3/12/12: Art Dumparoo

I think almost all of these doodles were done while I was out helping out with the parent surveys this past February in Quang Tri. A bit tired so not much to say about them except that drawing is therapeutic! 

11/27/11: Art Dump!

Finally drew a decent Batman. I like how Cassandra's outfit turned out on the right. 

More pose practice. Red and purple compliment each other quite nicely. 

More pose practice. I like this set quite a bit. I drew this page while watching an episode of Firefly (I think it's called "No Gas"?) and while talking with my mom as she recounted how she picked and cooked some mushrooms growing in the backyard (note: it is highly inadvisable to pick and cook/eat wild mushrooms because their toxicity level is generally unknown unless you're an expert. Luckily, mom didn't get sick – she just thought it tasted terrible)

More pose practice. I drew this while watching "The Sword in the Stone" (hence the owl) – which is still hilarious in many respects. It's also a great movie for animation/drawing references! (The top right doodle is a quick sketch of a pose Madam Mim takes when she's confronting Merlin) 

Man, this was a fun page to draw! Tons of pose practice, plus Catwoman! 

I really do like green and grey eyes – I just find them fascinating to look at at. Also, attempt at drawing soccer girl with strong legs! Too bad I ran out of space on the paper. 

A rare attempt at drawing a character and the surrounding environment. I'm still very weak when it comes to drawing settings and non-organic things. Oh well, practice makes perfect. Also, purple eyes!

Ahahahahaha this page... so many inside joke-quotes. Also, I did a bad doodle of Matsuko from "My Neighbor the Yamadas" towards the left. 

Man, I must really hate those freaking stilettos on Nolan's Catwoman because I keep drawing her without them lolol. Oh look, there's Mal Cobb on the top from "Inception!" 

Omg I was so hungry while doodling on this page! I wrote おなかすいた！(ONAKA SUITA = I'M HUNGRY) twice, and one with color ! lololol

I most definitely was watching "My Neighbors the Yamadas" while doodling this page – I mean hell I wrote となりのやまだくん (Tonari no Yamada-kun) all over the damn page...

Man, scarfs sure are nice :) 

11/22/11: Art Dump!

I was watching Ricky Gervais' "Out of England 2" stand up while doodling this one – hence the "Biological Exuberance – check out this book" bit scribbled ahahaha

More pose and hands drawing practice. And look! I'm halfway through my sketchbook already. 

PLANT! (more pose practicing) 

And the Fishing Tree preliminary sketches, ehehehe. 

I really like how the Cassandra Cain sketch on the bottom left turned out. 

Ugh, why did I draw pigtails??!! She looked so much better with slicked back hair... ;___;

I do like how the female monk warrior turned out on the bottom left. And hey, there's my foot. 

More pose practice. 

Some super sketchy storyboarding that turned into more pose practice

I was listening to Muse's "Take a Bow" while drawing this. I really like how that 'gun' turned out. Oh hey there's Catwoman in her Darwyn Cooke-inspired costume. 

One of my favorite pages in my sketchbook. I was really playing around with different poses and was coming up with a bunch of different ones I'd never really tried before; or, if I had, the poses turned out a lot better than they have in the past. 

A Catwoman-centric doodle page. If I have one grievance with Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight Rises" in the costume design department, it's the choice to have Catwoman running in ridiculously high stilettos. To me, that makes zero sense: why oh why would you put any poor person through that? Heels are not stealthy nor practical, and they're completely ridiculous to fight in, nonetheless run in. 

Personally, I think that if they had stuck with a stealth-inspired, ninja-esque look to Catwoman (aka NO HEELS), the costume still could have been practical and sexually attractive in a non-explicit way. I just have such a difficult time suspending belief whenever I see superheroines/female characters 'fighting' in heels. Heels are a serious impediment to any sort of practical movement. 

You want her hair to be out and possibly fly in her face while she's fighting and running about? Fine. You want her to be wearing a leather suit that takes three people to get her in? Fine. You want me to believe she can fight, jump and run around in heels? Sorry, no, that's pushing it for me. 

More fun drawing Cain in a alternative outfit. 

Another pose practice. I seriously need to get better at hands. And jesus, what kind of dialogue is that?

11/14/11: Art Dump!

These are actually (bad camera shot) pictures that I've drawn over the course of months, and just recently decided to upload them all.

I actually prefer traditional media over digital media because I enjoy the tactility of holding a pen/pencil/non-tablet device over staring at my computer screen without looking at my drawing hand. I love using my tablet, regardless. There are definitely advantages to traditional and digital media, for sure!

Click on the picture for a higher resolution !

The first time I started using my Signo pens to color in a drawing. The seed of my joy for experimenting with color with Signo pens thus began. 

My "Inception"–inspired phase. I really enjoyed trying to draw 'classy' clothes. Also! Still very miffed that Anne Hathaway's Catwoman wears freaking stilettos. What the heck, how is that even practical? (So incredibly annoyed with the costume designer who decided on that)

アイスのくちづけ = Aisu no Kuchizuke = the single from AKB48 that got stuck in my head (it's also the song playing in the commercial where Glico demonstrates how they made a CG pop idol using different physical aspects from each of the six most popular members of AKB48). I still had residual TRON nerding going on at this point. There's some Jack Skellington doodles at the top as well. 

My TRON dork phase. I'm quite happy with these set of sketches. 

"Inception"–inspired phase. Also a cat! And some expression practice. 

TRON nerd phase. I was trying to figure out how to draw the hacker emblem on my TRON alternative costume on the right page. I actually like how my doodle of the ID disc on the left page turned out. 

Hand drawing practice! Also, some TRON nerdness again. I really like how the back of the alternative TRON costume turned out. 

TRON nerd again. Some initial doodles of the TRON alternative costume. I think this was around the time I started watching "Once Upon a Time" (the hint is from the YO BAUSS RUMPLESTILKIN bit on the right page haha)

A sketch that's the result of a conversation I had with Joey. I plan on redrawing this with my tablet haha. 

Doodling resulting from a late night conversation with Joey where I was extremely tired yet incredibly hyper (probably around Halloween since I wrote CANDY CORN I MISS BEING FAT WITH YOU on the right page hahahaha)

The right page is more doodling from the same late night convo with Joey (fatigue + hyperactive = awesome pants). The left page is more doodling; it was probably doodling time when I was really interested in Miwa Asao (hence the ミワ・アサオ on the top left page), the Japanese beach volleyball athlete who's now my role model :) 

Some sketches during another "Inception"–inspired phase and when I was writing my detective story. 

An oldie! This is definitely during my Fullmetal Alchemist phase, or at least I was still thinking about it (the 'hands up' pose was inspired by a scene from Fullmetal Alchemist). This was probably the first time I started doodling in pen as opposed to pencil, and decided pen was better for doodling in this sketchbook because of the paper quality. 

The first page of sketches in the sketchbook. I was in a semi-Ghost in the Shell phase and just enjoying drawing out some sketches. This must have begun around late August/early September of this year. You might recognize some of the sketches from some comics I've drawn in the past haha. 

DEFINITELY a Fullmetal Alchemist phase – there's Riza Hawkeye! And Ling? And just some doodling in general. This is another early sketch too (probably late August/early September of this year). 

A preliminary sketch before I redrew it on my tablet and sent it to Joey, hihi

My more recent doodles. On the left page I was really experimenting with colors with my Signo pens. On the right page I'm just drawing my version of Cassandra Cain in different poses and different attires :) 

More color experimenting. On the left, there's some more doodling of Cassandra Cain (the bottom left), an "Inception"–inspired outfit (left page, on the right), and just drawing the vest outfit that I've seen worn around here in Hue a lot (the model turned out too skinny/tall/lanky for my taste). The right page doodling and coloring happened while I was talking to Joey today (11/14/11). I was actually trying to draw her jumping up, but it looked more like she was sitting on something, so I ended up drawing a very high wall. Oh, and there's a bird... and it's confused as to why she's sitting on the wall. 

A doodle that I did during field work in Quang Tri (11/11/11) while we at the third school to discuss logistics. I just 'finished' it up (mostly drawing out the arms, the button line, and the box) and colored it in today (11/14/11). 

It says áo dài xanh, which means a green traditional Vietnamese dress. I'd love to have a green áo dài :)