Chobits Characters!

Hello! Or as the Japanese say, "Konitchiwa!"

Lately I have been inspired from reading some excellent manga series to practice my figure drawing skills.
How is it that the Japanese-style method of drawing the human form has become so prevalent? It's amazing how cartoony, and yet how real characters can look when drawn manga-style, isn't it?

Here's a picture of my most recent sketches, my favorite characters from the manga/anime series "Chobits".

The basic premise of the story is that it takes place in an alternate universe where computers are so advanced they can be made to look like actual people, and Hideki, a 19-year-old student who's almost broke, happens to find one of these "computer-people" lying in the trash. The "persa-com" (as they are called in-universe) is shaped like a beautiful girl, and Hideki names her "Chi", because at first that's the only word she knows.
Eventually Kideki teaches Chi more and more about the world, and he discovers that Chi might actually be a "Chobit", an artificial-intelligence with the ability to learn and think for itself.

The other character shown in my drawing is a "laptop" named Plum. In the story she's about the size of a doll. She is the most adorable thing I've ever seen! ^_^

I hope my drawings have piqued your interest enough to get you curious about this awesome series. Fair warning: it's got a bit of mature, sexy content, but then again, what good manga/anime series doesn't?

Toastmaster Doodles

Last Monday, I was a guest at my mom's Toastmasters meeting. Currently she belongs to a different club than Bettina and me. From time to time, just to mix it up a little, we visit her club, and it's always a pleasure to meet her fellow members and hear some interesting speeches. This particular night however, not only did I watch my mom deliver her 4th speech (so proud of her by the way ^_^), I also did a few random doodles on my agenda handout. Take a look here.
First, the unaltered paper:

Now, the be-doodled one with lots of random, cutesy pictures. Don't ask me why they're there.

From top to bottom, let's see what we have here:

shy bunny thinking about a carrot,
a computer that says "HI",
striped cat thinking about an empty bird-cage (with the bird himself actually perching on the kitty's tail),
a tall tree thin enough to fit in the left-margin,
random flight of stairs,
bouncing ball flying over a dude with a see-thru skull,
an elephant on a diet (my brother Adam had such a funny look when I told him that's what it was),
pretty non-assuming little flower,
part of the Toastmaster's logo itself (compare to the picture in this link: TM Logo.jpg) with a plane flying around it (in outer-space o.O),
hand and pen,
dwarf-type guy peering over "The Mission of Our Club",
something that vaguely looks like a air-field wind-sock or something,
a flock of birds sitting on the wire,
a shiny medal near the "awards" section,
a black cat looking up at a cockatoo parrot,
the "M&Ms" logo (had a pack of them during the meeting),
a roughly drawn woman,
a stork,
a scary mask,
well-drawn guy in glasses,
and finally...one of the speakers themselves

Everything was drawn with a thin, black, Crayola marker that I found in a big marker bin. What fun they were to do. Hope you like them.

As a bonus, here is a neat animated-GIF morphing-trick I learned in Adobe Fireworks. Enjoy!

"Yellow Submarine" Plus: Animated Progression GIF

This week, I've been working on something very special and dear to my heart: the album cover of the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine".

Why is this picture so special? Let me put it to you this way: the animated movie "Yellow Submarine" was one of those movies that defined my childhood. I loved it. As a kid, my sister and I would watch over and over and over again.
To this day, we can still recite whole scenes from the movie by heart. Don't even get me started!

My dad is a HUGE Beatles fan (having lived through the 60's and all that), so in our family, Beatles music was always playing, always present, always fun to sing and dance along to. I created this so I could express the joy that this colorful, wacky movie and album gave (and continues to give) me.

Notice the word "LOVE" in proud red/yellow stripes coming out the top? That part's not on the original image! It adds a nice personal touch, plus it pretty much summarizes the whole message of Beatles' music in general.

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As a bonus, here's an animated-gif I created so you guys can see how my painting progressed from pencil drawing to finished masterpiece without having to scroll another inch! Ta-da!

2 New Drawings!

I've got 2 new drawings for you today my lovelies!

First, a self-portrait of me done in front of a mirror. As an artist, I've found that drawing oneself is one of the more challenging things to do, especially because as I'm drawing, I'm constantly moving my eyes, my mouth, my head, my arms, just so I can get marks on paper that resemble me! The hardest part to do was the mouth. After I was done penciling it in, I showed it to my family, and they each suggested some minor changes, all the while saying, "other than that, it looks exactly like you! Great job!". Maybe every so often I can put up a new self-portrait, like once a month. What do you think?

Here is a Phineas and Ferb related gag I've had on my mind for a couple days that I finally drew on the beach yesterday. I drew the boys solely from memory, no pictures did I copy from. After browsing "Phineas and Ferb" pictures on Google Images this morning, I realize that I could have made Ferb's head a bit thinner or his eyes a bit bigger, and the tree behind them doesn't look like their back-yard tree, and other nit-picky details like that. Anyway, whaddaya think of the joke? Personally, I'm hoping somehow the writers will come up with the same joke themselves and use it in one of the future episodes. Then I would have the pleasure of thinking to myself, "Haha, I thought of that joke first, and I have the blog-post to prove it. Ha!"

See you next time. Annette is out, Peace!!

Dad's Office

I did this drawing of my dad's office in about 2 hours. It could have been done shorter, but in the middle of sketching, he came in and gave brother Adam an impromptu guitar lesson, and I had to set my notebook aside for awhile. A jam-session took place, and it was groovy. Adam on electric, and dad on acoustic. I played a little bit myself, and eventually, both Adam and our father went out and I was able to wrap up my drawing. I did it all in ballpoint pen, no tracing over pencil lines involved. What do you think?

What's Cooking?

There I was, waiting for a pot of spaghetti to finish boiling. I figure, "I've got 15 minutes. Why don't I draw something while I'm not busy?" So I did, and here is the sketch-to-life comparison:

Instead of putting the temperature-dials above the stove, I decided to put them on the stove itself. Why? No good reason, but it still looks cool, don't you think?

Later!

2nd Post in 2nd Day

Three cats doing kitty things. Sorry that one of their heads is off-page, that one was actually drawn head-less.

I got the idea to do this drawing when Bettina started reading a novel called "The Book Theif". It's pretty much the front cover, with my hand about to start off the chain-reaction of dominoes to tumble.

In the comments section of this post, leave a guess as to who you think this male celebrity is. I got him from an article in a recent issue of Vanity Fair magazine.

One of the few times I catch my brother Adam reading a book. He looked so cool I had to make the moment last.

This one I did yesterday after Benny found on his bookshelf a very impressive book on reflexology. It dealt with foot, hand, ear, and head massage as well as shiatsu, and it had hundreds and hundreds of great pictures to flip through and glean inspiration from.

Emergency Art Blog Injection

We all need a little balance in our life.

I drew this on the beach.

The tall buildings and hotels make me wistful and dreamy sometimes.

A treasured stuffed animal. The day I drew "Pumpkin" I actually happened to be at a loss for a drawing idea, so Bettina helped me out by suggesting I draw one of our toys.

I drew this while I was waiting...waiting for something to be over...watching the minutes tick away on my watch and the wall-clock...just passing the time until I could finally leave.

By the way, I'm back!

Toy Story drawings

Here is a sketch done in pen that I drew recently of 2 of my favorite Pixar characters of all time: Woody and Buzz. I did it a couple days after seeing the movie "Toy Story 3", which is required viewing for anyone reading this blog post. You have got to see it! It's even better than the first 2 Toy Story movies! I swear!This is the image I based my sketch on. It's a frame from the first movie, which hangs in our room over Adam's bed. We've had it for so long I forget where we got it.

This is another picture I drew with just Buzz Lightyear in it, striking a flying pose.

I am particularly proud of these pictures because the subjects are computer-animated characters, and I captured them just right (if I do say so myself)!

Isn't it weird whenever an artist captures a moment? It makes it sound like the subject is a wild animal or something. Of course it makes sense if the subject is a wild animal, like a tiger or gorilla, but when it's computer animated characters...

Father's Day Portrait

On the left is a portrait that I drew for my father Benny in honor of Father's Day this year, and on the right is the original photo that I based my sketch on. On the back of the picture I drew is a heart-felt note I wrote listing all his best qualities. He sure is a swell-looking guy, isn't he?

Self-Portrait at 5 years old

I should have put this up half a month ago, when I made it, but better late than never.

For many months beforehand I've stared at the picture on the left wondering whether I could become a good enough artist to be able to capture myself accurately in pen or pencil. I used to gaze at it and promise myself I would tackle it the next day, and I wouldn't keep my promises, and every time I'd see the photo I'd feel a little more guilty. Finally on June 15, 2010 I thought to myself, "Okay, okay, I'll draw the picture already. I've been putting it off for long enough." Less than a half-hour later, I have my cute 5-year-old face beautifully rendered in ball-point pen. Hopefully my short story will serve as a lesson to you, my dear readers: Never put off till tomorrow what you can do in a half-hour today.

Calvin & Hobbes Sketches

Background Info: Calvin and Hobbes was a comic strip written and illustrated by Bill Watterson for 10 years from 1985 to 1995. It follows the antics and adventures of 6-year-old Calvin, a highly imaginative, precocious and mischievous little boy, and his stuffed tiger Hobbes, a toy who is Calvin's constant companion and comes to life in Calvin's imagination.

Recently I got quite interested in Calvin and Hobbes, and so has my brother Adam. We took a book out from the library that was a collection of the cartoon's Sunday pages, full of color. It's so much fun sitting close together, huddling over the book with Adam and alternating turns; I read a page, he reads a page. And we laugh and laugh! ^_^ These are the good old days!

Every sketch on this page was drawn by simply looking at the picture and copying what I see, except for this one located in the bottom-right corner which I traced directly from the book. It's beyond me how Bill Watterson could make a career drawing these characters for 10 years! It's challenging, man! Sure is fun, though.

The Jackson 3

Today I finished reading an incredibly awesome autobiography: Michael Jackson's own book, Moonwalk. It was written in 1988, right after his album "Bad" came out, and the new 2009 edition of the book includes a foreword by Berry Gordy, founder of Motown. It's also got lots of great pictures of MJ scattered throughout the book, which I'll get to momentarily.

On Sunday, April 4th, my family spent the day at the beach for my dad's birthday, and I got to see a fellow artist friend of mine named Gigi, who draws cartoon panels inspired from her life, among other things. I asked her if I could borrow a piece of paper and a pencil and we did some drawing together. She drew some more comic panels, while I did a drawing of one of the pictures in the book Moonwalk. It's of Michael, Marlon, and Jackie. After finishing the pencil work on the beach, I took the picture back home and traced over it in pen. This is one of the few times that I've succeeded (by my standards at least) in doing a life-like portrait of actual people!

Adam and his Friend Eiza

Yesterday Adam's friend Eiza came over to our house to play. Eiza is 8 years old, and he's very funny and imaginative. Here is a moment I captured, using pen and paper, of the two boys playing with Adam's action-figures and cars.

Freak Out!

See the post I wrote on my other blog by clicking on the link below:

Freakazoid Fan!

Foreshortened Hand in Pen

Project #2 in the "Keys to Drawing" book: With one eye closed, make a rendering of your hand with the fingers curled up, thereby tricking your brain into only drawing what you see, rather than how you think a hand should look like. In this drawing I drew my hand, and then I did a drawing of my drawing. This exercise was fun for me, because the challenge of keeping one eye closed while drawing was pretty freeing. It's as if I know the drawing won't turn out perfectly, so I don't worry about it and just draw what I see.

A new drawing!

I started a new drawing book that I got from the library called "Keys to Drawing" by Bert Dodson. It's got some really great projects to try, and I decided that I'm going to do all of them.

The very first project is to do a picture of your own feet. I went one step further: I did a picture of my feet within a picture of my feet! I spent more time drawing the feet than I did drawing the hands, because the feet were the main focus, but I think I did a really good piece. Especially considering I did it all in pen. No erasing allowed!

In other news, my older cousin from Israel who's been traveling all over America has come to visit our family's house for the weekend, and I got to show her my whole notebook of drawings plus my work with Adam and our doodles together.

It was so much fun, not only to show off my mad skills, but also to go down memory lane. I've pretty much kept the same drawing notebook for almost 3 years, and I still have plenty of empty pages left! Hopefully I can rectify that by going through "Keys to Drawing" so I can finally have a finished work.

It's strange going through my notebook, drawing after drawing, doodle after doodle, phase after phase, and then come to a big old section of blank pages and say, "Eh, that's all I have so far." Instead I want to have a full notebook and at the end say, "And that was the beginning of my drawing career from Sept 2007 to (fill in the blank) 2010."