starry deep sea

Took one of my marker sketches from a class and threw up some color on it. BLAH!

oil painting!

Since my return from N.Y., I got a lot of encouragement to keep up with traditional media. So when I got back to school, I really wanted to learn much more about oil paints. Its been fun so far in my class and thought I post something worthy on my blog... hopefully. This was a 2-week pose we had in class. More to come!

And this is from my midterm. Some grotesque looking baby. Really wanted to push the texture of the paint!

weekly update before I hit vegas!

So yes... going on a mini vacation to attend SEMA at the Las Vegas Convention center! Kinda like a midterm reward.

Here's a quick scribble inspired by chinese landscapes. I was observing some chinese paintings in this book I borrowed and I just absolutely looovveeee the simplicity with empty space. Thought I'd give my wacom pen a wiggle =)

quick scribble

My buddy Mark Castanon, mentioned a huge group of fishermen at the Redondo Beach pier and how funny it would be for a single fish to be swimming through all those hooks. Nice going Mark!

color update!

Here are some sample color key moments I have been doing for my story. Hope you like'em!

moooo....

Does an ox mooo? Just a quick sneak peek at a personal project I've been doing for my independent study and possibly for my grad show next spring. I'll probably be dumping more teasers every week so come back and check'em out!

The Loss of a Great Friend

The past week has been extremely tough due to a passing of one of my best friends. I was unfortunately a bit more distance the past year spending every waking hour refining my portfolio for my career. But the times we had in the past will never be forgotten. He was truly someone that appreciated the work I did for him and was never shy about giving just as much back. His heart pure of love and passion. His drive, powerful and aggressive which lead him to his successes. And his Love, more greater and warmer than any other love experienced.

JR, I want to thank you for everything you have given and done for me. You were someone I truly wanted to be when I grow up. To have a beautiful wife and three lovely, adorable children who are so filled with life and love. We all love you so much, and we know you are at a better place now. And as my final appreciation, this portrait (oil on canvas) is a tribute to the celebration of your life. Farewell, My Friend.

some vehicles

I was gonna try to post only personal work for this blog, but school has been way to busy for personal stuff. Then again... isn't everything we do at school for our personal use anyways? Niiicceeee.

quick painting

Just trying out odd color combinations. Critiques are ALWAYS welcome in the Fong Blog =)

sketch madness!

Been disciplining myself to sketch a page a day. No notes, no process, no work. Sketches for the sake of sketching =)

poopoo

I went with a couple of buddies to the arboretum to paint and sketch.  Too bad we were stingy and did not want pay the 5 dollar entrance fee, so we decided to just sit near the parking lot and paint.  Still got some really beautiful views!  I was scribbling colors here and there to see what i would end up with.  

FINAL LANDSCAPE!

Oh *sigh* my last painting of the summer from the studio. I wasn't a trooper to go outside because I was afraid of sweating, so I decided to paint from the windows. Apparently there is one tree that is beginning the fall trend.

I believe I can FLLLLYYYYYY

Another quickie before I go night night.  Painted from a picture I took of Manhattan the first night I was in NY.  Bob Kato said once, "There is no point of using reference unless your creation takes the reference to another level."  ... or something around that corner.

Just a quick 30 minute painting to kill the time last night because my internet wasn't working. I am going to try to do more paintings like these and definitely explore more color combination.

FAN ART!!

  Every so often, I like to do fan art, usually because there is some fan art contest involving prizes!  So this illustration was for the 15th Year Anniversary of a popular fighting game called King of Fighters.  Because of the short time I had (and my laziness), I decided to just draw the 3 main characters of the game and come up with some cool looking poses.  

So here is a quick step by step of how I did this.  I start with drawing the three characters separately and putting them together in photoshop (the composition was already planned out on paper... but usually the composition process I use is very messy with stick figures flying all over the place.)

Next step, I'll make the line drawing as a multiply layer and start a new layer underneath.  Paint some tones here and there and make sure each character still reads, along with finding cool graphic shapes.

Now I throw in a color layer and just do some quick washes.  Again, making sure each character still reads individually.

Okay here is where I start figuring out the final look of the illustration.  Adding certain special effects and introducing new light sources.  Then I do a tighter color pass with the additional light sources to unify the characters in the same environment.  This is probably the most painstaking step, because of the numerous amount of colored lights hitting different colored materials.  This is also where the understanding of traditional painting helps.  What do you get when you mix a green light source onto a red jacket?

After all the thinking has been done... now its just spending time to render and refine details.  I also went ahead and made a new layer for the line work. Cleaned it up so I get a much more clearer read. 

And I continue to render and render and render and render.... uuggghghh.... but at least I get a cool illustration!  And for the finishing touch, threw in a faded type in the background and called it a day! 

This was my attempt on really giving myself a mess of color and light source to solve.  I have been extremely amazed by the color artists at Blue Sky Studios and observed how they carefully choose their colors and why they do.  I realize there is a lot of logic involved as well as design.  I would also like to thank Peter Nguyen (color artist at BSS) for giving me some advices and tips.  He's also teaching me some pop and lock moves... yeeeaaaaa.  

Sketchcrawl Weekend!

Another cool weekend spent with the Dynamic BSS team (Mike Lee, Peter Nguyen) including their newest addition Lord Menon-Mort (aka Sandeep lol). Started with a ridiculous early phone call from Mike, got to the Metropolitan Museum (meeting up with Isaac Orloff)and right away we don't mess around. Sketched from roughly 9:30 until 1:00... had some quick lunch, and finished our mission at the Met around 3:30. Then crawled our way down south to Chinatown again for some awesome chinese food, bad tiramisu, and more sketching! We topped it off by getting lost a bit before we ended up at Whole Foods for some more snacking and calling it a day!