28 May 2013

Sketches.

I had a lot of free time, at some point.


Straight tablet. Usual style.


Click for big. A collection of pencilwork from ages and ages ago—the backs of assignments, the odd notebook page, you name it. The central clump is mostly people I know because Facebook is a good place to hunt for reference pictures. Maybe I'll get around to colouring these in someday.


Boys' faces. Sorry, boys. I meant to start on a girls' set but got distracted. These are once again all people I know, hence the apology.

That's it for now.

Antigone stuff.


Click the above image to enlarge. I couldn't get it any bigger without having it jut out of the reading area and into the sidebar.

This project started life as the accompaniment to a family tree of the characters of Antigone—one of my favourite plays. Our class eschewed Socrates' original for Jean Anouilh's bleaker, modernist 1940s version, which would be why none of these bright sparks are wearing a toga. I rediscovered the pencil sketches recently and thought they could do with a bit of sprucing up.
Antigone. Our protagonist. Sulky and defiant, she is every inch Oedipus' daughter (yes, that Oedipus). I would say she is principled but that's the thing I love about the Anouilh version: she isn't, not really, because nobody is. Antigone is adrift and damn aware of it. In theory, I admire her grudgingly. In practice, she usually gets on my nerves.

Creon. Our antagonist. In the classical sense of someone who opposes the protagonist, I mean. I like him better than Antigone a good deal of the time, because he's just a decent man trying to do his job.

(Reddish characters are from Oedipus' family, which is actually kind of important because they're the arrogant royals having tête-à-têtes with fate. Blue is Creon's family—common folk. Symbolism, yo.)
Ismene. Antigone's sister. The prettiest thing I have ever drawn, no joke. I like her translucent blouse and her vaguely Russian skirt.

Haemon. Antigone's fiancé. A mystery how he ever fell for her, really, because he is dashing and bold and far more given to prefer girls like Ismene. That sure is a nice suit. I envy how well it fits on him.
Polynices. The first dead brother. He and Eteocles kill each other in single combat over the fate of the city of Thebes. He is the traitor and so as punishment Creon declares that he is to be left unburied, but of course Antigone takes it into her head that she must. It's established pretty quickly that he's kind of a terrible person. Will Eteocles prove any different?

Megareus. Haemon's brother. Also dead, but of no consequence. He might not actually even be mentioned in the play. I included him for the hell of it and also because it would be a shame to waste such a nice profile (and such curly hair).

Eteocles. The second dead brother. He defended Thebes and was feted as a hero after his death, but Creon reveals that he was just as ready to sell the city out as Polynices was. Plot twist: both brothers were shitty people! O delicious ambiguity. Also, his coat looks like it's made of towels. How unfortunate.

(No Eurydice because I didn't like how I drew her. Sucks to suck, E.)

May issue.

Been a while, hasn't it?


I'm graduating—have graduated—so this is the last ever Feedback post you'll see. On here, I mean. I try not to think about it too much and you shouldn't either, because as far as this blog is concerned, I'm still going to be posting irregular updates of directionless art.



For an article about the new security procedures. At time of writing they were getting a lot more uptight about demanding ID at the gates, and I would happily concede that it was in our best interest if I had any faith that this would change anything. Our Journalism teacher went down to see the alleged draconianism of the new measures in action and came back calling it a non-event. He is, as per usual, correct.


For the annual sum-up of our school's sporting achievements. This one ran in black and white about half the size of a postcard, but I'm putting it up here big and in colour because I like it, damn you. It's also the biggest and most unified illustration I've ever had to do so props for that as well.


For an article about online classes. That background is shameful and I am appropriately ashamed.

BONUS

May was the month of fits and starts. I think everything but the cover went through a couple of drafts beforehand, so here you go.


Initial idea for security. I wanted a wall of IDs, but the copy-pasting alone would've killed me.




IASAS review: assortment of drafts, initial lineart overlaid on the sketch, a halfhearted attempt at skintones. I've been getting better at colouring people but that's mostly been through adventures in colourising pencil sketches. Those'll go up here too in their own time.


Draft of the online illustration. I kinda like this one, but the proportions are off and fullbody had more action.

Laras out.




17 April 2013

Teaser.

A little something I'm working on for this month's issue.


14 April 2013

Badminton issue.


'Sup, guys. Our school has been hosting an interscholastic badminton tourney for the past few days, and since it's kind of a thing for us to give live coverage to at least one big sporting event per year, the entire staff has been working their backs off to pull a mini-issue together. The "IASAS BADMINTON SPECIAL" text really should have been higher up on the page but I'm quite proud of what I did with the A-shuttlecock and Q-racquet. Very clean.


Putting out a mini-issue (16 pages instead of 24) with a sporty focus meant that there really wasn't a call for much artwork. This is the rough sketch for the back cover. Initally we were going for a sort of Ellen Forney Absolutely True Diary Of A Part-Time Indian dichotomy kind of vibe, but that didn't go too well.


Cleaned-up lines. Her arm is stupid and so's his foot (and, come to think of it, hers are too). Racquet looks decent, though. His face is nicely angular.


 Colours by the inimitable Ydriss. Love you long time, girlie. 

6 April 2013

Various posters.

And by "various", I actually mean two. Process pictures sure go a long way towards bulking up a post.


First is a poster advertising my friend's one-act play. Given that the actors billed are all underclassmen, I'm not sure if life will precisely imitate art where costuming is concerned.

EDIT



What do you know, my friend agreed with me. He also asked for a version with Satan put in. The kid playing the demon (and let me make this clear right now: he's a great guy, really ace, really enthusiastic) just so happens to be terribly and irrevocably blond, which messed up my entire colour scheme for a little while. Everything turned out okay in the end, though.
Second one's pretty cute. I've done a poster for Fashion Rationale before and loved the end result, so this was a fun client to come back to—plus this time I remembered to save process pictures! Here we have the rough sketch; the font is Infinity, if you are so interested (and if you ever want to identify any font I've used, feel free to drop me a line).
Cleaned-up lineart. Getting from the first image to this one took about three and a half hours, for those of you keeping track.

Finished product. This project was basically an excuse to draw questionable fashion trends, and by that yardstick I'd say it was pretty damn successful, thank you very much.

EDITED AGAIN



Playing around in Photoshop resulted in two more versions! I almost think I like the teal one better than the original, honestly, but I've always been a sucker for teal. (click for big)

21 March 2013

Caesura stuff.

Playing around with colour etc., because there's really only so long I can pull off black + white + accents before it'll all catch up to me.




16 March 2013

Birthday stuff.

I'm a bit of a cheapskate, so people who know me well enough tend to get drawings for their birthdays in lieu of actual physical objects. Unfortunately for them, I am also an incorrigible procrastinator. Context: this was for a birthday in December 2012. And the 'zine is still unfinished.



Again: sorry, Mouse. Happy terribly belated birthday.

Cultural Convention work.

Every now and then this wonderful thing called Cultural Convention happens, which is pretty much a whiz-bang meetup of artistically, theatrically, musically, rhetorically, and dancetastically talented kids from the region's six main international schools. This year my school hosted the Debate/Forensics chunk of proceedings and through some trick of fate I ended up solely responsible for the event logo.


Stipulations were pretty clear: "Involve elements of local culture," they told me, "and don't insult the other schools too much." (I may be misremembering that last part.)


Mr Long Nose here is an artistic mangling of wayang kulit, one of my country's proudest, most beautiful forms of performance art. I'd say everything turned out fine.


Pretty fine, in fact.


Pret-ty fine indeed.

Unfinished character work.

Ah, the really exciting stuff. I'll get around to finishing these. Eventually.



This one's cute because it's based on a friend's alt-universe where our merry band of misfits is essentially recast as bad guys. So here we have an assassin, a scientist (me), and a getaway driver (the model for the February cover, oddly enough), with the supervillain we kowtow to (AKA the guy who made this up in the first place) being my snarky magazine columnist friend. There are supposed to be more people involved but I haven't got around to doing them yet. Etc.


The girls from Caesura, one of my own stories. It's meant to be a hardboiled/noir pastiche of life at the school I go to. Despite appearances, the main character is Max; Zelah, the namesake of my blog's old URL, just happened to be easier to pin a colour scheme onto.


This was ambitious. I had a list of seventy-five or so characters from all my different stories and I was planning on drawing each and every one of them. You can see for yourself how far I got.

Auf wiedersehen, pet.

Blue Umbrella Studios work.

I've run out of magazine issues, so now we're moving on to some work I've done for the school's design club.


My favourite. I wish I could remember how to draw like that.


The "Sauce For Hope" part is hand-lettered. Offsetting white type with a black shadow to add body is the absolute best thing ever, honestly.


Our girls' cross-country team wanted t-shirts with a running dragon on the front. Putting him in shorts made sense at the time.


Have you ever really stopped and thought about how many different types of umbrellas there are in the world? I mean—really stopped and thought about it? Because there are awful lot, just sayin'.


Scales.

March issue.


Fewer pieces than usual because the issue itself was shortened. Then again, Spring Break (which our school's seniors traditionally spend in Bali, hence the cover) is coming up soon, so that may have been another factor in the productivity dip.


From an editorial about post-test gossip. This issue's homage goes out to the gorgeously expressive lowlighter, whose inky digital sketches will forever put mine to shame.


From my friend's column. He's really got a thing for ragging on the international student community, hasn't he?


Main art for Bali-themed In Depth. Working in colour is not my strong suit, but I promise the page spread looks pretty cute when it's all laid out properly.


Clipart for In Depth, this time about things to do when trapped in JKT over Spring Break. Squaring off those banners brought joy to my soul, though I can't quite decide if that's Monas or just a really wonky candle.

BONUS



First draft of the editorial illo. (Clavicles are fun.)


First draft of the main In Depth art. I think I tried to use Rule Of Thirds here but composition ranks about as high as colour theory and square dancing on my list of marketable skills.

March issue over and out.