Lots of new updates soon + Subtle patterns

Lots of new posts are in the works. I'm just pending approval from my clients and you'll see them up soon. I'd love to show off what I've spent the past few months working on!

Brand new to the site is an illustration section with Shepherds of Sparrows illustrations, some character concept sketches, and other random drawings. Look forward to some of my older charcoal, conte, and pencil works, which I'll photograph and add in the next few days.

Yesterday, I stumbled upon a website of subtle patterns and have since fallen in love with the concept. It's clean but not clinical. You'll notice that I've started using the 'white brick' backgrounds in my portfolio photos. It'll probably look amazing as a website background too. Yeah baby! Tiled backgrounds are back in!

Let Shine the Mind →

Today, my illustration for Hal Friesen's book 'Shepherd of Sparrows' is featured on Reality Skimming Press' page. It shows a young Voltan using projection goggles and haptic gloves as his mentor, Prokhor, watches on.

I intended to create a simple pencil sketch with colours thrown on after. Something like the 'Escaping Together' picture that I drew also for Shepherds of Sparrows. But the image in my head was in 3D with projected images of spinning protein molecules, a matrix-esque rain of numbers, and in the middle of it all, an young face beaming with concentration and hope. The image was so vivid; I HAD to turn it into reality.

Debbie Ha (www.debbieha.net) draws an incredible depiction of Voltan and Prokhor from "Shepherds of Sparrows" by Hal J. Friesen. Music by Dan-O at http://danosongs.com In this illustration, we see the wonder of discovery through the eyes of Voltan, who has finally found a way to put his hyperactive mind to good use.

Watch it come together in this short "Making of..." video. Hal, with all his crazy smart ideas, requested that I film my screen as a drew. After a bit of ho-humming, I obliged. Thanks to video editing, you don't have to sit through 10 minutes of me deciding which brush to use, or 20 minutes of me mucking around trying to make colours blend better into each other before undoing everything I just did. This is one of the more ambitious digitally painted pictures that I've made and definitely one of the only ones I've completed. I'm still learning lots. (Like the fact that my drawing tablet is not tilt-sensitive!!! Ahhhhgh! WHY did you tell me Celeste! I was so blissfully ignorant before.)

I hope you enjoy watching the creative process. Here's a promise that you'll be seeing more digitally painted illustrations from me in the near future.

Don't forget to take a look at Hal's new book, Shepherd of Sparrows, now available for sale in person (at his book launch on Dec 4th!) or online at amazon.com.

Upcoming illustrations

Wow! It's been a few months since I started full time graphic design. It's been an amazing ride and I've learnt lots of new software, code, and techniques. I've worked on tri-folds, websites, banners, multi-paged brochures, comic strips, posters, and digital illustrations. And I'm still loving it!

Keep an eye out for my upcoming promo illustrations for the novella "Shepherd of Sparrows" by Hal Friesen. They should be unveiled here or here around now, late November, and early December 2013.

<3

Stumbled upon this play on photos and words while playing with iphoto's mirror effect. Quite ingenious really.

Also, while we're on the subject of hearts, if you click the like button on this post, you'll see super lovely flying hearts. Go on, do it!

Hello World

Why, hello there. This is a brand new adventure for me creating my very own customisable and easily up-datable website. Hopefully, this will put my previous Macromedia Flash and iWeb sites to serious shameitude.

This website has been long in the making (well, more like thinking). With so many diverse interests that I want to share with all of you, I was hesitant putting it all on the same site. After all, what does engineering, design, and a cooking blog have to do with each other? So I guess this site will be my proof of existence, a "Look mum! See what I can do! Aren't I smart?" collection. Adding to that, will be a serious design portfolio for potential graphic design jobs, and a much less useful engineering portfolio with links to the right collaborators.

It'll be my first step towards productivity after grad school. (Well, second step if you count the after-thesis spring cleaning. My apartment had descended into a warzone-ravaged, cyclone-strwen state during the thesis process.) Let's see how it goes shall we?