Ice Cold Water

If you've ever been to Otakon before, you're probably familiar with the "Ice Cold Water Guy". If not, watch this short video.

He's become somewhat of a celebrity and a big part of Otakon over the past few years. So for Otakon's art contest to illustrate "what Otakon means to you", I decided to draw him in sort of like a Street Fighter style. Yeah I know, it isn't really what Otakon means to me. Probably why I didn't place in the contest! But that's okay, I didn't think I would. Once I got on a roll with this idea, I couldn't stop! XD

And if you've stuck with it this long, check out this remix someone made. Seriously I can't get enough of this haha.

Yuki-onna

I am very excited to finally post this painting! I did this as a submission to Anime Boston's Yokai Art contest. If it wins, it will be used as advertising for the convention and I'll secure a free Artist Alley space to sell my work! Even if I don't win though, this piece was a major leap in my creative career. I don't think I had created a single piece before this one with so much unity and technical skill. I'm really pleased with it and excited to use it as a benchmark for future work.

UPDATE: Unfortunately, it did not win. It did make Honorable Mention though. Here's the results: http://forums.animeboston.com/viewtopic.php?t=15942

NYCC 2012 and San Francisco coming up

Just got back from New York Comic Con last night. Man was it crazy. It was my first time going and I really wish I had read a survival guide. I've been going to cons for a long time now but never one as big as this. First time I've been overwhelmed by a con since my first Otakon in 2009. That was nothing compared to this! Sensory overload. There were sadly some events I couldn't make it to because the capacity filled up in the rooms or you just couldn't make it there in time due to traffic. I was also only able to go for Friday and Saturday so I feel like I missed out on a bunch of stuff. But over all I had a pretty fun time. Click here to see more about the cosplay side of things. Here were some of my highlights:

First, I got to see Yoshitaka Amano speak at his panel! He's one of my favorite illustrators so this was really big for me. Unfortunately there was no way I could get there early enough to get a ticket securing an autograph, but I still felt fortunate to hear him speak. Turns out he's really down to earth and didn't know what to say lol. He said that's part of why he communicates visually, because he's not good at speaking. But I really liked how he responded to people's questions, and one thing that really stuck out to me was that he gave some advice to not follow too closely to rules or standard conventions, and just to draw what you think is beautiful. I think that ideology definitely comes across in his work.

I brought my portfolio with me and submitted it to DC Comics' Talent Search, and showed it around to a few people. I was really excited to see Bobby Chiu in the artist alley, as I really love his work. I was fortunate enough to get my portfolio critiqued by him and am delighted to say that he really loved my first illustration. As soon as he opened up the cover of the folder to that first piece, his eyes lit up and he simply said, "cool". That was so liberating for me, because this is the first time I've ever had my portfolio reviewed by a professional digital artist. Unfortunately I can't show that illustration publicly yet but I should be able to in November. Overall he really liked all my ideas (which is great since I want to be a concept artist). He also thought my execution was good but could be better, and gave me some suggestions on improving my fabric textures and diffusion of light on skin.

After that I met up with some fellow artist friends and had a really great time both as an artist and an audience. One thing I was a little bummed about was that I did an illustration for the folks at Podcast Beyond (a Playstation news podcast) over at IGN, but I couldn't make it to their panel, again because they capped the line! Myself and many others were bummed about it, but it really stunk cuz I had been carrying this drawing around all day! It's fulfilling a request Ryan Clements asked of the listeners on the special video episode 250.

As it turns out I'm leaving for San Francisco today for a 2 week vacation, and since that's where their offices are located, I'm going to try to drop it off there! Even though it's a vacation, I'm going to be doing some job hunting. Got a lot of people to call and email. Networking is really key. Maybe the folks at IGN will hire me on as an editorial illustrator?

Other than that, since I probably won't be able to post again for a while, I'm gonna dump some of my recent work. None of it is completed yet - it's all for my concept art portfolio project. I'll be resuming this in November. Around the time I get back I'll try and do an upload of all the sketches I plan to do while in SF. Wish me luck!