Some work from Christmas

I was kinda poor for Christmas this year so I did a bunch of art for people for Christmas. Here's some of it!

San Francisco Sketchbook

Here's some drawings I did while I was in San Francisco. I find the moleskin sketchbook surface a bit too smooth for my drawings, but I'm forcing myself to fill it up anyway.

Plein air work from the summer

A couple of plein air paintings I did on Nantucket this summer. Done in acrylic on canvas board. It's been a while since I've worked in acrylic and I'm way better with it on printmaking paper. I'm not too happy with the way these came out but I'd like to get into using traditional media more often and mixing it with digital. Got a few sketches I did downtown too.

Pokemon Fan Arts

Have this guy just in time for Thanksgiving! One of my favorite parts about Thanksgiving is Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I wake up each morning on the holiday just to watch it. Some day I'll make it to the actual thing T_T. Anyway this was a fun project to tie that parade in with Castelia city from the most recent Pokemon games, which is based on New York itself. It only seemed fit the Pikachu balloon was showcased there too! With some of my most recent Pokemon fan art, I've been attempting to make the world feel more believable. Hopefully that comes through! I'm going through a huge fan art phase right now so expect more on the way soon.

In addition, I recently started a new mini fan art project called the Pokemon Watcher's Sketchbook. In line with trying to make the Pokemon world more believable, I'm imagining myself in the role of a Pokemon watcher, attempting to capture Pokemon in the field on page. Here are my first two examples and I hope to update with at least 1 new page each week.

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

My Drawing on Podcast Beyond 263!

I'm pleased to say that my drawing made it onto Podcast Beyond episode 263! I dropped it by with a letter and my business card at IGN yesterday and they opened right on the podcast. They even went so far as to roll the cameras for that part in particular, so I feel very fortunate. Greg, Colin, Ryan, and Andrew - Glad you enjoyed it!

You can see the video on this page.

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!