Alternate Worlds - Fantasy Genre Guide illustration

This was done last year (9 Feb 2006) for the library’s “Alternate Worlds - Fantasy Genre Guide”. Composed, drawn and illustrated entirely with Photoshop Elements on a Windows PC.


Details on how it was done, over at MyRightBrain.wordpress.com.

Art Sunday - "Hands"

An extremely wet Sunday today. Had to attend a Malay wedding reception (a daughter of my colleague got married so I didn't drop by the SGF to check on things. Spent the rest of the day cooped up at home. Decided to publish some drafts I'd saved for the longest time, over at MyRightBrain.

This one's an illustration for the Science Fiction "Biotechnology" Genre Guide for the library (details here).


Also retrieved and posted this one from the CD I made of my art pieces (details here)


Oh yeah, you could pick up the Biotechnology Genre Guide from the NLB booth at the Singapore Garden Festival.

Technorati Tag: art sunday

Art Sunday - Postcards for 2007

Exercising my right brain and created these two days ago:




Details here, and here.

Technorati Tag: art sunday

Of Romance and Flowers

This was an illustration I did sometime ago. My colleagues were producing a new series of Fiction Genre Guides and we needed illustrations for the covers. There was no time to hire a vendor to do the illustrations, so I volunteered. This one was for the "Historical Romance" genre guide (you might have seen it in the public library).

[Details on how it was done, here]

For some reason, my wife had this urge to try out watercolour-pencils. This is her second piece (here's her first one):

[More details, here]

Technorati Tags: genre guide, historical romance, watercolour pencil, watercolour pencil art

My wife's artwork - "Bavarian Landscape"

[Originally posted at MyRightBrain, 26th July 2006]
My wife rarely draws or paint. In fact, this is the first time I've seen her do it, and so I HAD to blog it!

This was done with watercolour pencils.


And this was after she applied water to it:


She drew the picture from memory, inspired from a trip to Germany quite some time back. I jokingly told her to first picture looked like what a five year-old produced... ok, that was mean of me, sorry!

Good or bad, I think adults should just experiment and put their pictures online since they already drew it.

In fact, I'm secretly proud of her for deciding to experiment with an art piece. : )

Technorati Tag: watercolour pencil

Art Sunday: Green Plant

Actually I did this on a Saturday. Here's the "How it was done" post, if you care to read it. Surprisingly, I found writing the "How to" post just as fun as the actual sketching and painting.

Come to think of it, what I like about art is the process of achieving the finished work. Documenting the step-by-step process was a way of refreshing that memory, as well as an archive of the process rather than just the finished product. It's part of the individual's learning journey (which includes the sharing component).

Thinking aloud...

• Is there any value in libraries helping people create such personal archives/ documentation of their learning journeys?
• Or the library doesn't have a role at all, since there's already the Internet and blogs and other social software?
• If the library has a role, what would it be?

Tag: life long learning, role of libraries

Art Sunday: Batgirl Chinese-style (Batgirl Meme)

In my previous Batgirl meme post, I wrote that I might draw my version of Batgirl after I completed some "homework". And here's my Batgirl, Chinese-style!

I took about a month to do this, from research to completion, working on it bits and pieces at a time (basically, whenever I felt like continuing with it).

So, why Chinese-style?

Looking at the samples posted at the originating meme post (which is still going strong!), I noticed the Batgirls were done Western style -- basically variants of the original Batgirl.

I thought it would be a refreshing change to do one Chinese-style, starting with the Bat motif.

I used Google image search for "Chinese Bat" for references on the Chinese Bat motif (which tended to be rounder than the late Bob Kane's version.

I decided that my Batgirl would be a Chinese Swords-woman, relying on her martial arts skills rather than technical gadgets.

Her mask was inspired by my vague memory of some black-and-white Chinese movie in the 60s, featuring a masked woman who did good (kinda like Batgirl).

The image search for a Chinese Swords-woman was a lot harder. I tried keywords like "Chinese Swordswoman", "Chinese woman sword", which led me to search for "wushu". I even tried "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon". I realised I had better results if I turned the Google Safe-filter off.

As a final touch, I added the Chinese character for "Woman" -- "女" in the background.

All in all, it was an interesting exercise and I'm glad I did it. For one, it was good practice on Photoshop (the picture was done entirely in Photoshop, from sketching to painting). But more important, the creative process itself made me feel good.

I've blogged more about the Photoshop process over at MyRightBrain.wordpress.com.


Tag: art sunday, batgirl meme

Art Sunday: Cat-n-Mouse

"Cat 'N' Mouse". Pencil & Ink on plain paper. 9 Apr 2006

I was reading Siva's post, "Mr Bats keeps me company", and decided to practice drawing Mr. Bats (his cat). And then I noticed the computer mouse, and looked as if Mr. Bats was trying to touch it. Which inspired me to draw the above picture.

Art Sunday: My version of Halo

I was attracted to this picture from Kevin's blogpost on the upcoming Halo Graphic Novel:


Which reminded me of this drawing I did way back in 1989:


Mmm... some similarities there. I guess body armour design doesn't really vary much over the years, does it? And there's the Japanese Anime (ala Gundam) element as well. Here's the gist of how my picture came about (hint: Star Wars Imperial Tie-fighter pilot).

I've not played Halo before (although I almost wanted to buy the game once). Maybe I'll stick to drawing a few more sketches. See if I can come up with an updated body armour design. Shall go check out these books in the library (suggested keywords: "armour", "armour technology", "armour warfare"):

Modern weapons and warfare: The technology of war from 1700 to the present day
by Will Fowler.
NLB Call No.: Y q355.809 FOW (Young People's Collection)

Twentieth-century arms & armour
by Stephen Bull.
NLB Call No.: R 355.820904 BUL (LKCRL collection, reference only)
This book charts the development of modern weaponry from 1900 through to the present day, discussing both close combat and high-tech warfare. In addition other types of arms, such as those used in sport and civil defence, are fully explored.

Warfare in Ancient Greece: Arms and armour from the heroes of Homer to Alexander the Great
by Tim Everson.
NLB Call No.: q355.00938 EVE

IllustrationFriday.com & my Art Sunday

I've been following this site called Illustration Friday for a while now. I discovered it when searching for sites to link to from my art blog:

Illustration Friday is meant to challenge participants creatively. We believe that every person has a little creative bone in their body. Illustration Friday just gives a no-pressure, fun excuse to use it. No clients looking for a particular thing. No one judging the outcome of the work. It's a chance to experiment and explore and play with visual art. Curious about collage? Try it here. Never even picked up a colored pencil? Why not now? Just have time for a doodle? That's okay, we'd love to see it. You don't have to be an illustrator or an artist to participate. Just pick up a pencil, for the love of pete.

I signed up for their mailing list some time ago and have been receiving alerts on themes for the week. This week was on "Monsters" (received the mail on Friday) and this morning, I decided to submit this one on the right (url link only; you don't have to upload anything to Illustration Friday).

Didn't really expect much to happen, but pretty soon a few comments came in. Naturally they were illustrators too (who participated in Illustration Friday). I was blown away by their works in their blogs/ websites like this one, this, this, this and this... sorry if I left anyone out. Too many to list here. They are all good. It was really interesting to see how different people interpreted the same theme.

Feeling much encouraged, I submitted another "Monster" link and the traffic to MyRightBrain has been climbing the last time I checked.

It's gratifying to know that people are looking at my work, and it's equally gratifying to look at others who share a love and interest in art. Certainly learnt more than a thing or two (some ideas and techniques I'd want to try in the near future). Also made a point to comment, to let them know I dropped by and what I liked about their work.

Did I tell you I love the Blogosphere?

Coincidentally, my wife bought me a sketch book when we went shopping this afternoon. We reached home. I started doodling. One sketch let to another, and another. The works won't earn me a place in art houses anytime soon but it was a fun exercise. Gave me a sense of purpose, even. I'll scan and post them up soon.

Biblio-Art Therapy (or, "I did this!")

After blogging about the "24-hour Comix Jam @ The Pod", I remembered I had scans of paintings I did in my teens. Got nostalgic and decided to share them here.

They were done during school holidays and term breaks. I would borrow books from the public library. Mostly Fantasy and Sci Fi, as you can see from the pictures. Hence many of the paintings were inspired from ideas and characters from books.

This one's titled "Elfin Warrior: Frenor the Slayer" (Mar '89). Poster paints, watercolour pencils & ink. Corny title, right? I think the idea came from a combination of too many "Conan the Barbarian" stories and WWF wrestling shows (who remembers "The Ultimate Warrior"?)



This one's a made-up character "Jared: Sommniat Warrior of the Serpentine Order" (Aug '89). Watercolour pencils & ink. Ok, heavy influence from more 'Conan the Barbarian' type of stories. But in my mind, this guy is a good guy.


If memory serves me, I think "Sherba - Arakian Trakker Hound" (Aug '89) was inspired by reading Frank Herbert's "Dune". Somewhere in the novel, there was something about tracker hounds being set upon Paul Atreides (please correct me if I'm wrong about this).



"Tangerine's Dream - Dream Sequence 1: Elf Warrior" (Aug '89). Ah, more of the warrior elves stuff. A friend of mine introduced me to a new-age synthesizer band called "Tangerine Dream". Somehow, the band name and the elf-warrior idea got er... synthesized. Thing is, I often don't have specific notions of the story behind the names I gave to the paintings and characters. The whole idea was to give some vague meaning to the titles -- like how we see a book cover with a catchy title, and thinking what could possible be the story behind the title and the picture.



This one was copied straight from the cover of a book by Robert Holdstock "Where Time Winds Blow" (Aug '89; poster paints & ink). Wrote down the author and book title but forgot to note the illustrator. The story didn't have a lasting impression but the book cover did. One of those moments where I looked at a book cover and told myself, "Hey I think I can paint it!" -- oh, the crack in the glass was my additional touch (it wasn't on the original cover illustration).



This one's titled "Warrior's Prayer - The Metal Kings" (Dec '89). Watercolours & ink. The idea for this didn't come from a book though. I was listening to a track titled "The Warrior's Prayer" from the heavy metal band, 'Manowar' (Kings of Metal).


The track starts off with a boy saying, "Grandfather, tell me a story!" and the grandfather did, with sound effects of the horses and men and swords and thunder... (storytelling for adults!)


"Tor'noh'kqlish: Warrior King of the Tarvarn Nation" (May '92). Poster paints, watercolours & ink. I was toying with the idea of a cross between the American Indian and Roman warrior cultures. Of course I can't deny there was more of the 'Conan the Barbarian' influence.



If you're a fan of the band "Extreme" and find the next painting strangely familiar, you're right! The original picture is from the inside sleeve of one of their albums ("Pornografitti", I think -- I could be wrong, let me know). See, I liked the lighting effects of the picture and how Gary Cherone and Nuno Bettencourt were posing. Then I imagined them carrying swords -- and so it became "Legends of Nimrath: Eria Bladers" (Dec '94). Watercolours, colour pencils & ink.



"Red Expedition" (Apr '96). Acrylic & ink. Can't remember exactly what I read to have inspired this but it had to do with Mars. I imagined them as hunter-explorers, humans in armoured suits, on a newly terraformed Mars.


Ok, I might scan and post more in future. If you've got a blog for your own paintings, leave a comment here.


Tag: book art