It's not the best ever sketches of my existence, but I figured I'd post this anyways. Gotta keep practicing.
Very, very 1990s vibe. I have several concept clothing designs for Djehkäujaa. She can vary from bare minimal & practical to flashy depending on her mood. She tends to go more flashy with her shoes, because she has a shoe collecting fetish. However, as a humanoid she mostly doesn't understand human fashion and can wear wrong clothing choices for situations not appropriate for various situations, and doesn't understand why.
Lively, tends to be way more flashy, but can easily get practical if she has something important to do, that's messy, or dirty.
A photo posted by Kandice Kathleen Zimbleman 任思麒 (@blackunigryphon) on
Then on Snapchat, they have a feature that allows you to superimpose a facial image over your face. SO, I accidentally tapped it, and it automatically put Djehkäujaa there! I actually really liked it, so I did a rendition of her singing the dragon song I wrote for her in my story/film/motion-picture.
I've been doing quick poses gesture drawing life sketches from Croquis Cafe the free online video classes on YouTube. (Thank you, Croquis cafe & all the supporters & funders!)
Since I've started doing them starting back in May this year, I've actually noticed an improvement with my linework in my own personal artwork. Here's one of my Djehkäujaa sketches BEFORE I started doing croquis sketches:
I'm still feeling frustrated with my skills. Back in 2001 and for several years after, i could actually draw a whole figure in forms & shapes in 30 seconds, and also draw live people and animals as they were moving.
I do, still, appreciate the kind words of encouragement people have given to me. But, I'm still unsatisfied. But, I have been improving. I often need to compete with my living room to use the easel to sketch from the Croquis Cafe YouTube class on my TV, because my spouse is also doing a lot of painting and sketching, and working on improving his portfolio.
But, You can see that by sticking to it, there's an improvement.
I want to enhance & improve my mental imagery ability to visualize the images & forms inside my mind like I used to have.
I don't sketch quite as much, nor as often, as I would like. There's been several things that came up like several: doctor's appointments, my daughter's birthday, going to the gym, going to University Orientation in Boston, going back to Boston multiple times to fix errors they caused.
I want to work more on developing my characters and work on my story, but I still need to improve my skills. SO, I'm headed in THAT direction.
World Environment Day and Dead Tigers & Trafficking in Thailand Temple
This morning, the weather was rainy, and I was was rather uncomfortable, and it was just so hard to get out of bead. All the stretching I did several times throughout the day was as tho' it hasn't happened at all, and all of my muscles, tendons, and ligaments were so sore and tight, and my joints swollen... so, I finally forced myself out of bed once I realized the clock passed 10 AM.... then, I started brewing HOT coffee (since it's a very cold day this morning) even tho' it's JUNE (unthankfully due to climate change), and turned on my computer.... It'sWORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY (and I'm an Environmentalist & Eco-Geek) which I'd completely forgotten.... and I opened my YouTube Subscriptions to THIS:
The headline was "Dozens of dead tiger cubs found at a Buddhist temple in Thailand", and the image its self was disturbing!
Unbelievable!!!! I watched the video in utter disbelief & horror!
After al week getting Buddhists and karma believers shouting down my face over eating meat, and now this! It's like a weird modern version of a corruption story of of the "Xi You Ji" (The Journey West by Wu Cheng En about the Monkey King) where monks or monestaries had become overrun with demons, or officials had become corrupt... only, there were no Guanyin Pusa or Sun Wukong to set it right...
I wanted to know MORE! So, I began investigating the news all over the internet... and BOY did I find it!
Well..... suffice it to say TIGER SKINS were ALSO in the mix. This story got worse and worse the more articles I found. Animal abuse, corrupt monks, tiger meat, tiger body parts, animal trafficking, plus the fact that its Buddhist AND a monastery/temple makes it even MORE loathsome!
Also, I originally had Ao Xingtao with more Tiger motifs than dragons...
I made him more dragon motifs now, but, I think I will utilize them
both now... like those old scrolls in Chinatown Philly with yin/yang
dragon & tiger artwork.
I will probably incorporate some of the tiger motifs again with Ao Xingtao again... and I think it makes the scene with the main villain/antagonist work better now. Also, it separates Xingtao from Djehkäujaa a lot more because I don't want them to be too similar, even tho' they have similar connections that are secrets or unknown.
WARNING CAUTION:
Anyways, the disturbing truth of the news can be found all over the news. here are just a few of the newest articles:
As I'm writing this NOW several other news articles are jumping onto this horrific story!
As an artist, I can't even express what tigers mean to many many artists.
For me, personally, tigers always had a special presence to them. In ancient times, people even thought tigers were gods. being in the presence of a tiger is different than other animals. They have distinct personalities, and even enjoy swimming.
Seeing a tiger REALLY stays with you once you've actually seen one even from a distance. I remember the very first time I went to a zoo with the intent of drawing them with other artists in middle school. There were many many animals. But, drawing the tiger has a whole other look, and feel.
Every single time I go to a zoo, or sanctuary, and see a tiger there's just SOMETHING about them. No other animal has that SOMETHING. No other animal can have that vibrancy in art either, which is why I've often drawn tigers in my artwork. It's almost magical, or majestic.
I recall, back in the 1990s, when I was a big fan of Jackie Chan, one of the major animals he was trying to raise awareness over in Asia to protect was TIGERS. they were on the top of the list. And, I even did a painting based on the photo graphics from his old website.
I hope as not to offend any sense of the tiger lovers here. I've included my artwork as my expression my love for tigers. Please do not conflate the issue as an exploitation of a tragedy to self-promote my work. I'm not even popular at present so it wouldn't make any sense at all anyway.
Therefore, I will not include more than 3 links to my gallery artwork, and just keep them isolated to this blog post. If you wanted to see the full versions of these artworks, you could obviously find them easily on my gallery and searching it there, independently. (I do get questions anyway, if I don't include a link, and if anyone really wanted to find more, its a simple matter of using a search features)
I think this shows the relevance of WHY we have things like WORLD ENVIRONMENT DAY... and yet, on Social media it's all but forgotten... FB has no intention of showing the holiday whatsoever... ALL THE HARD WORK to promote things like this in my youth, and it seems for naught, and all in vain...
I tweeted to Dr. Jill Stein this morning on Twitter a happy World Environment Day (presidential candidate for the Green Party) and I think even she FORGOT it. :(
That's really sad! Must be all the gun violence and insanity of the GOP and people poisoned from lead in the water that everything is decaying... :(
Here are a few things from Twitter:
Are you ready for World Environment Day ? We are at Nanyuki Central Park saying no to illegal wildlife trade pic.twitter.com/uxgECLuYdi
— Dr.GURMEET RAM RAHIM (@Gurmeetramrahim) June 5, 2016
I think this makes it more behooving of me to create my film/story because I feel people NEED IT. There's a VERY BIG Environmental and humanitarian moral to my story... altho' it's Fantasy/Sci-Fi it's a vision of what the world actually COULD BE, or COULD HAVE BEEN, NOW. I feel that so many Sci-Fi stories are about The Future or Futuristic... mine is what the world could be NOW, and what is SHOULD BE.... but, I admit, I'm am also making it a different, or alternate reality of this world, and NOT this world.
It is probably a good thing that I will major in philosophy in the fall. Perhaps I need more studies with Immanuel Kant.
Xingtao Rough Sketch Practice Character Development I was wanting to blog this for a while, but I was doing other things, and since sketching took more thought and effort plus blogging, I was just publishing my older photography of everything from Boho to my Pirate wench OC on Deviant ART, and interacting with people on there.
I have tons of other blogs of various content, including on Blogger/Google and also Tumblr, as well as multiple social media platforms.
I know pretty much what I want Ao Xingtao to be and look like, only it hasn't quite come together yet. Plus, I want my sketching/drawing skills to improve.
The face is loosely based on a combination of Jincheng Wu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and a tiny bit of Nicholas Tse (Xie Tingfeng), but also vintage Tony Leung Ka Fai.
Jincheng Wu:
Nicholas Tse:
But, I also like Donnie Yen. I like the long skull/face look pretty much for this character.
Donnie Yen:
Vintage Tony Leung Ka Fai:
I really like Jingcheng Wu's head shape and facial features. He has very thick strong eyebrowns, and his nose is set into his face with a very sharp look. I also really like the sideburns on him. he's significantly hairier than the other actors. I also like his necklines.
Nicholas Tse doesn't have the long face but there are many mannerisms in his acting style that I like.
But, of course, I don't want my character to be a carbon copy of 1 or the other... just some influences...
But, I was also studying quite a lot of old vintage stuff from the 80s/90s. I was especially enamored with Christian Slater's HAIR:
OMG! Do you see this hair????
It's like super voluminous!
I want Xingtao to have his look honed, and refined, but I haven't reached it yet. I figure that'll be my goal for this year. I'd originally been wanting to practice my painting skills, but I lost my fire for it... meh...
I don't want Xingtao to always have the long hair, like I did in the old picture I did. I like the long hair, but I want him to go through hairstyle changes. Female characters do this, and especially Lively does. But, in real life, men (unlike my father) also change their hair.
It's weird, but it often feels like I forgot how to draw... intellectually, I know what to draw, and how to draw, but it's like my hand-eye coordination is way off. But, as I was going through my old artwork I did before I realized I'd gone through this many times before. So, I know I can get through it again.
But, I need to work out what Xingtao's face will actually be before I can move on to the hair styles... but, part of the practice is both.
Another thing I don't want to happen, is I don't want Xingtao to look like Djehkäujaa. Recently many of my sketches would kinda turn out looking a bit too much like her, and I was not happy about that.
I just need a lot more practice.
I will hopefully get my credits audit soon, because my University orientation in on June 7th, and then I can most likely (hopefully) start my federal Work Study program (job/salary). They've screwed up my application many many times since February. So, I can't even sign up for classes I want yet, and most everything is full. I'm also finally back to going to the gym, but my lungs are still damaged very badly, and I sometimes I must take codeine. I hope I can improve my lungs capacity/strength by the end of the summer. My asthma is really bad right now.
Other than that, not much else to write about... most of it is inside my head/heart/dreams/feelings/muse... It probably doesn't look like a lot, but actually it really was.
