Same as it ever was...

It's time for the annual Birthday Wish list! And I mean like Santa-style, wish-upon-a-star list, as everybody likes to play around with on their birthdays.

1) A ticket to ride (or possibly a chicken to ride, according to the mondegreen)

2) A Lomo Lubitel, LC-A, LC-A Wide, or possibly just a film SLR

3) Adobe Illustrator? or possibly a Photoshop that isn't Elements? ;_;

4) a Wacom Intuos

5) Alcoholic hot chocolate with either homemade or Bailey's marshmallows, mmm.

6) ...and as for non-tangibles, I really wish I had a week in Manila to spend with my friends ;_; ;_; ;_;

What else do I want? My cousin's coming home from Barcelona, and my uncle will be in town the week after, so that'll be fun. I'm actually set for books, just for once. And there are lots of nice toys in the house to play with. Really the only thing I sincerely want more of at this point is free time, and a bit more money. Isn't that what everyone wants?

Have a frazzled Arthur to end the post...

Sketchbook Project 2013, part 1: St Anns Villas

The Sketchbook Project is on again! The books are very small this time, with kind of low-grade paper, but I was planning to use my own paper anyway, no worries.

I am doing a chronicle of doors: One door, one painting, one memory. Some of them from pictures I took, some I can only remember (probably inaccurately). All drawn freehand and then watercoloured and labelled. The memory goes on the opposite page. There are only 15 pages, so I have plenty of time to get it done before January.

Door 1: Front door, 10 St. Anns Villas, Holland Park, London, UK. Drawn from memory.

I lived here with my cousins in a beautiful garden flat with glassed-in stairs and dining room. One time I was going out with one of my cousins. Nic loves the kind of hip-hop jeans that hang off your arse, and always forgot to wear a belt with them. He slammed the door to secure it, and his jeans fell to his ankles, leaving him in boxers on the sidewalk. He grabbed them back up again, but I laughed so hard I had to sit on the pavement before I had enough breath to get going. Luckily no one else was around!

Staedler Artliner and Pelikan watercolours with Blue Heron waterbrushes on Arturo paper. I love this paper so much, you guys. Lettered in Pen & Ink Sketch extra fine fountain pen. All the doors will be done this way.

Jónsi Project Production Diary, part 6

So since starting this painting I have ruined it, done a second version, ruined that, moved house, put the unfinished third version into storage and...forgotten about it, for a while.

Finally dug it out of storage again and got to work on the figure.

tiny stories

Happy May Day!

HitRECord is putting together work for another Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, so I'm hastily scrobbling things together in the hope that I can get into this little indie art book.

This is a standalone illustration for a writer to build a tiny story around. Oh look, mermaids again. Speaking of which, if you like mermaids and you haven't seen the blog The Wide-Eyed Legless, you are missing out on a lot.

This is an illustration for ubespidermonkey's tiny story 'Jealous Stars':

Stars are jealous of city lights.
So once in a while, they cut the power.  

dinotopia

I was getting tired of drawing ridiculously well-dressed men and women and pretty objects. What is the perfect antidote? Dinosaurs!

James Gurney's Dinotopia is the most wonderful book you can ever buy for your kid or yourself. My copy is 20 years old and I still get a kick and some drawings out of it. Worth every penny.

view master - a progression of colour

Raw: Pen & Ink Sketch fountain pen, Pilot G-Tec C3, red Uniball Vision Elite and scraps cut out from a Vogue ad. Dress inspired by a Sarah Burton design for Alexander McQueen.
Coloured in Photoshop Elements - too flat!
Caran d'Ache coloured pencils - scanned much lighter than they looked on the paper. No whitewashing, please!
Adding the Photoshop colour layers gave a solid foundation and the pencils enriched the colour. Hooray! Now...where are her legs? oO

fashion sketch stuff

I've been on a fashion sketching streak lately!

Mechanical pencil, blue Pentel animation lead.

Mechanical pencil, Faber-Castell 2B lead--wonderful for shading.

Top cut out of a Free People catalogue, Pen and Ink Sketch fountain pen, extra fine, Pilot G-Tec C3 gel pen, and a bit of white Rotring ink for when I made a stupid mistake and crosshatched where I shouldn't have >_<

POLEMICA (Raw)

ugh you guys I have been drawing tiny flowers for two days straight and I am sick of it

...but look!

POLEMICA

I saw a girl on Guerrisms.com in a coat and a hoodie and she reminded me of my friend Abrar. My fashion obsession at that point kind of ran into my thoughts about how the Arab Spring reminded me of the EDSA Revolution in the Philippines. Add a twist of how I've been annoyed with random misogyny around the internet lately and voilá.

('No, commander, the word means "What is that in the table?" ')*

*sorry, Pratchett joke†
†oh look, another one!

WIP (warning: pink)

Ahahaha this is taking forever but I feel pretty good about it. I wish the red pen had contrasted better though; I should have used the violet one all the way. Sakura colour turned out bolder in the scan.

being bored in cafes is slightly productive

Drawn with Pen and Ink Sketch Extra Fine fountain pen.