The Saint illustrations.

While I'm up and anxious, have some illustrations I did for The Saint. (Apologies for lack of commentary, by the way. Exams are fun.)

Time to clock out.

Pixel stuff.

while (examRevision == true) {
     Laras.shouldNotBeAllowedOnInternet = true;
}

Superbrothers is pretty rad. Although they're best known for the lovely Sword & Sworcery EP game released back in 2011, they've also been responsible for some really great retro pixel art.

Insert me and my relentless cribbing, and also an article for the Albany Parker about library habits, and you get:

And now back to the revision hole for me.

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.

Teaser.

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

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. ♥

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)

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.

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.

February issue.

Funny thing is, the models for the cover were single when the photo was taken, but they got together sometime during the editing process. Cue the complimentary silhouette-out.

From my friend's column (something about our aggressively laissez-faire attitude towards the environment). Obligatory homage #1: thick-lined comic goodness via the magnificently quirky Dan Piraro, of Bizarro Comics fame.

From our In Depth article on different types of relationships. I think this one was just a filler piece, but its quiet simplicity pleases me.

Another one from the In Depth—this one (about cross-grade relationships) actually ran as the main art, if I recall correctly. Obligatory homage #2: the delightfully languid stylings of the delightful Taryn Gee, who was responsible for one of my most favourite illustrations ever.

Yet another one from the In Depth, this time about couples who were friends before dating.

On-off relationships. I love those two arms; they turned out a lot better than I'd hoped.

Final one from the In Depth, I promise. the writers requested a generic scientist filler piece and I made him a Cupid-esque psychopath because it's dangerous to give vague instructions to artists.

Super twee sports flowchart. The swim captain cutout in particular is a thing of sheer beauty. They had to rearrange the colour section for this one, though, because running it in black-and-white resulted in a more labyrinthine effect than I think anyone was entirely comfortable with.

BONUS

First shot at my friend's column; the blue ball was meant to be Earth, and the dragon is a callback to our school mascot. I like how you can see precisely where I gave up on drawing scales.

First shot at the on-off relationships illo. If IB Biology taught me anything, it's that real hearts > stylised hearts every time.

Second shot at the on-off relationships illo (sketch + semi-finished product). Reusing bits and pieces of discarded ideas is a bit of a specialty of mine.

(Side note: I covered fewer articles this issue because the new semester brought two actual, legitimate artists to the magazine art team. One of them is fantastic and wonderful and has a DeviantART page; the other is fantastic and wonderful and doesn't, sadly.)

Catch you on the flip side, ladies and gents.