Embrace your creed

   My goodness, it has really been awhile since I've posted anything here.  After a month of work at MPH as my excuse to not be an active blogger, now I have another one; a big step forward in my life and it's University.  Yep, no longer I'm learning as a teenager; being spoon fed in many ways that I haven't noticed until now. Now, I'm learning as an adult; figuring out on how do I survive in this cruel world and no longer imagining it as I always do as a teen.  Alhamdulillah, I was able to get myself into a designing university and though it is expensive, with god's will, I hope I can find a way to pay not only those fees but also paying my parents back.  So, here in this post, I shall post some of the artworks I did in my studies! Why now? Well, the first semester is almost over so with the weeks of freedom I have, why not start with this blog of mine?

It's not much but it's a start.  I haven't really explored the deeper and better uses of Photoshop but in time, I will.  This is just basics of adjusting color and brightness.  I prefer candid pictures because to me, it captures the true essence of people rather than posing ones.









Now this is one of the pictures that I submitted and frankly, I'm happy with it.  The subject is certainly a challenge as it requires me to travel.  It's definitely a good experience because I've never done things like this.

Even with time not being on my side, I must admit that the works I had to do was very interesting and this is one of them:









































Chose your own local movie and start Photoshopping it! I had to chose different stills from my movie by watching it.  Bunohan was just a random movie I picked because 'Budak Kelantan' was nowhere to be found but be that as it may, this flick was really good.  It wasn't the regular shallow story that most local films offer nowadays.  It was a complex story of a dark mishap between brothers from another mothers...did that make sense? Well, it's a conflict between step brothers whose dad had made lots of mistakes and this includes numerous failed marriage.


 Another scene I've chosen and below is the photoshopped product:


BAM! 


Bad, isn't it? But this not the end product though.  In fact, this is sort of a last minute work since I didn't really know how to use Photoshop.  But Alhamdulillah, my friends helped me a lot with it and this is as good as it gets at the time.  Oh, did I tell you that I had to paint it after I'm done? What the heck?! I'm not that good with painting and there I was, forced to this and to make matters worst, this was the final project which would be 40%...damn.  Which leads me to lesson number two of being a designer:

"ALWAYS PUSH YOURSELF BECAUSE THE MARKET IS VERY DEMANDING"

Seriously, the standards in my university is high and they really push their art students to the max.  I'm not sure if other public universities are like this...oh, and my university is a private one.




And this is the final product; chosen out of simplicity and conveniences.  The color scheme I chose (which is a must and no spontaneous colors is allowed) is analogous colors because I already bought the color blue and I don't want to leave it to waste =P

I also had to use live trace in order to make the painting process easier.  I'm not sure what this style is called but basically it's when you simplify the colors in groups of patches instead of the real life complexity. Below is the steps of painting it:





Alhamdulillah, it was better than expected.  I had a bad history of painting when I was in primary school and the fact that I didn't tried to improve throughout my whole teen years really didn't helped with my odds of executing this artwork.














            It took 3 days in total to finish this and I'm pretty satisfied with the men.  The background isn't the best that I could do.  Maybe the problem was with the photoshopped composition in the first place but it is what it is; I did what I could.




















And here's another hand drawn/colored artwork of mine:






Now, I haven't been posting much of my original sketches but oh boy, I'm gonna make it up to this with not only the sketches I did for my assignments but also with fully colored characters! :'D
Finally, I get to post fully colored characters for the first time and this, to me, is the main event of this post.




 
 

The assignment required me to make character concepts and I knew then that I wanna make sure that this will define my style.  I always prefer a realistic and simple story and that's what I did with my characters.  Instead of sketching out of this world characters with heavy and huge weapons, I just drew characters that stays true as possible to history; reflecting their culture and personality.

Before I get to the colored characters, here's my first inked post: Space Opera





As for the lady on the far right, the credits goes to my friend for helping me out with the designs...thanks pal! This was also a last minute work as you may notice, their eyes aren't colored.  But I'm still happy with it because I've never colored anything yet and to see it being better than I expected is really fulfilling.  But wait, there's more! The next work is I have to make a poster out of these characters.


I had to come up with a title to and that took me a long time to figure out the right word for them.


I had to use all of the characters and I did but I decided to do another one where it only focuses on these two.  I think that the background could still be improved though.  This isn't the the artwork I submitted.

THIS IS: 




I believe that as an artist, there's always room for improvements in your artworks but quite frankly, I love it! 

As you can see, I adjust some things here and there.  Most of the eyes are colored and one of the character's clothe is recolored.  I even add some shades on the main character's face (Center) and change the Malay woman's skin tone.  I decided to make it into a comic book cover since it was empty with texts.  It's just that their poses aren't suited for a movie poster and, of course, I don't have much time to redraw them.  So, I just work with what I got.


Well, I'm sooooo satisfied with this post because it's full with pictures and artworks unlike the previous posts which had only 2 to 4 artworks.  The first semester is technically over (I have one more exam) and in the end, I learned a lot.  Though at first, it seems like total perfection is demanded and I wasn't really fond of it but it all became clearer and easier (Thank god) once I get along with much of my course mates and lecturers.  It's just their way of pushing us to be our best.  With the free time I have, I hope I can get a lot of personal artworks done, Insya Allah.


Here's hoping for better days for me, my family and friends,
HAVE A NICE DAY AND SALAM!