I hope you bear with me while I share lots of sketching posts. I’m keeping up with my daily habits, and sketching is one of them. Tonight while was looking at the timelapse video that Procreate made, I noticed an interesting progression as I refined the drawing.
At the beginning of the video, the sketch looked like the artwork that I used to make in college and right after I graduated. I was really into Japanese ukiyo-e art at the time, so that’s where I got most of my influence. That was around 1990:
Then I noticed the drawing went through a couple other phases, which are reflected in my more recent sketchbook drawings from a couple years ago:
And then it progressed to the style that I have been kind of stuck at since late last year:
Finally, we end up with today’s evolution:
These days I am looking towards my favorite illustrators, so of course, I try to emulate them. I love Eguchi Hisashi‘s work, so I take many cues from his work. Also, Ilya Kuvshinov is awesome, and I recently discovered Aka, whose work blows me away.
As I continue to practice, I’m excited to see at what pace I can continue to improve. It’s a fun hobby, and so satisfying. And it makes me look at other illustrations and art in a different way as I try to decipher how artists draw different facial features, the color palettes they use, and the way they draw lines and blocks of solid color. It’s fascinating.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/125 sec, ISO1250 “iPad Sketch” Cedar Park, 2019
こんばんは。How’s it going?
I’ve been using the iPad and Procreate for my sketching this past month and I love it. I can make edits easily and can pick up where I left off immediately. And that convenience means that I can make adjustments to a previous sketch at any time in the future. Not only can I do that, but I can create duplicates of the drawing and try different things. Digital drawing is so great!
But that got me wondering about when to call something “finished”. On a few of my sketches, I think I am done, so I share the image on the blog, ArtStation, Flickr, and Instagram, but later I figure out a new way to do something or notice a part of the sketch that I can do better, so I’ll go back and make the changes. I guess it’s like George Lucas going back and re-editing his Star Wars movies many years down the line.
So with the knowledge that I will most likely make changes to existing artwork, I don’t know if I can ever call a drawing “finished”.
I’ve come to the conclusion that my digital art can constantly evolve, and those moments in time when a drawing is shared are just milestones in something’s existence. So, as I improve in my drawing and become more proficient with my tools, I definitely want to re-visit my earlier sketches and make them better, and won’t feel guilty about doing that. I suppose making a snapshot of earlier “versions” is maybe something that should be more intentional. By snapshot, that could simply be exporting a jpg and saving it with a unique name.
Who knows… I may end up with several version of the same drawing, but Monet completed over 250 paintings of water lilies, so I guess it’s okay. 😄
Here’s a sketch that I worked on tonight. I’m happy how it turned out and was ready to share on Instagram, but I can see a few things I want to update or try. For instance, I’d like to see if adding a sleeve instead of her bare arm would look nice, and maybe try adjusting the position of the eyes. If you have good eyes, you might notice that the first photo in this post has some differences in the drawing as well! I took that photo thinking I was done, but then the mouth and nose looked a little too simple and primitive so I had to edit them. But anyway, here’s a snapshot of the progress:
Do you know that period of time when you are about 30 and many of your friends around you are getting married? Well, that was 20 years for us, and since then we haven’t gone to many weddings. However, just within the past half year, we’ve gone to three! And the ages of the couples has varied quite a bit. First, my brother (six years my elder) got married, then some friends (10 years younger than me) got married, and lastly, my nephew (23 years younger) got married.
And the types of weddings were also quite different. California beachside with Mexican food, Hill Country with Texas barbecue, and historic San Antonio with chicken, steak, etc. None of these were at a church and thinking about it, I guess church weddings aren’t as popular as the used to be. But one thing is always the same: weddings are perhaps the most emotional occasion for the newlyweds, so it is an honor to be part of them. And they are always fun!
This latest wedding for my nephew was great. The food was excellent, with a nice bar (Suntory Toki whiskey!). There were oysters on the half-shell, shrimp cocktail, smoked salmon, Beef Wellington, and jalapeño poppers. And those were just the appetizers! It was also really nice to see my extended family, some of whom I only see at family reunions. I have to say that family weddings are the best since we get to welcome new members into our crazy Leesang/Fujimoto clans.
With SmugMug’s recent purchase of Flickr, there’s been a lot of renewed interest in former users to come back and try it again. Which is funny to me since there are plenty of us who have been actively using it non-stop. This tweet by Om Malik, in particular, got me thinking about it a bit.
I never fully understood why people were so harsh on Flickr. I mean, sure, they never made the jump to mobile like other companies did and innovation has been slow, but their web service has been consistently good. To my knowledge, Flickr has never gone backward or screwed their users… it’s just continued to exist, and those who were happy with it stayed with it.
I’m pleased that more people are coming back, for the sole reason that this surge in popularity will ensure that Flickr exists into the distant future. I don’t really care about returning photographers being excited about a “new” photo community. The photographers who stayed active on Flickr are most likely already satisfied with the groups they’ve been a part of since years of community have been building organically.
Like anyone, I’d welcome some shiny new features or slicker design, but honestly, I’m just happy that Flickr is a simple, straightforward, and hassle-free way to share and discuss photos. As it always has been.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/3.6, 1/55 sec, ISO3200 “On the Wrist” Cedar Park, 2019
こんばんは。How’s it going?
Today’s photo is of my newest watch, a Seiko SNDA27 Chronograph. If you read my previous post about the Casio MTP4500D-AV watch, you know that it wasn’t quite the right watch for me. However, this Seiko SNDA is a model that I’ve been looking at and fits my requirements nicely. In fact, it’s close to the perfect chronograph for me.
The model that I purchased has a dark green face, with orange seconds hands. The watch also came in the SNDA57 version with black face and red dials, which I think is cooler, but since my other two Seikos have black faces, I think the green face is a good complement to my other watches. Plus the orange hands are really sweet! In all honesty, I searched for the black version for a while, but since it was discontinued a few years ago, it’s difficult to find except at extremely inflated prices. It was originally sold for about US $100, but now it is commonly available on eBay for maybe $400 or more. That’s crazy!
Anyway, the green model is more commonly available for about US $125, and I actually found it new for US $116 at Walmart.com (from a reseller on their site). Interestingly, I got the last watch from that seller, and I now see that the same watch is selling from another seller at Walmart.com for US $190. What a crazy market!
The Seiko SNDA27 comes with a green nylon band, which is not bad if you like the color, but I immediately switched it out for a black silicone band (in the photos).
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/4, 1/120 sec, ISO6400 “Three Seikos” Cedar Park, 2019
Next, I tried a black zulu strap on it and it looks even better. The lugs of the watch stick out kind of far, so the 43 mm diameter SNDA27 wears larger than my 43 mm SKX007, which has shorter lugs. The zulu strap sticks out a bit more than the super-flexible, wrist-hugging silicone strap, so it actually makes the 43 mm watch wear/look better on my 6 3/4 inch wrist. Also, the zulu strap has matte brushed metal buckles which match the matte steel case of the watch perfectly.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO640 “Seiko SNDA27” Cedar Park, 2019
My complaints about the Casio’s difficult-to-read watch face do not apply to the Seiko, which has a smart and simple design. There’s nothing unnecessary on the watch face. It’s so easy to read, and even has a more precise time measurement of 1/20th of a second compared to the Casio’s 1-second measurement. In the photo below, I can quickly see the chronograph reading of 4 minutes, 41.1 seconds. What a difference between the Seiko and the Casio! The contrast between the hands and the face on the Seiko makes it easy to tell normal time at a glance, and the lume is typical Seiko – bright and long-lasting.
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/2.8, 1/100 sec, ISO800 “Seiko SNDA27” Cedar Park, 2019
I really love my Seiko SKX007 dive watch and Seiko SNK809 field watch, and my new Seiko SNDA27 chronograph fits in nicely as my third Seiko. Now if I can only find someone to buy my Casio chronograph… Is anyone interested? 😀
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/8, 1/100 sec, ISO250 “Blue Hour” Cedar Park, 2019
I went outside to bring the garbage can back to the house when I saw that the sky was looking pretty awesome. I grabbed my camera and took a few snaps to stitch together in Photoshop. I think it turned out pretty good! It’s amazing how good the stitching technology is these days. I remember having to manually align layers in Photoshop and do quite a bit of blending manually. Now it’s almost entirely automated. Very cool!
Photo info: FUJIFILM X100T, 23mm, f/8, 1/120 sec, ISO200 “Last Light” Cedar Park, 2019
I hope you had a nice Wednesday!
またね～
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