Ninja August 15th, 2008
I LOVE Ming Doyle’s piece for LA Gallery 1988’s Crazy 4 cult 2 show!! The show opens August 22 (the Friday opening reception is from 7 PM–11PM) and runs until September 12, 2008.
Pris looks so good!
Related postsNinja June 13th, 2008
Ah, I know it’s Friday, but I don’t dream that often. Instead of posting a dream this week, I thought I’d offer up this portrait that I just finished inking.
Meet Dan. He’s the owner of the barber shop that I frequent. He’s a very sweet guy, but he acts all tough. He’s also a huge NvP fan—he told me that he painted and decorated a whole room to match our First Kiss print (which is proudly displayed in said room). O.o Wow, thanks, Dan!
When I last visited his shop, he joked that I should paint him some time. Why not?
Here’s a bit of my inking process:
I finished most of the line work, but the wash on Dan’s shirt was uneven and boring. It could use some texture and pattern.
I photocopied the drawing and cut out the shirt portion to create a stencil.
I placed the stencil over the drawing and used nail polish bottles to weigh it down to avoid shifting. Then I dipped an old toothbrush in sumi ink and used my thumb to create small splatter marks. The harder I flicked, the larger the marks.
And here is the drawing after the stencil was removed.
Here’s a detail of the splatter pattern. I varied my flicking to create different sized spots.
Here’s one of the wallpaper patterns I made in Illustrator as a background for Dan’s portrait. For this pattern, I drew a pair of hair cutting scissors, rotated, and repeated them. I didn’t like the way it looked with Dan’s portrait, so I nixed it. I may tweak it later, and give it a go again.
Here’s the final. I evened out the wash of the shirt, then added more shading to Dan’s jaw and neck to give him definition.
Happy inking & happy Friday,
Ninja
Ninja May 30th, 2008
Hallo & happy Friday! Thanks for stopping by and visiting my dreams.
Here’s dream number 2. I’m not sure which is scarier—that I actually had this conversation with Zach or that I later dreamed about it.
A bit of background for this dream: there’s a zombie war raging on. Zach and I narrowly escape and barricade ourselves inside an abandoned warehouse. I’m still trying to process the day’s events, and needless to say, I’m quite shaken up. Then Zach snaps me back to reality by saying, “Looky, missy, this is serious! There’s a zombie war out there. If you get bitten, I will not hesitate to put a bullet through your head.” I stare at him in disbelief. To drive the point home, Zach adds, “I would shoot you point blank!!”
Of course, Zach gets bitten, hides it from me, and later turns into a zombie. Then he comes after me. Zach’s hungry. Very hungry. No matter how fast I run, he manages to catch up. He grabs a hold of my arm, starts salivating like Pavlov’s dog, and is about to feast on me. Then I wake up.
As you can see, the panels are not finished. I’m not that thrilled with my inking here, but I feel like I should complete this and try and salvage what I can.
Until next Friday, sweet dreams!
Cheers,
Ninja
Ninja April 3rd, 2008
When I sit down to ink a portrait, it takes me hours because I have the tendency to obsess over the details. In my figure drawing class, I don’t have that luxury. I need to get down the model’s pose and expression in minutes. This forces me to do quick washes and fast brush strokes. It’s a nice change of pace, and inking from life is a real treat. Too bad, my class is ending soon.
The model had a delightful accent and was full of life when she spoke. She also was a lot better looking that this.
I have the bad habit of overworking an image. I went too heavy with the shadows on her upper chest.
But I really like the bleeding edges that happened in the mid chest area.
Not my best work, but my bigger sketch book is tucked away in a locker. I figured I’d photograph my smaller sketch book since I had it handy. And experimenting and new things are fun, so I thought I’d share!
Happy inking,
Ninja
Ninja March 29th, 2008
I’m at home sick. It sort of hit out of nowhere. I was fine this morning. Now, I’m feeling awfully tired and weak. I spent most of the day in bed with my stuffed penguin (Christmas gift from Jasmine) and Mr. Pooh doll (birthday from Ophelia). Been eating jook aka congee too, don’t ya know.
Anywho, the point is that I haven’t gotten around to drawing/inking today. Inking is such bliss for me. I get a real kick out of watching others ink, too. Here’s a viddy of Fábio Moon inking a Casanova page.
Related link
+ Check out Fábio Moon/Gabriel Ba’s blog
Ninja March 28th, 2008
Yippee,
*
just saw on the Theme Magazine blog that my bird nest/geisha hair painting
won me this fabulous, brand new Monument Snowboard designed by Maya Hayuk!
How cool is that?! Thanks to the kind folks at Theme for picking lil’, ole me!! ^__^
* Mantis photo from Mfrost
Related postsNinja March 24th, 2008
Here are the steps for my bird nest/geisha hair portrait.
The eyes are the window to the soul, so I always start there. No real reason why I was using a blue pencil other than I couldn’t find my regular pencils and this one was just on my desk.
I really enjoy drawing/inking hair. Yes, I was inking on top of my laptop. I could have cleared the table, but I was too lazy. I was listening to Radiohead and Death Cab for Cutie on iTunes, too.
I go about blocking in the shadows and midtones. Highlights are created by leaving those areas blank, so the white of the paper shows through. I just started using the Rives BFK paper, and it soaks in the ink wonderfully (plus, it’s thick enough that the moisture doesn’t cause it to warp like crazy). Good stuff.
After layers and layers of ink, the hair is done.
It’s lonely, so I add a little, feathered friend. I think it also gives the portrait a bit of a fairy-tale vibe (and kind of makes the funky hair style excusable).
I deepened the blues in the face and finished inking the bird.
Here, Stefan pointed out that the bird’s tail was too large in proportion to his body. What can I say? The man’s got a critical eye and a keen sense of detail. Danke, Stefan for your help!
With the pen tool, I created a selection of the bird’s tail and moved it to another layer (I feathered that selection by .2 pixels so that there wouldn’t be such a hard edge). Then I scaled and rotated it to the proper proportion. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough image (because it originally bled off the page). With a bit more of the pen tool, cloning stamp, and healing brush, the extra bits of the tail were created.
Happy Drawing,
Ninja ^__^
Ninja March 20th, 2008
Ninja March 20th, 2008
Thanks to Ms. Ophelia for the heads up!
You know how I LOVE drawing hair, so this snowboard contest was just calling my name.
The Contest
Monument Snowboards and Theme Magazine are giving away limited edition snowboard from the 2007-2008 Monument Snowboard Artist Series. The And I Will Always Love You snowboard features original design by Maya Hayuk.
How to enter
Send a picture of the rebellious haircut/hairstyle with the year it was taken and accompany it with a picture of you and your hair now. Send your REBEL hair photos to Jason.Lam@ThemeMagazine.com
Deadline for Submission
Monday, March 24, 2008
Favorite pictures + the winner will be on the Theme website on Friday, March 28th!
Good luck!
If you’re curious, here’s my entry.
sumi ink + colored pencil on Rives BFK, 8.5 in x 11 in
Related postsLimited edition lithograph prints. Signed + numbered.
