Friday, October 31, 2008

Anatomy Class.



BAHAHAHAHA.

It's the anterior view of the skull, if you haven't realized. *trying not to think of eventually having to draw and label from memory the human skeletal and muscular systems*

OTL

Thursday, October 30, 2008

OACC Artbook Preview + First Basic Form Project.

OACC. n. a Chinese annual nationwide animation and manga competition.























I squeeeaaled when I got to these next pages... Aren't you surprised.





Yueshuxin! *loves*



Denise and I are hoping to enter a oneshot into the shounen manga category for next year's competition. ; ) Not really for the win-win, but more for the exposure. I could really use a new springboard into the Chinese manga industry, cos my Chinese publisher hasn't paid me yet. (Not to mention one of the manga judges is a professor in our university... *O*/)

Anyway, if you're interested to see what Chinese animation and manga artists have come up with for the last competition, here.

Still remember my first Basic Form project? Looks like I went overboard. Think abstract. Abstract.







This is my final, approved work for the point, line, and surface subtopic. Yes, photos.



I'm currently working on my second project, whose draft has been approved -- huzzah!

Meanwhile, I did this realism portrait trial of human Longnu. I'm only familiar with the bone / muscle structure of the head, so the rest of the drawing is most likely riddled with errors... o___O



Played around with this on Photoshop for a little over two hours... Mac screens chew away from the already deficient contrast in my drawings. TTiiTT

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Xiangshan Campus + Sketch Studies + Basic Form Project.

The second day of the Sportsfest. As far as I know, high jump and track and field events were held that morning.



The other day, I was trying to practice tennis against the wall when my ball flew out of the court and out into the road. I snapped some shots as I went to fetch it. XD

This is our tennis court. It's right beside the smaller Shannan basketball court as well as the Shannan cafeteria.





The [back of the] Shannan cafeteria. *mouth waters*



The Shannan dormitories. (I stay at the Shanbei dormitories.)





Buildings along the South Gate.





This is my first shot at copying a portrait. (I'd copied plaster busts before.) The nose looks punched in I mostly tried to pay attention to the shading, but, it still came out too gray... OTL



Anyway, remember when I studied -- for like a single session, cos I got bored -- under Chen laoshi in Hong Kong? Back then, I knew zilch about anatomy and portraiture procedure. My mom sat for three hours as I drew my first ever graphite portrait.

... and, I made her look fat. XD But, anyway, she was uber happy -- she insisted that I take a photo of her and the portrait, as seen below.



The other day, I thought I'd take another shot at drawing my mom using this very photo as reference, and this is how it came out.



Frankly... it almost looks like her, but, I feel like I've redeemed myself anyway! /*D*\

Please take note that all of the fine art pieces that I've been posting up are just self-studies -- I've just been living off tutorial books, as well as comments and advice from classmates and friends.

We have FA classes scheduled in the following months, and the profs most certainly won't be teaching from the basics. Afterall, most Chinese students in art colleges nationwide likely have trained for 1-4 years before taking their entrance exams, and so carry over considerably mature FA skills to their college classes.

As for me, I'm trying to learn as much as I can now, hoping not to lag too far behind behind when the time comes... Points for effort! \@A@/

"The first principle of the science of painting is the point, then comes the line, then the surface, and then the body bounded by a given surface." - da Vinci

For our Basic Form project, we were asked to pick three mediums, and use each to illustrate (1) the point, (2) the line, and (3) the plane. That's nine 18 x 18 cm, b/w images in total. It's really quite a simple project, but I ended up spending most of my weekend working on it anyway.

I'm not saying I'll get a high score for my project, but, the fact is, I'm quite proud of it! It's the first time I drew something in other than manga-style, and using 100% traditional media. We were also asked to back each picture up with cardboard in case we chose to use plain paper, but I went ahead and made this mini-album package...



For my three mediums, I chose (1) drawing pen, (2) cotton buds, ad (3) a fork.

This first image is supposed to illustrate the line made using cotton buds. (The black I used is leftover calligraphy ink.)



Flip... The left image is supposed to illustrate the point made using cotton buds. (Anything can be a point -- even this ink monster!) The right image is supposed to illustrate the plane made with the drawing pen.



Flip... The top image is supposed to illustrate the point made using a fork, while the bottom image, the plane made using cotton buds.



This is how the very inside of the album looks like when fully opened.



These two images, both made using a drawing pen, are supposed to illustrate the point and the line respectively. (Longnu~~~)



Finally, these two images, both made using a fork, are supposed to illustrate the line and the plane respectively.



As for the very last image, I guess it's turned out to be some sort of Halloween tribute. I was just going to draw a skyline against the night sky, but then what looked like a skull appeared amidst the clouds, so I went along with it. Creepy. XD

Advance Happy Halloween!

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Sportsfest.

Most of us were at the soccer field for the opening ceremony.







The Chinese flag and the athletes make their entrance.



The foreign students team. ^o^





Purple balloons. Purdyyy.



The athletic assembly.



Giant cotton candy cloud.





Spear technique.



Foreign students performing fan wushu.



Taichi with song number.



This dance number was entitled "Colors."





Cheering.



What can I say? The organizing committee seems to have tried to recreate the atmosphere from the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony... but, of course, they could hardly have practiced as long! ; O