Circular Combustion

An experiment with Illustrator's Transform Again tool. Here's the result several Ctrl-Ds, shape cutting, and random text placement.

Inkjeticised Serviette

Confused yet? Well, this is the result of having a too many serviettes and an empty inkjet cartridge. I took a liking for the colour and so, my "creative" juices flowed and I came up with this series of "abstract art".

One says Jeeb - my name, one says So Sol - which is actually two failed attempts of writing Soul thanks to my excellent motor skills. And the last one is the true abstract artwork, a result of me facing the fact that I can't write Soul on the serviette, and that I had run out of serviettes.

50th Merdeka T-Shirt - My first T-shirt production

I've always dreamed of seeing how my designs would look like printed on t-shirt. Well, this year I finally got to fulfill that dream and I designed a t-shirt to commemorate Malaysia's 50th Merdeka (Independence) celebration. Of course, from the marketing point of view, we could all relate to this, since most of us are Malaysians in Malaysia (uh-huh).

Alright, I admit it, the graphics used for my t-shirt is not new. I have created the set of cute Malaysians a year ago, so that saved me some time. Originally, the illustration was used for a book cover. I've posted this earlier on in my DeviantART account, but anyway this is the 2nd reuse of these set of characters. A few people have expressed how they like the design, so I thought since the appeal factor is there, why don't I use this for my t-shirt project? Technically, the t-shirt design is the 3rd time I've used the same characters. Oh well, they say third time's the charm hoho.

What's the design like? Well, you can see from the photos enclosed with this post, but I'll explain briefly about my design decisions.

• The colours blue, yellow, red and white represents Malaysia's flag colours. The three row of boxes (red, yellow and blue) as the background represents harmony.
  
• The cute characters represents unity and harmony (Redundant, I know, but it does put more emphasis on the peaceful nature of Malaysia).

• "50" cutout within the row of boxes is to signify the 50th Merdeka celebration
• Fonts are chosen to appeal to an audience of a wide age range.

• The words "I'm 50" at the back is what I like most, where its purpose is to strike the curiousity of people looking at the shirt. For example, people would wonder why is a teenager wearing something that says I'm 50 when he's only in his teens? And that would hopefully make them want to look at the front print. Well, that was my idea anyway. Also, the four lines is there to not only signify the Malaysian flag, but to standardise with the graphics at the front.
  
  
  
• A small flag on the right hand sleeve. Something that was suggested by my cousin. This goes with the Merdeka theme while still being fashionable (I think), you still have the flag to be proud of.

Overall, I'm proud of this production, and I thank all that have supported me by buying a few from me. I've learned about the problems that come when converting your digital illustration to t-shirt printings. I've learned about what affects quality and that marketing is important. I'll probably try and get some other t-shirts out in the future. Below are the photos of the actual t-shirt worn by willing models :P

Car Illustrations

I'm passionate about cars, I remember drawing cars since I was in kindergarten. So, what better subjects to illustrate and practice my pen tool than with cars. Tracing and vectorising cars is a great way to get yourself acquainted with the pen tool in Illustrator as it forces you to make accurate lines and shapes. Heck, I couldn't draw a car, my hands are too shaky which is an annoying problem to have when you want to be an aspiring artist.

One day, I had too much time and no work at my old workplace, and I decided to really get into detailed vectors. It took ages but the satisfaction I had was liberating. Its a vector of the Brabus rims you see above. Just to show the difference in detail (if you could see it that is), the first pic below (Murcielago Taxi) is my first car vector ever, and it was completed during my multimedia course. I gave up on adding more details because I got tired of trying to master the pen tool.

To tell you the truth, I haven't quite mastered the pen, but every practice makes me more and more comfortable with it. And as a result, I started to love vectors. Check out the other car vectors I produced.

With the exception of the blue Mitsubishi Concept X, all of these cars were created in Illustrator. The Concept X was traced in Flash.

Please visit my Deviantart to check out more illustrations. Click here

Can I has my own cat post?

I'm a big cat lover and after being told by Dina about I Can Has Cheezburger (http://www.icanhascheezburger.com), I instantly fell in love with the site. Its a site with plenty of cat pictures with captions that make you laugh. That's three things that I like on each of these images - cats, creativity and humour. I took a picture of Kusa's Zoe and I decided to submit my entry using their proprietary lolcat builder. Check it out...

Unfortunately, it wasn't good enough to be featured on the main page, but I still like it :)

Speaking of cats, I had a cat once, her name was Juju. Why Juju? That's because she's a bit cross-eyed and juling is cross-eyed in Bahasa Malaysia, so Juju is short for Juling-juling. She lived with the family for 13 years, spawning 2 children. Yep, Juju was a great cat, and mostly responded to me, I was her favourite. Sadly, she died last year. I made an artwork of her, as a tribute.

So what happened to her two sons? Smokey, a real life version of Tom from Tom and Jerry, escaped from a vet. Truly disappointing, especially when you give all your trust to the vet. KucingKecik (funny name), decided to live with my neighbour a few houses away. Last I heard, he's dead.

And that my readers, is the end of my cat post.

Panda-monium

Since this is a new site, most of you wouldn't know that I have an obsession with pandas. Just recently I stumbled upon Spoon Graphics' Monster Character Tutorials and I was interested with the coloring method, particularly with the stroke outside and inside command to add more depth to the illustration. I decided to create a panda character inspired by those tutorials. Below is the result:

I'm happy with this, though its not the cutest of pandas. I have a problem though... I have no idea how to scale the image bigger in Illustrator without slimming the lines. I tried outlining the strokes, but it automatically strokes it as if I've set it to stroke in the center. That's a problem, since this method requires the stroke to be aligned either outside or inside of the shape. If anyone knows how to tackle this problem, do leave a comment here.

While I'm at it, I'll just show more of my panda inspired artworks below:

Created in Flash, sketched with a Wacom Graphire. Tried to go for the action hero panda theme.

This one is just a different variation to the previous one, crosseyed and a "Ooo-ing" mouth. My goal? To annoy people heheh.

And this one is not a about a panda, but I did include a panda plushie there. I enjoyed creating this illustration. Made from scratch with a tablet and OpenCanvas.


Just found this in my DeviantART account. Was looking high and low for this. In this one, I just wanted to go for that annoying face look.

Easy Malay Book Illustrations

Last year, I got a freelance job to draw some simple illustrations for a tourist guide book. The book - Easy Malay, serves as a translator from English to Bahasa Malaysia. I'm not particularly good with drawing cartoons or caricatures, but I did try to make the illustrations look interesting after much trial and errors. Method? Sketched on Photoshop, and inked in Flash. Here are some of them: