About DOGs project and my last basic illustration lesson

October 20, 2014

On Saturday, I attended the last lesson of our basic illustration course.

Besides imparting more Photoshop skills and tricks to us over the past few lessons, Jimmy also did paint-over demo over each student's assignment to show us how we can improve on our works. It was really exciting to see the transformation of each piece and more amazing to witness the improvement of each student in a mere 12-session course.

Here's what I did for my last assignment. A guardian mermaid of the ocean.

In conclusion, I'd thoroughly enjoyed this course conducted by Jimmy. I certainly feel more confident in working with a tablet now, using various brushes/ modes to create special effects and light source to make an illustration more dynamic. Therefore I'd highly recommend this course to anyone who wishes to take your Photoshop skill to the next level. If you've missed any of my post on this course, you may read them all >> here.

Those of you who have been following my works will know that I'm currently working on a project about dogs. Here's the 3rd illustration I'd completed for this project. You may see the previous two illustrations >> here.

Rain or shine it doesn't matter. As long as I've got you and you've got me, it's enough... <3

Art print for this series are already available on Etsy >> here. Other products will be available soon so stay tuned!

A little more about this project:

When I started out my creative venture in 2008, I dreamed to put a smile on faces with my light-hearted drawings. Today, it’s even more rewarding knowing I can do more with this gift. I’ve always love animals especially dogs. Over the years, I often donate my works to animal rescue shelters for fund raising events and contributing a small portion of my sale proceeds to local dog shelters. As time goes by, this has become one of my greatest motivations.

This year, I got involved in designing collaterals for a dog shelter. I'm also working on a campaign to promote the welfare of dogs. The idea is to promote the welfare of dogs through a series of adorable dog illustration merchandise, starting with postcards. Half of the sale proceeds from this project will be donated to a dog shelter on top of the 10% from my other merchandise/ commissioned assignment. If everything goes well, I’ll work on another collection with various animals theme. Of course, your encouragement and support is very important!

Please join me on my journey towards helping more dogs (and animals). I'll post updates about this project as we go along, so do remember to subscribe to my blog by clicking on the RSS link below to make sure you don't miss out on any update. You can also follow us on Facebook >> here. Note: Choose the 'Follow' option when you hit the 'Like' button.

Thank you so much for your love and support! Have a lovely week ahead.

❤ Blessings, Rheea

Dogs Onboard & Basic Illustration Class - Lesson 8

September 30, 2014

It's sci fi time again! In lesson 8, we'd to create a stylized/realistic character for the media/gaming industry.

Besides looking a little stiff, I think she looks pretty cool (and hot?). What do you think? :p

Moving on to a totally different style...

Tiny little things are spotted on a boat carrying huge lollipops! Direction of where they're heading is still unclear.

I've always feel a strong connection with dogs and I really hope to do more for our fur buddies, be it raising awareness for adoption or understanding the importance of giving them a 'forever' home. I'll be creating a series of illustrations with dogs (lots and lots of them!) and having the illustrations printed on tote bags, postcards, calendar or t-shirts. Half of the sale proceeds from this project will be donated to a local dog shelter.

At this moment, I do not have alot of fund to start with so I'll have to look to collaboration or platforms like Kickstarter and Threadless for help. If you've any other suggestion, I'd love to hear them.

Thank you in advance for your support and your love for our fur buddies!

Meanwhile, art print for this piece is available on Etsy.

Have a lovely week!

❤ Blessings, Rheea

Basic Illustration Class - Lesson 7

September 22, 2014

Hello! It's yet another week so here's the recap on my basic illustration lesson 7 with Jimmy.

It was a very challenging lesson for me as we'd to create my FIRST EVER sci fi art! I only managed to complete this piece at home but boy, I love the end result! Without further ado, let me show you my proud creation. Heh~

For a start, we experimented with 'custom shapes' and brushes. The textured effect on my island/mountains were done with the help of custom shapes and special brush for the grass. You can actually download free interesting brushes and customs shapes online. The ones I used were from Jimmy's collection and it was very generous of him to share it with us.

I got bored with this and started on a new piece. Ah.... this is much better.

After creating a basic form using a combination of custom shapes, I got this.

Then putting what I've learnt to good use by adding in the details with various brush effect; multiply, soft light, hard light and my favourite guy ---> color dodge.

I thought of creating some spacecrafts but quickly dismissed that idea. Then. I had another idea... How about an iron pegasus?! Woo. I love that idea!

I found a horse image which I'd like to work on.

And came out with this. I LOVE IT!!

I then consulted Jimmy for feedback and suggestion on how I can create a magical effect around the horse. This was what he came out with. Wow! It looks like a fantasy sci fi piece. I liked that the focus is fully on my magnificent horse (prince) now.

Have a magical new week ahead! ^^

❤ Blessings, Rheea

Nono's Birthday & Basic Illustration Class - Lesson 6

September 15, 2014

Lesson 6 was something new and very fun! Haha. You probably heard me say the same thing every week but I really enjoyed every lesson.

For this lesson, we learned how to use references as a base to develop on (paint over).

I created this from an image reference. Unfortunately I forgot to create a new layer before painting over it, so I don't have the original image now. :/

Exploration. Alien invasion?

Oh no! More aliens?!

Then I got bored. And changed the colour... I love my new colour!

And added this. A devilish fairy! Things start to get exciting...

Then Jimmy suggested that I put in a frozen villain. So I came out with this!

I'm pretty proud of the outcome. This must be the BEST fantasy art I'd created so far! Heh heh. What do you think? :)

If you liked what I've shared so far, do stay tuned for our lesson 7 recap next week!

Also happening last week, we celebrated Nono's 12th birthday. Since his diagnosed with mast cell tumor nearly 3 months ago, I'm glad he's still active and eating very well. There are around 8 masts all over his body at the moment; some have since reduced in size but the one at his mouth is not looking good.

We're still praying for the best and hope we'll get to celebrate his 13th, 14th, and more birthdays with him. Stay strong my boy!

❤ Blessings, Rheea

Basic Illustration Class - Lesson 5

September 8, 2014

Today I'm going to share with you what we did for lesson 5. Sorry to skip lesson 4 as I need more time to complete it.

In lesson 5, we learnt to draw the basic structures of animal forms and how we can then transform them into interesting creatures. Fun fun fun!

Jimmy's version:

First of all we tried to get the basic form out. Boxes are great way to get the right perspective.

(I was a little upset by these images. They remind me of poor doggies trapped in tiny cages waiting to be slaughtered in some countries :( ).

From these...

To this.

Moving on, we have our horses! Beautiful horses by Jimmy.

And mine. Jimmy commented that they looked like little pony. Lol.

Look at the transformation by Jimmy... Interesting eh?

Here's my little pony... transformed into a flute centaur.

Birds! I've always been fascinated by their wings probably because of my obsession with Angels.

My lizard-looking phoenix. Ha!

And lastly, one of my worst nightmares... bats!

Heh heh! What do you think of my bat creature? I find it so hard to draw evil/ scary looking creatures.. they always turned out looking cute or comical. Or both.

Okay, that's all I have for you today.

I've been working on a project I'm very excited about lately. A little hint: it's related to dogs; something I've been wanting to do for a while. I'll tell you more when the time is right. Stay tuned! ;)

❤ Blessings, Rheea

Basic Illustration Class - Lesson 3

September 1, 2014

Hello guys! Thankfully I was able to retrieve the files I lost on Saturday! So here's what I did for my illustration class few weeks back.

Before the lesson starts, we always do a recap on our previous lesson:

Moving on, we looked up for some references and came up with our 3 point perspective desert illustration.

Ta-dah!! Here's my incomplete version with funny looking little stick men walking across the desert. They're probably searching for the legendary giant! See the huge footprints? :p

And here's Jimmy's version. I know, mine didn't even come close. Lol.

If you're free this Friday, do come by to the Red Dot Museum as we'll be there again from 5pm till midnight with lots of lovely stuffs for you. As usual, all our items will be on SPECIAL price that day. And 10% of our sale proceeds will go to a local dog shelter.

More details can be found on our Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/DollgiftByRheea

See you this Friday! Have a lovely week ahead.~

❤ Blessings, Rheea

Basic Illustration Class - Lesson 2

August 18, 2014

For our second lesson, we learned about one-point and two-point perspective. Below is how an object will look in a one-point perspective drawing.

With a two-point perspective drawing, we're able to create a more dynamic look.

(Yet another funny looking monster by me. Haha!)

For second part of the lesson, we learned to create a two-point perspective piece completed with colours (on tablet and Photoshop). It was SO fun!

We also learned that objects that are nearest to us tend to be darkest in tone... the further they get, the lighter the tone and less sharp they become. Also, the further the objects, the cooler the shades will get. Notice we've added shades of blue to the mountains.

*Tip: You can start off with painting the entire piece in a light shade of blue. This is because the colour of the sky can affect the objects around.

And this was what my lecturer, Jimmy came out with in just 2 hours. Love the depth of the art piece!

I'm really glad to have such an amazing lecturer. Not only is he very talented. He's also very generous in imparting his skills and knowledges to us. His passion and enthusiasm is indeed inspiring.

You can find some really great tips on Jimmy's facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/Dreadjim

Meanwhile, I posted a question on facebook a few days back. I'd like to know on what product(s) would you most like to see Dollgift on? Something you'll buy for yourself or as a gift. Is it tota bag, mug, pouch, wall decal, calendar or something else? Your suggestion could determine what I'll be launching next.

I understand the pricing on our Redbubble store can be a little steep (especially for the phone and ipad casing). Unfortunately they're a print-on-demand store, the cost price is already very high. I'm seriously considering mass production. However I'm only running a very small business alone and do not have much resources. My true passion is in creating art, but marketing and production is already taking up 80% of my time and energy. Thus, please be patient with me.

With this said, I'm very thankful for all your support so far. Now would you please head over to my facebook to throw in your suggestion if you haven't already?

Thank you and have a lovely week ahead~~ :)

❤ Blessings, Rheea

Basic Illustration Class - Lesson 1

August 5, 2014

Hi guys, sorry for the delay of this post!

Here's a recap on my first basic illustration class at Mages as promised.

For our first lesson, we were taught to create human figures using the 8 'boxes' method. Notice how I've divided the page to 8 different portions, each serves as a guideline for the length of various body parts. I think his arms are a tad too long. Lol.

I felt as though I was being transported back to my college days when I was a fashion design student. Even then, the fashion figures we were taught to draw weren't as detailed (and fun).

Part two of the lesson was a real challenge for me. We had to work using a tablet! (I bought a tablet few years back and gave up after a few attempts. I guess I still enjoy the feel of traditional pen strokes. Or I was too lazy to persist).

Anyway, I was really thankful I have some basic Photoshop skills prior to that so I didn't pass out from hyperventilation in the class that day. We were asked to create a monster/alien creature and this was what I came out with. Of course I'm not a fan of ugly looking monsters and thus struggled quite abit before I gave birth to this one. I hope it scares you enough?

The methods we used to create this piece were by using 'Lasso' tool to crop out the desired shape and filling it with a dark colour. After which, we used 'Multiply' to darken some areas and 'Eraser' tool to create the shadow/3D effect. Now came my favourite part - using 'Colour Dodge' to create the lighted-up/ fire effect.

Note: the monster has to be filled with a very dark tone (close to black) in order to get the nice glowing effect with Colour Dodge tool.

The cool thing about a tablet is that you can create different 'tones' by exerting a lighter or harder pressure with the pen. This could save you the trouble of changing the opacity multiple times while shading.

Here's another example of how a tablet can help us create this sphere without the need to adjust the opacity of the colour/tone.

I hope these sounds interesting to you because I really had a great time!

Well, after looking at some not very appealing art pieces, I'm going to share with you some mind-blowing art pieces by my lecturer, Jimmy Ling who specialises in conceptual digital arts.

Just WOW!

Now, this has to be my favourite......................

Omg, an ANGEL!!! (Screamsssss).

Can't get enough of Jimmy's work? You can find more on DeviantArt - http://dreadjim.deviantart.com or his facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/Dreadjim .

Also, if you're free this friday, 8 Aug, the eve of our National Day, do come by to the Red Dot Design Museum at Tanjong Pagar. Because after 6 months, we're finally ready for our next MAAD (Market for Artists & Designers) event!

As usual, 10% of our sale proceeds will go to a local dog shelter we support. Please help us help our furry friends!

We'll be there from 5pm till midnight. Admission is FREE. More details about this event can be found on my Facebook page here, https://www.facebook.com/DollgiftByRheea

See you there! :D

❤ Blessings, Rheea