Another illo

Dump

I always forget to update this thing, oi. Here's a few of the things I've been up to. I just finished that last one just now for UCLA, again.

Credit cards

The first UCLA illo of mine for the summer, this time about credit cards and how the school is charging us a new convenience fee. Yuup.

With apologies to Sean Kelly, whose picture I used to inspire this illo. I love his work!

15 second animation

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been busy with a lot of things. Artwise, I recently came back from attending the National Cartoonist Society's Reuben awards weekend, where I was honored as the Jay Kennedy Memorial scholarship winner along with several big names of the cartooning industry. I wrote about it on my tumblr, if you care to read about it, haha! And back home, I get to intern at Periscope Studio! Hooo, busy busy!

In other news, I recently finished my 15 second animation; if you have 15 seconds to spare, go take a look! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_M40xlsDPw

Bah

I didn't put much effort into this newspaper illustration, not gonna lie. I was burnt out from all the work I did last week. But I don't care, because on Monday I'm going to New York to see my sister graduate, woot!!

Another UCLA illustration about Title IX, and how it gives more priority towards women athletics over men athletics, since more men programs are cut. This is just a portion of the illustration; the cloud design extends to frame the article.

A late request illustration for the newspaper, explaining how USAC, our student government, works.

Armenia

This newspaper illustration was about the Armenian Genocide week, and how they should concentrate less on the politics behind the event (ex: Turkey not acknowledging the event as a genocide) and concentrate more on informing the public about the historical perspective.

I had a hard time conceptualizing this (how do you conceptualize "historical perspective"?), especially since they said to use symbols to, once again, avoid offending the readers.

But I do want to say this: after speaking to the writer, it was clear that they had done very little research about the genocide, and probably had a poor background in genocide studies, Armenia or history in general. I was frustrated that they didn't consider the proper identification of genocide as something significant. They obviously didn't realize that if/when Turkey does finally label the Great Crime as genocide, new information for historians could finally be unearthed that was hidden from the world for decades. They told me that the genocide didn't have compelling historical accounts like Anne Frank, or chilling videos like the Holocaust. Well, that's because most of the information we need is from two sources: the dying survivors of the genocide, and the Turkish government that condoned the violence. And the government won't give us the accounts we need until they finally label this terrible crime as a genocide. That is the first step, and it is significant.

Anyway, that is my rant. I'm just tired of illustrating for articles that have slapdash research, and this irked me more due to my own studies in Armenian history. Gah.

EDIT: Just read the article, and I believe they changed the angle to just promote the historical awareness of the event. I like that better than what the writer initially told me about it.

I don't update enough

So here is a doodle I made awhile back.

Islam

This was an illustration about how cultural events, specifically Islam awareness week on my campus, should gear into bringing people outside of their culture to spread awareness, and vise versa. Tough to illustrate, since they specifically asked not to use people and to rely on symbols. So... there we go.

Embarrasing? Whatever do you mean?

Got bored waiting at my internship, haha!

What a weird tree

And again, another UCLA illustration for the newspaper.

Pessimism of the mind, optimism of the soul.

I already posted this on my dA and my tumblr, but I want it here too, since it's a piece I'm particularly fond of.

I'd like to thank Flo specifically, since her work inspired the making of this piece for me, especially in regards to the plant motif and her wonderful color choices and brush strokes.

Freedom~

I'm free from the death grip that's finals, huzzah! And I decided to work on this painting that I left alone since December. Gahhhh. I'm so slow with these things.

And I recently got a call from the Jay Kennedy Memorial Cartooning Scholarship, and I'm a finalist! Eeee, I have phone interview on Friday, so please wish me luck!

Tutoring illo

A very quick illustration I made for the newspaper involving tutoring.

Considering it's finals week and I have had very little sleep and I'm still behind, I don't feel that guilty on not working more on this.

Final drawing projects

I took a drawing class for the first time this quarter, and it was very fun, if not time-consuming and hair-wrenching at times. It was nice to do something more technical and work more on my observational skills. We basically worked only with lines, trying to interpret form and volume with them. We started off drawing cups, then cubes, then chairs, etc. I also finally learned illustrator in this class, haha!

This was our second to last project, where we had to take Durer's masterpiece of the last supper and reinterpret and respond to his artwork. This was fun to do because it was one of the few times we got to be creative, haha. I kind of drew this with the intention of Spinozian ideas about matter in motion, God and/or nature, etc.

And this. This horrendous, horrendous thing, was our last project. We had to first draw the bike from observation [with an aid of a picture grid], and then trace the bike on illustrator and try to make sense of its form and volume using lines only. This was very, very difficult. I stayed up till 6 am the night before to finish this, and I had class at 9 am! Oi. But my professor was very impressed with it. He actually compared me to a joke about St. Peter trying to teach a man how to pray properly, but when the man asked for Peter to reiterate a prayer, Peter saw him walk on water. Peter then said "You don't need to know." It was very flattering [and amusing].

I had a great time in that class. Good people, great professor, but dear lord it was time consuming.

GHS sketches

For my internship, I've been sketching out pictures of characters so that they can be used in an animatic for a commercial. Later on, when they're inked, I'm going to set down some colors. It's gonna look pretty neat.

Dream Act

An illustration for a newspaper package about the dream act. This definitely isn't one of my strongest pieces, but I was in a weird funk yesterday and I wasn't in the mood to illustrate.

Also, I have now been on this earth for 2 decades. Dear heavens!

An illustration about an article on how my university should continue to buy from companies that use sweatshops. I wasn't too comfortable illustrating this, to be very honest. Conflicting views, and all.

the woes of apartments

Oh man, I seriously busted a mission finishing all of this illustration today, since I didn't realize that the due date WASN'T this Wednesday, that was when the newspaper with this article was running. Oi. But it's done, whatever.

I drew my sister in here again haha, because the last illustration I did was rejected by the editors. They didn't like the dragon. :B

All so clear

I posted this on a couple of other sites already, but since I left some progress pictures of this on my blogger, I might as well put up the finished piece here too.

Inspired by the Tangled OST "I see the light." When I first heard it, I wasn't too keen on it, but after listening to it over and over it grew on me, haha!

I'm so thirsty

If there's one thing I miss about not being home: no steady access to juice and milk. Whenever I got thirsty at night, I would sneak down and drink down a glass or two of whatever I felt like drinking. Le-sigh. Oh well.

Dragons oh my

A UCLA illo for an article that talks about our campus's Consultation and Response team, though I highly doubt any of them have to deal with dragons and such. oh well.

Fun fact: I promised my sister I'd put her into one of the newspaper illustrations one day, and today I kept my promise.

What is this

Something personal I'm working on. Why aren't I being productive and actually working on my comic. Why.

Another UCLA illo, this time about how college students should stay all four years taking on another major/minor/exploring interests, instead of opting to graduate early. I'm not sure how well I drew the concept, but seeing that I was on a limited schedule, I think I did the best I could.

Oh hey Jane Addams

She's a really inspiring woman. As a lover of history, especially intellectual history, it's awesome to read about one of the first woman philosophers/activists. A lot of her ideology and thoughts about her contemporary times still resonate with society today [at least, I think so].

This is a random quote that I really liked from her essay on social settlements. Hopefully I'll be able to refine this quick doodle into a good portfolio piece one day.

Victoria

A semi old watercolor I did of Victoria last year. The scan is terrible, as usual.