BONUS POST: 'Tis The Season

I had absolutely no plans for a Halloween post, but Charles first insisted (which had no effect), and then challenged me. I don't usually take the bait in such scenarios, but I also happen to be a fan of one Frankenstein's Monster, and thus today's l'il treat:

Timing me over IM, Charles challenged me to draw Frankenstein's Monster in 5 minutes, and ink it in another 5. The plan was to color it in another 5, but I didn't run into him again on IM, so I just went as fast as I could. It took me about 40 minutes to color and typeset this, because apparently, I am a sloth on downers. Oh well, under an hour is still pretty fast... for me.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, CHARLIE BROWN!

Wish You Were Here

Schoolism news - My Digital Painting Techniques class for November is now FULL. I will set up a new class for registration as soon as I figure out my schedule. I'm thinking of having it start in January sometime. I'll update you within the next couple of days.

Here's a collaboration piece I did with a talented painter named Peter Chan this summer.

It's the cover art for Creative Engine's next catalog - volume 41.

And yes, it's also in our Dragon Sketches book :)

I hope you like it!

Drawing by Bobby Chiu
Painting by Peter Chan
Title: Wish you were here


Here's some more lovely links
Shane Prigmore
Dice Tsutsumi
Early Bird Painters
Noah Klocek
Mike Dutton
Jennifer Chang
Peter Emslie
Scott Caple
Samuel Michlap

HUBBA HUBBA!

(Super tired = Super early post... enjoy!)

An entry for a re-design challenge at the He-Man.org fan-art forum. The thread is here, my post is here. Voting was split up into two threads, here and here, and a final poll between the finalists was conducted here. Err... basically I came no where close to even making the first cut, but I encourage everyone to check out the other entries--there's some great stuff there!

The subject of the redesign is Shokoti, an obscure but somewhat popular villainess who appeared only once in the cartoon. This time around, there were a lot of entries, and I had a hard time figuring out how to redesign the character while trying not to make changes for change's sake. All in all, I thought a different approach might be necessary:



I changed her name to "Shokutie" for two reasons, 1) to play up the cartoony aspect of this drawing and 2) because I cannot resist a terrible pun. Sorry. I settled on "Wicked Mistress of Hubba Hubba" as her title after rejecting "Villainous Mistress of Va Va Voom" and "Evil Mistress of Honk Honk Awooga."

I'm basically satisfied with the drawing and color choices on this one (i punched up all her colors so they were more saturated and vibrant than the original). The actual rendering however is pretty "meh" (don't even bother trying to identify consistent light sources!) and I wish I had pushed the hair color more towards black rather than blue.

This sketch, obviously, does not fall in my normal series of Masters of the Universe drawings. Although, because of the modified name, I guess she could conceivably be some kind of a slightly super deformed avatar that manifested sentience and became an independent entity, similar but not exactly like the background I came up with for Horduck. Wow, that was a nerdy sentence. Aww, what the heck, here's a profile for the little hottie:

* * *

PROFILE: SHOKUTIE (so named by Orko) has the basic abilities and personality of Shokoti, however her power levels are diminished, and her demeanor has an added impish aspect to it. She's still something of a bully, but it appears that Shokutie may be a more innocent version of Shokoti, as she lacks some of the original's more cruel tendencies.

HISTORY: After her defeat at the hands of He-Man, Shokoti attempted to rematerialize herself on the material plane by creating an avatar that contained a fraction of her power. The avatar was able to bring about Shokoti's return, but in the process, apparently became autonomous. When Shokoti tried reabsorbing Shokutie against her will, Orko (who had somewhat befriended her), casted a mirror spell, attempting to deflect Shokoti's magic. As could be expected, Orko botched the spell, but it had an unexpected affect--Shokoti was able to reabsorb an equivalent amount of magic so that her soul and magic ability were rendered whole once more, and yet Shokutie was able to continue existing, free from the power of her originator. Still somewhat weakened, Shokoti retreated, vowing vengeance on He-Man and his allies, as well as her diminuitive doppleganger. Orko attempted to convince Shokutie to join the side of good, but she was still struggling with her newfound freedom and possibly evil nature. She was allowed to go free, and was last seen on Etheria, playing pranks on Horduck.

* * *

So, I guess that means that this is part of my regular series of He-Man pics. I also have a "standard" version Shokoti that I drew up (that one sticks pretty close to the original costume), and will be posting sometime in the future.

Dragon Song

Here's another painting from our Dragon Sketches book!

People that know me, know I LOVE music. It's so inspiring sometimes. I was planning on going salsa while I was painting this one. :)

The story is about a dragon that rescues the princess from her horrible prince and the two become the best of friends and live happily ever after....hahahaha...

Title: Dragon Song
Medium: Gouache on recycled sketchbook paper

Rare mushy moment--It won't happen again.

(Posting early--why wait?)

Drawn for the recent wedding of two friends; at the reception, the (Japanese) groom wore a kimono, and the (Chinese) bride wore a qi pao:

Dragon Art Book

Hi all,

Here's one of my dragons from the book! Every new book we make is like counting down the days till Christmas. Can't wait for it to arrive from our printer.

I like this guy. He was pretty fun to draw. It all started from the little sketch I painted in the bottom corner and from that came the pen drawing.

Bobby

Title: Big Mouth
Materials: ball point pen on watercolor paper, (smaller image - india ink wash on recycled sketchbook paper)


Click the image below for more info or preordering

Some plugs and an O.G. (Original Goodguy)

This is long overdue, but I ought to mention that a couple of my friends have Etsy shops with quality products in stock...

Ren is part of the Paper Lotus Design Group, and she has cool and quirky greeting cards, stationary, apparel, and tote bags available:

Annie, founder and proprietor of Ape Kabuki, has beautiful block prints (hand-carved and pressed) for sale at her shop:

Last but not least, October may almost be over, but that doesn't mean you can't still enjoy Cat-tober at the Nathan Hamill gallery/blog/store (click on NEH gallery). After you're done checking out his bleakly terrifying (yet strangely fascinating) kitty-cats, be sure to check out the greeting cards for sale at his non-Etsy store. CAT-TOBER!!!


Visit my friends, support independent artists, and do all your Christmas shopping early! We now return you to your regularly scheduled dorkiness--

My brain has been made of an inert slime lately, so when I needed a sketch subject, Josh suggested Superman:

click above for larger view

I sketched this up really quickly (probably less than 15 minutes), but then ended up agonizing over it in Photoshop for 2 hours, tweaking the lines, and noodling with the colors. Superman seems basic, but if the slightest thing is off, it screws up everything. I'm not completely happy with this one, but I don't hate it either. The proportions of the face and somewhat youthful appearance are influenced by the late great Mike Wieringo's version of the big blue boyscout.

Seneca Classes are on for tomorrow! Fifa Street 3 concepts

For those in my Seneca College digital painting class, reading week does not effect us. Class resumes as usual. See you this Tuesday.

EA Games - Fifa Street 3
Last year we did some concepts for EA's Fifa Street 3. It's always interesting to see how the end results look from the initial concepts.
I'll try to find more of these but here's a quick character sketch from that project.


Here's a still from the game. I think the skinny guy in the back is derived from the concept above.

Animal sketches

Here's a warm up sketch I did recently. Drawn traditionally then splashed on a little color in Photoshop.


Drawn with Black Col-erase on plain white paper.

Schoolism's Jason Seiler wins 3 CGChoice awards in a month!

Recently I convinced our buddy Jason Seiler to start posting his work on CGTalk.com.

We'd like to congratulate him on winning 3 CGChoice awards in one month! Way to go Jason!

3 CGChoice awards in a month is virtually unheard of. I couldn't be prouder to have him teaching on Schoolism.

For those interested, his class - The Art of Caricature with Jason Seiler - starts on January 16, 2008. For more info please visit http://www.schoolism.com

Robo Dragons!!

Hi all,

Keeping to the whole dragon theme, here's another preview from our Dragon Sketches book! Thanks for all the nice emails everyone!!

Kei

Click the book for more info or preordering


Title: Robot Dragons
Materials: Gouache on black construction paper

Put on your game face...

Transformers came out on DVD this week, and I'm glad to say that after repeat viewings I feel the same about it as when it first came out. I got an itch to draw the movie version of Bumblebee, which you can compare to my depiction of the cartoon version from a few months ago.

click above for larger view

Trying something new here... sort of. Combining two of my regular techniques, this one is 100% Photoshop, sketched in pixelly fashion with the pencil tool but colored in the semi-painterly fashion that I use every now and then. It's pretty fast and dirty, all kinds of B.S. imaginary light-sources going on here. Still, I'm fairly happy with it. Bumblebee is drawn, by the way, with his battle mode face-plate (which I think is much cooler than his weird gas tank mouth). I believe it was Vinny who called it Bumblebee's "game face."

BOOYAKA!

Dragon Painting WIP

Next Digital Painting class on Schoolism starts Nov.2
Register on SCHOOLISM.com

Here's update on the Dragon Painting work in progress...

This painting is NOT in the Dragon Sketches book but if you like to see more art on the topic of dragons, you can pre-order your copy of Dragon Sketches HERE.

Or click on the little book


So here's the WIP shots of the painting I'm working on right now.
Bobby











Some superb links!
Sam Nielson
Dennis Jones
Ismael Roldan
Tom Richmond
Paul Lasaine

Blog Rush

So I was checking out the fabulous Todd Harris' blog and saw this post about BLOGRUSH.

Here's what it's about... in Todd's words (more or less).
Well, here is the jest of it. If you want a lot of people viewing your art, you may want to check it out. It takes like 2 seconds to put on your blog. Here's the details.

BR has become the new thing of the Blogging world!

Why, because…

You can add relevant content to your blog and each time you do so, you get to advertise your blog on someone else’s blog… Cool, especially for artists. We can tailor it so that your site only shows other artists blogs

So what is BR…?

BR is BlogRush.com

* It gets you traffic to you blog* It adds relevant content to your Blog* It ads new and constantly changing content* It makes your visitors happy

* It is 100% Free* It is easy to use (all you need is a blog or website)* There is NO up-sell or after sign up offer

But, there is MASSIVE traffic potential if you get in now and add this to your site and refer people with your link.

Why, it has a 10 level generation where you get Ads shown for all people in your network down all Ten levels for their impressions.

#1 - Go to site (see link below)
#2 - Watch the awesome video
#3 - Sign up in 26 seconds
#4 - Place Blog Rush on your site
#5 - Tell Others
#6 - Watch Blog Rush get your Free Traffic!
Get started on Step #1 here….

Click HERE to see BR and get more traffic now...

Necessary Evil Character Files (Part 7 of 7): Mother Knows Best

(Posting early)

The conclusion to my series of character designs for Josh's comic Necessary Evil, today's character is the Matriarch, late super-villainess supreme, and mother to Jacob and Miller:

click above for larger view

Although she's already dead when the series begins, the Matriarch's presence is felt strongly. Her death serves as Jacob and Miller's motivation, and each of the twins must decide whether her infamous career as a super-villain will serve as an ideal to strive for or a cautionary tale.

Don't forget, Necessary Evil #1 is available now!

Ask your local comic shop to order Necessary Evil--it's available in Previews. And after you've done that, add Necessary Evil as your friend on MySpace.

Previous Necessary Evil posts:

• NE Pin-Up
• NE Character Files (Part 1 of 7): Jacob and Miller
• NE Character Files (Part 2 of 7): Stacy Trax
• NE Character Files (Part 3 of 7): Sol
• NE Character Files (Part 4 of 7): Pop-Up
• NE Character Files (Part 5 of 7): Thug Junior
• NE Character Files (Part 6 of 7): Anti

Dragon Sketches available for pre-order!

"DRAGON SKETCHES "
by Bobby Chiu & Kei Acedera

Limited to 1000 copies. Signed & numbered.

PRE-ORDER HERE. Ships November 17.

7”x10” 72 full color pages
Guest Artists - Jose Lopez, Thierry Lafontaine, Louie del Carmen, Jason Seiler, Pascal Campion, Martin Hsu, Andrew Hou, Kris Pearn, Octavio Rodriguez, David Colman, Robin Mitchell, Patrick Morgan and John Nevarez.

FREE SHIPPING WORLDWIDE!

Here's a little sneak peek from the book.
title: The Neighbours by KEI ACEDERA
8x5 inches - ink & gouache on recycled paper

Subway Sketching is still on but Kei and I will not be there.

Hi everyone,

Sorry for the short notice but Subway Sketching is still on today but Kei and I will not be there. Our buddy Fez will be organizing things for us this weekend. Thanks Fez!
We'll be at Gerald Zeldin's Art Show. Usually we wouldn't miss out on subway sketching for any reason but it's important to show your respect for the people that have greatly influenced our (Kei and I) lives. Gerry is one of them.

Bobby

Here's some subway sketches!

Necessary Evil Character Files (Part 6 of 7): A Principal Player

(Posting early again--it's been a busy week and time's a-wastin'!)

As expected, the first issue of Necessary Evil was on shelves this past Wednesday! The printing is gorgeous and I want to extend my congratulations to Josh, Marcus, and Vinny for a job well done.

The signing at Comic Bug went well, and there's already talk of another signing for issue #2--I'll keep you posted. Whether or not there's another signing, if you live in the Los Angeles area, or happen to be passing through, definitely check the store out--it's in a great location, street parking is no problem, and most importantly they're well-stocked. Directions to the store are available on the web site.

Continuing my series of character designs for Necessary Evil, today's character is Headmaster of the Necessary Evil Academy, the Marquee de Antihause, AKA Anti:

click above for larger view

Anti is Jacob and Miller's Headmaster. But perhaps more importantly, he was the best friend and ally of the Matriarch, Jacob and Miller's deceased super-villain mother. Can Anti provide the twins with answers about their mother's death?

Ask your local comic shop to order Necessary Evil--it's available in Previews. And after you've done that, add Necessary Evil as your friend on MySpace.

Previous Necessary Evil posts:

• NE Pin-Up
• NE Character Files (Part 1 of 7): Jacob and Miller
• NE Character Files (Part 2 of 7): Stacy Trax
• NE Character Files (Part 3 of 7): Sol
• NE Character Files (Part 4 of 7): Pop-Up
• NE Character Files (Part 5 of 7): Thug Junior

Digital Painting Resources - Imagine FX

One of the more common emails we receive are asking about what good resources are out there for digital painting?

We always tell them the same thing.... ImagineFX.

This is a fantastic digital painting fantasy art magazine out of the UK and has been spreading fast through North America and the rest of the world.

What makes it so good?
- Each issue is full of amazing award winning digital painters and illustrators
- Articles about techniques, tricks, philosophies, opinions and tutorials all about digital painting fantasy art.
- Each magazine comes with DVDs containing many of the raw files from the tutorials and articles as well as sample software and other goodies.
- ...and your buddy Bobby writes for them too :)

I plan on posting about my favorite sections in each issue.

The pic I have up is from the November issue that just came out but I also wanted to mention that the October issue #22 has my buddy Cole Eastburn featured in there. (I've mentioned him in my podcasts a couple of times)

Usually I write for the artist Q&A section so if you have any questions please feel free to leave them in the comments section or you can email them to me.

In November's issue the question was "How do you come up with funny ideas? Is humour in your art something that you can work on?" from Matt Wicks, England.

For more info about ImagineFX click HERE

Dragon Sketches coming out November 17th !

I'm very excited about this book! Not just about the art Bobby and I have created for everyone inside but also because of our all star cast of artists friends that took the time out of their extremely busy schedules to contribute to our guest artist section!



Guest artists:
Andrew Hou
David Colman
Jason Seiler
John Nevarez
Jose Lopez
Kris Pearn
Louie del Carmen
Martin Hsu
Octavio Rodriguez
Pascal Campion
Patrick Morgan
Robin Mitchell


Colaboration pieces
Thierry Lafontaine & Bobby Chiu
Peter Chan & Bobby Chiu

Here's one of the many sketches I did for the book. It's of a mama dragon and baby dragon taking a bath :) I'm currently painting it so look forward to updates soon!



Pre-orders will be available in the next few days.

Kei

Necessary Evil Character Files (Part 5 of 7): Second Generation Henchman

(Posting a bit early, as is my habit... )

Before I go on with today's post: Necessary Evil #1 is in fact coming out this week! For those of you in the Southern California area, Josh (the writer), Marcus (the penciller), and Vinny (the inker) will be on-hand for a signing at The Comic Bug in Manhattan Beach on Wednesday October 10th--for all the details, please check out the The Comic Bug web site.

Continuing my series of character designs for Josh's upcoming comic Necessary Evil. Today's character is another student at the Necessary Evil Academy, Thug Junior:

click above for larger view

Thug Junior's father never amounted to anything more than hired muscle, and that's why Thug Junior is determined to be more. For now, Thug Junior does provide the muscle for Jacob and Miller's group, but they treat him as an equal.

Ask your local comic shop to order Necessary Evil--it's available in Previews. And after you've done that, add Necessary Evil as your friend on MySpace.

Previous Necessary Evil posts:

• NE Pin-Up
• NE Character Files (Part 1 of 7): Jacob and Miller
• NE Character Files (Part 2 of 7): Stacy Trax
• NE Character Files (Part 3 of 7): Sol
• NE Character Files (Part 4 of 7): Pop-Up

Kei's Subway Sketches dump

Hey guys,

Its been a while! I hope to post more in the future, in the mean time--here are some of my subway sketches from the past week..







-Kei

Necessary Evil Character Files (Part 4 of 7): There's No Blocking This Guy

(Busy couple of days coming up, posting early, etcetera... )

Resuming my series of character designs for Josh's upcoming comic Necessary Evil. Today's character is another student at the Necessary Evil Academy, Pop-Up:

click above for larger view

Like an annoying internet avertisement, Pop-Up uses his powers of teleportation to appear at the most inconvenient times. He becomes sort of a little brother figure in Jacob and Miller's group of friends.

Supposedly Necessary Evil #1 will be out next Wednesday (we are trying to get confirmation on this). At any rate, I will, of course, mention it if that is the case. There will also probably be a signing in the Los Angeles area--check back for details.

Ask your local comic shop to order Necessary Evil--it's available in Previews. And after you've done that, add Necessary Evil as your friend on MySpace.

Previous Necessary Evil posts:

• NE Pin-Up
• NE Character Files (Part 1 of 7): Jacob and Miller
• NE Character Files (Part 2 of 7): Stacy Trax
• NE Character Files (Part 3 of 7): Sol

Subway Sketching is on for this Sunday!

Sunday is Canadian Thanksgiving. It doesn't matter... We're still going subway sketching :)

Hope to see you there!

Here's a little sketch from our last session

Clever Titles Are Overrated

After a brief hiatus, the re-design challenges at the He-Man.org fan-art forums have returned! The thread is here, my post is here.

(Voting thread is here and I placed 2nd--the winning design was an awesome piece by my pal Jazyl.)

First up is Light Hope, a mystical column of light who is guardian of She-Ra's headquarters (the Crystal Castle) and acts as her advisor. My version depicts a human avatar of Light Hope:

click above for larger view

The design of his helmet is based on the toy version of the Crystal Castle, while his staff is a depiction of the cartoon version. The double crests on his robe are loosely patterned off of the upper windows of the Crystal Castle toy, and the colors of the robe are based on the toy's flag. His breastplate, belt, and boots are based on the Bow action figure--not because he has any connection with Bow directly, but because if there had been a Light Hope action figure, it's likely that Bow's token male sculpt would have been harvested for parts. The symbol on his chest is the same sun-symbol motif found on She-Ra's, and his wings of light echo the double wings of the cartoon version of the Crystal Castle. His sword of light is based on a She-Ra role play set which differs from other depictions of She-Ra's sword.

* * *

PROFILE: LIGHT HOPE is a master sorcerer and expert warrior. He wields a sword of light and the staff of the Crystal Castle. His wings of light provide him with flight as well as a defensive barrier. Light Hope's even-handed wisdom is reknowned throughout the cosmos.

HISTORY: The power embodied by the Crystal Castle of Etheria is ancient, and, like Castle Grayskull on Eternia, predates recorded history. Light Hope--a powerful warrior-mage rumored to be allies with He-Ro the Wizard and King Grayskull--sacrificed his mortal body to become the caretaker of the mysteries of the Crystal Castle. It is foretold that Light Hope will take on his human form once more in Etheria's greatest hour of need.

* * *