Friday, September 30, 2011

pocus: The ethics of life...

ToolsPencil Drawn, scanned, then digitally painted with a Wacom Intuos 4 tablet.

Software used Photoshop 6.0 before switching temporary to Photoshop Elements 6 for minor touch ups.

About
pocus: The ethics of life...

Year
Sept 2011

eXpressionsI took pretty short time to draw the picture, but a hell lot of time to paint it. I think I took like 3 days some hours each in total.

Completed quite early but I failed my first critique. My wife commented not of the technical skill, but of the color combination. She doesn't like the brown top. She suggested brighter colors but that will conflict with Pocus' character and style. In the end I played with the colors abit and gave her a slightly reddish top.

I redid the paint a few times to get some of the colors right. The lighting were dull white initially and I gave it a yellowish tone to it. Overall, not my proudest work but it's one of my most technically enlightened work. Here I know my limitation and places to improve.

This is my sandbox colored artwork after so many years... Hope to do more of such stuff in the future, at a shorter time too.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

Team ES1 - Polo Tee (Final Design)


Tools
Pencils and colors with Photoshop 6.0.

About
Team ES1 Polo Tee (Final)

Year
Aug 2011

eXpressions
The final design for our team Polo Tee. Done up with colors..
Off to printing soon...

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Run for Life!

Tools
Digitally Drawn with Photoshop 6.0 using Wacom Intuos 4.

About
RUN FOR LIFE!

Year
Sept 2011

eXpressions
After my wife saw my new mast header, she requested me to do a similar pic of her with the Intuos, how can I reject? Since my wife as crazy in running as I'm crazy in drawing, I decided to do a "RUN OF LIFE" lineart for her!

My second artwork using the Intuos 4, the funny thing is I bought the tablet more for coloring but end up doing sketches, something that is quite difficult to do in the Graphire.

Hope to get the hang of the Intuos soon.

eXpressing In My Room


Tools
Digitally Drawn with Photoshop 6.0 using Wacom Intuos 4.

About
Makeover time! "Room of eXpressions" new Mast Header!! eXpressing myself in my room...

Year
Sept 2011

eXpressions
As I was uploading stuff earlier, I realised the copyright notice was from 2009 to 2010! Hence it was time for me to update the header.

I have 2 choice, (1) edit and update the current header or (2) redesign a new header. I finally decide to combine both to create a hyrid header that looks like the current one yet with new stuff.

I decided to ditch the lamp as it has no meaning to it, so I decided to include someone in my likeness drawing, expressing himself. As I've no mood to pencil it down so I decided to draw it from my newly purchased Wacom Intuos 4! (My Wacom Graphire was destroyed during the move)

Turns out pretty well so I decided to keep as our header. Yup that's me, expressing myself though artwork, in my room...

Friday, September 9, 2011

Team ES1 Insignia


Tools
Digitally Drawn with Photoshop 6.0

About
Insignia for Special Force Team ES1 for HRMS Project.

Year
Aug 2011

eXpressions
The Insignia of our Team ES1 for HRMS project.

The Badge holds many meaning:

At the top:
- The green color symbolise new pasture, new ground
- The computer represents the users we work with
- The "1" represents our team number, "1" for ES"1". It also represent our commitment to the project

At the bottom:
- White color symbolise Integrity
- All objects represents our core competency.
- Servers
- Network
- SAP symbol for SAP expertise.

The Lightning at the center:
- we combine all basic components to form a working system and integrate them as a collective system for usages for multiple users.

The "Fighting Spirit" Tag:
- Our core attitude towards the project and how we overcome all odds to complete the project without delays or penalties.

Team ES1 - Detail individuals





Tools
Pencils

About
Special Force Basis Team ES1 for HRMS Project. We survived.

Year
July 2011

eXpressions
Detailed art of each colleague I've worked with based on their strengths are traits.

Commander: Our Fearless team leader and healer, Lyonel
Sniper: The cool and calm Specialist, Alvin
Signal: The outspoken and team rep, Cheng
Anti-Tank: The quick and aggresive, Lee Shi
MG Gunner: The blanket fire support, Me

Team ES1 Polo Tee - Draft

Tools
Pencils, Some Photoshop 6.0 enhancement

About
Team ES1 Basis Team for HRMS Project. We survived.

Year
July 2011

eXpressions
Imagine, for months ever since Deepavali 2010 till National Day 2011, You have been working late almost everyday and even in the weekends.

Imagine, since April 2011, you have been working at extreme timings and getting less than 4 hours sleep everyday including both weekends. You reach home at 4 to 5am only to see an sleeping wife. You wake up 9 - 10am and slog it out for the day again, even on Saturdays and Sundays.

And if it's not bad enough, imagine that instead of working in a comfy office table and chair, you work in freezing temperature of the server room. Noisy, Cold and lifeless. No windows to peep and no internet. LAN wires all around without a good desk or chair. You sloth on tiny benches and sometimes even on the floor. You even stand throughout the day working on the server terminal if you are unable to get a bench.

And if that's not bad enough, imagine the work you do, super tight deadlines to meet, adhoc requests and issues arising in system you have no idea how to solve, and you need to solve it by 1 hour! Your boss suddenly throws more shit at you and you find youself busy to brim. You work on systems that no one else in the Company knows and you gotta get things up. You get more suprises issues, got activated last minute to resolve and fix issues.

And not only that, you are hit with logistic issues, servers not arriving on time, approvals not met, services not processed and you are really squeezed to the core.

And you thought that's all, office politics arise, you hear other teams are not happy, you heard sacastic remarks, you cracked, you raise your voice at fellow colleagues and even bosses. Your morale was low and you feel like quiting.

That sums up that kind of stuff we've gone through for the past year. Any worst, we would be fight in combat.

So in order to boost the morale of my team, I proposed to do up a Polo Tee which we can all keep and wear with pride, knowing that we've gone through shit and survived as a more cohesive team.

I did a rough draft in a short 2 hours and send it to my team. Was met with overwelming response and we decided to go ahead of the design.

Suzuki Swift Sport Fan Polo Tee


Tools
Digitally manipulated via Photoshop 6.0

About
Suzuki Swift Sport Fan Polo Tee Shirt

Year
March 2011

eXpressions
Before I did the Colt Version R shirt, I act experimented using a different car. Since Swift Sport was I first dream car (which I didn't manage to get it), I've decided to give it a go.

I was planning to make that "gritty-washed" feel hences I over-contrast it intentionally to give a a "retro-washed" feel.

Like the Colt Tee, I printed it and worned it countless times, now the print is almost faded and I'm thinking of re-printing it using better materials.



"Suzuki Swift Sport" is copyright of Suzuki Motors Co Ltd.
All Photos are source either from the internet of from the HyperRev Vol 121 SWIFT Catalog.

Colt Version R Fan Polo Tee



Tools
Digitally manipulated via Photoshop 6.0

About
Mitsubishi Colt Ralliart Version R Fan Polo Tee Shirt

Year
March 2011

eXpressions
As a fan and owner of the Mitsubishi Colt Ralliart Version R. I just gotta do a Polo Tee-shirt to show my fan for the car.

I've already had the 1st generation Colt Turbo Club SG shirt some time back with a BIG Garage R logo at the back, not exactly my kind of shirt. So I decided to do my own polo Tee based on my very on design, without any affliation from any of the folks in CTFSG.

Was pretty happy about it and printed it. I've been wearing it for months to the point that the colors are beginning to fade.


"Mitsubishi Colt Ralliart Version R" are copyright of Mitsubishi Motors Co Ltd. All images and logos are sourced from the Mitsubishi Motors Japanese website.

Getting Back In Business....

Finally, my work project goes LIVE and I finally broke loose from the crazy 24/7 workload....for now. I think I'll be free for at least half-a-year before future assignments. At the meantime, lots of stuff to catchup, not only on work but on my house, friends, car, exercise and so on. Hope I can get my feet back and start drawing and posting more stuff.

Nope, my HDD full of goodies are still gone. To make matters worst my OTHER portable HDD was corrupted and I lost 20% of data, some artworks are gone...sigh.

But somehow I'm numb to all this. I gotta invest on a new rig, specially for graphics!

Stay tune for more updates by me.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Comic: Ex Wallaby 99 Part 1





Tools
Pencil-drawn, Inked, effects by Photoshop 6.0.


About
Document the experience of a NSF from the Scout Platoon of 46th battalion of the Singapore Armour Regiment (46SAR), NS batch 1998 -2001 during Exercise Wallaby 99.

This short strip documents the first 2 days of their training stint in the foreign land of Australia. From the thick, humid tropical forest of Singapore to the Dry and hot Australian outback. It's not only a culture shock, it's a whole new test of endurance and survivability.

Year
1999/2000

eXpressions
Found these strips when I was clearing some files, so decided to include here....This is done during my NS days based on my experience of Exercise Wallaby without any sanction from the official media or mindef.

I had this idea as I was reading a copy of "Army Daze" comic done by Cheah. However I feel it not an accurate or an outdated representation of how and what army life is all about.I was intending to draw based on my own experience right down to the mission/exercise level. From my recce prep to my FTX missions all the way to live firing exercise. Including the heli-insertion and all the funny/scary/tired encounters we had throughout the 3 weeks stint.

But alas, unlike other NSF who get laze to work only 8 to 5 as a military clerk. I'm a full combat troop in an active battalion. With all the training, exercise and "shit work" flying around, it isn't a very condusive place to draw.

Hence the idea was scrapped after the 2nd strip barely half-done.Am I going to carry on? Too late, I lost most of the detailed memories needed to complete the strip, but all the vivid memories during EX. Wallaby 99 will stay in my life forever.

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Crisis in Work and others...

Over the past 3 months has been a roller coaster ride for me as my workload goes full swing. Hardly had time to do anything since I've been doing overtime, delicating most of my hours to work....So no updates on artwork from me, at least not till later part of the year.

Well, as if work is not enough, I was hit bad by another "disaster". I lost my portable HDD. I'm not sure if I dropped it or someone stole it (unlikely) but I've lose a whole of stuff in it. My work documents, my personal files, my photos and MP3s and more relavant to this blog, my artworks.

Sure most of my artworks are hand drawn so I'm still not too affect as I still have my original copy, but I lost some of my rare digital works which I never get to post online...any I lost my watermark design.

I've yet to discover the full extent of my loss but day by day I made very demoralizing discovery of my losses. I'm still hoping one day I'll find my HDD, hoping it's just a misplacement. But if my HDD was really stolen of taken by someone, I don't care if he copied my stuff or abuse it, I just want my files back.....