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XiaoLungNu - original concept art for the Chinese Wuxia
novel: The Great Condor and Its Companion
I've always been a huge fan of Jing Yung's Condor novels,
and The Great Condor and Its Companion is my favorite. Needless to say,
I was somewhat shocked and cautiously ecstatic when I found out that there was
an anime being made for the story!
Alas, the anime was somewhat scary...and I was sad to find that none of the
character designs really fit what I had in mind for the characters as I was
reading the novels, even though they did stay true to the story.
Xiaolungnu brings to mind a maiden like an ice statue, as pure and cold as
snow and jade. Her martial arts technique was founded by a female genius
generations before her time who suffered a doomed love. Thus their school's
techniques are all geared for use by women, and their doctrine insisted on a
hatred for men and a focus on purging their hearts of emotion.
I tried to capture a classic sort of beauty with this picture. I really love
how solemn her face turned out, and I left her hair partially down as normal
for unmarried women back then (I think????).
The ribbon winding around her with the round balls at the end and her gloves
are the first set of weapons she was introduced with. They're made from silk
and a special sort of metallic thread that can block even blades. She uses the
ribbon and the balls to hit pressure points, and the gloves for making and
blocking attacks in hand to hand combat.
Brothers - Fanart for the manga/anime: Inuyasha
I drew this picture during math lecture (or was it during
discussion??), as per usual. I think I started off just wanting to draw
Sesshoumaru, but instead ended up adding in Inuyasha as well. This is one of
the very few times when I think that I managed to capture the correct ages for
what I want to portray. Usually everyone looks too old, even when I try to
draw them as children.
The idea was that I wanted to draw Sesshoumaru annoyed about something, and
that eventually evolved into the line "Did he really want me to read him a
story, or did he just want to snuggle my fluffy?". Undoubtedly it was somewhat
inspired by all the Inuyasha fanfics and fanarts I was collecting at the time.
Inuyasha turned out the best, I believe, with Sesshoumaru and his fluffy
coming in a close second. I was very surprised.
This picture also seemed to receive a warm welcome on Deviant art and
Livejournal...I didn't like the colored version that I made as much though. As
Aido-san so rightly pointed out, I had some bad planning with colors there...
Team 7 - Fanart for the manga/anime: Naruto
The thing that I can say for this picture that I can't say
for anything else in this showcase is...this is entirely done in CG. Corel
Painter 8 or 9, I believe. At the time I was bored and wanted to produce some
fanart for my new obsession, Naruto. I am actually slightly proud of
the fact that I pulled it off, though I probably won't be doing it again soon.
I tried to stick with solid coloring instead of my usual soft and blurry
style. I also dubbed this picture 'Team Primary', since Team 7 seemed the only
team lacking the good sense to pick inconspicuous, ninja colors when it came
to clothing.
Naruto at its core is a story about teamwork and friendship, and making
family where you can (and kickass battles, and NINJAS, but I'm trying to be
serious here!). I tried to show a bit of the 'teamwork' here...they all have
each other's backs. I love the dynamics of Team 7...both what was there, and what
could've been there. Truthfully, they didn't get very far before Sasuke
left, but Naruto's little exclamation in the recent chapters still rings with
me, and it seems like poor Sasuke won't stand a chance, now that both Naruto
and Sakura are out to drag him back.
Xelloss and Filia - Fanart for the manga/anime:
Slayers
Before Slayers, there was...*ponders*. Actually,
there wasn't much before Slayers. Maybe Sailor Moon and Rurouni
Kenshin, but Slayers (including Next and Try) was my first real foray
into online fandom. And what a fun foray it was.
Actually, I had seen about half of the first Slayers season, and first half of
Try before I became a fan. It's ironic that I actually watched the seasons out
of order; I did watch season 1 first, but then I watched season 3 (TRY) on
fansubs, then season 2 (NEXT) as it was officially released. I remember
distinctly it was a day when I was in high school...I'd just made fried rice
for dinner and popped in the Try tape that I borrowed from my friend (who was
also my fansub supplier at the time)...and it was the episode where Lina and
Co. finally arrive at the Dragon Sanctuary (???) and they had that fight with
Alumace and Valgarv. By the end, I was IN LOVE.
Anyway, so as such, my view of Xelloss had always been somewhat more Try
skewed, in which he plays an annoying but not ultimately evil sort of role.
The whole Xelloss and Filia Together Forever kind of happened when I embarked
on a long journey to write fanfiction...Somehow Slayers Inversed became
somewhat of a Xelloss/Filia fanfic. It's been one of my OTPs ever since.
Art-wise, I really like all the coloring in this picture, with the exception
of the stupid bed of flowers. Also, there was an amusing incident on the
Dragon and Demon ML when I posted the pencil draft to this picture, asking for
advice on revisions before I start coloring. Someone made a comment that I
should go look up reference pictures (implying that I did not draw them
correctly??) and a bunch of ML members jumped to my defense. I did
take the advice to revise Filia's face though, and it looks much better now.
Saki-chan - Gift art for Asuka Kureru
A gift-art for Asuka Kureru (Askerian on Deviantart and LJ).
This is Saki-chan, her sort-of-original character (long story). I really liked
how the coloring turned out though, because the pencil sketch was somewhat
mediocre. The boots turned out, for lack of a better word, absolutely
bitchin', and so did the rufflies on her dress. It was worth it to flip
flop repeatedly between Photoshop and Painter to try to get the right effects.
Photoshop is wonderful for solids, and putting in that parasol, and the solid
shadow and boots, but Painter did the wonderful coloring on her skirt and
shirt and stockings. I love them both. ^_^
Mr. and Mrs. Kukai - Fanart for the game: Xenosaga
Inspired by the movie Mr.&Mrs. Smith and my rabid
fangirlism for Jr. (though less rabid for the Jr. and MOMO pairing). I drew
Jr. first, mostly during the time before and during Coffee night. MOMO came
later, though I can't remember if she was done at another coffee night, or
while I was watching Batman Begins. I have much love for how Jr.'s pose
turned out, and MOMO's hands please me, which is a rare, rare thing. I'm
somewhat sad that her face is not entirely MOMO-ish, and her legs don't look
as good as they did on paper, but the guns are smexy and I'm super easy to
please when it comes to solid blacks and whites.
If I could turn back time (cheesy song!), I would...do better on MOMO's legs,
and clean up the stray pencil lines better.
And yes, in-game they look about 12. This is a possible adult version...who
says that parodies have to make much sense?
Phoenix Summon - Original art for Arcanum
This is a sketch of Gen that I did years ago (during
lecture)...colored by the talented Imbrii-san. I think the coloring really
helped bring out what I had wanted for the picture, namely the nifty flaming
wings.^_^ The style is old...I wince a bit at the hair now, and the face looks
strange, but it's one of the better pictures that I've made.
Arcanum was a little world that came up as a strange byproduct of my
short-lived (only 140 hrs) obsession with Final Fantasy 10. I really liked the
concept of "summoners" as a sort of special class of its own, that not just
anyone can master. Not that I complained about FF7 or 8 (never got around to
playing 9...), and it seemed like with each game the summoning got more
specialized.
But anyway...Arcanum was built on the idea of summoners, in a sort of
alternate earth where magic and technology were equally prevalent. Mages are
fairly common, but summoners were a rarer sort. But all my mental images of
summoners were grizzled old men or pretty young girls...so I thought, why not
make them a couple of college students?
Gen as a character was somewhat of a delight to write, after my brief and
unsuccessful attempt with my first original story. He is the kind of guy that
you can trust to have an unbiased view of things, and says exactly what's on
his mind, even when it's not the right time for it. His one outstanding trait
that I still find lacking in a lot of my original characters is that he is
absolutely, unabashedly honest. A refreshing thing, especially since his
partner has the conversational capabilities of a rock and unlimited ability
for self-delusion.
Emrys and Nghia - Giftart for Thea
A giftart for the wonderful and talented Thea-san, for a
story being written by her and Pam-san. Emrys and Nghia, pictured above,
belong to the two of them, of course.
Since I don't have much in the way to share about the story, I'll ramble on
about the artistic (???) aspect. Thea-san had mentioned her idea for a random
picture of the two of them in an AIM conversation ages ago. It took me a long
time to get some ideas down on paper, and once I had a pencil draft I liked,
it took even longer for me to get around to inking it.
I'd bought a Sakura micron brush pen, which I have to admit was one of my
wiser purchases (I tend to buy art supplies rather like normal women buy
purses), and had received a wonderful printer from Yayoi on one of her trips
here to California. The stars aligned and voila! Well, I inked it, and after
much struggling with Painter 9, colored it as well.
The hardest part of this picture was the blood. I cannot draw blood and had
the rest of the picture colored and finalized for days before I managed to get
the blood half-way decent looking. After that, it was Nghia's skintone...For
some reason 'bronzed' just doesn't want to work for me. *sigh* But after all
that...I think the effort was worth it.
Amatsu Mikaboshi - Original art for Arcanum: Sinon's
Redemption
Sad to say, this is the only completely colored picture I have of Amatsu...Shows
that I love Shiva more. *waggles eyebrows*
*ahem* Anyway...awhile ago the inspiration to do something other than pencil
doodles for the main characters of the Story That Ate Us struck ('us' being
Yayoi and I, not the United States or anything...), and after
much fiddling around, drafts were made. I did not realize until after inking
that the legs were entirely wrong, so had to do them completely with the
computer. Even so, I managed to get everything colored without too much
screaming.
My favorite part of the coloring is his shirt and his arms. I am fond of
working with reds in Photoshop and Painter, it's a versatile color, and the
Phoenix print really added to an already nifty shirt. My usual problem with
skintones is not enough contrast and muscle definition, and I think I did a
better job than usual here.
Amatsu is a pain to draw because he's got an ego the size of a continent, and
complains that I don't get his full glory down correctly. This makes for a lot
of interesting arguments between us (nevermind that having arguments with
imaginary characters is somewhat 'interesting' in and of itself), but he's
also one of the better characters that I've worked with. I think he gets along
better with Yayoi, because she does his coolness justice whereas I make
horrible, immature fun of him.
I think the problem with my previous original stories were that the characters
were all too...2-D. Scarily enough, Amatsu started that way, but he was not
content to stay that way. Somehow he managed to claw his way up from 'standard
bad guy B' (Shiva was 'sorta standard bad guy A') and has since then become
very 3-D.
And he'll never let me live it down that he's got his own story after I used
him briefly in Arcanum as a small plot point. -_-;;
Shiva Rudra - Original art for Arcanum: Sinon's
Redemption
Things I like about this picture: Generally everything, but
especially the over-robe and hair. However, I really dislike the left leg and
will endeavor to become better at drawing so I don't ever mess up legs like
that again.
This is the 3rd or 4th colored picture I have of Shiva. I'm not sure if it's
because he's my favorite character, or just because his coloring and
preference in clothing makes it very easy to color him. White hair will take
minutes while black hair takes hours...so maybe that's it.
Much of what I said about Amatsu also applies to Shiva...except the ego the
size of a continent and arguing part. He started very 2-D and simple, and
instead of Amatsu, who developed a personality overnight and only grew with
time, Shiva started becoming more and more filled out in small, barely
noticeable layers. Before I knew it, he had a personality too.@_@
I hope to eventually put up some character profiles using these pictures...*shifty
eyes* or I'll ask Yayoi to do them...otherwise,
I'll leave the information dump for later.
email me at
chsinyu18@yahoo.com
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