Alive and well

Coming out of the fog that is post-graduate burn out, I feel like I'm starting from ground zero again in terms of skill, motivation, and interest. The only benefit of this is that after graduating from ACAD I have a better eye for things (just need the skills to catch up), and with this I also have time to hone in on areas that I find more appealing than what I could do within the confines of projects laid out in my design program.

All these drawings are studies from the first Monster Hunter artbook!

Definitely have a long way to go, but copying from the art book is proving to be a good drawing excercise / warm up for me, gives me the warm up I need and confidence to go on to bigger personal things. It's important to not copy the image line by line, that way a piece of your interpretation comes through and the work still looks like it had a bit of your hand in it. Just some thoughts on that. 

Zia (Bastion) Fan Art Process

Working on Griffith and Zia prints simultaneously so when I get bored / confused / overwhelmed I can quickly switch on to the other! (Running away from problems for the win!) 

Zia was designed and drawn by the fabulous Jen Zee !

Style references, classical lighting reference.

Image on the bottom left is from Jungah Lee (sp?) 

You can find her brilliant work on dA : http://jungahlee.deviantart.com/

I need posing references cause it's just getting stiff and awkward (Ha ha)

The more I do these posts the more I realize these are kind of like rationales I used to do during my time at ACAD... Some habits die hard I guess (although I never did a rationale in 4th year,)

So obviously this has a long way to go before it's going to complete, I might play around with adding in some of the pets you get in Bastion, but I think generally this is going to be the concept of it. Stark black background with stark bright lighting like in the classical image. 

I also might do a post about studies and photo references, I think it's way more acceptable these days with artists showing their process but it still is a common misconception (in art school anyways) that using references is bad and to be really amazing you have to do everything from your mind (not actually the case). Although I would like to eventually be able to pour everything from my mind to the paper much like Kim Jung, but that requires just a shit ton of sketching, and years of studies and memory studies.

More to come for this one!

Griffith Fan Art (Process)

This is a process post! 

Wtih Animethon and Anime Revolution conventions coming down the line, I've begun making new prints!

I had a process filled with alot of tracing paper and different colored leads when I was making the past year's prints, but this time around I wanted to cut corners and fix things a lot quicker through the use of the photoshop, but always bringing it back to the traditional media touch after everything has been figured out. 

This sexy motherfucker, Giffith

Original art from Kentaro Miura 

Can I first begin by saying how AMAZING THIS SERIES IS??? I read this series back in junior / high school days, and it's been on hiatus for god knows how long (during / after his mini series release) and I've never done a fan art for it till now. 

People rage about the movies on netflix cause they cut corners with the CG models, I honestly don't care / can see why they did that, those movies are damn good and do the series justice. You heard it here first, folks! 

And now for process (more of a record for me than anything to how I approach things currently):

After a series of sketches / thumbs I come up with this sketchy thing

Tonal Plan for the image along with references

I always have photo references on one side and a "style" reference on the other.

So that's where it's at right now, I switched up him holding reigns instead of his helmet cause I figure that'd be more dynamic and talk about him riding by the viewer. instead of a dead-on glance he'll be looking off to the side, for a more majestic, holier-than-thou appareance. Granted this is all in the rough stage, which is what makes digital so useful, where I can warp / transform the image to fit what I think looks best, and quickly place down what I need to change the image without worrying about ruining it / pages of tracing paper (mounds of tracing paper). 

More to come for this piece! I'm excited for this!

ACAD ! And here on after.

Before you take a look at my graduating portfolio here is my portfolio I applied to get into the VCD program at ACAD

http://nguyencreativity.blogspot.ca/2012/05/first-post-of-this-blog-as-things-stand.html

PRETTY NUTS RIGHT.... there are some things I'm still quite proud of in that portfolio, but I learned quite a bit in the last 4 years.

I've gone and done it! Graduated with a portfolio with shtuffs and did the portfolio show with the best graduating year I ever hope to be in. It was kind of crazy to see it all come together, nearing the final hours I didn't know if I could get it all done, but here it is:

So what's next? 

Foundation. While I'll always be grateful to ACAD to give me the work ethic and the eyes to see how things were designed and constructed, I still need to work on my design fundamentals and drawing foundation, so with that I'll be doing a lot of drills both daily, weekly, and monthly as I start my art career. 

So while you can see the breadth of my work professionally here:

 https://www.behance.net/alexnsketch

and fan art and sketches (the wide majority of what I'll be doing for awhile) here: 

http://alexnsketch.tumblr.com/

What you'll see on this blog is things that are on my mind both life wise (although... https://twitter.com/alexnsketch ) and indepth process about how I came to a final finish of an image, or an indepth study of an image that I'm doing. As well I'll be posting my full character design process on here as well. It'll be a lot to manage on my end but it's a nice way of cutting out the filler on some social media aspects while including the whole pie on here!

I'll see you guys around, a lot of things are going to be shown this summer! (Convention season is upon us.)

UPLOADING ALL MY SHIT

Start of the school year

Somewhat present

Trying out different textures and shapes

Trying to do more color with my work.... actually going to take up painting sometime.

I always crack up with these shape doodles when I draw a dick COMPLETELY by accident, I SWEAR. 

So a lot that I've been  doing in this sketchbook have been doodles and I like a lot of them but then I saw what Dave Mckean was doing in HIS SKETCHBOOK:

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXEu2kgHZFhdqTuZZ2-iVXE91oDjHiYNA13JppX_XZkqoWUWlScEkXy3byj_RkLJLx5fbI8IwqZhKddNpewNxEpXg9VrMuHEMoAYoVa6zGH1-3Wzo_Scv1-YuifGJYs0HfRvZfH7qcBf4/s1600-h/MckBarcaINT06.jpg

It totally was bringing my shit to shame, so lately I've been trying (mostly in the moleskine, I still doodle in my throwaway sketchbook) to make my sketches at least visually more interesting or trying to add narrative/type here and there.

#Inktober

Ballpoint is THE SHIT (might've lost the pen and now I am immediately sad...) 

The progress that I am currently seeing in my friends and myself have been extremely exciting, inspiring, and motivating to keep going forward with sketching (sometimes over school projects), I don't know where I'm headed with all this work but I like how organic and unforced the style is going, whatever that style is. For those that are artists struggling with style (myself included) just do what you like, try to do things that you find interesting (both media and content-wise). I want to get into collage and water/goache sometime soon.

The rest will come. You'll be alright.

Animethon Line-up Preview (Inks)

It's been a lot of fun learning to use the croquil to ink these, a huge learning experience for me to pencil things as tight as possible (I still keep things kind of loose) before I go onto the inking stage! Without further ado, this is my print line-up for Edmonton's Animethon! About a months worth of learning/work, and some more prints under the factory line, GOT A WEEK LEFT! GO GO GO GO GO! If you guys are coming to Animethon, feel free to say hi! :) 

Left: Detail Shot (WIP) of Agro and The Wanderer from SotC

Right: Gamagori x Mako from Kill La Kill

The Last of Us - Ellie

Street Fighter - Sakura

Super Giant Games - Red / The Kid

Backyard Sketches

Juuuuus' sketching in the backyard, taking in the sun.... and not the laptop screen's rays for once... a short break from Animethon prints.