FluorineArt

St. Peter would say NO!

2012-01-28T22:53:00.000-08:00

I was furious. I admit, I'm an emotional person, I get happy, annoyed, satisfied, or frustrated easily and get over them fast. But I rarely get really angry. Today, I'm furious.

During today's class, we talked about different culture has different value priorities. While American might believe honesty to be the most important value, Eastern culture (Chinese, Korean) might consider loyalty to family and friend takes priority to personal honesty. To further demonstrate his point, the instructor show us a survey given to people in different countries for their opinion on honesty.

People are given the following scenario: you and your best friend were driving in a residential area. Your friend went over the speed limit, and accidentally ran over someone. The question was would you lie under oath that your friend is not speeding?

Over 95% American refuse to lie, while 48% of Chinese remain honest, and 26% of Korean insist they would tell the truth and send their friend into jail.

The idea is to show that for American, telling the truth might be very important; but for Chinese and Korean people, stay loyal to their friend is more important. There's no right or wrong about personal value priorities, but as project managers, we need to be aware that each team member has their own value based on their experience, knowledge and culture.

After the discussion, a classmate raised his hand and said: I know you (instructor) said there's no right or wrong when it comes to value priority, but if St. Peter is those country, St. Peter would tell those people "NO, this is WRONG!"

The class was quiet for a while, and I said: "I'm sure there's a Chinese god believes it is more important to stay loyal to your friend and family than honesty." And guy said to me: "what did you say?!" At this moment, the instructor stepped in and said: we should all respect other people's value. And we moved on.

In fact, I was FURIOUS! My face was burning and I want to stand up and said "HOW DARE YOU! How dare you judge my people in the name of your god?!" I wanted to slap his fat, obnoxious, self-righteous face.

I guess there will always be people go around say "I'm right, You're wrong" in the name of religion, personal value, social "norm".... All you need to do is stand your ground and push back.

Easy Fun and Hard Fun

2012-01-25T12:10:00.000-08:00

My friend recommend me this article, and after reading it, I find myself split in the middle regarding the "Zynga Abyss".

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/01/the-zynga-abyss/251920/

Yes, Farmville is designed to get player spend hours doing virtual crops, spamming friends, planning resources, decorating farms. Many "hardcore" gamer would consider that waste of time or stupid. But you know what I think is really stupid? Playing Ninja Gaiden, get defeated/killed by the lowest enemies every other minute and try again and again and again... Yet as hard as it is, I've seen people speak of this game with great pride, no less than winning a Nobel Price, about how he finished it at the hardest level. I'm sure that's what the designer had in mind about "hard fun", that you spend days even months of your life mastering your skill of killing monsters in one particular game which you'll never use in any other circumstances. But truth to be told, if I have a choice between Farmville and Ninja Gaiden, I'll pick Farmville in a heart beat.

The article used another game as a comparison of what's a good fun, compare to Farmvilles' "coercive and unethical fun". A simple game that let you run the course of obstacles for as long as you can. But I really don't like this kind of game, Tetrix, Pacman... because you'll never win. No matter how good you are, there's no winning. You always end up losing/dying. You can argue that the reward is you get a bit further with practice, but still in my opinion, the game doesn't reward you for trying. Just when you think you get better at it, the game present you with a more difficult challenge and you failed again. Maybe the Ninja Gaiden Hardcore people would find this challange/fail model fun, not me.

One thing I often seen in "hardcore" game designer is that they tent to have this "this fun is better than that fun" thinking. If we can accept TV shows such as Jersey Shore co-existing with Mad Men or Rome, why do we feel the need to "educate" our players what is real fun, and what is "evil company stealing your money fun"? We're not talking about coerce candy out of little kids here, for the most part, facebook gamers are grow men who can (gasp!) be responsible for their own action, money and how to spend their life. If someone enjoy spending hours of time and tons of money on virtual crop, who am I to say "you don't really enjoy it, you just feel compelled to do it because the game is designed as such". A entire city is designed based on this concept, yet we all go there and have a good time. Programs and rehab facility is built to help people get out of playing "coercion" games, yet we blame the people not the game itself.

So why, as game designers, we feel the need to "purify" our product into such moral standard? Why can't we just let people have their fun, believing that they're smart enough to make their own choices, and if they want to "waste" their life away, it's not our responsibility to stop them.

I considered myself a "hardcore" gamer, although I don't like to use that word. It's such an obnoxious and exclusive word. Indeed, I also feel that most facebook games are shallow and viral focused. They don't offer a good fulfilling story, not much game play to speak of, and rely too much on spamming your friends. But that's just personal taste. A game with better story, deep game play, rely less on spamming would be nice to have, but that doesn't mean it's more "moral" than Zynga games.

After all, at the end of the day, Zynga or any other game studio, is a company whose primary function is to profit. If a game generate millions of user and financially successful, the game should be considered a good game, which deserve our respect.

The Guy~

2011-07-26T01:36:00.000-07:00

I have this idea about this guy I met in China. There's story behind this painting, and I'll tell it after I finish.

Oh, and if this looks like a certain Bronzino portrait... that's because it's largely based on that painting. I really like Bronzino's painting, I figure it won't hurt to borrow from his poses.

Not Happy...

2011-07-25T03:32:00.001-07:00

I'm not quite happy with this one. It doesn't turn out the way I wanted it to be. Although... I did change my mind quite a lot since I first start it. So I guess it's really not that bad, I can see a lot of places where I can make this better, but I really don't want to keep working on it. I want to paint new stuff.

So I'll leave it as finished as I care to finish...LOL. And I need to get some sleep.

Background...

2011-07-24T03:35:00.001-07:00

The problem with background is that... It takes a long time to paint, and in the end, people hardly notice it. Ah.... It's like 4 hours work from last night to tonight, and it doesn't show at all....

but I don't want to keep working on the face, it mean, the only thing left is blending and that's what I'm trying to avoid...

You know with every painting, (almost every painting), there's a painful period when you just want to give up and start something new. Now is that period... I just have to keep pushing forward and hopefully it'll end up worth my time.

Must... Stop... Blending....

2011-07-22T03:18:00.001-07:00

I didn't get much done tonight, mostly because I end up in my "blending" mode again.... It's just so easy to fall into that mental stage, almost like a trance or something.

Oh, and I took someone's advise, use the hair to cover up my lack of reference and knowledge of human anatomy. Now that I look at this piece, her head seems too big!!!.... ah....that's an easy change, I'll deal with it tomorrow.

Update

2011-07-21T03:47:00.001-07:00

What I've been trying to change about my painting is the way I blend color. I feel that I blend too much. I tried very hard to learn how to blend smoothly, now I can somewhat create a smooth skin surface, I don't like it anymore. I want my brush stroke to have some character, some personality, some style in it.

So I took an old unfinished painting, and try to make something new. Used a wet edge hard round brush, no air brush no smooth... I actually kind of like it.

Irene Adler

2011-07-18T03:22:00.001-07:00

So I start this painting as a little warm up exercise, something I do after a hiatus. I just want to paint a very strong, elegant, sexy and seductive woman. I used a Marlene Dietrich picture as reference. Halfway through when I'm adjusting her hair, she suddenly started to look like Irene Adler. I never like the woman, but I feel that she would look like this.

and as usual.... I cut conners with her clothing... and her hair... LOL.

Update

2011-07-17T04:12:00.000-07:00

I almost abandoned this blog. Mostly because I'm lazy and impulsive.

Other than some major life changing stuff, I'm still pretty much the same.

Here's a new painting. I haven't painted anything since this February. It's quite normal with me, I'd going on a painting frenzy for a a couple of months and go into a hiatus for months... I used to get really upset about these gaps, I'd be very scared that this is the end of my painting years, that I'd lost my creativity and be a sad boring person for the rest of my life.... LOL.

But I figure this is just me being moody, lazy and impulsive. And I'll always bounce back to painting and drawing creepy girls.

Now, here's one of those girls.

I don't understand fantasy stories - 2

2011-02-21T03:19:00.000-08:00

What does the villain want?

We have this one ridiculously powerful villain who wants to destroy the world, and our hero stood up to fight him. We all know the story. May it be the Devil, Sauron, or Ogdru Jahad, or Dark Spawn, or the Low man (from Dark Tower series).. It was never really clear what the villain intend to do after destroying the world (or universe for that matter). The act of destruction can not be the ultimate goal, the villain will survive the destruction and what will he do next? go back to sleep? Rule the world in horror? there's nothing left to rule!

I was never quite understand the idea of "end of the world". It can't be the end, as time goes, there's no end, something would happen after "the end". Prince and princess don't live happily ever after, and villain would have to do something with his empty world. It'd be great if there's a story about the villain and his new world. The then villain would become a great King who burn down a corrupted and evil world and established a new one.

I don't understand fantasy stories - 1

2011-02-21T03:17:00.000-08:00

And as story goes, human can form a contract with demon, and demon would grand him wishes when he's alive, and take his soul when his dead. I mean... I don't know why people would consider it a bad thing! Seriously, if someone auction his soul on ebay, I doubt people would pay a penny for it. But with a price that no one knows what it is, you get the lifetime servitude of a demon, sign me up please! I want a personal demon to do my bidding, and ask me "what's thy bidding my master", that'd be cool!

And when I'm dead, man I don't even know what happen when i'm dead! I could just turning into dust for all I know. It's like "here's all the life's riches and you can pay me back after you're dead!" Damn! Best deal ever.

And the idea that some arch demon come to someone, that's just ridiculous. President Obama never visit me in person, why would some all powerful demon (high officials in hell) come visit a nobody? If he wants to manipulate earth affairs, wouldn't it be much effective if he end up manipulation presidents or generals?

In the end, it's all pathetic attempt of normal human beings to feel SPECIAL, to feel important in one way or another. It's not demon who desperately want our soul, it is us who desperately want to be wanted, to be needed, to be important, even in a negative kind of way. If the human world won't recognize my value, the demons will.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that human soul is of no value. Whatever it is (depends on your religious belief), it is priceless. Just like honor, dignity and honesty is priceless. But these values are priceless only for the person who's holding them. In another words, while soul is priceless to me, it holds no value for other people. Since there's no common value assigned to soul, it can not be used as bargaining chips.

Happy Chinese New Year!!!

2011-02-06T18:15:00.000-08:00

And since this is the year of Rabbit, I present to you:

Bunny the Tiger Hunter!!! yeah~~~~

That's one bad ass bunny you don't want to be messing with!

Rosso, My OC

2011-02-06T18:13:00.000-08:00

I was working on this dude for ages!!!

there's a most recent WIP:

Some Sketches I never get to finish

2011-02-06T17:58:00.001-08:00

I have all these sketches in my hard drive... I may or may not finish them

Here's a Bunny girl idea I had for Chinese New Year, I end up painting a very different Bunny... LOL, I like that one a lot better, so probably won't paint this. Bunny girls are boring.

I was thinking about redraw some of my early works, one of them is Monk. An early piece I did for CHOW, which didn't even make it to the cut. Although I have to say, it was a bit unfair for me, simply because I was new at the time. A lot of "lesser" paintings make it to the cut. That being said, that monk piece indeed suffers some anatomy issue. So I decided to repaint it.

Here's a recent piece I did for CHOW. CHOW is really going down hill since my time. Team Chow 3 didn't even finish! Anyways, this one is for "serial Killer", I was thinking about doing a sunny happy serial kill instead of going for that cliche bloody and creepy serial killer.

This is a really really really .... really old sketch. Man this one is old. probably from 08.

This one is another Chinese girl I didn't get the finish...

One more Chow piece. I like this guy, I might go finish him.

2011 Paintings

2011-02-06T17:49:00.001-08:00

Hese Paintings are done in 2011.

Chinese Cigarette Girl from 1920s

Fire Mane (Don't really like this one though...)

Diva, created for Humon, a comic artist I really like.

Paintings in December

2011-02-06T17:42:00.000-08:00

After Sherlock, I end up painting all sorts of stuff during December:

Here's a double portrait for Dorian Gray and Lord Wotton.

A Chinese Assassin. I wasn't really happy with this piece, his arm is too stiff.

A Chinese Girl painted over the Christmas Holiday

Sherlock

2011-02-06T17:24:00.000-08:00

Last November, I watched BBC's new Sherlock TV Show. I was totally impressed with the story and the cast. So I end up painted a portrait set for 4 main characters. All of these are painted last November, early December.

Here's 4 of them together as a set

Sherlock Holmes

Mycroft Holmes

James Moriarty

John Watson

I was quite happy with this portrait set.

Back to Painting

2011-02-06T17:21:00.001-08:00

I haven't been updating this blog.... for so long!!! Mostly because I got this new job last Spring and have been crazy busy. I didn't pick up my pen until last November, and this is the first painting I did after coming back from Hiatus.

Sweetest thing

2010-11-18T22:20:00.000-08:00

My friend is in a long distance relationship, and the first thing I told him:

"it's not gonna work".

Long distance doesn't work.

And he told me:

"I know the odds is against me... but I love with my heart, not with my brain".

That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and stupid, and sweet... LOL

I always say Love makes people stupid, it lowers IQ. Turns out, love doesn't require IQ, no wonder it's stupid.

It's been that long...

2010-11-07T23:23:00.000-08:00

The last post I put up was back in March, right before I found my current job. Much has changed since then, I moved to San Francisco, live in a dump of a place, worked 12 hours everyday plus weekends... I haven't draw anything worth mentioning for...damn...8 months... I actually enjoy my work, or I wouldn't put that much into it.

I wasn't a good artist, never was, never will be. I'm content with it. I wasn't really good with writing either, Chinese maybe, English... too much grammar issue. Another thing is, well, there's no inspiration. I don't feel the drive the paint of write anything. I remember when I used to feel the force that drives me to create something. Well, none of those had happened for sometime.

All of these put together, I have 8 months of creativity blank.

Am I really a creative person? I feel that everything I know about myself is not accurate. I thought I'm an artist, but I seem can't wait to escape to management. I don't really feel "unhappy" that I don't get to paint. I don't have the drive to paint or create. Maybe I'm wrong about myself all alone. I'm not sure about my personal life either, I feel almost obligated to find or at least try to find a boyfriend of some sort. But deep down, I know I don't really want to get involved with anyone. I don't believe in love or human emotion that last longer than some brain chemical reaction. I don't believe I'm capable of having a relationship.

People have midlife crisis, I have mid 20 crisis and late 20 crisis and seems I just never quite figure out who I am and what I'm supposed to do with my life. Maybe this is life supposed to be, you keep searching and searching... and it's the journey that matters, not the destination.

Irikah

2010-03-24T13:32:00.001-07:00

I thought it's about time I put her here. I rarely do fan art, but Krios, I'm willing to make an exception.

Magician 2

2010-03-14T23:13:00.000-07:00

Revised, changed some issues with the legs and face.

Magician

2010-03-06T01:04:00.001-08:00

Guiliano de'Medici

2009-12-05T16:24:00.001-08:00

This is my reproduction of one of my favorite paintings, portrait of Guiliano de'Medici by Sandro Botticelli.

Two changes were made with my painting: 1, I added a bit of a highlight on his hair; 2, I don't like the bird, so I didn't paint it.

About this painting: This is my favorite painting, the one which got me into art history, the Medici family, and the most brilliant early Florentine Renaissance... (and a BA in art history if I may so vain to add). I saw this painting at art history 101, I don't know who the sitter was, nor the artist. I guess it's like love on the first sight. I want to know more about this painting, so I dig in and never stop.

This painting is very likely done after Guiliano was killed in 1478 during the Pazzi conspiracy, ordered by brother Lorenzo il Magnifico. The half opened window, the downcast eyes, the bird at the bottom, all symbolize death and mourning. It was probably a very popular painting after it's finished, because there're at least two other copies survived. Botticelli was already a Medici favorite, and no doubt very expensive to hire. Guiliano was a likable character, after his death, it's natural for his friend to order his portrait to memorize. Thus the original by Botticelli, and two copies either from his workshop or from other lesser artists.

The original is a permanent collection at National Gallery of Art in Washington.

---

One peculiar incident during the painting, because I don't like the bird, so I decided I'll either remove it or change into something that'd represent myself. Some animal or object that I consider associate with me. Yet, after searching my memory, I couldn't find anything... object, animal... that I identify with. It is rather odd.

Blue Hair

2009-11-13T13:32:00.001-08:00

Portrait of a Friend

2009-11-06T22:41:00.001-08:00

I rarely paint portraits, not for real person. This is portrait for a friend, photo reference. I'm still trying this new way of paint, I really like it.

quicky

2009-11-03T10:28:00.001-08:00

You know those quicky environment/mood painting, looks so effortless with only a few brush stroke, delivering a great feeling? This is not... one of those... it's sort of half way there, like a test. I like it though... I think I'll do more.

Hasta la vista, baby!

2009-11-01T22:32:00.001-08:00

Self Portrait created for the International Self Portrait Day~~~ I totally had fun with this one!!! totally!!!

knight

2009-10-31T21:18:00.001-07:00

Meng

2009-10-31T19:52:00.000-07:00

I painted this for a friend's novel.

The One

2009-10-23T00:53:00.000-07:00

Created for a friend at DA, his contest "The One". I virtually have no idea what I'm going to do, and kept changing my mind through out the painting... But i'm happy to say, it end up pretty good~

The One~

2009-10-21T17:22:00.000-07:00

A painting did for the One contest~ I have something decretive style in mind. see if I can pull it off.

Self Portrait with Tibetan Mask

2009-10-17T17:23:00.000-07:00

Finished~ I had fun~~~ and learnt something new.

I never liked self-portraits. In fact, I absolutely hate them. I just don't get it why people enjoy looking at themselves for hours and painting their own face. But I had fun with this one, mostly because I've been wanting to dress up like that for ages~~~ those fancy Manchu dresses are really hard to come by, and nearly impossible to make... So it's more like a fantasy come true.

Here's a close up~

Self Portrait

2009-10-14T17:25:00.001-07:00

I hate self-portrait~ I did it twice during art school, both of them were for class projects, one midterm, one final. I don't understand the obsession some artists has with their own faces... The current Chow is self-portrait round, and I decided to do it LOL, and it's actually pretty fun~

I always wanted to wear those fancy qing dynasty clothing. :D

Some nights...

2009-10-14T00:05:00.000-07:00

Some nights you can do it~ feels like you're king of the world... great piece, wonderful color... effortless...

Tonight, is not one of those nights.... That's the worst part of being an artist. You never know if you can do it again, tomorrow night... or this is it... you can never do it again.

The Bloody Countess

2009-10-10T16:13:00.001-07:00

Astaroth

2009-10-07T21:26:00.001-07:00

An old character I loved back in high school~ See if I can find an old drawing I did for him.

Mermaid~ add more detail and effect

2009-10-03T19:06:00.000-07:00

Add some detail on the tail part~ and some effect layer.

Mermaid Finished~

2009-10-02T14:42:00.000-07:00

Mermaid

2009-10-01T22:26:00.001-07:00

I promised my best friend to draw her a mermaid in junior high..... And I'm starting it now..... LOL~~~ It's miracle that she stick with someone like me all these years...

Black River Crew

2009-09-27T22:30:00.001-07:00

for CHOW 174

chow 174 Black River Crew WIP 2

2009-09-26T18:56:00.001-07:00

Chow 174 Black River Crew

2009-09-24T23:07:00.001-07:00

WIP for ChoW 174, Black River Crew, a sort of Robin hood kids street gang.

A Good day to die-Final!

2009-09-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

I actually finished this...

Wife of the late maharajah is getting ready to get torched with her husband's body~

A Good day to die-WIP3

2009-09-20T02:51:00.000-07:00

Change the neck, hands, and costume...

A Good day to die-WIP2

2009-09-19T00:53:00.001-07:00

Completely change the composition and color and background...

A good day to die-WIP1

2009-09-17T21:56:00.001-07:00

I just start drawing this random girl getting make up on, and then I had this idea about the wife of a recently dead maharajah getting ready to die with her husband. The problem is, because of the reference photo I'm using, the lady doesn't look Indian at all... LOL... But I guess i can have fun with this~

face of depression

2009-09-16T19:23:00.000-07:00

During my depression, I painted these... I never consider myself an artist, so I don't paint when I'm upset, or use my art as an outlet... But... I just did these without really thinking... I really don't know what I'm doing...

绿娇娇

2009-09-15T23:51:00.001-07:00

This is the third version I did for this character~ It's a character for a popular book back in China, and readers hated all three of them... LOL, oh well.

NPC Design male civilian set1

2009-09-14T02:05:00.001-07:00

A quicky 2 -skin

2009-09-13T12:50:00.000-07:00

NPC Design female civilian set

2009-09-12T16:06:00.001-07:00

NPC Design 2

2009-09-11T14:31:00.001-07:00

Poor district female civilian 1

NPC Design

2009-09-10T12:02:00.001-07:00

Don't know if this design works...

Arvalis - Finish

2009-09-07T21:43:00.000-07:00

Arvalis finished work... I'm still not happy with it. I try to reduce the amount of detail, still end up having too much. It is a very complicated background to start with, and I don't how could I make it look flashy with less detail.

But... I guess this is probably the first digital image I created with a complex background like this, so as an experiment, I should be happy with the end result.

arvalis - wip5

2009-09-06T23:44:00.001-07:00

This is taking longer than i expected. Before, finishing the figure means pretty much done, now i finished the guy and feels like only half way through. And I was worried that the background might be too busy... I try to keep things loose, but just don't know how loose is too loose.

arvalis - wip4

2009-09-05T23:24:00.001-07:00

The progress is surprisingly slow. Even when I deliberately trying to keep it loose, don't focus too much on the detail... This whole day i only finished the face, and upper body. I guess it's because I'm trying something new, and still figuring out what to do with it.

arvalis - wip3

2009-09-05T10:48:00.001-07:00

Change the armor to look for sinister. I have to admit, this painting scares me... I've been dragging my feet with this one for 2 days. I deliberately changed my normal working flow, start big, stay big and don't zoom in too much, block in all the color and lighting first. So i won't end up lost in the detail again. But it's really a struggle... Not to zoom in, not work on details on the face, and armor... I guess that's how you get better...LOL.

arvalis - wip2

2009-09-03T21:21:00.001-07:00

Arvalis - wip1

2009-09-02T20:17:00.000-07:00

Redesign of a friend's character. I wasn't feeling the vibe about this character...so I end up doing this for tonight...

Another note: our fig tree is really popular now, all the little animals around the neighborhood come to enjoy the figs~ At first there're the opossums, and now there's raccoons...I wanted to take a picture of the raccoon, but he ran away the minute i got close. Now I'm back to my room, and he's outside again. there's screen on my window so I can't take picture from inside. They're really cute~

Team Chow II - Finals

2009-09-01T13:06:00.000-07:00

Team Chow II finally come to an end with a rather chaotic last minute submission.

Here's the final images I created:

I don't know why my final art always look dead and flat.... I'm happy that I finished these, but I'm not happy because it doesn't live up to what I had in mind for my dancer. I don't like the common "fantasy style" every other fantasy artist is doing. For some odd reason I find it too shinny, shinny smooth skin, glowing stuff everywhere... It's like if you look at it too long, it hurts your eyes or something. But then again, I'm not happy with I'm doing right now.

I'm still looking for the style I like... (please no furries and no shinny/glowy magical stuff...)

The only thing I can do now is keep drawing and get better.

team Chow II - Cang Mei

2009-08-30T23:10:00.000-07:00

Name: 苍媚 Cang Mei (The Blue Charm)

Race: Elf

Age: 65

Class: Thief

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Personal History: Cang Mei is an Elven thief. Her village was raided by slavers when she's a little girl, and she was sold to a Bar owner. Because of her beauty, she was forced to learn dancing to entertain her costumers.

After years of abuse, Cang Mei finally managed to kill her Master. Wounded during the killing, she ran to her own people for help. But because of the slave mark on her right shoulder (which she covered up all time with shoulder plate or at least a piece of fabric), her own people won't have her back. To survive, she became a mercenary, kill for money. Eventually she joined a Merc group, they disguised as a traveling band, put up performance from time to time to avoid attention; accepting contract killing job in the back. Cang Mei was gathering information to find out who raided her village (sounds like a nice character side quest~), so she can kill every single one of them.

Cang Mei is cruel. She doesn't believe in good and evil, she only believe in money. She is seductive, love to play catch and release. She's very smart, like all elves, but because she lack of proper education and training, she can only use minimum necromancy magic.

team Chow II - Good Side (almost done)

2009-08-27T16:54:00.000-07:00

Name: 绯媚 Fei Mei (meaning: the Red Charm)

Race: Elf

Class: Thief

Age: 65

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Personal History: Fei Mei is an Elven thief. Her village was raided by slavers when she's a little girl, and she was sold to a Bar owner. Because Fei Mei is pretty, she was forced to learn dancing to entertain her costumers.

She ran away from her Master, but because of the slave mark on her left shoulder (which she covered up all time with shoulder plate or at least a piece of fabric), her own people won't have her back. To survive, she learnt to steal. Eventually she joined another traveling bards group. They traveling around put up performance. Fei Mei was gathering information to find out who raided her village (sounds like a nice character side quest~)

Fei Mei has a rather sassy personality. She's playful, flirty, can be wicked at time, and have a problem with the authority, but she has a genuinely good heart. She's very smart, like all elves. But she refuse to learn any magic, her little show down with her people who rejected her. Due to her past, she's specially against slavery and always go out of her way to help women and children run away from slavery.

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It's almost the final piece. I'm not sure what kind of frame we're going to use for the team, so just black frame for now.

Team Chow II - I'm so Dead~~~

2009-08-26T00:24:00.001-07:00

Team Chow II - two layout

2009-08-25T01:05:00.001-07:00

Design two layouts for Team Chow II character, the good side.

and everyone seems prefer the second one with bamboo forest. Oh well~~~Bamboo forest it is then.

Mei~魅

2009-08-21T20:09:00.000-07:00

A close up~

I shouldn't....I totally shouldn't....There's so much to do, and I spend another day doing this! But....I did it anyway....I had fun...

here's the inspiration: http://drigzabrot.deviantart.com/ This guy is awesome~ Almost every thing in this painting is inspired by his art works.

I shouldn't....

2009-08-20T22:20:00.000-07:00

Now...I should work on the Team Chow II character... or I should working on the stuff on my important portfolio to-do list....Or... I should working on the art I promised my friend.....

But...in stead, I did this....Skin done, hair and armor tomorrow.

情歌

2009-08-17T02:04:00.001-07:00

第一最好不相见，如此便可不相恋。

First better not to see you, So I wouldn't fall in love
　　
第二最好不相知，如此便可不相思。

second better not to know you, so I wouldn't think of you
　　
第三最好不相伴，如此便可不相欠。

Third better not to accompany you, so I wouldn't own you anything.
　　
第四最好不相惜，如此便可不相忆。

forth better not to appreciate you, so I wouldn't remember you
　　
第五最好不相爱，如此便可不相弃。

Fifth better not to love you, so I wouldn't abandon you.
　　
第六最好不相对，如此便可不相会。

sixth better not to face you, so I wouldn't stay with you.
　　
第七最好不相误，如此便可不相负。

seventh better not to misunderstand you, so I wouldn't fail you.
　　
第八最好不相许，如此便可不相续。

Eighth better not to promise you, so we wouldn't continue our love
　　
第九最好不相依，如此便可不相偎。

ninth better not to depend on you, so I wouldn't comfort you.
　　
第十最好不相遇，如此便可不相聚。

Tenth better not to meet you in the first place, so we wouldn't come together in the end.
　　
但曾相见便相知，相见何如不见时。

Yet, seeing you, knowing you, how could staying away better than being with you?
　　
安得与君相诀绝，免教生死作相思。

better to say fair well right now, so I wouldn't love you till death.

love song by 6th dalai llama, one of my favorite. Can't find English translation though, so translate myself. even as horrible as my translation, the poem is still beautiful.

Good photo

2009-08-16T12:21:00.001-07:00

Now i normally don't go political on my art blog, but this photo is just too good to miss. I think it's probably the same kind of ignorant people who went against same sex marriage, against abortion, against civil rights movement about some 40 years ago, who forcefully impose their own religious and moral believes on to other people. These are the people who will eventually go bomb other people's school and church in the name of God or Morality.

I hate conservatives, they are responsible for Bush being in the office for 8 years, and red states doesn't deserve christmas gifts!

Lighting

2009-08-14T23:31:00.000-07:00

A photo study. I rarely copy photos. But this one I really like the lighting and I want to try the wet edge brushes and see how it works for me. It works pretty good~ and....I know...I kind of lost patience near the end when I'm doing the hand...So....might as well call it a day.

a quicky~~~have nothing to do with anything

2009-08-13T23:05:00.001-07:00

team chow II - another quicky

2009-08-13T19:28:00.001-07:00

Trying to set the mode for my dark elf.

team chow II - quicky

2009-08-11T23:25:00.000-07:00

A team chow II character quicky~~~

team chow II - movement

2009-08-11T12:22:00.001-07:00

It's actually harder than it looks~~~but I had fun, and I'll do more~~~

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busy all day, nothing art related...get so tired....I plan to go and finish some 3D work tonight, but couldn't bring myself to it. Just want to stay home and draw and watch old TV shows. I'm getting lazier and lazier day by day. ah~~~~~ :(

another movement study, it's really fun.

team Chow II-Good vs. Evil refined

2009-08-09T18:34:00.001-07:00

Refine little details, change the face to make them look alike, make the evil side really evil. Add fabric to make image PG13. Change weapon to look more intimidating and aggressive. Add a bit of tattoo and scars. I'll leave them and call it a day. I'm still not sure about their faces though...They still looked a bit too ordinary, but then again, I don't want to go into the "animal hybrid" direction, since like every other team is doing that.

Team Chow II-Evil side Redone

2009-08-09T16:03:00.000-07:00

I redo the evil side so she looks more realistic and more of a match with the good side. However, after I finished, I'm facing 2 problems:

1, she looks a bit older than de good side. I think I'll go change the face of the good side to match her.

2, she doesn't look nearly as intimidating and lethal I hoped her to be. This is a bigger problem than changing the face. I think I could use other tools such as tattoos, scars, and lighting to make her look scary, but I still think composition, pose, and facial structure plays an important role here. and after drawing two half elf female rouge dancer, I kind of get bored with her "normal" face, and wanted to do something exotic. Let me think about this....

3, I'm not happy with the weapon too. I know I need to keep it under control, don't go too over the top. But that design is just too small, and too ordinary. Not very scary looking at all.

I might need to rethink this whole design.

team Chow-a new design

2009-08-08T20:13:00.000-07:00

Here's a new design for my dancer girl.

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on a completely unrelated subject, Jessie asked me for a recent picture, so I took some yesterday. I found that from a certain angle, I really look like my mom... I mean, it's really weird to me because I'm not that close to my mom, in fact, I have no idea if she's still alive (I think she's probably still live and kicking, or I'd heard it from the news). It's just weird to see so much similarities, share so much in common with someone I barely know.

unremarkable day

2009-08-08T01:19:00.000-07:00

Today is rather frustrating. I spend about 5 hours on Team Chow's piece, couldn't get the anatomy to work... Get to depressed have to stop and take a walk...

start over after dinner. The second time, the sketch is looking good so far... Will dress her up tomorrow, see how it goes.

Team Chow-face~

2009-08-06T20:47:00.001-07:00

Being told her eyes are too big....I've been drawing these huge vampire eyes for a while...LOL, it's time to change anyway.

I got it!!! Finally....

2009-08-06T02:13:00.000-07:00

I've been struggling with my character, I have this idea, more like some kind of feeling I want to draw, I want to create a character that gives people that impression, beautiful, aggressive, seductive, playful, and lethal...maybe a little bit of vulnerability. I was upset this afternoon with my anatomy challenged dragon girl...

But eventually, after half pack of chocolate, 7 episodes of X-files, numerous changing back and forth...I finally got it. moments like this remind me why I end up being an artist...

Good and Evil Face~

我爸说

2009-08-05T17:52:00.000-07:00

昨天我爸跟我说，你这么画下去也没啥出路，还是趁早改行比较好。

突然觉得很郁闷。。。。

Team Chow-more designs

2009-08-04T18:19:00.001-07:00

I was thinking some sort of assassin character. here's the first try.

Here's a second try. The first one looks...too civilized, since we're going for a more tribal look. I was thinking to expose her chest, but eventually doesn't feel right, so I cover it up.

I have another idea about this prostitute turn mercenary kind of female character, a petite, seductive, lethal, femme fatale kind of girl. Good alignment will be Chaotic Good, goes around helping women in need; the evil will be somewhere between neutral evil and chaotic evil, works for money and has some twisted hatred towards men...or something like that. She'd be holding some kind of instrument, conceal her weapon; or the instrument IS her weapon; or her power is to create sound effect to attack people.

I just don't know how could I put her on paper...well, i'll think of something~

Team Chow initial character designs~

2009-08-03T01:53:00.000-07:00

Here're the initial designs. We agreed to go with a primitive sci-fi tribal look. I'm really looking forward to create some exotic race with primitive patterns and high tech armors and such. But...later we find out after the briefing went out on August 1st that we have to stick with high Fantasy. I mean I have nothing against LotR or WoW, they're both legendary. But...do we really need more pointy eared gender confused elven archer with the gayest hair style?

Then again, that's the requirement and there's nothing we can do about it. So here's some new designs.

A swamp gient battle Bard.

Here're some other insect/sea creature inspired designs:

Light and shadow~finished

2009-08-01T14:10:00.001-07:00

Trying out dramatic lighting and interesting shadow color.

add texture.

Now I looked at her again, I need to draw more normal eye people. I was learning Jiwon Park's style, ended up drawing all the people with those huge comic looking creepy eyes...Oh well, I'm done with her, time to learn from some other people~

Lighting

2009-08-01T01:15:00.001-07:00

I try to do painting with interesting lighting, here's a WIP.

This painting scares me #1

2009-07-28T20:39:00.001-07:00

This painting scare the c#@$ out of me... because of my anima/comic root, I start every painting from a detailed line art, I try to figure out all the composition, proportion issue with my line art. I rarely make big changes when coloring the line art. That's my safe zone. Now after seeing all these people doing their art start with broad brush strokes and with color right from the get go, I'm tempted to try their style, to see how it works for me. So I tried out this one...and I have to say, after I started it, I just got scared. It's so chaotic to the point of intimidating. I don't know where to go next, and there's color everywhere!!!

But I guess that's what happens when you try out new things, they're almost always intimidating. I hope I'll learn something from this piece.

wip1 - This is a rough sketch, a basic idea.

wip2

wip3 - the last one for today. Nightblue told me to start with a black and white value study first, if I find all those chaotic color too intimidating, lay out light and shadow and move on to color. It works pretty well so far, I get a lot less stressed with B&W.

wip4 - refined the details of face and torso, change lags position.

personal Project - III Finished

2009-07-27T14:09:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I actually finished this one...

personal Project - wip

2009-07-27T00:05:00.000-07:00

this one takes a lot longer than I expected. Probably because I got carried away with the costume...

Personal Project III

2009-07-23T22:52:00.000-07:00

Travel suite - Final design

wip2

wip1

Uniform design II

2009-07-23T21:28:00.001-07:00

An Uniform Design Gone "armor"

2009-07-23T16:36:00.001-07:00

I sit down doing a revision of my uniform design from yesterday, end up with a "near future style" armor...How's that happen?!

An Uniform Design

2009-07-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

A Personal Project-2 finished

2009-07-22T13:22:00.001-07:00

The perverted bad guy~~~yeah~~~~

Close-up~

A Personal Project-2 update

2009-07-22T00:08:00.000-07:00

I didn't get to finish it tonight, I guess if I really try, i can get it done, but I don't want to push it. When I get tired, I cut corners.

This guy end up looking really... totally evil... I think he'll look even more evil when I get him all packed up with his big guns and big single tail. LOL~~~ I haven't draw evil people for sometime, and I really like him. I know there's a bit anatomy issue here and there, I was struggling with his shoulder and right hand (holding a cigar). But overall, I'm pretty happy with him. Because he just look like a kick ass bad guy!!!

Here's a close up~~~

A Personal Project-2

2009-07-20T20:16:00.000-07:00

For the same project, he's the bad guy... obviously...

A Personal Project

2009-07-19T20:51:00.000-07:00

Elizabeth Finished~

2009-07-18T16:07:00.001-07:00

CHOW 166-update

2009-07-17T20:35:00.001-07:00

Here's what I had so far.

CHOW－pride and prejudice

2009-07-16T02:01:00.000-07:00

I went back to Chow, character of the week, a weekly contest held at the conceptart.org. It's still the same as how I left it last year. Still a healthy mix of drama queens and really good people. I don't like pride and prejudice. Not a bit. but I guess I'll do this one, if I have the time and patience.

Here's 3 version of Elizabeth, since we have to stick with the historical costume, I guess I'll give her a modern attitude, just to see how it goes.

The Knight!!!

2009-07-15T15:58:00.000-07:00

Finally, I finished him.

Here's the double panel, just like I always imagined it.