The dog digs up Earth in the front yard

Hi there!

Welcome to another fabulous blog entry! With your host...Well actually it's just me. Also the title will make sense, just read on.

I have recent artwork to share and I've started a new sketchbook, but what I wanted to start with today is some older published work.

To start with it was pretty big milestone for me. It was the very first time I've had work in a publication. It also felt great that it was supporting a good cause too! It was so exhilarating! I'll start with background though.

So I was approached by the Director of a local design company looking to commission some illustrations for a publication he was putting together. His client was Melbourne City Mission, a local Non-profit welfare agency supporting vulnerable Victorians. This publication has been going for at least 5 years and is targeted as a school resource book though their youth arm, Frontyard Youth Services. It's aim is to educate school aged children about youth homelessness in Victoria and the avenues the organisation can provide in terms of assistance. As part of the booklet, there are several real-world client stories featured - I was to provide visual context to these stories in the form of a before and after image of them accessing support through Frontyard.


It was my first time illustrating an entire 'story'. The first thing I needed to decide was which images presented within were the most catching and visually interesting. I must've read the stories many times to gauge what most stood out. While the stories are real people, the names have been changed and I had no description of the actual writer to go off, so I had to design the narrator/character as well. It was like trying to imagine what someone looks like when you read their emails or hear them on the phone! After that, the rest of my design process was pretty much the same as you've seen in the Whitney post. Here they are!

Click on any of the thumbnails for a larger image

I came up with a great idea to really make the characters stand out, and to give a good emotional sense of what the reader should be feeling at that point. I used colour to convey this. For the 'before' picture I focused on cool hues, (blues and cool greys). Then with the 'after' image it was opposite: Warm hues (purples and yellows). The narrator was then treated with an opposite colour to their environment., for example Ling is wearing a yellow top in a blue-grey office.

I'm not usually big on interior environments, I find it difficult to visualise a room spatially, but this project really called for interiors, so I pushed myself out of my comfort zone to try them out. Overall I'm quite happy with the result and think it illustrates the stories quite well.

As per usual I couldn't help but stretch my penchant for pattern design into a couple of the images. The houses for Ling were tied to the sentiment left by the narrator about the importance of having a home over your head. Here are some flat versions



I remember how great it felt after I'd completed the work and delivered it to my client, but by the far the best feeling was having a copy of the publication in my hands and seeing the end result. It was just incredible!

Here are some shots of the final product. Aside from the illustrations any other elements remain copyright of their respective owners.

If you'd like to know more about Frontyard or Melbourne City Mission click the links!

Moving on, the other piece I have for you today is my newest entry in a series I try to do every year: Chinese new year. I've been a bit slack getting the last few years done, but here is 2018, Year of the Dog.

I'd actually started this one way back in January of this year, but could quite figure out how I was going to do the rendering. Even when I got up to doing the background relatively recently, I still spent some time trying to decide between drawing and painting it. There's good things that can be said for both methods, and I don't think I can ever decide on sticking to one method. I keep telling myself I should keep things consistent, but I'm starting to realise that it can also stifle creativity to think that way.

Time for some background. Like I recently stated on my Facebook page, one of the reasons I started doing Chinese New Year is that provides lots of imagery and constraints to draw from (pun intended). Making for a rather often unique outcome. This year is certainly an example of that!

The element for 2018 was Earth and not one I've illustrated as yet. Of of the main things I learnt about this element is that it's the balancing one. What I mean by that is it's both Yin and Yang, hence the balancing pose and precarious rock formation. It also symbolises nurturing and what can be more nurturing than raising a bunch of puppies? The whole breast-feeding thing came to me out of nowhere though. Aside from rock, when I think of Earth I think of underground and dampness, so of course I had to include moss and mushrooms. The eyes were a last minute decision. I usually leave the rendering of them as one of the last things I do in an illustration. I was going to with my standard approach, but I thought to myself: "This creature is god-like Reiko, the eyes should be extra impressive!" and what's more deep and impressive than Shoujo galaxy eyes? There are even some stars in there.

Other constraints and imagery from my research include the planet Saturn, the number 9 and using purple and red while avoiding use of blue and gold. If you'd like to know more, have a look at these wikis on Dog (Zodiac) and Earth (Wu Xing).

Here are some detail shots.

I decided the background should be a desert as it gave the best raw example of Earth, there are no plants to confuse it with the Wood element and it fit the colour scheme nicely, well that and I was probably channelling the homeland of Earth-benders from the fantastic animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, which is a very rocky desert landscape. I might have to look into trying my hand at speed-painting sometime.

As a bonus I also cooked up a flag version of the logo design seen on the Dog-mother's robes. Yes that is a dragon encircling Saturn. You even get to learn some Japanese!

The characters (From top down) read:

Ni - 2
Sen - 1000
Jyuu - 10
Hachi - 8

=2018

Inu - Dog
Tsuchi - Earth

The last two are the symbols for  the planets which date back to Byzantine times

Earth
Saturn

I'm really happy with how this one came out. I love dogs, so this one was a real joy to work on.

Are you still with me? Oh my this was a big post, this must be the most images I've had in a single entry before. Thanks for reading, there's still plenty more to come. I know I mentioned a new sketchbook, but I might get to that in another post, this one has got long enough.

Thanks for reading.

See you next time!

Bartering sheep

Hi there, you might hardly believe it, but I've just completed a new post for you mere weeks after the last. I have not one, but two new pieces to show. Shocked? I'm trying really hard to push myself to spend more time on this thing I love called illustration. "But what does this mean for me?" I hear you ask. Well to answer your question, I hope it means updates more often and more work to share. Now let's get into it.

First up, I've got an illustration I completed of local Melbourne musician Ali Barter. This was originally going to be for a client, but due to some unforeseen circumstances, it was never published. I left it alone for several weeks and then one day decided it was a waste of my time and effort not to finish something I'd already spent a considerable amount of time on. So here it is!

Colourful, no? I'd never heard of Ali before, so like I mentioned in my previous post, research was key. I found myself particularly drawn to the bright colours and style found in her clip of the song Hypercolour, so I that was my main inspiration. Just the term made me imagine super-bright and high impact colour schemes. The flowers were inspired by the same clip, though in this instance they're magically growing from the guitar itself. I think it strengthens the sense of 'hypercolour:' Almost sickly bright flowers.

In terms of background, the clip for one of her newest songs, Girlie bits features synchronised swimming, so I thought, how about a pool without water as a setting? I had a tight deadline originally with this work, so I had to keep things fairly uncomplicated. The tiles I think make a for simple but very catching design. I've always loved drawing environments where nature has taken over, so expect to see more of those as my background painting skills improve. I discovered working on this, that though guitars seem like a relatively easy thing to draw, they can take some time to get right. I'm still not 100% on spot with line drawing using my tablet, so it took a few attempts to get the strings where I wanted them. I'm particularly happy with the way the eyes came out.

Up next is a personal work I've been working on bit by bit over the last couple of years. As you can probably imagine, producing a work over such an extended amount of time often leads to many changes. The lengthy production period mainly stemmed from my desire to try my hand at painting the background. If you look through most of my work, it's either got no background at all or a very simple drawn one if any. I was very apprehensive to start it once I got up to that point. Which I know is kinda silly given that in Photoshop, everything can be undone.

I'm not entirely sure what I was going for with this image...I'm guessing sheep were likely the starting point. I think I was watching The Musketeers at the time and really loved their... shoulder capes? Which lead on to considering a striking heraldry logo: I started out in graphic design, so I always like to find ways to combine it with my illustrations. All this doesn't really fit with a simple sheep farmer, so let's just say that in this world sheep farming is considered a noble profession. The idea behind the glowing gem in the crook is that it in some way hypnotises the sheep to follow her. The design of her hair eludes me and is lost to time.

Working on a piece across such a long period of time was a great way to sense my progression as an artist, there are some things here that are quite different to how I do them now. Though I did try my best to change little to keep it in line with the original. The major thing I tweaked were the colours, mainly to harmonise them with the recent idea I had for the background. I was originally going to use a textured brush, but decided against it: I'd read from a few artists that it's best to start with the basic flat default brush until you get a feel for painting.

Considering it's one of my first attempts to paint digitally, I'm quite happy with how it all turned out. I think the sense of distance is captured quite well, particularly with the foreground grass. I'm always amazed with how plain background can be to still have a good feel of the environment. The stone sign, (in an unknown language so you know it's not Earth) shows the distance to the next city. Perhaps our sheep herder is taking her flock to trade? As a bonus to the detail shots I quickly drew up a completed graphic of the heraldry shield. Sometimes these things look better flat.

I'm currently trying out a 'sketch a day' exercise to speed up my drawing skills, So I'll probably make a new section or possibly add to my sketchbook section.

Well that's it for this post...next time I'm hoping to have something done from a galaxy far away. Thanks for reading!

Whitney by the lake

Hi there blog watchers! You can blame the Where's Wally animated series and it's over-the-top narrator for me always opening posts like this.

Today I'm sharing my newest piece of work, done for the lovely people at Happy, a Sydney-based online music and culture magazine. You may remember them from my illustration of the band Cull, which I did for them way back in April 2014. They were extremely happy (pun intended) with the outcome and frankly so was I! This time I was asked to draw Chicago based indie-rock band Whitney. This time I'd like to share my whole creative process for this work.

This brief had the same requirements as last time, a landscape piece featuring the band that was otherwise completely open to interpretation. I was asked to include only Max and Julian in my illustration, as they are the official members of the group. Like last time it was to accompany an interview with the band and also be featured on the main page of their website.

As a first step with any work I undertake, the first step was research. I immersed myself in all things Whitney: I watched video clips, read reviews and of course an image search of the subjects themselves. As per usual, it's the visuals that often influence me the most, so their music-videos is where most of my inspiration for the composition came from.

Throughout my research I jot down a quick list of imagery and ideas I might like to include in the work, this helps keep my idea simple and focused, which was especially important given the short amount of time I had available for production. The notes for this work include:

• Wilderness
• Pastel colours
• Desaturated colours
• Roses
• Autumn
• Shoes and rolled up pants

 The next step is to start sketching! Although I mainly complete my work digitally these days, I still find pencil to paper my preferred method for getting my concept down. These thumbnails are usually pretty small, (about 10cm max) so they are usually very rough and basic. I'm concerned more about the composition than accuracy at this point. This is quite evident when you look at the final artwork below.

I decided I really wanted to include their feet in the image, as I found their boots with rolled-up jeans look quite interesting and unique. Given the limited size and orientation it was impossible to draw their full bodies, so I instead opted for a reflection in water. This allowed me to have a tightly cropped image, showing both feet and faces, as well as a great idea for the setting: Many images and particularly the video-clip of No woman feature an Autumn wilderness that really suited my idea, not to mention a great tie-in to their album title 'Light upon the lake'

When I'm happy with the rough I move onto Photoshop.

 I'm currently using Photoshop CS6, one of the last retail versions available before Adobe changed over to subscription-based Creative Cloud. Tablet-wise I'm using a Wacom Intuos 3 - Medium size. It's an older model, before the 16:9 Wide-screen aspect-ratio became standard, so it's active area (4:3) is slightly reduced to conform to my modern display. At times I do consider it might be worth upgrading to one of the newer Intuos Pro models.

Technical stuff aside, once in PS I draw up my thumbnail to a significantly more accurate sketch using a basic brush tool set to a lower opacity. It's quite messy, but you get the idea.

The rest is a fairly simple process, which I'll cover more in-depth for my next post.

• I turn the opacity super low and draw up my final line-work.
• I create a fills layer below and drop in flat colours, this can sometimes take time for me to get right.
• I add a shades layer, using a fairly desaturated blue/purple set to multiply as this takes into account the base colours underneath.
• The rest of the steps can very depending on the work, but this is when I usually add highlights and other textual effects. 

That's pretty much it for the process. Below you'll see the final artwork along with a couple of close-ups of Max and Julian's faces. You'll notice I flipped the faces from the original sketch. When I'd finished the final line work I noticed I forgot to take into account the mirror reflection in the water.

My original idea was to paint the background leaves rather than doing my usual cell-shading look, but unfortunately I didn't come up with anything I was too pleased with. I really need to work on painting, as cell-shading does have it's limitations for background work. It was a shame, but I'm still real pleased with the outcome.

Read Happy Mag's interview here.

Thanks for reading. I'll hopefully have some more work for you all soon.

Cull in the void

So today I have something very special to share. My very first professional job. I received this job through email after the lovely Lulu Rae saw my Loop profile. Let this be a lesson to all that you should keep free portfolio websites up to date, they are just important as the ones you pay money for.

I was stoked! I couldn't believe someone actually wanted me to do work for them! I was to illustrate a band for Happy, which is a NSW based blog and web-zine that promotes local indie music acts.

The band in question was Cull, a NSW band that classify their style as friendrock/dreamgaze. These are not genres I'm at all familiar with, so I would suggest you have a listen here. You can also check out their website. I'm going to be honest and say that I hadn't heard of them before I started this work.

"Wow, let me just say first! Amazing illustration!!
We all love it. Thank you so much."

After a few back and forth emails about the requirements for the image, I set myself into research mode, which is always the first thing I do. This involved going on the bands Facebook page, website and Youtube channel. The later was for drawing (Pun!) inspiration from the visuals in their videos and the music itself. I concluded the music made me think about the unknown, particularly the great unknown expanse of the galaxy and universe itself. I considered the emptiness and excitement of space exploration, the final frontier as Star Trek calls it (big fan by the way). This was also helped by the clip to their newest single 'The Sacred Burial Urn' which features footage from a 1960's era science fiction. So I did some research into retro sci-fi and spacesuits, since being a portrait I need would something for the band to wear. Research done.

So into my sketchbook I went, though the entire process of the final artwork was digital, I still find it easier to sketch on paper first. This took about 4 hours or so, which is pretty quick for me. The whole time I was listening to Cull's Youtube channel on repeat to really get in the mood.

"You're so lovely!
I'm so glad you're as happy with everything as we are.
We are stoked!"

When it came to the band's faces, I ran into some difficulty. I don't often base the faces I draw on real people, and the only times I do is in life-drawing. What made it more difficult, was the lack of good photo-reference on the net. To get more I looked up previous bands the members had been in...I felt like a stalker!


The next step was to use my sketches to work up the line work in Photoshop. I usually start quite rough and slowly develop the drawing as I go. You might ask why the line art in red rather than the traditional black (which is what I usually do)? I knew that the background would be space, which is black (no, really?), so I thought black lines would mostly be lost in the background. Next time I do an artwork I'll be sure to take some screen-grabs so I can show my process in pictures. Until then, you must wait.

Most of the rest of the process is fairly self-explanatory, but I'll go into more detail when I have pictures to support what I'm saying. After being happy with the figures I moved on to the background. Now originally I decided to have a space shuttle flying through behind the band, but after finishing the figures I realised it might make the picture look a bit busy (not to mention the size the image would appear on the website would probably render the the shuttle too small to make out properly) and instead opted for a planet (with bonus moon).

So I finished the final image after about a week of fairly continuous work and emailed it to Lulu. What happened next was something I did not expect...

Now I will admit that on a personal level I thought this artwork as one of my best to date. However I didn't expect the fantastic response I received. I've interspersed this post with a few choice quotes by Lulu from our emails (used with permission of course).

"Thank YOU so much Reiko, people like you make it
easy and such a pleasure for us."

Truly, I was awed by her words. I was not expecting such high praise! I've really felt a boost to my confidence as an artist: I never imagined my first job would go so well. But it got even better! I also received a lovely message on Facebook from Alex Sol Watts, one of the members of the band. To get a positive comment from the band as well left me ecstatic.

I hope every job I do from now on turns out as well as this one did. It was such a joy to do. ^_^

Until next time...

Otherworldly charms

With the ending of my exhibited work at Brunswick Street Gallery, I'm happy to now present those pieces on this blog. If you were unable or unwilling to see them there, you can now see them with the ease of the internet. 

I actually had 4 pieces planned, but because of space and time constraints I had to cut down to only two artworks. Still, I'm happy with how they came out. I will eventually get round to finishing the other ones.

So without further words, here they are.

This was my first time doing backgrounds in this particular style, as I usually do characters on their own without background. This time, I really wanted to make prints worth buying, so I had them professionally printed. They are 100% archival quality on Museo portfolio rag, signed and numbered. Currently I don't have a store, but if you'd like to buy a print, contact me (using the contact tab at the top of this blog) and I'm sure I can arrange it.

The work continues...

Otherworldly Charm exhibition

Hi there everybody!
Just a quick post to inform you that I have some work in the NOW! group show at Brunswick Street Gallery opening tonight at 6pm! Details are in the invite above. You should check it out!

More info on the gallery Here

Hope to see you there! ^_^

Agemashita Omedetou!

Hello there! Here is another artwork for you to enjoy.

This is the one I mentioned in my last post, reconfigured to become an image for this year of the dragon. Again I broke new ground, this time completely digitising the entire process (sketch included). I think I'm finally starting to get used to my Wacom.

I'm not quite certain what will come next, but keep watching the skies...or this blog whichever works for you.

Yaoi Dreaming

Hi there.

Just one new piece for today, one that I'd completed a while back. As I said in a previous post I didn't like the idea of posting a gift before the intended giftee received the aforementioned gift. But since I gave it to her the other day, here it is in all it's splendour.

So this particular friend is obsessed with yaoi, and for all of the people looking at this blog who don't know what yaoi is, its manga or anime devoted to homosexual relationships. Look at the 'Wikipedia' article if you'd like to know more. She also likes birds, hence the peacock. This was quite fun to draw, as I don't often draw couples and I like the fluffy, happy feeling I get from this picture.

I've recently found a great new way to flatten watercolour artworks, as the paper often buckles when using water based media. I used to attempt this by just placing the artwork in a book and waiting a few days, which gave me only limited success. Take a look at this site, for a great and easy way to flatten paintings.

My next Quick Concept(TM) should be up in the next few days

Keep drawing!