Moving to Tumblr

It's exactly what the title says. I already have a personal tumblr, but I wanted to make a tumblr blog specifically for stuff I posted on this blog. I don't even know if anyone still uses blogger, but it's clear that so many people use tumblr more.

If you want to follow me there, my tumblr is "Inyuji Draws" 

I'll see you there.

Character Designs Doodles that came from the Samurai Jack hype

Before I go on a character backstory ramble, Blue Fire has started Chapter 2 yesterday on Smackjeeves ^^

So what was originally supposed to be 2 "Samurai Jack" fan characters, are starting to become original characters. This tends to happen. I make a character, but they suddenly take a life on their own with the potential to exist in their own world. This happened with Rokka & Eli (aka: Lizard man & archer gypsy).

Anyway, I wanted feature more original content here, & these 2 are getting close to Original. Heck I'm tempted to do some storyboard shorts with these 2. Thankfully, the premise & backstory for these 2 can still work if I ever gave them their own story. Just change up the names & details (replace Aku & alter world details), & BOOM, done.

Starting off with Diego, a Corvus mage & mercenary for hire. Originally I was just going to call him "Crow," but I think that name has been used quite a lot. His personality was actually inspired by a lot of outspoken, brash punks. I liked the long-hooked nose, which made him more interesting to look at. At the moment, I haven't decided on giving him a separate set of wings, or having his arms turn into wings. I'll have to play around with that in the future. Diego is one of few survivors of the Corvus Magi clan. Diego got separated from his flock when Aku found them and slaughtered everyone. Diego was still a fledgling, so he was unable to survive on his own, especially with a busted wing. Jack had found a young & injured Diego, and took care of him. Later on Jack would find a nearby healer, who happens to be an ex-Corvus. It's thanks to Jack that Diego was able to live. Diego's fighting style is based on Capoeira & Spike Spiegel's Jeet Kune Do. And he mixes in his Corvus shape-shifting as well.

Next is Soomi, Diego's girlfriend and partner, mercenary for hire, and . I had a hard time picking a name for her. I tend to focus on design & character first, rather than the name. She was an ex-cultist of the "Daughters of Aku." Not the seven from the 1st episode of season 5. Soomi was probably raised in that cult, because of her family serving there.She wasn't willing to settle as one of Aku's assassins, but felt trapped and feared the consequences of stepping out of line. It was thanks to Diego, who had occasionally kept her company as a crow, that Soomi was able to escape her prison. She also goes as "Boa," for having surprising strength, yet quick reflexes. Like a Boa poised to strike, & crush its prey, Soomi is every bit lethal. When designing her, I wanted to play around with her silhouette and body shape. I didn't want to do a stereotypical sexy femme fatale look. I didn't want dainty and stick thin.
All I had to do was make her...

Not too much,of course. Just a bit stacked, like an MMA fighter. I had lots of fun playing with her character. She comes off as a serious fighter, but that's when she has a job to do. With Diego, she's comfortable from being annoyed with his antics, to adoring & receptive to every little kiss and hug he can sneak in.


Now I had a third set of doodles, but that one was for a long established character. I just wanted to see how she'd look in the Samurai Jack universe. I'll probably finish that when I find time. Darn, now I really want to draw these 2 more.

Happy Easter 2017

It's been too long. I've been busy with Blue Fire, as always. And also lesson planning for my part-time job as an art tutor. But because it's Easter, I felt like drawing something.

Ironically, the eggs were a thing back then. They were dyed blood red. Eggs were considered a symbol or rebirth in many other cultures long ago. The rabbits were a pagan custom that was adapted into Christian celebrations.

Now I've not done a whole lot of new stuff, other than Blue Fire pages. Those can be read at Smackjeeves, Tapastic, Webtoon, and deviantArt. I've also finished a series of paintings for an art show my friend is planning at her workplace. Here's 2 out of the 5. You can see all of them on my instagram.

Also, I'm loving the new season of Samurai Jack. I had binged on this cartoon during my college years, and love it dearly. This new season is even better. The perfect example of a cartoon done right, & doing one thing that made it great: Show, don't tell.

That's about it. Take care everyone.

Game Portfolio-final colors for Dre9 & Inyuji

Like my previous post, I'm putting my concept designs here and on some other sites as well.

A little bit of backstory for these characters. In the near future, the world became altered and now there are pockets or zones that act like literal video game worlds. To live and survive in these "cyber" zones (looking for other names), P.A.V. Pals (Personal Anti-Virus) are created or assigned to fight against living "Viruses."

Dre9 wasn't designed by Inyuji. He was someone else's PAV Pal, until that owner passed away, leaving Dre9 in storage. And since Inyuji was initially broke & couldn't afford creating her own, she resorted to random selection.

For Dre9, I've chosen 5 color palettes that I really liked. So far my favorites are 3, & 5.

With Dre9 being a carefree, friendly, yet pragmatic A.I, a cool color scheme seemed to match well. But since he was originally someone ele's PAVPal, the color palette wouldn't necessarily match with Inyuji, unless it was coincidence.

 

Now for Inyuji (haha how egotistical of me), I was torn between having her color palette match closely to Dre9, or if I wanted some bit of contrast. 

• Palette A: I didn't intend to swap her colors to pink and purple. It did wonders contrasting her from Dre9, but it didn't seem to fit her personality. Inyuji doesn't seem like a girl who likes pink and would be annoyed by it.
• Palette B: the lower half would contrast with most of Dre9's color palettes. I can also write it off as an excuse for her having weird fashion tastes, & not having enough money to scrounge for the right outfit she wanted. After all, she tries her hardest to concentrate on her bare necessities.
• Palette C: This is her initial, original design. The only way she'd contrast is if Dre9 wore palettes 1,2, & 4. On the other hand, Inyuji might prefer to have an PAV Pal that has a slightly matching color scheme as her. 

So now that begs the question, which one looks best on Dre9? Should he match with Inyuji? Or should they contrast? Which color pairing looks best?

New Portfolio-character design wip

It seems that I'm going to be stuck with character design for a while before I go to other prop design or background art.
However, I find myself in a pickle.
One character, I've already got his design down. Just gotta pick a darn color scheme that works.
Another character, I'm pondering if I should change up her outfit.
Perhaps you can help me?
First is Dre9 (temporary name)-Dre is practically a living AI companion/assistant. The world is basically sprinkled with parts of the world that have blended in with the digital world/cyperspace. I have about 4 favorite color schemes, but want to know which one works best.

And then there's my "Inyuji" persona, but I'm thinking of renaming her. This was her first initial design, which is based on my current icon avatar

Now here are the alternative sketches

Which one is better? Please leave comments below.

Happy New Year 2017-reflections, plans, & sketches

Happy New Year it is finally 2017. Goodbye 2016.

2016 was a crazy year, a hard year, but albeit a productive year for me.
So here are some highlights of 2016 (cuz I don't want to think of how many musicians and good actors/actresses died)

• I finally finished the Pixel Brains animated short for L4D2
• I launched my webcomic "Blue Fire"
• I finished my storyboard portfolio (which I kept holding off for a few years)
• Started making comics for a local newspaper
• Dusted out my youtube channel
• Actually took on commissions
• Set up a Patreon

Now for my resolutions:

• Create a concept art portfolio centered on game development
• Make Youtube an actual job as an artist/animator
• try to finish some animated short projects
• continue working on "Blue Fire" & upload it on Webtoons along side other platforms
• Be more patient & willing to trust God & stop trying to control every facet of my life, because the universe bows to no one & I'm a sinle speck of dust in this cosmic ocean
• If Youtube doesn't work out, look into enrolling into technical college to gain skills that will get me a normal job
• And if I'm unable to afford college, actually search for a job after the summer.

I'm happy to say that I found it pretty fun to work on commissions, no matter how small they were. Really thankful to some of the people who commissioned me. Here are samples:  

The last comic of 2016 for the "Korean Baptist Press of the USA" 침례신문

A piece of fanart for Riana Dorsey, cuz it was her birthday. If you can, check out her webcomic "Suihira." It's great ^^

And some art for Blue Fire

To spruce up my youtube page, I made myself a whole new channel art, which is now one of my wallpapers:

I'm now a fan of "Yuri!! On ice" anime. So good. And because of constantly listening to the song "On love: Agape," I sketched some of my characters as figure skaters. There's Ji-Hyun from that scrapped "Phantom of the Opera" fancomic. Her outfit is based on a Korean doll. Ethelmay from Eruti, her design is fairy-based. Creon is a simple one piece that shows off the markings on her skin (just didn't color them here since it was all charcoal). And Valentine in a stylized outfit based on a swallowtail tuxedo.

And that's about it. Happy new year, and best of luck to you all. God bless you all and take care.

December Update, Finishing Storyboard Portfolio, newspaper comics, & more sketches

First  off, I've been pretty bad with update, since it takes up time. But lately I've done quite a lot since October, up to December.

The big storyboard portfolio project is almost being wrapped up. I hope to get the animatic ready, and have the storyboards all finalized (need to put the lyrics on the boards).
For now, you can see the boards right now on my Behance portfolio

Still working on Blue Fire. The newest page should be up on the smackjeeves site, and then Tapastic this Saturday. I managed to keep doing a page almost every 2 weeks. That's not bad, with how much time I've devoted mostly to my portfolio projects.

Speaking of portfolio, I am planning to develop yet ANOTHER portfolio for concept art design. This time with an emphasis on game concept design. Atlanta has become a potential hotspot for multimedia, especially for the game industry.

For a few months, I've volunteered to do comics for the ">Korean Baptist Press of theUSA" 침례신문 . I've been given permission to share the comics online. So here they are.
Now for some sketches. They've been mostly dinosaurs. Raptors, to be exact. I'm trying to get a good grasp of what Rokka would look like. Also trying to grasp the style I would end up drawing Rokka and Eli, if I ever decide to make a short series of comics. I would at least love to make some comic-prose of these two.

		One day I had a sudden urge to draw from printed references of raptors, and I think I ALMOST know how to draw their heads.
		Been trying to get the right hybrid of toon & anime look. Especially for the 3/4 head view.

Also, despite being mostly a fanart crossover, I had fun drawing Ethelmay and Asmod again. It was fun to explore my own characters in an already established world. I get to see how they would react and respond to the characters that are well-known. Sometimes this process helps me to define and shape my characters, so they'll be ready to star in their own worlds and stories (I don't own characters from "Strange Magic"). There's a detailed description on my deviantart.

Also made an impromptu video about old high-school art in my closet.