More Hutan Hantu

Don't worry my love...

Been meaning to post this for years. A story beat for Hutan Hantu.

The Young Seawoman

Yet another project idea in brain development

Hutan Hantu, revisited

Remember that Malaysia-based concept I started way back in art school? As with anything at least a little important&personal to me, it has been neglected on the back burner for too long. Now with work and the froggy short, this has resurfaced as a creative outlet for when I get stuck with the other two projects. It's like that old friend who hasn't changed at all when you come back to visit, and reminds you of the important things you sometimes forget in life.

Anywho, I'm excited to uncover some new details about the characters. I always hear about "specificity" in characters and story, and I'm slowly starting to understand that as I thread my own experiences and memories into this. It's a slow and inconsistent process because I keep trying to figure out what the basic premise of the story is (laying the foundation) while building layers of detail to the characters and individual scenes (building the house on top). I just hope I don't fall into the trap of getting to attached to ideas that don't support the big picture. I often wonder if I'm even smart enough to pull this story off, and get bogged down by my limitations in drawing/thinking/communicating... but at the end of the day I love it too much to give up.

Froggy

It's about time I dust off the ol' blog! It's been pretty crazy at work since starting a year ago... I feel like I just went through four years of art school, and I'm barely done with my first year at Pixar.

Here's a lil' project I started developing a month ago. I hope to finish a short film with these characters by the end of the year!

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

Violinists

Quick gestures drawn in Flash.

Ear Gnocchi

A quick photoshop sketch from my point of view. I'll leave the image up to your interpretation. :)

Return to Malaysia

This is from the booklet of sketches of people and memories in Malaysia (taking much artistic liberty of course), which I sold at APE. I'm hoping to add more to it and eventually sell a paperback version. I dedicated this to my family in Malaysia, and I hope none of them gets offended by my caricaturization of them. ;)

Dragons of Atlantis art dump

I've disappeared for a while due to APE, and the massive undertaking that was Dragons of Atlantis, which was art directed by Kate, buildings art was illustrated by Chantrelle, and the animations were done by Hye Won ("Denny") and Sabrina. It the biggest feat done in the shortest amount of time for me, and I literally had to switch 180 degrees from the previous style I was working in. It took a long time for me to pick up helpful techniques in realistic concept art, rendering, and overall painting, and Kate and I were simultaneously trying to figure out which direction the style should go in (i.e. more rough and sharp shapes geared towards macho, or more anatomically correct yet universally appealing).

I love investing the time to learn a different style, new techniques, and develop an intuitive feel for the effect I'm trying to capture, but I still feel like I'm only 20% of where I want to be. It's hard to get good and quick at this stuff when you're basically just teaching yourself, though many friends have helped me along the way. I think that with practice, patience, the determination to understand and execute intelligently, I will become faster, better and looser. Overall, I am extremely grateful for the opportunities and challenges I've come across during my time at Wonderhill, and now Kabam (my company got acquired!).

Here's a good chunk of my work over the past few months, starting from the oldest at the top to the most current at the bottom.

***Humans ***

*** Dragons ***

***Anthropus ***

***Most Recent***

***Disclaimer***

Just to assure you that I'm not abandoning all fun and charm and cute for the sake of realism, here's a 5 minute doodle: