Portraits

For many years, I have been joining OIC for their portrait sessions, but sadly the MAAD market sessions ended due to Red Dot museum being reclaimed. Fortunately, OIC portraits were continuously invited to participate in many other events and I had the great fortune to continue drawing together with the group.

Because of these portrait sessions, I have slowly found my voice or style over the years. I have not reached a level where I wish to be but I would like to believe that I have found a direction to work towards.

You can see some samples of my recent portrait commissions here!

DIY angbao

This year is the year of the dog. I designed a DIY angbao that you can print from the comfort of your homes. No scissors or glue needed, just fold! You can download the high resolution files from here!

My cousin have been doing personalised angbao for years. Since I have time off now, there was no longer an excuse to be lazy anymore. I knew I wanted to design something that didn’t require cutting and gluing after. So I dug through the internet looking for good designs for origami envelopes. After I found the design, I had to tweak it to be compatible with an A4 sheet and for it to fit a S$50 note.

You can see my process below.

I then sketched the design onto the folded angbao, unfolded it, rescanned it and illustrated based on the roughs and got the final product below.

 

I sent to a couple of friends to test if the instructions on the paper were clear enough for them to fold it into an angbao. I then realise that it was not enough and had to come up with another set of instructions.

Finally, using the illustrations I have done on the angbao, I created an e-greeting card that could be shared across social media and whatsapp. It came full circle when my friend forwarded me a screenshot of her friend, who is a stranger to me, sharing my ecard with her. Ahhhh… the achievement.

Puuung

My friend recently gifted me an artbook by Puuung when she came back from Taiwan. Puuung is an illustrator from South Korea whose work went viral a while back. Her artwork featuring simple intimate moments between a couple really captured the hearts of the people. Though the drawings were quite simple and stylised, they really capture the warmth of the moment. I really like how she designs the interiors of the couple’s house. There is so much to explore within each drawing.

Inspired by her, I started sketching. Imagining how to furnish a room makes the pain of perspective practice a bit better. The whole process was quite enjoyable. I might start doing more if I don’t get lazy.

 

 

 

I am now on Behance!

Hello everyone! I’m now on behance too! You can check it out here.

It will feature a more curated set of works as compared to my blog.

If you are more interested to see my progress and drafts, you can see them in my instagram account!

More Winnie the Pooh

Ever since my first commission for a Winnie the Pooh wedding card, I’ve been receiving a few requests to do similar Winnie the Pooh designs.

I really need to thank my cousin who requested the very first commission.

 

Doodle doodle

 

 

After the coloured and vector illustrations I’ve done for the children activity books, my client has requested for gray scale illustrations for the age group between 7-10 years old. This time round, the amount of assets required was huge so I went with the doodling style for its… forgiveness in line work.

I didn’t quite like them initially, but after looking at them for a while. I do think all the character I’ve put into the people does make the drawings quite charming despite their technical flaws.

 

 

Deer boy

Remember the previous illustrations I did of Fish boy and Woodpecker girl? There was suppose to be 4 in the series but I never got around to completing it. Until I got an email from a local fashion magazine, Catalog, that they wanted to showcase the series and needed 3 samples of the work. So I got hard working.

 

Meet Deer Boy.

 

The little showcase in the magazine.

 

Mom’s birthday

It was my mom’s 60th birthday and it is Chinese tradition (or so I think) to throw a huge party. I quickly whipped out a poster only to have her tell me I’ve depicted her awfully ugly. Well mother, I can’t help with how you look for my eyes only see what is before me.

 

I personally think it is rather cheekily cute.

Caricatures

Caricatures are really popular commission choices but truthfully I’m not too good with them. The aesthetic exaggerations don’t appeal to me much either. But because they are popular, it’s only a matter of time before I was requested to do one.

I tried doing a few and it was so tough. I read up some tutorials online but they weren’t very helpful. Most tutorial videos are interpretations of what people see and then draw. The process of seeing and understanding is unanswered. It is the most difficult part of the process, if it was that easy many people would be caricaturists now. The exaggerated forms also confuses me as to how to build and balance the facial structure. It turned out to be a challenge. It annoyed me greatly that I couldn’t do it well and reminded me how much more I had to learn.

My first attempt. It still looks quite juvenile and stylised. More comic than caricature.

Didn’t know who to draw. So I found some famous people I like to reference. Street caricaturists always have samples of famous people, thought I’ll give it a go too. If you can’t tell, it’s Benedict Cumberbatch. A slightly creepier version at least.

Got tired and annoyed at my poor attempts. So I decided to draw something pretty in my usual style. Park Shin Hye my new goddess.

I thought my final attempt turned out not too bad. But resemblance wise, I don’t think it’s as recognisable. It’s Lucy Liu.

There is no right or wrong to how you draw it. If you can capture the resemblance, you are right.

A Legend Begins

Some time in July I helped out some friends in their production to create animated backdrops for the play “A Legend Begins”. It was a small play which tells the story of how Sang Nila Utama found Singapore, through which teach children the different Chinese orchestra instruments.

Instead of set props, the setting and side characters are established by the projected animation. The designs had to be inspired by Chinese orchestra instruments to be in line with the theme. I managed to catch one of the shows and was delighted to hear a child next to me identifying all the different instruments used in the projection.

Photographs by Zhuang brothers from Weaving Clouds.