adriofthedead:

liquid-stars:

dairinecallahan:

the other day my friend and i were talking about medieval art and i was like “the way they draw lions is so hilarious because none of those european people had ever seen a lion and just continued imitating other people’s drawings of…

I’m not good at this reblog thing!

I wanted to add that while some of the doofiness of Korean folk-art tigers is definitely spawned from a handful of artists copying each other, I want to state that Korea did have tigers as part of its wildlife (as opposed to any wild lions living naturally in England). Tigers were hunted by the people and the people were also hunted by the tiger on rare occasion. Skins and parts were readily available. So the populous was aware of what the tigers looked like…for the most part. Again a lot of stuff would be from real life experience into word of mouth, then translated by the artist into an image, resulting in this “amazing” creature.

Why the spots in some depictions, or a combination of stripes and spots? Most people believe this is because they treated the leopard and tiger as the same creature. It is also highly likely that they had access to the skin of the leopard, but not the actual specimens. So they mashed them together and called it “Here is your cat-like thing.”

The other half would be that there are two ways to regard the tiger in Korean folk-art. One one side you get the regal, strong representation. That one is for vigor, ferocity, and power. The other is what most of the paintings we run across represent, that of the goofy and carefree version. This tiger was not supposed to be drawn with an “angry” face or anything showing ferociousness. Instead they should be smiling, or frustrated (depending if the accompanying magpies were considered bringers of news or harassing the tiger with their calls). This leaves us with the amazingly derptastic folk-art tiger.

Hi, I’m Neo, and the last time I was in Korea I wouldn’t stop asking everyone about this. Derpy tigers, the best.

The wonderful folks over at Contact Caffeine asked if I wanted to do a little promo image announcing the updated (better) Sakura ShiShi scent, since I did the original label art two years ago. I decided to be sneaky at the same time and update the label art at the same time  to better reflect my current abilities (top). The labels are also stickers, which is super fun.

I’m breaking a personal rule (which is not to post outside stuff), but I feel it is a good one to break it with.

On the outside I do silent freelance. I do the boring, gray jobs of industrial design. This is the stuff where your name is never attached and the chances of anyone asking “Who designed that?” are negligibly low. This is not to say they are bad jobs, but that they carry a certain quality. This stuff trickles down through word-of-mouth and fast jobs, emergency document graphics and logos done by moonlight.

I had no hand in this graphic but I feel it is a good one to chew on. When it comes to pricing design work it seems everyone has their own method (and this can break out of just design, which is why I’m putting it here). You have design firms that charge no less then $4,000 for corporate identity (or 150,000 for the big guys). You have the $50 guys for moms and pops. You have the friend of a friend of a friend that will do it for a coffee. You might end up being each of those people. Ultimately the amount you charge for your work will be your own influenced by the many facets shown in the graphic.

“It took me a few seconds to draw it, but it took me 34 years to learn how to draw it in a few seconds.” Paula Scher.

Very rough, early concept phase type stuff for a comic anthology I’ve been invited to join with a bunch of really amazing artists (I’m not worthy!). Everything else I’m working on now is either boring to view in vanilla mode (pixel work for an LED persistence-of-vision demo for Makerfaire!) or a WIP (concepts). So you get half-thoughts in drawing form!

All you need to know right now is hoodies/clothing that turn people into fun monsters. It’s kids-friendly and silly fun. Everything is loose and not set in stone, but for now Cerberus and Queztalcoatl are the main duo. There will be a 3rd antagonist that may or may not be a Jackalope for the moment (I need a FAST wily character!). I’ll show what I’m allowed as it happens.

Poison the gryphon, done as a trade. Not a concept of mine, but a friends. Now with 90% more judging owl face. Larger one is here.

It took awhile, but I had so much fun doing this. I have the best time when folks hand me a character to play with and aren’t too strict with the freedom. The smaller one was a sketch I couldn’t just throw out, so I finished it up as a tiny bonus.

Zest, the orange wyvern! 

I was winding down after finishing up some larger work. I’ve had the urge to design this wyvern thing for awhile (for a costume to be honest). Something short and stumpy with flappy-blanket wing-arms. Originally he was green (felt like a traditional dragon color). But on a whim I tried orange.

That’s my story.

Three really fast sketches from yesterday after the work-work. Someone in stream said to draw a fox. There is Cytiger the robot and Neo in a space suit.

The last is an older sketch when I was having some motor control problems, so it is very rough. Shadowrun character, though I’m not sold on the tail, as much as I visually like it. It doesn’t work at all in my head unless it could collapse. How would you get into cars or elevators with that?

I feel I should apologize. BUTT NO.

Over nine hours drawing yesterday and I can’t show any of it. So you get the stuff that happened afterwards. Sigh. Guest appearance by Pac the wish-fulfilling tacorat. (You only get one and it’s not very good).

Roche at the core is loosely based off the mythological salamander (as opposed to the very real ones). Though visually he resembles a shark mashed with a snake.

Attempting to clean up his design (originally too confusing, still confusing here) and simplify a lot of aspects of the character. His silhouette really bothers me, but I’m unsure what I’m exactly trying to accomplish. I’m going through the motions but not breaking any new ground. Moving on for now.

Little skullqrow from tonight! Nothing fancy.