been occupied by mice as of late. Since I don't like to harm animals, I have been trapping them using a tin snack can in opposition to using fatal snap traps. So far I've been able to catch 4 out of 5 mice. They're pretty small and the largest one I've caught had a body of about 3 inches.

The Jelly King @ Teefury

Available at Teefury.com for only 24 hours!!!

lolwut? (Pika Post)

For some unknown reason, I couldn't stop myself from uncontrollably laughing while I was drawing the last face.

I am simultaneously working on two designs at the moment. While working on one of the designs, I stopped and asked myself, "Who would want to wear a shirt with a half naked girl on it?!?!" I Think I'm going to set that design aside for awhile and focus on my other design, haha.

REDO!!!

You can vote for it/view it here: http://www.designbyhumans.com/vote/detail/60047

Intuos4

I recently got an Wacom Intuos4, and its pretty cooooool. It's the first tablet I've ever owned, so I can't really compare it to anything else. It's kinda weird drawing while looking at your screen, but I've gotten use to it after a day or two. I'll try not to stray away from watercolor and inks, though. I'm thinking of using a mix of the two mediums (computer and watercolor/inks) once I get the hang of things.

update #21 (flutter)

I've entered Design By Humans' 10K contest! You can view my entry here: http://www.designbyhumans.com/vote/detail/58663





This design took me awhile to complete. I was just finishing the pencil sketch phase when the contest was announced, but the announcing of the contest was enough to give me the boost of adrenaline I needed to work on and finish the design in a timely manner. This piece may look bland compared to my other works. I kept it simple (one color is as simple as it gets) so that it would be able to easily be printed as an allover print.


On another note, I've recently ordered a large, Wacom Intuos 4. I am also in the process of upgrading to a much faster computer. Very costly, but It will pay for itself in time.

update #20 (sneaky peeky)

Low quality photo. Didn't want to try scanning a18x24 drawing with a 9x12 scanner when I barely just started the design :p

update #19 (tarantula wasp caught?!?! not quite...)

Since yesterday, I've been reluctant to enter/use my bathroom due to a tarantula hawk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarantula_hawk) that wandered in through the ripped screen window. In an attempt to reclaim my throne, I devised a complex plan to capture the fiend and safely release it outside where it belongs.

step 1: Get a plastic tube and make some legs to keep it from rolling over (hence the straws taped to the sides of the tube). Dribbles some orange juice near the entrance and make a trail leading to the end of said tube.

Step 2: Carefully place in close proximity of target. Wait.

Step 3: Periodically check from afar to see if the trap has been sprung. If so, slowly cap the end of the tube. The wasp will fly around crazily in the tube and will scare the shart out of you, but whatever you do DO NOT DROP THE TUBE.

Step 4: If you haven't dropped the tube or been stung by now and the tube is securely capped with the target inside, congratulations! You've just caught a ridiculously large wasp!

Step 5: Examine your catch before you decide to release it into the wild. Are the wings rust orange like a tarantula hawk, or are they black like a great black wasp? If you just caught a great black wasp, congratulations! You've just freaked out and screamed like a little girl for nothing.

great black wasp

tarantula hawk

update #18 (Now on Twitter!)

I have lost count of how many times I've said I would never make a twitter account, but as I looked closely at my social outlets, the idea of tweeting became more and more attractive. Instead of just letting my close friends and family know how I am (via Facebook), I feel that I can now communicate to the general public and some random fans about what I'm up to with greater ease. My brother recently made a Myspace account for his art/illustration work and I should start one up once I get a good client list going. Creating a new DeviantArt account would be a good move too.

watch my tweets: http://twitter.com/brianluong

Happy Father's Day!

I've never worked so quickly yet so intricately in such a short amount of time. Started this piece at 4-5am and worked for 1-2 hours, slept, celebrated father's day with the family, then worked a couple more hours around 8pm. Something like this would usually take me a week to complete. I was surprised that I did it in less than a day, and had the time to give it to my dad. Happy father's day! Wouldn't this make a pretty neat Teefury shirt? With the thunder bolt in the eyes and all? haha

I focused a lot on detail and precision for this piece. I've noticed that a lot of my work has been half-assed in some areas, usually because I rush to see the final product and cut corners... not good, especially since this yields in low quality work. I told myself to slow down and take a breath after each line and make sure I knew what I was going to do before the quill touched the paper.

Also, I went out and bought a couple frames and FINALLY framed my dad's birthday gift. I actually presented this to my dad and said it was his father's day gift, but then reminded him that it was his birthday present and that the frame was the actual gift.


SUMMON THE FLEET!!!