Mahisha, 2009. charcoal, gouache, ink, digital. This is one of a series of drawings I made about Mahisha the buffalo demon. The myth of Mahisha is a complex, multifaceted narrative with its origins in ancient India. I think I was drawn to the story of Mahisha because of the number of incarnations it has enjoyed over the centuries.
Mahisha, 2009. pencil, digital. Strangely, after researching the story for many years, and eventually basing my MFA thesis project at UCLA on this story - I feel ever more confused and distanced from it - unsure if I really understand it at all.
Above are some sketches I made for an old friend Kiik Araki Kawaguchi. He is a very talented writer and poet who is teaching in San Diego. He wrote a quick poem for his mother featuring a figure called “THE HEN.” Here she is, in her many incarnations. She changed shape and character as I read and reread the poem, so I used many different kinds of pens/brushes. I experimented with a fountain pen for the first time in years.
Environments
Above and below are some sketches I made for an exercise in science fiction protoyping we did at WET Design. We were asked to think about the future of urban planning and to speculate about some of the sometimes grim realities facing people today. What will people need out of fountains in 30-50 years? I sketched some of the ideas we thought were particularly compelling, such as using water fountains for heating, ventilation, and cooling on top of buildings.
Above is a rough sketch for interim design phase. This style is more abstract and painterly than realistic. I used sketchy pencil and an intentionally rough environment painted in Photoshop to describe the mood and expression of the project rather than the specific shape.
Above and below are some examples of the more finshed, “realistic” rendering style at WET Design. I used Maya to model these scenes, and Photoshop to finish the one above.
Modeled and rendered in Maya.
This is a sketch for a single page that I submitted to a comics compilation with some friends. The idea was that this image was two sides of a single scene. The scene was a retro-futuristic circus featuring ancient shaman who can predict the weather using turtle shells. From either side you can see various symbols taken from the surface of intricately carved bronze vessels used to perform these kinds of shamanic rituals in ancient China.
Character Design
The images above and below show a few characters and environment concepts I sketched and modeled here and there between 2009 and 2010 for the game “Darkgame” by Eddo Stern. We were both interested in pushing the traditional methods and aesthetics of interactive 3d worlds to new places, outside of standard representational language but still narrative.
A traveling dandelion character based on the game designer Raymond Smullyan.
Some abstract props I sketched for a game project.
Figure Drawing
Above are some figure drawings from analytical Figure Drawing with Kevin Chen. Kevin asked us to make the least amount of strokes necessary to define a shape. I respect this idea a lot, and it leads to graphical clarity in most cases, but my style is naturally much sketchier, as you can see below.
Above and below are some figure drawings from a class I took with Jaqueline Wazir, a costume designer for shows such as Desparate Housewives. She emphasized the importance of gesture and expression in our drawings, quite a contrast from Kevin!
I liked this model's silhouette. Drawn with mechanical pencil.
An ecorche I sculpted for a class about anatomy.