Flower Girl

Nonstop work as usual. As you guys know (or not), I've been doing something I call survival sketches which is keeping the mind and hand active in creating innovating artwork that may develop further into future concept designs and creations. Or the shorter term:

I drew to stay awake.

I figured I hadn't painted a portrait in a long while, nor am I especially great with colors so I figured I would practice this. What started as a small study turned into what you see now. Before I go on, I have to say this is by far the most girly painting I've ever done. Definitely lots of fun, and hope to do more of these soon. Special thanks goes to my talented friend Mei Huang for feedback on young faces. As you guys can see in the progress image, the girl originally started looking in her mid-40s. I may try and do an older person later. Overall, great practice! Apologies that the progress chart is a little unorganized in terms of time difference between each image.

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween you guys! Been a rough week in terms of sleep, but since I don't have class today I managed to crash and get recharged. The unfortunate part is I slept on my neck wrong, so slight pain. Oh well.. normally I would dress up since this is one of my favorite holidays, but alas time will not allow it. So here's a little sketch of me doing work instead. Enjoy!

Survival Sketch #3

Not too much news to share. Today's class was really awesome, so I don't know how much I can call these survival sketches (sole purpose being to keep you from falling asleep in class). However, I didn't fall asleep, so I will count them. Lots of playing with shapes and more whimsical lines. Note that no reference was used, so if anatomy is off I apologize. Again, purely for keeping the mind active. Enjoy!!

New Business Cards

My new business cards came in earlier this week! Now if you meet me, you have a choice of one of four designs: a rabid raccoon with robotic rabbit, a turtle dove, three blind trolls, or my classic slimy water bug. If you want one, hit me up and we can trade cards! :)

Academy of Science

Took a field trip to the Academy of Science, and got there an hour early. Did not dress appropriately for cold weather!! After I thawed a little, I drew some animals from the exhibits. Some were stuffed/mounted while others were alive. If you want sneak peaks next time and rather not wait for me to update my blog, follow my Instagram and Twitter (located on the right). Many thanks to artist friend Megan Cheever for providing me a scanner (mine is being mean tonight). You can check out her awesome work on her official website and Tumblr. As requested by Megan, I included the lemur for you guys. Enjoy!

APE and The Last Unicorn

Went to APE yesterday and did lots of networking. It was good to see old and new faces, and getting the chance to chat with people in depth. Unfortunately I'm not in high enough spirits to go back for round two, but it's not the end of the world. Rather, I've been working on my next assignment being to design a book cover. I chose "The Last Unicorn" by Peter S. Beagle since it's a classic and it's been on my mind ever since DragonCon. Here's a quick shot of some studies.

Zbrush and Survival Sketch#2

So I'm not the best at Zbrush, but out of everything learning so far for some reason I really like how this little design came out. Also, here's a random sketch I did in class a while back.

Class Survival Sketch#1

Drew this in class today while teacher was talking. Sketching in Photoshop helps me to stay awake; otherwise I start to fall asleep because the classroom is cold. Hibernation mode activated. Concentration system failing. Noooo.... Any case, enjoy! Also, I'll be going to APE this year, so if you wanna meet up just e-mail me at mina.j.roy@gmail.com. :)

Maybe Sick?

Hey guys, So woke up this morning with a headache and slight nausea, so I'm really hoping I'm not getting sick. When feeling better, I'll try to post some new work up for you guys. If you guys want a constant feed on what's happening with me, follow my Twitter. Also, many thanks to one of my former clients for modeling my tattoo design and sharing the photo; Photo taken by photographer Megaera Stephens. I'm just glad she liked the design. Happy clients are the best. :)

Dragon Con and Summer Overall

So this was by far my most interesting summer. I will say as of the moment, I'm grateful my sister and now brother-in-law bought me a round trip ticket to Atlanta, GA to visit them as well as bought three 4-day passes to Dragon Con so we could go together. The summer acted very much as a recovery stage due to last semester's crazy schedule and turn of events (which for some lead into the summer as well, but it got better). Dragon Con revived my wanting to do art again. Gotta say - 3 months of pure video games, hanging with friends, gym, and essentially no art has been a nice mental break. I did a few commissions here and there, but mostly took time off. Biggest thanks goes to my best friend, sister, and parents. Without them, this summer could have gone dreadful in more ways than one.

Just to inform everyone, my work schedule is packed for now so any commissions may have to wait. If you're just hunting for an artist, feel free to message. Even if I'm unable to take on your offer, I'm sure I can direct you to an artist who may be of service to you.

It's 3AM right now, so I'm going to go ahead and call it a night. Please enjoy this photo of some of the things I bought while at Dragon Con (note: this is not all of it).

Cats

Painted these for my mom's birthday a while back. These are the cats back home. Pretty quick/rough, but thought I'd share.

August Cleaning

Wow! It's already August? Time flies. So I've been massively busy this past month and half with projects, housing, etc. Decided to take somewhat of a break today and clean my hard drive. You wouldn't believe some of the unfinished/very old work I found. Take a look! Note: The abstract acrylic paintings are back from high school years. May play around with abstract pieces again.. those were pretty fun. Any case, I'll post more RECENT artwork soon!

Summer Vacation

Well, it's been about a month since summer vacation began. Unfortunately the majority of the art I've been working on is under a NDA (non-disclosure agreement) so I can't share much with you all. However, do know that I'm still active and alive. For proof, here's a little piece I did a while back that hopefully I'll be able to finish. I felt like designing a Korean troll, so this is the work in progress. You can see some of the other potential designs in my previous post. Look forward to the finished version!

Spring Show Submissions are Over!!

Sweetness! So here's just a handful of the many entries I put in for the Academy of Art University Spring Show 2013. Hopefully something will get in. Now to work on finals as well as these two requested realistic creature designs.

Time to Work!

Life continues to be extremely interesting. One thought on mind is the upcoming annual Academy of Art University Spring Show. Gonna try to enter a few pieces in. The Washington State poster was suggested by my instructor Gordon Silveria. Many thanks to him and classmates for critiques! Am glad to say I'm finally getting the hang of vector designs. Note: the dancing girls are just color roughs done in Photoshop - working on vectorizing now.

Cute Animation and Life

Life is difficult. It truly is. I could go on for hours on how it's tough, but that wouldn't entirely do anything except waste time and possibly cause me (or others) to get sad, angry, any negative attitude. So to stay positive, here's a little piece I did in class today. First time doing any proper animation, so please bear with me. Hopefully I can find the time to compile some of my concept sketches (both the semi-real creatures designs, and cartoon children's book designs).
In happier news, I was able to attend the final day of the Games Development Conference (GDC) here in San Francisco. Managed to get a fantastic portfolio review, so be on the lookout for more creepy creature works. I also managed to squeeze in some time to finally attend SketchBomb, a gathering of artists held once a month to meet in San Francisco and sketch. Apparently my first day attending was their 3rd year anniversary. Got to reconnect with good friends, and make new friends. Here's one of my pages from that night as well.

Perspective and more

Figured I should post these now since I don't know when I'll get the proper time to fully complete these. I decided to practice more on my environments, and play around with finding shapes within nature (such as clouds becoming creatures, etc.) These are the results to my experimentation. If you want to view the images bigger, open them in a new tab or window. Also, people seem to feel I am rather good at doing cute things, though I feel it's still a very foreign subject so I'm studying. Look forward to cute sketches in my next post!