The Process – Love Is In The Air

Hi there everyone…I would like to share one of my painting’s processes with all of you.

So let’s start!

1. Concept: I was just thinking to draw something wild, adventurous…so came up with the idea of kissing lovers in the air, was laughing on my own idea so this is the first doodle I made.

2. Drawing & Composition: It’s time draw details…the dress code of the lovers, their vehicles & the city structure. If you are wondering about those sinister buildings then it’s intentional..yes, to show the bravery of the lover, I just wanted to add more drama in the whole composition, it also depicts that these two lovers are so passionate about each other that they don’t really care about the consequences of their Kiss.

Since I wanted to show something Futuristic yet ancient (sounds silly I know!) to make it more clear, I would like to say more about the culture I was looking for…

this city is somewhere above the sky and they are living there from ages… I tried to show more organic feel, like it’s made with natural stuff. Check out the overlay building’s roof.

As u can see, I’ve added few elements (Overlay) to add more depth. I wasn’t sure about the colour scheme till this moment.

3. Colour scheme: Since its going to be an ancient fantasy…I thought about Golden Yellow scheme.

So I created a new layer and filled Golden Yellow and tried the blending mode options. It’s a great option to achieve harmony in the artwork. Sometimes you can get lots of unexpected and beautiful effects

through this feature. I think most of the people are already aware about that. So as u can see here the look and feel is changed due to the blending mode adjustment. Now I started adding details in overall composition.

Sometimes I don’t follow the ideal process and work on different area at the same time. To show the depth of field, I made the foreground elements blurry

using Gaussian Blur filter. So I suggest working with lots of layers, so that we can tweak each layer separately without spoiling the whole artwork.

4. Background: Background was almost merging with the characters…so added light pink colour on a separate layer to add more depth in the background. So the character will come out.

5. I think we should take a break and see the same work once again after some period of time. After looking at this artwork after few days, I realized that the composition was too tight for the subject.

So I made few changes… minimized the character’s sizes and flipped entire canvas.

It was looking better than before…then started working on the details. I chose Calligraphic Brushes…these Brushes are great for painterly look & feel.

6. Final details and tweaks: I’ve used smooth edge brush around the character to avoid those sharp edges…added clouds and light in the sky. Hope u enjoyed the making. Click the last image to view the final bigger image.

Happy Painting!!

Process – Blueberry Cheesecake for BLU Shangri- La with TBWA Singapore

Alright guys, some analog stuff. Behind the scenes and process for a very interesting project with good friends which were from TBWA Singapore then, Pei Pei, Ng,  Merlin Kwan and David Chan. Another piece was crafted by our OiC darling, Sokkuan. An amazing illustrator in her own right.

1) Straight forward agency brief complete with idea and sketch.

2) Counter sketch from my side to enchance idea. Execution style is discussed and agreed upon with the creative team. In this case. Heavy body and soft body acrylic style.

3) Preliminary colour proposals done in photoshop.For analog or natural media work, this stage is very crucial because there is not much room for amendments when it gets to the real thing.

4) Final stages of colour, look and feel approved by agency creatives and  client. Canvas and paints are prepared and halfway through the completion of illustration, art director steps in for minimal final touch ups and amendments.

5) Voila! Final touch ups and off to the photographer to do his magic lighting. Crucial stage as well because photographing paintings need another set of skills.

Oic Maad 2010 July- the Artwork pt 01

It’s fun to pick and highlight interesting sketches from our Portrait Day sessions at Maad every week. I am very happy that the participants/ artists try their best to capture the image of the poser in interesting ways. I have problems identitifying the artists because not many of them print their names clearly on the front. If you know please leave a comment for me – thx

More to come…

( Artists from top- ??, Raymond, ??, Mas, ??, ??, Yeo Jian Long, ??, Lay Siong )

The Process – Vue Privée’s Maiko

Client: Vue Privée’s Gallery

Brief: Aimed at capturing the elegance of Old Japan, seen through the lens of photographers living and working during the late Edo period (1872 – 1912). Using gallery owner’s private antique photos collection as inspiration.

Process: To start any project i always do extensive research for the items i planning to draw. Sometimes, even read up facts on them.

While looking for research i basically already have an image in my head on how i want my illustrations to be, so most of the time i only look for items that goes similar to that idea. Similar meaning; species of plants/animals, man/woman, dressing, pose, angle/view/perspective etc.

I do all the initial sketches on tracing paper, so i can overlay them on top one another to “check” if the composition works. And after that some minor adjustment/fine tuning will be done before i redraw the entire image as a whole.

Once the image is scanned onto Photoshop, i began an extensive cleaning up of tiny dust spots and pencil lines. Followed by pathing out the items that needed to be coloured. Here’s the view of my path window in Photoshop.

And also the process of colouring.

Even though i been given total freedom to create this piece, from time to time i do email the client on the sketch done for update, so to assure that i am on track and do not stray to far from the topic.

So here’s the finish piece!

Two most important tips i can offer to anyone.

A) SAVE YOU FILE

B) BACK UP FILES RELIGIOUSLY

Thanks for reading and comments will be very appreciated.

The Process- Tangs tote bag hunt 2010

This is the behind the scene work sequence of how the project “Tangs tote bag hunt 2010″ was executed.

The game/ contest can be played here: http://www.tangs.com.sg/totebaghunt2010/

1. Design brief was analysed and understood. Basically the game consist of finding 60 shopping bags hidden in the gameboard/ floor plan. My task is to make the gameboard/ floor plan look interesting.

2. Site recce with game designer and client was conducted. Many photos and video were taken of existing shop floors.

3. Using actual plans of the shop floor, I start designing afew floor plans layouts for approval. Since this is a web based game- care was taken to check pixel dimension/ scale of furniture and floor plan. This is important for all web projects to ensure leanness/ efficiency of file size vs screen size.

4. Once plan has been approved- I start planning how and where the fun surreal bits will be. One of my concern was to ensure enough nooks and spaces to hide bags. A preliminary plan was also shown to the designer/ client for approval of where all the bags can be hidden.

A sketch showing how the characters will look like and where they are sited was sent for approval.

5. Once the basic plan is approved- I starting drawing the outlines of all the components and plan the colours. The whole illustration was drawn and painted in Adobe Photoshop.

5. Colouring commence once the outlines and colour scheme is approved. This is the fun part for me – to make the whole board look colourful and fun.

The approved outline was also sent to the game designer/ web programmers so that they can start doing all the back-end work concurrently.

Meanwhile – more jpgs were shown to the designer/ client of where and how the bags will look hidden during the many days of painting.

6. Finally everything is in place and approved- I spent afew more days adding the finishing touches to complete the illustration ready for the game designer/ web programmers to do final game tests.

Tags: mindflyer, singapore illustrator, singapore illustration, Tangs game illustration, mindflyer for Tangs

Tangs tote bag hunt 2010

Finally after much hard work and “secrecy” , my new surreal illustration for Tangs game has been launched on line. When I was 1st asked to illustrate the game board- I thought it will be be any other shopping mall floor plan. I love technical or complex drawings so that itself was already fun for me. Then after my initial proposal sketch – I was given free rein to really coat it thick with the “mindflyer” magic to make it look more fun and whimsical!
This is a very cool project for me- thanks to Kevin and the Spoon team and Tangs of course!

The Tangs web announcement blog post was here: http://bit.ly/aO3sJo

Do take part and play it here:  http://www.tangs.com.sg/totebaghunt2010/

Tags: mindflyer, singapore illustrator, singapore illustration, Tangs game illustration, mindflyer for Tangs

MOH Charity Event – Call for portrait artists

MOH Charity Event

The Celedon House of MOH is organising a carnival to raise funds for its two adopted charities: Lions Befrienders and Yong-en Care Centre. OIC has been invited to take part in this event by helping to source for artists that could volunteer at the caricature/portrait booth. Employees of MOH would be paying $10 for each caricature/portrait and $5 would go to the artist whilst the remainder goes to charity. Of course, they would be encouraged to donate more if they like the caricature/portrait. There’s no time limit to each drawing, but of course, the faster you draw, the more money MOH would raise. There’s also no restrictions to only professional artists or students. All are welcome.

For interested participants, kindly contact Kat at:
Email: katherine_soh@moh.gov.sg
(O) 6325 1290

Please note that this is NOT an official OICsingapore organised event.

Nataliette goes back in time…

Ola OIC! This is my very first post on here… so pardon any awkwardness please?

I’m Nataliette and I’m a designer who likes to draw. I do mainly digital illustrations as I seldom like to get my hands dirty, but occasionally I do enjoy rubbing charcoal on paper. My most revered idols would be Salvador Dali and Oscar Wilde.

Here’s some of my old work done during artschool and secretly doodling when I was supposed to be listening to my lecturers…

DESPERATION FOR A MUSE by nataliette. charcoal on paper, 2005.

RE CYCL ED LOVE by nataliette. markers and ink on sketchbook, 2006.

THEY WERE CRYING WHEN THEIR SONS LEFT by nataliette. ink on sketchbook, 2006.

REACHING FOR THE COOKIE JAR by nataliette, 2007. pencil and ink on sketchbook.

Sometimes when I feel jaded or completely uninspired, I like to flip through my old sketchbooks and kind of travel back in time to reopen the eyes of that naivete and enthusiastic younger artist in me.

My recent artistic ventures are much much different from those now (and I realise, quite sadly, that these are much less varied).
Here are some little samples.

You can see more of my work in my portfolio or at my blog. Pleased to meet you!

Oic Maad 2010 Jun- the Artwork pt 01

Here are some of my favourite drawings- more to come

Here are some of my favourite drawings from our last session in June- more to come next week. We are always on the look out for and encourage new artists!
( Artists from top- JF. Koh, YJL, Evan & Jake )

Oic Maad 2010 Jun Pixs

Here are some pictures of the best moment from  the last session- more to come . People make this event memorable and successful- we hope everyone had fun! Thanks for participating! Hope to see more of you people at MAAD on Saturday!!

See the album here