Baratie Sketch 6.0

Another Sketch for IndoCG Challenge, the theme is Warrior VS Mage Clan.
Hopefully I can finish these artwork. Click here to enter the site.

Baratie Sketches 5.0

Being affected by gatchaman the movie...

Baratie Sketches 4.0

It's Doodling time! in the office, at home, on the beach... anywhere

My Art: Character Art

Character based on the real person ( including me) :P

Artist Highlight: Xiao Bai Master Illustrator of Oriental Beauty

Beauty as her art. Introducing Xiao Bai, the master illustrator of Oriental beauty and body art from China. She has an uncanny ability for fusing body art (tattoo) and feminime beauty into her most of illustration art. This is some part of the interview with POPCORN magazine, which she shared some of her side view on how to be a good artist, hopefully it is inspiring as it was inspiring me.

How would you describe your artistic style? Chinese feminime beauty. Hee!

Beautiful maidens, tatoo and all things Orient seems to be reoccuring in your work, Why is that?
I just prefer to combine elements that I like and interest me into my works. My father is a calligrapher and it is because of his influence that I've nurtured an appreciation for Chinese culture. I've studied fine brush painting for a couple of years and it so happens that there aren't many Illustrator within China that use this particular style.

What do you enjoy drawing?And on that note, what do you dislike drawing? And why?
I love drawing beautiful girls, flowers and plants. I consider them a feast for the eyes! On the other hand, I'm not too keen on drawing for commercial purposes in order to suit the masses. I find that doing that puts a constraint on my ideas and the illustrations go through too many changes that it becomes unrecognisable.

Can you tell us a little about your collaboration on the online game JX3?
The collaboration was pretty straightforward. It just happened that the Art director of JX3 was a senior whom I respected very much in school.

You mentioned that you don't enjoy producing Illustrations for commercial purposes. How did you manage to reach an agreement with the company for this project?
When the JX3 Art Director tasked me with the duty of character designing, his only request is that the characters factions should be easily distinguishable. But, other than that, he didn't limit my ideas and allowed me free rein in the creation of the character based on my own interpretations. With so much creative freedom, it was very easy for me to accept this job.

Will you draw muscular men with tattoos?
Yes, but only rarely. Muscular men are beyond my realm of expertise.

Which part of the drawing process do you found most challenging?
To find that breakthrough for inspiration. While I hope to retain my artistic style in my work, I would also like to introduce and try out new elements in every piece. Whether they are sough sketches, coloring or even new artistic interpretations, as long as it is something that can make me feel that I've made a satisfactory improvement.

In this highly competitive market, what does one need to do to ensure their work stands out?
I supposed it is important for an artist to posses an individual artistic style. For me, I did not put myself in the competitive market and just stuck to drawing the things that I'm interested in to satisfy myself. When I first started, I never treated my illustrations as commodities and was honored that my work was being appreciated by others... which is something beyond my expectations.

In your opinion, what do illustrators have to do to build up their artistic style?

I believe that locking yourself up is the biggest inspiration killer. Pay more attention to the things and culture that you enjoy as it will assist you in forming your own appreciation of beauty and help the development of your own artistic style.

More on her blog: http://blog.sina.com.cn/wanmeishala1219

Tutorial 1.0: The Making of Barong Dragon

Actually I cannot called this as a Tutorial since I also still a newbie in this Digital painting art scene, normally I'm doing the 2D cartoon and Vector Art, so just call it as a share of my experience while doing this art . This is my first fully Digital painting art that I created for The competition in Indonesian Digital art forum called: www.indocg.com.

No.1: Sketching


No.2: Decide the dominant color of your art, or called it as your
base color. I choose red because I want to create the hellish kind of feel.
And then put the base color of your character or whatsoever,
The details can do later part.


No.3: Opps... I forgot to tell you my brush setting. Nothing fancy actually,
I only use the normal brush with the opacity around 60 to 70% to make it
blend with other color, flow is used to create some feather around the brushes, you can adjust whatever you like.


No.4: This is the fun part, creating the detail.
After you have done with the base color, just using the Smudge Tool, used it like when your art teacher ask you to draw something with pencil. You want to make a smooth gradient effect, but you are to lazy to used pencil so you used your hand to make it gradient.
For the brush you can use the same setting, the smudge tool is used to blend one color with another color, so it would create a gradient effect by combining two or three colors.
I used a Calligraphic brushes for the fur in the monster shoulder as it shown in the picture above to make the corner fur looks sharp.

Adding some detail here and there and whoallaa... my first digital art is done. Quiet some experience. Need to learn more, sorry if there's maybe some theory of digital painting that I didn't follow, I just learn it myself :P

Baratie Sketch 3.0

Doodling... Doodling...
Without meaning
my hand drawing
without stopping...

Artbook Review 4.2: The Art of Tekkonkinkreet (White)

This is the white version. The book is thicker that the black version and it contain all the breathtaking background in full color, I think they really make the whole town of Neo Tokyo in the movie and they compile it in this artbook. This is the bible for all background artist. Okay maybe I'm to exaggerated. But I'm fully recommend this book to everyone.

Artbook Review 4.1: The Art of Tekkonkinkreet (Black)

The best artbook that I ever had so far. the book that make me said OMG several times. That is The Art of Tekkonkinkreet. If you happen to watch the Movie and being amazed by the details of the background, you have to buy this book. Comes with the 2 artbook that is sold separately (Black and White version). But I think both have the same value and it's separable. The one that I review right now is the black version which is cheaper that the white. The content of the black is mostly are the sketches of the background and some storyboards in color. I don't want to talk so much let the art talk by itself. Just click the image to see the bigger size.

Miyavi - Survive VS The Raptures - House of the Jealous lover

Miyavi - Survive

The Rapture - House of the Jealous Lover

Love the music. Miyavi a Japanese Rock band with the punk emo style. Actually I don't really know this band, just found it on www.jpopasia.com. But this band looks promising, maybe it's famous in Japan.
After I heard several times, this music reminds me with the Electronic Dance punk group from New York, The Raptures. To me the music is almost looks the same. I put the other video for comparison. Which one do you think is better?

Black Catz Comic

This is my oolllddd... 3 pages comic for the Binusian Comic Competition back then during my college time, didn't win the prize though, but it was quiet fun. The story is about the cat whose been infected by vampire blood and become a superhero cat :P

Gatchaman The 3D Movie Trailer And the Shut Down of Imagi Animation Studio

I feel so excited when I watched this Trailer. One of the coolest character from Tatsunoko Production.
Introducing Gatchaman a.k.a G.Force (Battle of The Planets), maybe some of you already knew this anime series back in the late 80's. The story is about 5 teenagers whose been train to become the science ninja team who battle against Galactor an evil terrorist organization.

The production is handled by Imagi Animation Studio, same studio who created the TMNT and Astroboy the Movie. Recent news I heard was they have a financial problem and right now been officially shut down. The TMNT was a flop ($54 million in theaters) same goes to Astroboy (making only $19.5 million the end in the US on a $65 million budget). I guess that was the end of their journey. However, it is mentioned that they "will continue to develop movie ideas and outsource the actual animation work to mainland China and other countries, where costs are lower."

Hopefully that was not only a rumor and they still keep continuing this Gatchaman movie. By the look of the trailer this movie looks promising. I personally feel so sad when I heard this news because I like Astroboy and I like their 3D style, actually it's not really incredible compare to pixar but they have an unique style which is different from other 3D movie. Dreamworks, why not you buy this studio and continue produce a good quality 3D Movie :P

(Source: www.firstshowing.net, Wikipedia, Associate Press AP)

The War of Evalion

Main Character: Tere Labraroth (Indigo) with his Devil possessed Kirinarat

I love comic. I always want to create comic. But in the end, I never been able to finish the project :( This is one of the comic that I try to create back when I really been inspired by the Legendary comic Berserk.

This is the story about the war between 5 races : Human, Demon, Elf, Sluth and Indigo (main character: Half-breed).

Human is the highest among the other 4 races because of their Intelligence, they are the king who rule the world. Demon is the human servant, he is loyal, handsome and have the highest strength among other races.

One day The king, which is human, fell in love with Sluth. Sluth have the most beautiful physical appearance than other races, even the Demon fell in love with Sluth. The love triangle begun.

But since demon is only the servant of human, he let the king married with Sluth.
Because the effect of marriage between other races, The king lost 70% of their intelligence and Sluth more and more become ugly.

In the end, The king become disgust with Sluth and put her into the isolated room. Even though Sluth become ugly, the demon still love her. The king tried to kill Sluth by giving a poison in her meal and she died. This incident was heard by the demon and he become really angry with human. And the war begun...

Pict1.0.First Cover

The fate of the world lies in the hand of one man, Indigo (the son of the king and Sluth) which possessed a devil inside his shadow.

Pict2.0. The only four pages that I have done