I’ll keep it short this time. Wind Style! *Swoosh*

Another piece of work that I collaborates with Kael. More or less the same also, we worked together for the composition, he came out with lineart, then we colour by our own.

Kael’s version:

Mine:

Here’s my process of doing it:

From Kael’s lineart, I added base colour for both of us. Then I proceed to shadow/highlight > Rasen Shuriken! > Background.

One thing that really troubles me is things that I would paint but I can’t such as background and whatever effects. In this artwork, that would be the Rasen Shuriken! And background of course.

It gets interesting. This is how I did it:

So I draw the Shuriken in Adobe Illustrator first. Easier for me that way. Then I do magic in Adobe Photoshop as usual. Applying filters, layers styles, many trials and errors here, but it was fun.

And the middle Rasengan ball is even easier, just a white circle with outer glow and pattern in it.

Background was random as well:

As you can see from the layer name, I took the Shuriken layer and just copy paste, here, I mainly play around with filters to get cool background.

Actually, this artwork doesn’t require a tablet, one mouse will do since I didn’t use pen pressure at all. Lasso tool works best.

One last thing before I ciao!

This is PSD No. 3 for this artwork. I have total of 5 PSDs. Not the largest file size, but with most layers. It’s for you all to dissect. Muahahaha…maybe not.

Toads and Summoners by ~HolyWiz on deviantART

At last, NARUTO FAN ART! Sounds like I’ve been constipating.
I always wanted to draw Naruto fan art since I’m a big fan of Naruto, the manga/anime.

This artwork, me and  worked together in the beginning, getting the composition right, characters, then followed by lineart.
After that, we work alone but we share the same lineart.

And I must say, this colouring style is inspired by an artist I really like, lastscionz.

Kael360 :  

All Naruto characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

PSCS5/Intuos4

Okay….I just copied that from my Deviantart artwork page….I think I just made an advertisement…

Alright, let’s make this post useful. I’m gonna break it down for you guys, how I painted this whole thing…trust me, it’s not hard, you just to squeeze some brain juice. It’s painful by the way

First of you need this:

Yes. A folder of course. HIGHLIGHT it!

And….skip the sketches….and finally a clean outline

Toads and Summoners Lineart by ~HolyWiz on deviantART

You can download it if you want, right click it and save it to wherever you want. You might wanna try colour it yourself and don’t forget to link it back to us if you succeed

The pictures below are from step 2~6 (Step 1 is lineart, and Step 7 is the result):

Step 1 – Lineart.

Step 2 – So right after I got the lineart, I can start adding base colour, I believe almost every artist does this at the early stage.

Step 3 – Then I add shadow for each character. *My heart tells me that I should add background first so I have to mood to go on* This step took me 2 days, well, I was slacking a little. I have to say this is the most time consuming step for me. I had to figure out the form of each character, I just can’t simply add shadow without knowing where will the light hits, and I must separate ambience shadow and cast shadow, although they are shadow, but they are not the same. So, while I doing the shadow, I’m thinking at the same time, considering many things, which slow me down.

Step 4 – I tinted the shadow to cooler colours. I don’t do this very often. It all depends. Much to experiment with.

Step 5 – Highlight comes after shadow. Places that are not shaded, they are the area where light hits, which means, they are all highlight area. Much easier step since I already masked out the shadow area.

Step 6 – Add in some details, like for metal, they shine more. Shiny surface I also tinted the shadow for Naruto’s skin after showing to Kael, he said the shadow previously was a little bit greyish. So, I went for warmer colours. Oh, and also for eyes, they shine more too, wet surface And very thin layer of white highlight on skin of each character if you noticed, just my taste

Step 7 – I call it done on Step 6, but Kael felt that something was missing but he couldn’t tell what…I say, must be the background. Honestly, I’m not very good at drawing background, but no harm giving it a shot. So there it is! I see skies of blue~ Clouds are white~~~ Oh! I almost forgot. What I really almost forgot is that the net on Jiraiya’s inner shirt and Gamaken’s arm Added last minute. Should have drawn it on the lineart stage. I also erased some lines on the highlight areas cause black lines on bright areas isn’t that nice…I think.

This is how I check whether my shadow is correct, or…looks correct.

LEFT – Without Base colour (Step 2).   RIGHT – Without Base colour + Lineart (Step 1+2).

Looks like 3D model isn’t it, or to some of you, like statue? Cell shaded version Well, if it’s 3D enough, then you’re on the right path

This is my PSD file for steps 3, 4, 5, 6. LOOK AT THE LAYERS! I do have PSD file for each step, just in case I screwed something up and I SAVED it, I can always go back to the previous PSD and start over again Learned to do this after many experiences

And….sorry if I winked too much, my eye just can’t stop blinking/winking, been exposed to the screen for too long…

Hehehe…I was squeezing my brain juice for this title, couldn’t thought of a better one.

I Took an Adventure in Lovely ‘Yourope’

Guess what? It’s ITALY! Some people pronounce Europe as Yourope….so yeah…that’s how Yourope comes in here.

25th of November ~ 3rd of December, I was in Italy. Been to several places. Arrived in Rome > 5 hours to Florence > an hour to Pisa > 5 hours to Venice > 5 hours to Assisi > 6 hours to Sorrento > 30 minutes to Capri > 30 minutes back to Sorrento > an hour to Pompei > 4 hours back to Rome!

Not to forget, 12 hours back to Malaysia.

I write it this way because I kinda feel like the traveling time was way more than the time of shopping + eating + viewing + etc. Many people thought that I must had a lot of fun in Italy, I say, not really. Everyday, we only given an hour for lunch. And most of time, we had fast food because an hour is just too short for pizza and pasta. Not only that, 3 nights out of 8 nights, we had Chinese Cuisine which was arranged by the travel agency. If it was good then I wouldn’t be complaining so much, unfortunately, the chinese cuisine was so terrible, well, expected.

The weather is another thing that really pissed me off. The Leaning Tower of Pisa could have look so much better with bright sunshine.

Pictures of this trip can be seen here : facebook

Okay, I don’t wanna say anything more about Italy, you should see it, hear it, feel it, with your own senses. But what I really want to share in this post is how I process my pictures for cinematic feel.

From RAW > Colour Correction + other adjustments > The Power of Cropping! + Colour Correction.

Cropping is indeed a very powerful thing, it defines your composition. Remove unwanted things, enhance the subject focus and so on.

Colour Correction is something I always play with. Very important process as well, it has the power to set a mood whether its cool, warm, scary, merry, mysterious, etc…

Some examples:

I went for the Gold-ish feel. Like 300 Spartan movie.

People say, shoot directly in front of the sun, you get under-exposed and silhouette only. I say, fuck it! This is a cool shot, I know what I want. Result was quite satisfying.

Rainy day. No clouds Can’t kiasu. What to do, I still had to take pictures right? So I went for the cool mood, end up like Harry Potter feel. Which is good, it supposed to feel like a movie scene. * Have a small mistake on the top left, it was my rain coat But I knew I’m gonna crop it anyway, so yeah…

And throughout the whole journey, I brought 3 lenses, 17-40mm, 50mm prime and 100mm macro. Only used 100mm macro for cat pictures. Most used lens 17-40mm (Wide angle). 50mm for portraits and some buildings and street, it’s hard because you can zoom in/out, fixed at 50mm. But still, I am able to capture some large buildings with 50mm prime (I was lazy to switch lens, RAINING!).

Here’s how I do it:

So, if you are unsure how should the composition be, SHOOT MORE! > Merge ‘em all! > Crop it all! Don’t forget, COLOUR CORRECTION!

I thought I could do a nice long panorama, unfortunately, the lighting condition wasn’t as good, so I just took one part instead.

My mom was watching me edit some of the pictures, and she was like: “Walao…nothing is real anymore…”. Well, post production is mandatory to give an impact to the viewer. Hope you have learned something.

After this trip, 2 more things on my wish list, 24-70mm lens and wireless transmitter for flash.

Skyline – Alien invasion science fiction film. According to many reviews from professionals and non-professionals, Skyline is a bad bad movie. Like 3.4/10 that bad. That’s epic failed.  Even before I watch it in the cinema myself, I heard many comments from friends saying that it sucks but some say awesome, but none says so so. Until today, I decided to choose Skyline over other movies, and I’d rate it ‘so so’ and above.

Come to think of it, it wasn’t really a fresh new movie, somehow I feel like I’ve seen this somewhere…but you see, I don’t want to waste my RM10 complaining how bad the movie was, I just accept whatever, have zero expectation, and enjoy the most out of it. Surprisingly, I felt…wow… If you disagree with me, trust me, I have seen worst. Recently I watched “Buried“, for the 2 hours, the actor was in a coffin, trying to escape but died in the end. But I still kinda salute how the director did it, this ‘one scene does it all’ movie requires much more creative thinking than any other movie to keep the suspense level.

Back to Skyline. I’m not gonna say too much, otherwise it will become a spoiler. Basically, watching Skyline, I can find similar elements from “War of The Worlds” (2005), “Crysis” (2008), “Appleseed” (2004), and another alien invasion movie, I forgot its name, the alien in that movie suck human brain juice.

It’s like, alien invades our earth, the whole city lost connection, then some army come attack, it’s WAR! Very similar to War of The Worlds. The people in the movie will have the same facial expression like, “What the hell is going on?”….

Alien design is very similar to the one in Crysis game. At first I saw it in Skyline movie, I thought, hey, is this movie based on Crysis the game? But no, Skyline is (supposed-to-be) a fresh new movie.

Then you see, aliens came prepared, they are strong, human doesn’t stand a chance, but then again, main actor and actress, they won’t die easily, so I watched till the end, and…OMG the main actor, Jarrod, his head just got chopped off! I didn’t see that coming at all, for that I’m amazed. I just keep watching, and hey! My theory is right, actor won’t die easily, its true his head is gone, alien got his brain. Like any other human, the alien will first kidnap the human, then extract their brain and place the brain in a brainless alien body before the alien can start functioning. But this Jarrod brain, its special somehow, the alien that got Jarrod’s brain can’t function properly, Jarrod just took over the body somehow, so instead of alien killing human, this Jarrod alien kills alien to protect his beloved one. And immediately, Appleseed came across my mind. It’s an animation movie, it’s about a female soldier and her former lover that is now a cyborg who still has feelings for her…

Skyline ends with many things unexplained. And it’s very obvious that there’s going to be another episode….BETTER BE!

Here’s the trailer:

I’ve been listening to this song “If I Had You” by Adam Lambert for 175 times since yesterday. But what I’m going to talk about in this post has nothing to do with that song, look, it’s under “Technology” category.

Erm, not sure how to start with, well, you see, whenever I buy something that is technology related, I always had a hard time choosing this and that. Let’s say I want to get myself a Macbook, I have to consider the time, period, will a new one be coming out next month or so, is this the right time to buy it, will there be a huge difference between the next generation of Macbook and the current one, bla bla bla…Basically, it’s pain in the ass.

Skip the following paragraph if you started to feel bored

Same goes for cameras, like DSLRs, for Canon EOS 3 digits series, a new one will took over almost every year. Since Canon EOS 450D (2008) > Canon EOS 500D (2009) > Canon EOS 550D (2010), so I guess Canon EOS 600D releasing in year 2011. In another words, getting 550D might not be a good time for me since year 2011 just <2 months away. Fortunately, Canon EOS 5D Mark II which I bought March last year is something I feel proud about until today, no regrets. For the first DSLR which has FULL HD video recording feature on a FULL FRAME camera, even until today, it’s still the best HDSLR in the market. Ever since I own this camera, not only my photography skills are improved but my videography skills as well. Frankly speaking, I enjoy the video recording feature more than the traditional DSLR features. It’s just way too awesome…with this camera, you can actually shoot a video that looks very similar to those movies you watch in cinema. You can use all the lenses in the world, attach it on Canon EOS 5D Mark II and you can start record the video. You can get fish eye effect on extreme wide angle lens, ultra zoom effect from telephoto lens, IMBA bokeh effect from lens which has low f number and so many more! And just like how the cinematographer in Hollywood shoots the video, MANUAL FOCUS! Exactly, the professionals film the video completely with manual focus, not like the usual camera you have which has face detection and so, that is auto focus, that completely relies on the camera. Using manual focus, you get to choose the subjects that you want to focus, or even to create more effects. To be able to do manual focus properly is not like ABC that easy. Seriously hard. I noticed in many Asian movies, sometimes they do have some minor mistakes like out of focus which I don’t think it’s done on purpose because it doesn’t feel good at all. Well, I understand, some action shots are especially hard to track the subject because they probably move too fast.

Thanks to Canon EOS 5D Mark II, I’ve learned so many, If I never had you…I wouldn’t be who I am today. And I will definitely not be able to produce so many awesome works…

Let’s see, let me listed down the videos that I’ve produced since March 2009:

1. Hospital Visit (March, 2009)

2. Orphanage Visit (June, 2009)

3. SILK (June, 2009)

4. Fame The Musical – Trailer (July, 2009)

5. Fame The Musical – No Photography Advertisement (July, 2009)

6. Fame The Musical – Switch Off Your Mobile Phone Advertisement (July, 2009)

7. Cempaka Awards Scheme – Platinum Expedition to Penang (July, 2009)

8. Action Cinematic Cempaka Scene (August, 2009)

9. Merdeka Movie 2009 – It’s All About Love (August, 2009)

10. Cempaka Cheras (National) Testimonial Video Class of 2009 (October, 2009)

11. The Blower Advertisement (April, 2010)

12. Moo Woof Advertisement (June, 2010)

13. Amityville 2010 (August, 2010)

14. Flame Effect (September, 2010)

There are more videos, but these are the only, really, officially, done ones. Or I should say, presentable ones. Some of it I can’t upload due to copyright stuff, some I just too lazy to upload.

Not just awesome videos I make, check these out!

The Last Supper Ver. 2 by ~HolyWiz on deviantART

Relax baby by ~HolyWiz on deviantART

Relaxing baby~ This photo is featured in “Digital Camera Magazine” on July 2009 issue.

Oh, and this is me with my camera. I’m loyal to Canon. Photo taken by Vince Cheong, my sampat buddy.

Today I attended DG1001-2′s last Perspective Studies class. Mine was supposed to be next Thursday but I feel lazy to attend that class because I’m already in holiday mood. Unfortunately I still have to finish up my street scene, due date is next Thursday!

Anyways, I just want to share what I’ve learned today, it’s about shadow casting and reflection in perspective. Julian, Perspective Studies lecturer gave us a brief introduction, he said that we’re going to learn this in coming semester or later. I find this shadow casting very interesting, although it’s time consuming but…it’s COOL!

Here’s an example of reflection in perspective:

Here’s the construction of it:

Hope you can learn from this drawing, I’m not a lecturer myself, but I’d be glad to teach anyone who’d like to learn.

Now, an example of shadow casting:

This might be weird to some of you, but my lecturer, Seamus Tan, always say, it’s in perspective, let it be that way. Light source coming from sun, around 9 a.m. That’s why you see the long shadow of the cube.

How do I do it? Here:

Awesomeness! It involves not only the Vanishing Point (VP), but also the Bearing Direction (BD), not Blu-ray disc. The Bearing Direction moves with the sun on the Horizon line, always under the sun. BD is important for the direction of the shadow, because the shadow doesn’t follow the VP.

Here’s another example where I combined both reflection and shadow in perspective, including the text:

I changed the direction of the light source in this example and I move the sun slightly higher so I won’t get the long shadow.

Damn! I’m missing Perspective Studies already…ARGH! My heart will go on…without you~

By the way, I did all these examples in Adobe Photoshop CS5.

Today is the last day of Semester 3 for AD1001-1 students. They all finally feel relieve having a long break ahead of them starting tomorrow! Some of them stay in Klang but today they came to Cheras’ Night Market, with the Cheras gang. We had dinner at “Coffee and Tea”, but guess what, only 2 plates of rice for 9 people, I ate one, the other 8 share a plate of rice. Hehehehe, don’t get me wrong, I’m not being selfish or whatever, just that they prefer to eat snacks at the Night Market instead of a full dinner. We were happy like T.G.I.W. that happy, but at the same time, very exhausted, most of them stayed up the whole night to finish up their last assignment for their last class. I can see from their face, especially the girl sit next to me, hardly hear a word from her. Right after the dinner, we walked the Night Market, buy some drinks, eat some snacks and suddenly, rain poured down the street, it’s like a call, like “it’s time, let’s meet again!”. We were panic, thinking whether we should take a picture before we leave but the rain gets heavier which left us no choice but to say goodbye.

My break is near too, but I just don’t feel the excitement, somehow, there’s a mix feelings and I can’t describe it. Just…uncomfortable…this feeling is making me feel tired, exhausted…like there’s tons of blockages in my heart.

Well, life goes on, whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, I had to live with it, because this is life. Anyway, I got a picture taken somewhere near the Pasar Malam, but it wasn’t taken today, it was last year’s shot. Can’t leave this post picture-less right?

The traffic here is terrible!

Looking at this picture, it reminds me of Perspective Studies! AD1001-1, you missed it don’t you? Especially the lecturer… (chuckle)

Bye Posterous! I started Posterous few days ago, I thought it was cool, it’s still cool but I just love WordPress more.

Hi WordPress! This is not the first time we meet, I’ve lost count.

By the way, here is a screenshot from my Posterous with only 2 posts.

If you think the thumbnail of this post is cool, I got the inspiration from this tutorial.