Winter Break

Finally on break. Time to work on portfolio and more. Look forward!

Oh wow! We're already into December. Time flies quickly, especially this semester it seems. So I'll talk a little about what's been going on over on this end, what my upcoming plans/projects are, and more while uploading a massive load of artwork. Hopefully I can get better time to properly organize this, but for now I want to get it out there.

What's happened:
I got into the 1st Annual Fall Show, which is awesome! It's my first time ever getting a piece in any showing, so I am very excited. Also have been working on small side commissions, learning what/what not to do, and hoping to take a class more focused on that in the near future because I am in dire need of assistance.

Upcoming Plans/Projects: 
There's actually a lot of concept art I've been working on the side, but haven't properly completed yet; all of which is specifically geared towards sea life for some strange reason. I decided to make things fun by incorporating these with the classic tale: The Little Mermaid. Everything from character and creature designs, environment designs, etc. will be investigated, created, and hopefully completed. Dream goal is possible publishing? Haven't thought too far on that yet. So not now, but later when the break starts (which is around the 23rd of December), keep an eye out.

Now?
Back to work on finals. Enjoy the work below, and hopefully I will get time to post my sketches and completed work in higher/cleaner resolution once the break starts. I brought a massive suitcase just to pack it all with art, so look forward!

Relationship between a Rabid Raccoon and a Robotic Rabbit
Task was to do a children's book alphabetical illustration in watercolors (believe the size is 18"x20), so I chose the letter R. How many "R"s can you find?
This got into the Academy of Art Fall 2012 Show; my very first show! Unfortunately my computer is being screwy so the colors are beyond neon vibrant right now (they are not naturally that extreme - I apologize for the inconvenience), so best quality to view them at would be in person. You can do that this Thursday (Dec. 6) at 6:30PM at 540 Powell in the Bradley Hall Studio on the 3rd floor.

 

Animal study in watercolor on 9"x12" Arches hot press watercolor block: specially a magpie. Photo was used as reference. 

Character design based off the animal study before: a magpie plague doctor. I'll have to try and take a better photo of this later. Also done in watercolor on 9"x12" Arches hot press watercolor block.

Been doing little studies of hummingbirds as a surprise gift for my grandmother. Since my class focuses mainly on watercolors, I decided to give it a shot. Each took about 1-3 minutes to paint (originals are on test watercolor paper strips, so averaging about 2" in size), and the backgrounds were done in Adobe Photoshop.

Co-worker asked for a commission of his kid, and I've never done kid portraits so I told him I would do a testy run before fully committing. Last thing I wanted was for his kid to end up looking like a little old man (which I hear is very easy to do). 15 minute study using 5"x3" scrap paper and a ballpoint pen I randomly found; photo was on his iPhone.

As you probably guessed, he liked the pen before and commissioned me. Done in graphite and charcoal of 10.75"x18" charcoal paper. Originally intended to do this entirely in graphite, but I wasn't getting as dark as hoped. Life lesson: doing anything over graphite is torturous and I should really not do that again (or at least with charcoals involved).

I just rediscovered this - these are the door tags I made for my residents at the beginning of the semester. My hallway is Pokemon themed (strictly the original 150), and I hand painted them all in watercolor. Really, it was for fun plus prepping for my illustration 2 class that focuses on watercolor painting. Gotta stay ahead of the competition!!

Also just rediscovered this. My resident director asked for the resident assistants (RA) to remake the dorm check-in sign, and the other RAs would actually check people in. Paint or work? Paint ftw. :)

It bothered me that people couldn't see that the cave is all the creature, so I fixed it. Hopefully that reads better.

Did some touch-ups after getting help from awesome artist Randy Toroni. Here's the finished piece!

Workin' on old stuff

As usual, keep busy. I'm entering in this contest (will write specs later), and due to deadline issues I decided to grab an old piece and just touch it up. Have to say, I'm surprised how much faster and overall art skills I've improved in the last year. Many thanks to the amazing Jeremy Saliba for his guidance in digital painting. This one's to you!

Aquarium piece

Finished the illustration 2 assignment we had for class. Though I don't know the specific name, the directions were no narrative storytelling, keep the design simple, no logos/text, and event selected must be easy to identify. All this must be in watercolor, and have no glaze (no layering watercolors); however, value and color roughs we could do in Adobe Photoshop. Can anyone guess what mine was? If not, I've failed (emotionally - not actual grade, because I already got that). What's the valuable lesson I learned this week? Make sure your lighting isn't yellow or else your colors will be distorted. So as you can tell, my color rough and final don't entirely match unfortunately.

Busy, but here's some fun stuff

Been keeping very much busy with multiple responsibilities, but am thankfully not falling behind on anything (yet). Working on the website, so that's keeping my hands full. Meanwhile, please enjoy these sketches I did for the Ideation club and note that the time for me is not 100% accurate as I often have to talk with potential clients, etc. Being president, I guess I get a higher challenge of knocking these out faster. :P

Week 1: Girl and her Cat

Week 2: Grim Reaper's Interpretation of a Holiday

Week 3: Stingray, Insectoid, and Forest

Week 4: Girl in an Awkward Situation

Busy day

So thing are definitely starting to pile up in an unexpecting manner. Not gonna panic, though, because that does nothing except cause stress. :) Meanwhile, I just finished filling a page in my friend Cody Lyon's "travel" sketchbook. Taken with Instagram again - apologies.

All content and creature designs belong to Mina Roy, and may not be used without expressed written consent.

EDIT @ 12:35AM: Just did super quick edit in Photoshop with a point/shoot camera. Just wanted to post to show for comparison.

Hummingbirds and Bloody Wings

Now that am done with my sister's engagement package, I started working last night on my grandparents' card. I thought I would make theirs special because I haven't apparently done any art for them since grade school (like either elementary or jr. high). My grandmother loves hummingbirds, and my grandfather loves cows. I'm going to try and see how best I can combine these two love interests. The second picture of the angelic figure is from my clothed figure drawing 2 class with Bill Sanchez. Great instructor; he really has you focus on getting a story through even if it's not exactly what's in front of you. So here's my adaptation (20 minutes): the model was dressed in Greek attire with white wings. Also learned a very important lesson: red crayon is very stubborn and will not allow charcoal anywhere near it once it's on paper. Again, I apologize for Instagram photos. I'm working on making a photo light box for my art. I'll be sure to post better quality pictures up when I can.

Engagement Card

My sister is engaged! So to send my congrats, I made her the usual care package I always do every semester (possibly strange since I'm also in college, but I like doing it). However, this time I included things for her fiancé and added a congratulations card inside. With every card, I've been making it a habit to draw something; but I've never done an engagement card before. She is a marine biologist/chemist, and he's a scientist as well, so..... this goes to you, sis!

My friend Robert Chew couldn't imagine what my bent Hi-Tec C pen would look like (and for it to still work), so I showed him this.

Here's today's painting did in class for illustration 2 with Thomas Gronbukt; theme was Halloween. Feel like it could have gone better, but it's not too bad. I also found a quick study I did over the summer - self portrait using webcam. Wasn't too bad, so figured I'd share. I'll find proper means of taking photos of my work later.

Lots of Work

Short break from very busy day. Best news is I got my business cards today! They look amazing; and they're plastic, flexible, water proof, and don't tear. AND they're transparent so you can make my creature I designed swim in midair. No, that's not flying (or at least for this creature because he can't fly), unless you call it flying under water.

In other news, I've been working nonstop today on Ideation. For those who don't know, I am the president of the Ideation Club at the Academy of Art University which focuses primarily on concept art and establishing yourself as an artists (for the real world). You can learn more on our website. Lots of things planned for this semester. Look forward!

And now, it's 7:23PM. I need to make sure I finish my clothed figure 2 homework for tomorrow as well as this tattoo commission. So enough talk - back to work!

EDIT: It's 12:19AM, and am done with both. I forgot to take a picture of the figure drawing one, but here's the thumbs of the tattoo. Night world!

We're in September?!

I can't believe how busy I've been since my last post in April. I'll have to make this blog my homepage or something just to make sure I can keep you all up-to-date on what I've been working on thus far. Lots of new sketches, watercolor pieces (a massive majority of them are Pokemon -- I made them into door tags for my residents because I'm now a resident assistant (RA)), photoshop pieces, etc. Hopefully I'll be able to tackle this a little better either today or more realistically Friday. I also have been doing some spring cleaning with my art; kept every piece since first semester, and I'm starting my third year. Needless to say, it's a lot and most of it is junk I will never refer to for a portfolio piece so they're being tossed (and photographed for memory of how bad I was). So to catch up with me, this semester I got the job as a resident assistant at one of the resident halls, am president of the Ideation Club again, have four classes (2 studio, 2 language arts), and 3 commissions. Overall, a very busy schedule, but I am determined to stay on top. Also, you remember that alien whale design I had to do a while back? Well, my client just messaged me recently on how the model is coming along, and it's stunning (not complete, but am very much excited). <a href="http://stereo3dsvr.blogspot.com/2012/09/whale-texturing-update-hyunsuk-suh.html" target="_blank">Take a look!!</a> Meanwhile, please enjoy some of the artwork I did last semester (Illustration1 w/ Kris Komsteoft):

All in one day... and more to go

Long term commission is slowly coming to an end. I think just have to tighten these up a little, finish color roughs, and bam. Now to do three homework that are due tomorrow... that I haven't started yet, and it's 7:56PM...................... yeah. Long week ahead of me. If I can touch these up any further, then hopefully can enter them in the spring show? They might have a chance - who knows?

Extremely busy day - oh gosh...

So massively extremely busy day planned for today. In about 30 minutes, I'll be picked up by my sister to hang with her and her boyfriend for a large portion of the day. There are plans of seeing fishie at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, then possibly hanging out later at her boyfriend's house. Am super excited to see them!! The only stressful part, which I should be able to manage, is the homework that's due tomorrow. Wish me best of luck! Hopefully I can post some sweet aquatic-life sketches for you all. If not, then possibly next time 'round. :)
Enjoy this picture I did last week (week 7) in my Heads and Hands 1 with Zimou Tan. The model is Bob. Spent... 2 hours? Used graphite pencil on Z's special sketch paper from China. We had to do cross-hatching: a style which I will need lots of practice on.

Portrait: Theresa

ILL 140: Intro to Figure Painting with Henry Yan
Model: Theresa
Week 7 and 8
Oil Paints on 12"x16" cardboard canvas

Finally finished this painting. Have to say it was a lot of fun, and kinda wish we had more time. Not sure how well the skull in the background is reading, but it was cool to paint (attempted a semi-lost and found, but not sure how great that came out).

Work in Progresses

Playing with different approaches to texture, rendering, colors, etc. Should really finish all these sometime.