Surprise! Another post before the New Year. 😛 I brought my trusty sketchbook with me when I went home for the holidays, and while on my flight, I decided to draw this week’s topic for Illustration Friday.

On the flight, I met an interesting man who was extremely enthusiastic about starting his own company. His fervor as he continued on and on about his plans for his business was inspiring, and made me reflect on the upcoming new year and what I’d like to accomplish.

Leading back to the illustration, there is something about the first snow, twirling in the air as you walk home. There is a calm, yet growing excitement as you see the flakes delicately fall. There’s reassurance of better things to come and inspiration in those tiny snow crystals. It suggests a fresh start in its quiet kineticism, and a broader horizon.

Dinosaurs playing hide ‘n seek. The t-rex is trying to be clever and is walking backwards in his footsteps to mislead his chaser. I didn’t quite communicate the t-rex’s intentions successfully, but at least this is more practice with brushpens and ink. I was heavily influenced by Doug TenNapel’s Tommysaurus Rex while doing this sketch. If you haven’t read that graphic novel, you should definitely check it out, especially if you’ve ever owned a pet.

This will probably be my last illustration friday for the year, because I’ll be heading home for the holidays. Next year, expect more sketches, illustration friday stuff, and animation (finally…) posted to this site. One of my major resolutions for 2008 is to keep this website current and track my learning and progress with my blog.

Thanks for stopping by, and Happy Holidays!

A rather late posting of this past week’s Illustration Friday’s topic, Excess. I interpreted excess as excessive thinking and worrying, which is something I’m sure we’re all culprit of at one time of another. This sketch is by no means done, unfortunately, but I hope at least I’ve successfully conveyed that idea.

I’ve gone really crazy about brush pens, after being inspired by Craig Thompson and his beautiful work. I’ve always been hesitant about using ink due to its permanent qualities, but after playing with these pens, I’m really having a blast.

On the Asher model front, I’ve finished laying out the UV’s and am researching some rigging techniques. Within the next few weeks, I’ll be exploring that aspect and may post progress online. Otherwise, I’m going to keep going with Illustration Friday…and maybe next time I’ll actually post before Friday. 😉

Here’s my drawing for this week’s Illustration Friday topic: Total. I interpreted ‘total’ as a summation or a complete entity. Since I always work on the computer, I figured I’d try my hand on ‘analog’ stuff like inks this week. Although I did add some Photoshop flat colors at the end, the actual drawing is done with ink. I drew a lot of inspiration from the song, “The Trapeze Swinger” by Iron and Wine. In fact, you’ll probably notice a lot of lyrics were directly translated into images.

Here’s my Illustration Friday submission for this week with the topic of wired. I am a big fan of free knowledge, but sometimes the daily consumption of information is too overwhelming. This is how I feel after a whole day of sitting in front of the PC trying to digest that info. 😉