A Swift Study

I've been doing a lot of whimsical cartoony drawings as of late, so I thought I'd try to get back into realistic for a change. I'm not really great at capturing likeness too well so I thought I'd do a portrait study. I figure if I do realistic drawings in between the whimsical it would help with capturing someones likeness when I try to turn them into a caricature.

I bought a new set of watercolors the other day so I thought I'd practice using watercolor instead of going to the ol' Photoshop for this study. I've been hearing Taylor Swift's new song a lot on the radio lately so I decided to draw her because of that. So here's my attempt at Taylor Swift.

FREE Caricatures at Cannery Row 2.0

Second time doing free caricatures with friends at Cannery Row and it was another success! 30 minutes after we set up, we got two volunteers. Unlike last time where there were times where we had no one to draw, people just kept coming after the first two. It's still a challenge for me to draw people who move their heads around a lot though. Even though its hard to get their likeness when they move, it would be nice to overcome that challenge and still get it done. Whelp, I sure got a lot more practicing to do if I want to get better at caricaturing.

For those who I drew and are checking out my site, thanks again for taking the time to stop by and let us draw you. Without you, it would've been a REALLY long day.

Artichoke Coach

My friend Sunshine asked if I could help design a logo for her family business. I've never designed a logo before so i thought it would be fun to try out. Their main specialty is Fried Artichokes so I did quick sketches. Some pretty simple and some just plain silly. One of the main things they wanted is to have something that shows Filipino heritage in it since they are Filipino. They suggested having three stars somewhere in the piece. Instead of having the stars surround the sun like in the flag I thought it would be cool to have it surround the artichoke. I also thought it would be nice to incorporate the colors of the flag into the logo so I used the colors for their shirts. I am happy to say that they loved it!

King Of Pop

This is something I worked on after I heard about his death but just didnt have the time to post it. I was always a fan of his music so it took me by surprise. I was moved by the musicians that I watch on Youtube, who did tributes to Michael through song. I can't sing anywhere near them, so I thought I'd do a tribute to the King of Pop through art. It still doesnt seem real that he's gone but maybe its because his songs will never die. As long as his songs keep playing, he'll always be remembered and live on. So this is my Thanks to Michael Jackson. Thanks for sharing your gift of music with us all and trying your best to make the world "a better place" despite all the things you had to endur. You will be missed!

Thank You Cards

Now that I have finished writing out all my Thank You Cards and sent them all out, I can finally share my image. I really liked how this one came out. I had a general idea of what it would look like but I was amazed how cool it looked when I had my handwriting on there. It was a nice surprise. After I was done with the card and showed it to my Mom, she insisted that I throw Kobe in the card since he was in the Invitations. At the party, Kobe was pretty much defending himself from my cousin's dog, Gizmo the whole time. I thought it would be pretty funny to have him passed out from exhaustion. The card to me still looked plain so I added a border. For the icons, of course there is the traditional Cap and Diploma to signify Graduation. The bottom icons I used to represent my college career. You have the Shrunkenheadman Logo on the left which is our Animation/Illustration club and on the right is a Spartan Helmet, representing San Jose State.

A Sketch of Me writing stuff on a Notepad

The actual card minus my written message to my Aunts, Uncles and Cousins.

This was the original Thank You card I created after the party. I wanted to go with a simple approach, so I thought I'd draw Kobe and I in the style of PEANUTS. It was fun drawing myself like this but I had to agree with my Parents that it was looking too kiddie. Anyway I thought I'd share this pic as well.

Danny McCooter

Last week, I went with my brother and cousins to see Third Eye Blind in concert for free. It was AMAZING! We were like 20-30 feet from the stage. The only problem with that and it being a free concert is that people from the back start muscling their way to the front, not caring about people who were there first. One of them was this guy. For some reason he was the one I remembered out of all the people in crowd. Maybe it was his funny dancing moves? Anyway, he reminded me a little bit of Danny McBride from the movie, Land Of the Lost and Pineapple Express. There was also a little bit of Cooter from Dukes Of Hazzard in him as well. With that said here's Danny McCooter!

Dreamin'

As I was sitting in my room flipping through Joe Weatherly's new sketchbook, my dog Kobe comes walking in and jumps onto my bed. I hear some rustling and then a soft thump. I turn back to see what Kobe is doing and he is totally past out. I was inspired flipping through Joe Weatherly's animal sketches that I thought I'd give sketching Kobe a go.

This is dedicated to Kobe who just turned 1 year old yesterday. Happy Birthday Kobe!

Boom Boom Pau

After watching Game 1 of the NBA Finals I decided to do a quick sketch of Pau Gasol. Why?!?! I dunno, I just didn't feel like drawing Kobe yet. His time will come. If Pau plays strong like he did in game 5 and 6 of the Denver series and Kobe is on his game, the Lakers will soon be holding up title number 15!

How does that Black Eyed Peas song go again??

Boom boom boom, gotta get-get
Boom boom boom, gotta get-get
Boom boom boom, now
Boom boom boom, now
Boom boom PAU
Boom boom PAU

Cards

My parents are throwing a party celebrating my recent graduation. Since I already did stuff with some friends, this is mainly for family members. My mom was going to send out store bought cards but since I just got a degree in illustration, I thought it would be more special to send out a card I designed myself. We're going to have roasted pig at the party so I thought that should be a part of the drawing. When I joked about putting my soon to be 1 year old pup in the drawing, my mom liked the idea.

Here are some of the sketches I came up with
I'm pretty happy with how it came out especially how fast I had to have it done by to get it sent out. Although I was really bummed out when the prints came out darker than what I had. All the small extra things I did like having pastel textures and pushing things back just got lost. I didn't have time nor the money to send it off and get it printed again. So with that said, this is how it supposed to look like minus all the text.

Pimp My Coach

I've meaning to post the stages of our final project in BFA as I finished them but I've been busy working on revisions for my portfolio as well as working on this truck design to do so. Since I couldn't get that done here's all of the stages of the project in one post.
The assignment for our final was to pimp out one of the delivery coaches that was given to us. I chose to pimp out this divco truck for my delivery service.


We first had to come up with 3 international foods. Here are some of the ideations i came up with for Halo Halo, Kufta and Sushi...




We then had to choose one food and develop the idea even more...



Here is my Final Design...

Highlight of SuperCon

Supercon was all right this year. I was hoping they'd have some booths selling animation cells like they did a couple years back. But nope, no dice. I did meet some pretty cool artists while walking around though. It was cool seeing other peoples styles and what they are working on.

The highlight of Supercon for me though was finally meeting Sean "Cheeks" Galloway . I've been a fan of his since I first stumbled upon his work about four years ago. I've seen him at some Cons but never got to talk to him due to huge crowds or time constraints. I bought his latest book and best of all I got him to do a quick sketch of me in HIS style!

John Steinbeck's Cannery Row

For this project we had to read John Steinbeck's Cannery Row. We had to develop and design the interior shot of Doc's Lab as well as Lee Chong's Grocery store. I had a lot of fun working on this project. TONS of work but I found it pretty interesting. Before getting into the project my friend and I went down to Cannery Row to gather up reference photos. I thought it was really interesting that the places that Steinbeck mentioned in the book was actually real. Not only that, all characters were based off of real people too. Doc was based off of Ed Ricketts and Lee Chong off of Won Yee.

The best part of the research was visiting the sites that still exist today. I got to visit Doc's Lab also known as Ed Ricketts Lab in real life. I also got a tour of both floors of Lee Chongs, which not that many people get to do. It was such an amazing experience to be in these places that had so much history behind it. I go to Monterey almost every year and I never knew about these places. It makes me wonder whats in my home town that everyone just seems to overlook.

These are the interiors that I've designed for the book. I tried to balance what I saw in each place with what I thought of when I read the book. I also designed Lee Chongs Truck just for fun.

FREE Caricatures at Cannery Row

I've been wanting to do free caricatures with my friends since last Spring Break but the day we wanted to go it showered in SF. We decided to postpone it til Summer time but then everyone was busy. Fast forward to last week, when my friend Virgil and I we're at Cannery Row taking reference photos for our current BFA project. We decided Cannery Row was the perfect spot. After a week of practicing caricatures we finally got to use our skills yesterday. It was such a BLAST! We got to meet some really cool people and their stories. One couple just got married!

Being that it was my first time doing caricatures live, I never knew how hard it was. Not only is it hard getting their likeness with exaggerations, but even harder when they're constantly moving around. I have to say kids and babies were the hardest to draw.

Here are some of the drawings I did. Thanks for everyone who let us draw them.

The place where we were located, we had no idea was private property. Turns out that spot was run by this man right here, John Lawrence. We thought we were in HUGE trouble but man he was really cool. he let us stay for the rest of the day but we couldnt be there in the future because it wouldnt be fair to the people paying rent at that same location. So to help us out, John introduced us to a bunch of restaurant owners where we could set up in the future. THANK YOU JOHN!
After 7 hours of caricaturing we finally called it quits. We decided to take a pic with our new friend, John. We'll DEFINITELY be coming back in the future! GOOD TIMES!


I wasn't happy with a couple of drawings I did, so I decided to redo some in my sketchbook. Since I had pictures of everyone I drew, I thought why not just do them all again for fun. I tried to do these as fast as I could pretending it was live. After that I just took it to photoshop for some quick color.

Animal Farm

We just wrapped up our project of Animal Farm. The project was to design characters based on the book Animal Farm by George Orwell. I have to say it was quite an interesting book. For those who are not familiar with the book, its based on the Russian Revolution. Instead of making it obvious, the author takes the concept of the Russian Revolution and places it in a Farm in England.

So here are my characters; Napoleon (Joseph Stalin), Ivan (the KGB) and Boxer (russian workers).


My environments are based on two story moments in the book. The first one is when the animals are trying to build a windmill. The second is a shot of the farm when some animals are put on trial.


The artist I was trying to emulate in this project was Steve Brodner.

A "Cheerful" Fellow

I'm currently working on a project where I have to design characters for the book Animal Farm. The artist I chose to emulate for the project is Steve Brodner, who is an amazing illustrator and caricaturist. In order to get used to his style of drawing I decided to draw some humans before jumping into caricaturing animals. I remembered telling a friend a couple months back that I would draw him, so I decided now would be a perfect time to try this style out on him. I still need work in this style and not be afraid to exaggerate features a lot more like Brodner does, but with more practice I think I can get there.