Going back to painting in Oil!

Going back to traditional painting. It's been 7 years before I used my oil paints. This is my practice piece before I jump to a bigger canvas for an upcoming exhibit.

 

Tarsier Time Lapse Video

I got to paint again and I also took a video! This is a postcard design for the 98b exhibit with the theme into the wild philippine animals and pets. It took me about half a day to finish this piece. Tarsiers are lemurs endemic in the island of Bohol, Philippines. Their eyes are huge (like mine), having the largest eye-to-body size ratio of all mammals.They are very small and suicidal if stressed. Im not kidding! Some locals keep tarsiers as their pets. It made me realize wouldn't it be cool if i have giant tarsier as a pet. Hence the inspiration for this illustration. :)

Below is the final artwork will be selling this postcard at 98B on Aug 15 Saturday at Escolta, Manila. I hope to do more of these if time permits. :)

The Offering Children's Book App Illustration

This was one of the longest and most enjoyable projects I have done. This is my first app project that's why I was so giddy with excitement. The project started last 2014 and is now in the development phase. Here are some of the character studies I made. :)

What i have learned:

Be patient, good things come to those who wait. The timing on this project was spot on. I just finished my svs children's book illustration class and applied what i learned from it. It has been so much better comparing it to my works before. Especially the lighting and composition.

Ask advice from mentors and other illustrators. Having a mentor and friends who does what you do will greatly improve your work. It will let you see your work in a different light. Don't take their critique personally, remember that they also want your work to be better.

I will post more of these when the app is out. :)

Behind the Scenes The Adventures of Pepot Kuripot and Dora Gastadora

The Adventures of Pepot Kuripot and Dora Gastadora

Finally after 6 months of sleepless nights, blood sweat, and tears our book is out! What started as an idea 2 years ago is now a reality. Yup we had this in mind 2 years ago but we didn't take action.

From sketch to reality

Only last year october2014 did we start the character sketches, it was supposed to be just between me and Burn, I was surprised that he already posted it on his blog and already said that we will have a book soon! Yes he started promoting even before we have page 1 of the komiks. Of course this created a lot of pressure at the beginning. This time I was also assigned to a telco account which means more hours spent at the office. Burn send the scripts and I do them on weekends, during lunch break or early in the morning. Google calendar really helped a lot in making this happen, scheduling and prioritizing the komiks, and making sacrifices like saying no to parties and stuff that doesn't bring me closer to my goal. But when I look at the big picture I know it was worth the sacrifice.

Another challenge was the printing cost. Since getting a sponsor will take a while we decided to self publish our book, using our own money and get a publisher later on. We did our book launch at the pantry at 07, it was just me and burn and our very first client Butz! We also have the website up thanks to Lara. We printed 500 copies of the book and sold them online. Looking back it was so worth it. This is one of the best passion project I've done so far.

What I learned in creating this book:

• Focus and time management: We all are give 24 hours everyday, what we do with it is up to us. Allotting an hour everyday and freeing up my schedule on weekends to do the things I love became my goal.
• Consistency and hard work: Doing the illustration as part of a routine helped a lot. I start drawing even if I'm not in the mood and after a few mins. I start to enjoy what I'm doing!
• Love what you do: Doing something you love makes you more productive, fulfilled, and helps you to push yourself to succeed even more.
• Work with a team: I wouldn't have done it without the support of Burn and our friends. Working with a team helps you keep focused and motivated to finish because you don't want to let them down.
• Just do it: I know it's cliche but it's true! :)

DIY Cowboy Switch

One day at the Aspac office.

Javy and his DIY cowboy switch

JAVY: (With his cute smile) "Please make me a Cowboy head, arms, and pants, no body okay?"
ME:  "Okay, get me a pen and paper"

After 45 seconds...

JAVY: "Here"
ME: Okay.
(I started creating the face...)

JAVY: "He should have a big hat... And his eyes should be have only, like this" (Javy covers half of his eyes)
ME:  "Okay, what else?"
JAVY: "Oh he should have a moustache"
ME:  "okay"
JAVY:  "Don't create the body, just the head, arms, and legs"
ME:"Okay"



After a few minutes of office hours...

ME: "Yay, it's done!"
JAVY: "Can you please cut it?"
ME: "Okay, but first I need a kiss!"

JAVY: "Okay"

Art for a kiss :)

All we need is LOVE

Another chalk art at the office! :)
This one is a quote from the Bible 1 John 4:19 "We love because he first loved us."
The song is Love me do by the Beatles.

Fishy Hand Lettering

Since its Lenten season, we decided to sell some daing na bangus (Milkfish Marinated in Vinegar and Garlic). The bangus was ordered in Pangasinan (the place is known for its tasty bangus products.) So it was my task to create the sign "Daing na Bangus for sale". It was a good thing I studied hand lettering in college! I made the Bangus lettering into a fish so the passers by will easily recognize what we are selling.

Time to sharpen my hand lettering skills. I used speedball india ink and a brushpen to do this, it took me about an hour to finish. 

We also have homegrown tomatoes, which my dad takes care of.

I can't wait for these to ripen and partner with the daing na bangus! :)

Summertime = Shorts Time

Because we love our chalk wall so much, we just have to draw on our wall to welcome summer!
Announcement on the wall: "Summer time = Shorts time"
Time to show off those hot legs! :)
We all wore shorts at the office last Friday (too bad if you have a meeting that day). Everybody's hoping that we can do it every Friday! :)

Oh yeah we have a ladder! 

summertime = shorts time

Boni and Angela

Hot legs are served during free lunch Friday

Re energize Wednesdays

Office project, Re-energize Wednesdays basically the rule is to be done with office work by 6pm so we could enjoy the rest of the night. I wish we could apply it everyday! :) Anyone who breaks this rule will be sentenced to wash the dishes on Free Lunch Fridays! :)

What does the fox say?

Doing foxy sketches! :) This exercise is for you to develop your skill to create different characters using a single reference. I tried to do this by creating varying shapes for the head and body and adding other elements to differentiate the characters. After the pencil sketch, I inked these using speedball ink (Since I'm saving up the ink of my brushpen for our comic). So there you have it a foxy musician. A hungry swinging fox. A sexy female fox. A cute innocent baby fox. :) Which one do you like best? :)

Invest in Yourself

One of my goal this year is to improve my skill, especially in children's book illustration. So I looked at classes online and found SVS (School of Visual Storytelling) class. Although it took a bit of my savings (ouch!) $320 is a lot here in the Philippines (Same price to get that 3 days and 2 nights vacation trip to Bangkok!). Spending for my education is one of the best decisions I've made (...or that's what I tell myself, really that trip to Bangkok is really nice haha). ;)

I just finished part 1 of the video and I'm doing the workbook exercises. First task is to design a simplified character. I did a few sketches and decided to render one of them. :) And the winner is this cute pudgy-fied baby bear! :)

Took a photo from my sketch and did the rendered illustration digitally using photoshop. You can see the steps below. As always I started with getting the sketch done, and blocking out the colors using one color to get the values right, then adding color overlays to finish it off. :)

I'm looking forward to do the rest of the exercises in the workbook, will be posting them so stay tuned. :) 

How about you how do you invest in yourself?

Christmas is in the air

Christmas is in the air most of the houses I pass by already have parols, and the music I hear on the radio are christmas songs. Even the guards at our office are wearing santa hats or reindeer headbands. :) The people at the office are all talking about how to spend their 13th month and if we have bonus this year (fingers crossed!). And also don't forget the list of people that you will be giving gifts! I'm hoping that I saved enough money to buy christmas presents! >_<

Since it's christmas is near, an artists job is to christma-fy every design he-she is doing, it's the season of santa hats, christmas trees, reindeers and snow! So here are some Christmas designs I made. :) The first one is for project guard this is in collaboration with my friend's passion project which I'm really excited about! (will talk about this on my next post) :)

And also some new year posts for "The Adventures of Pepot and Dora" and for my fb page. :) I wasn't able to create new sets of postcards this christmas, but will definitely make one for next year, I already added it on my 2015 goals! :) 

What happened

Well I was promoted at work as a senior art director. I'm still adjusting to the work hours and finding time to juggle my work, life, advocacies, passion projects and add christmas parties to that! (I really don't know how to juggle in real life!)

So I always try to incorporate my illustrations on my projects at the office here's another poster for our December incitement talk. I was really excited about this talk but I wasn't able to attend since I have the deadliest deadline before lunch! :(

The Adventures of Pepot Kuripot & Dora Gastadora

Project brewing, "The Adventures of Pepot Kuripot (frugal) & Dora Gastadora (extravagant)". This will be a comic strip collaboration with Burn Gutierrez & Angat Pilipinas Coalition for Financial Literacy. :) 

Here are some character studies I made.

 Dora Gastadora (extravagant) By Des Feliciano & Burn Gutierrez

Pepot Kuripot (frugal) By Des Feliciano & Burn Gutierrez

The Adventures of Pepot Kuripot (frugal) & Dora Gastadora (extravagant)By Des Feliciano & Burn Gutierrez

You can read more from Burn's article. 

Ang Pakikipagsapalaran ni Pepot Kuripot at Dora Gastadora

And so my being kuripot (frugal) and big fan of Pugad Baboy gave birth to the bright idea of writing my own comic book in the same tradition but will mostly focus on frugality (and occassional stinginess) and impulsiveness of the two lead characters.

In collaboration with my advocacy partner and visual artist Des Feliciano, who is also the Director for Artist Missions of Angat Pilipinas Coalition for Financial Literacy, the characters Pepot Kuripot and Dora Gastadora were created.
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