A recent comic book project has led me to do some research on how some manga (comics) artists both in Japan and America created the backgrounds for their comic book. At the same time, a friend (James Tan) showed me some nice documentaries on Youtube and these led me to notice a manga ka named Inio Asano 浅野 いにお , who uses photo image for his backgrounds. He did some demo and this got me interested to find out more. There are many tuts on Youtube regarding this technique of converting a photo image into something that resembles a line art for manga, but it is the principle that I am interested in.

Here's a test created from a photo I took while I was in Shinjuku. I think this is apt because I am going to use this to make a test page later, and Japanese scenery would make a good resemblance to a manga.


I would say this is fairly successful after a few trials and error. What I am more interested in is how the buildings look in the converted image. The outline of the buildings are shown quite clearly. The humans would be too realistic to be used in a comic and that would give away the source of my image. Usually readers are not keen to see photo like humans in a manga. I wouldn't myself.

The following is a test page I created using Manga Studio.

By using different parts of a larger image with appropriate cropping, this becomes a workable page in a comic book.

I "pasted" the dialog bubbles from Manga Studio and the panels are generated from a template provided. A page like this only took like 10mins. Of course the consideration is mainly the flow of the panel, the placement of the elements for good composition and design and even readability.

More work has to be done to make the converted image more like a drawing.

Even Inio Asano would put in some hand drawn line work and tonal adjustment for contrast on his converted image. This would be my next step and test.

:D

Sketching a car showroom | Don Low

Throwback: Sketching a car show room... a while ago (maybe about 2 years, not sure whey time passed so fast these days), James and I were attending an exhibition located right above a car show room, like a part of the office lobby portioned out for putting up art exhibits. However we got more interested with looking at the show room below us and seeing the cars from a top down angle just triggered me to want to try drawing them as a challenge. Well you could do that if you are staying in a HDB estate overlooking an open air parking lot. Very common. I don't, so I am thrilled. I am not posting this without making some modification to the original line drawing. So I brought it to Photoshop, and added some halftone effects just to throw in some light and shadow.

Paintings and sketches collectively done over the last 2 weeks of June, not in chronological order.

Sketching at East Coast Road

Watercolour wash added to inked sketched at Craig Road

Watercolour sketch painting of Craig Road

Digital sketch of Bukit Merah View with some festival

Watercolour sketch of Clive Street (Studio Painting)

Digital Sketch of Prima Tower and PSA Port

The last one on the Prima Tower was done with a fountain pen on an A3 Schut hot pressed watercolour paper, the colours were filled in digitally on Procreate with an iPad Pro.



People sketching at Telok Blangah Drive food center.

The box set was acquired from a China online shopping website for about SGD11, or est. USD8 or slightly lesser, not including the shipping charges. Pebeo is a French company that has been producing and manufacturing art materials and tools since 1919, according to their website. I have used their gouache and watercolour in the past and most recently, the mentioned watercolour box set that contains 12 hues, namely: Primary Lemon Yellow, Cadmium Yellow Pale, Primary Red Cadmium, Alizarin Crimson, Primary Phthalo Blue, Cobalt Blue, Permanent Green, Earth Green, Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber, and Ivory Black. As you can see from the scanned colour chart, the pigments are quite light and dry chalky, whilst some pigments are slightly more opaque than others.



The lack of colour saturation in the pigments is an indication that these watercolours are student grade and they are not going to do your painting any good if you are looking for colour saturation, light fastness and better colour transitions.

However, the aluminium box is quite well made and if you do not like the pigments, you can swap out the half pans to be replaced by better pigments. You may also purchase empty half or full pans so you could squeeze fresh paints from tubes and bring out for your plein air session.



But I am not going to dismiss these pigments totally. I think it would still be useful to apply these watercolours on practice sketches or roughs. So I chose 2 pages from my sketchbook to try out these paints. Here are the results.



In general, my experience with these pigments is satisfactory. It took a while to coax the pigments and it also took a few glazed layers to add to the saturation level desired. Just be wary that too many glazed layers would hide your inked lines partially. Adding a light wash over your inked lines is not a problem since the pigments are relatively light. Unless you mind your inked lines being covered by the somewhat chalky and opaque pigments, these Pebeo paints still work. If you are the sort who paints with greys mostly, these give relatively nice greys too.

 

These pigments are not pricey so you cannot expect too much from them. Because these are not pricey, you can use them for sketches, adding a general basic wash over your pencil drawings or roughs and etc. I don't see how they are as bad as described by some reviews.



From these sketches, you can find the different greys I have mixed with the basic 12 half pans. I can vary their temperatures easily and getting them to complement each other. Quality pigments does play an important part in the drawing and painting process, but cheaper student grade paints works the same if you can work around the problems.

 

It began with a rainy morning. I remained in Starbucks to do some warm-up sketches to wade out the shower. Starbucks in Vivo is unique because one side of the cafe faces the Ferry Terminal and the full glass windows allow customers to see what's outside. Its like an alfresco seating but in the comfort of air-conditioning. From inside, you can see part of the Sentosa island, the sea, sometimes the cruise ship, and lots of palm trees, that are my favourite.

Starbucks Cafe in Vivo

I have only printed my business cards a few times in my entire career as an artist, there was a period of more than 10 years I went about doing my business with one. However, in preparation for the USK Symposium 2016 in Manchester, and in anticipation of meeting up with very cool sketcher friends, I have decided to print something to give away this time, especially for those participants who signed up for my workshop. I want everyone to walk away happy. :D So for the first time, I printed postcards with my drawings, sketches and paintings. A total of 5 designs. I also reprinted my name cards as well. I will be waiting for my mini-cards from MOO, these would be arriving end of June, hopefully not later because I will be heading to UK in the second week of July. How exciting.

The print quality is not so bad. In fact I really like the one of the shophouses in sepia tone. I printed these at Bras Basah, at a shop named Misterprint. Comparatively the price is slightly higher than some other printing shops elsewhere, but I quite like their service and print quality. Until I find another better I would probably stick to this one for the time being, for the convenience of its locale and how the shop was run by nice ladies, I'm just kidding. Well, the lady who served me with my print job even went all out to redo my artwork for my rubber stamp design. I suck in preparing stuff for production since this was my first in making a rubber stamp. I knew some places that will simply reject your stuff if it doesn't work for printing.

The key problem with painting and sketching on-location in Singapore is always the weather. What artists need to overcome is the heat and humidity, a combination of both is the hardest to bear. The good thing is, it is not difficult to find a shade to settle in because firstly Singapore is a built up area and there are plenty of trees around, not small ones but huge ones that provide a large enough canopy to shield us from the sun. I can manage rain, but not the sun. Sometimes I wonder how so many others could actually work with the sun directly overhead. We could start the day early like a couple of my friends, but all of us could function properly early in the morning. There is an option to paint in-doors from photos so I tried that. Its great but it lacks the excitement of painting in the public areas.

I keep my sketching and painting tools simple so I am not lugging anything too heavy on my shoulder. Recently my shoulder hurts a little from carrying my shoulder bag. I forgot to switch side. Here's a glimpse of my palette that I carry around everyday in my bag. The brush is a collapsible Da Vinci kolinsky watercolour brush that is kept amongst the other pens I carry with me. A small bottle for washing and painting. Not a great idea but I have another drinking bottle to replace dirty water once in a while.



I brought a lot more during my Bali Trip; an additional mobile watercolour box with 24 half pans. Its a metal box so it weights a little more. I used it on the third day so most of the time it stayed in the hotel room. I bought a spray bottle to wet the palette and the paints since Bali could be quite dry and painting in the heat tends to accelerate that.



The sketchbook is a Clairefontaine A5 landscape format book with good sizing so the ink and pigment wouldn't seep or bleed on the surface. The paper holds ink very well but maintains a fair bit of good absorption so ink lines tend not to skip except for very little inconsistency here and there, especially on the reverse side. Other than that its a great book. For certain trips I would bring a gouache white and a black, and more painting brushes. Normally the bigger brushes are used in the studio. Its important to take a picture like this to remind yourself what to bring on the next trip. Its good to list them down but I tend to be more visual that with texts.



My favourite sketching and drawing approach is simply using black inks and any implements to deliver the ink lines are welcomed in my bag. But I cannot carry everything with me. I used to do that in the past because I do not know what I prefer to draw with, or if I was experimenting with different tools. Now I have a few favourites: Pentel brush pen (medium), a Hero fountain pen, Pentel brush pen with grey ink, a Sailor fountain pen, a Pelikan fountain pen with brown ink, 2 water brush pens, and 2 ink bottles etc., the pic above showed the time when I brought more pens with me. Currently I have taken out more. I have long realised I couldn't possibly sketch with everything.

So if you carry less with you, you will probably manage the weight better, and the advantage with that is, you will not be tired out too soon, and in turn not be affected by the heat as well. By reducing the number of factors that will wear you down, you would enjoy the sketching and painting process later. :D

We banded together to visit Bali again. Each of us has gone on our own trips but not as a group specially to sketch and paint. I have always wanted to dedicate a trip just for that so I eagerly agreed to visit Bali again with my friends (James Tan and Teoh Yi Chie). It has been a wonderful 4 day trip, eating, painting, sketching and going for massage. Unforgettable! Here's a video I filmed and edited of the sketchbook I brought along with me to Bali.

 

Besides, I sketched and painted on loose sheets of watercolour papers too. The one below was done at the Elephant Cave Temple, Goa Gajah. A temple ceremony was going on at the same time so I wasted to time sketch the process. However it was over sooner than I expected. I could only manage to capture a couple of people praying and being blessed by the priests. Some lingered to pray even after the ceremony was over. This gave me some extra minutes to sketch more. I didn't fill in the colours until I got back from the trip.



While we were having lunch at the Tegalallang Rice Terrace Cafe, I did 2 watercolour sketches of the rice terrace, one which was not completed. The first one was meant to be a warm up (shameless defending myself for the lack of skills to complete a good one).



Then the second one which I couldn't finish. It was only 3 weeks after I came back I did complete it in the studio, along with a painted watercolour of a Balinese girl carrying a ceremonial umbrella known as "Tedung" in the Balinese language, done in the studio from a photo I took. The one regret I have from the trip was not being able to paint or sketch more of the Balinese women.



At Gunung Kawi I did another ink and watercolour painting which I completed on location, like a plein air painting, enduring the heat, humidity for a single piece for about one and a half hour. Enough to make me perspire profusely throughout and getting a rash. But it was all worth it.




And finally a triptych of Goa Gajah done with Pentel Brush pen on Saunders watercolour papers. This is my favourite and I would be scanning them in hires before I frame them up for display in the studio. I wish I could have done more during the trip.

[by Don Low, Singapore] I knew I came to the right location (Geylang Lor 31) to sketch because it felt like a happy place. An empty table in a kopitiam (food and coffee place) await me. It has a good angle overlooking a handsome 2-storey shophouse painted in a beautiful coat of subdued amber. On the front facade hung a sign that says "lim kopi" which literally means "drink coffee" in half Hokkien and Malay. I ordered my drink and happily settled down to sketch. A group of uncles in their 60s were drinking happily at a table beside me, and was bantering loudly how life was hard on them. I wasn't really listening intently because I wasn't very fluent in the Hokkien language they were using except for some curse words, but I mindfully told myself I have to draw them later.



Shortly after, one of the uncle, out of curiosity, came over to watch what I was doing. When I said hi to him, he started sharing about his interest in art but couldn't draw for nuts. He told me he loved to watch artists draw or paint, turning blank canvases into works of art. In simple words, he said a good drawing needs a good angle, which I think what he meant was composition and design or depth. When I told him he said it well, he let out a loud satisfying laugh. I sketched from 8pm to 1030pm.



 All the while he was going back and forth from his table to mine whenever he needed to smoke. I counted, within the 2.5 hours I was drawing, he has already puffed 5-6 cigs. When he laughed, he would be wheezing and letting out a raspy smoker's cough.  I have half the mind to tell him he has to stop smoking so much. When his friends left, he asked to sit at the same table with me. That was when the real conversation began.

 

Uncle's name is Tan Hou Ping (*uncle - a respectful way to address an elderly person). He proudly announced that he is 67 years old (younger than my parents), has served in the National Service as a pioneer, and is a grandfather of 6 grandchildren. He is happily semi-retired, living with his wife apart from his children, and is financially independent. He doesn't do much now except some simple exercises in the morning, odd jobs in the day and then drink with his friends in the evening. Most of the time he dominated the conversation as what most uncles would do. When it was time (already 1030pm) for me to leave, I decided to take a selfie with Mr Tan who obliged happily. I told him I would be writing about him and our new found friendship in my diary. He seemed happy to hear that and showed reluctance for me to go. He sounded like he has a lot more to tell me.

A friend would say he sketches so he remembers. By dating the sketches and short descriptions of what, where and why, the motivation behind a sketch becomes apparent, and more directed. Therefore it is not a random act of simply drawing for the sake of drawing something. Most people would write a diary at the end of the day, about their day, what they have done. Artists, I know of one, do that too by drawing the events of the day in a sequential narrative like in a comic. The latter takes a lot more time and effort, to recall and to draw. A diary needs an angle too, and not simply a record of things and events in a chronological manner.

Watercolour (traditional) medium versus iPad Pro Digital Sketching



Objectively it is not difficult to compare. Both have their own advantages and disadvantages. Both mediums show some similarities and of course many more differences. Some may like one and dislike the other. Some, like me, show equal liking for both. I so think the iPad Pro with Procreate would be a great combination and good opportunity to marry both digital and traditional mediums together.

 Sometimes iPad is my preferred choice of drawing platform because it is convenient. Like I said before it only require an Apple Pencil. No fuss with filling ink, skipped lines, ink splatter and so forth. And henceforth, over time, drawing with the iPad can eventually get a little monotonous, especially when you are through with customising your own brushes, making new ones and experimenting with them to make every brush stroke looking natural, and mastering them.

To make the drawing process with the iPad Pro to feel less digital, I try to avoid using functions like, zoom-in, zoom-out, or even Undo. I even allow some marks that were caused by failed palm rejection. I would draw with one layer, even with adding colours, so that the process feels like drawing on paper, well, as much as possible.





However, no matter how you try to reverse the digital process, nothing beats the paper texture, the feel of the tooth against your pen, causing skipped lines, splatter, scratches and much more. Though these things can be created in the digital medium (some artists actually went through lotsa pain to emulate the traditional look and feel), they cannot get as spontaneous as drawing and painting on paper.

Take for example the painting above. It was done with watercolor on Saunders paper NOT. Half way through the painting, it started to rain and the rain got quite heavy. I was fortunately sat under a little awning of a restaurant so I was kept dry throughout. But the painting was outside the awning, though I tried to keep it sheltered, the paper got wetter and wetter as I painted. But I loved the result!! Something that is pretty hard to achieve in a digital medium.

In conclusion, just stick to whatever brings you joy in drawing!

With iPad Pro, Apple Pencil & Procreate

For Singapore, Mothers' Day falls on 8 May this year, 2016. Naturally, it is right to celebrate this grand occasion with a sumptuous meal, however it could get a little tricky to get a table in a restaurant in a shopping mall, because everyone would be sharing the same idea of celebrating Mothers' Day with a family dinner. Quite expectedly, the mall was crowded but not as crowded as what I have expected. As we approached the restaurant we wanted to eat in, we saw a little line, and the server was busy with several customers in the line. When we were attended to, we were told we have to order set meals because À la carte orders were not available on Mothers' Day. Well, we walked away as we thought it wasn't worth the money. A simple set meal for 4 could cost at least SGD150 for 6 dishes, including desert. We reckoned we couldn't eat that much too. We walked down to the first level of Parkway Parade (recent it caught fire and has to be closed for a day on 16 May 2016) and decided to settle in "Chicken Up", a Korean fried chicken restaurant. We loved fried chicken but we also ordered for mom a Ginseng Herbal Chicken Soup that was shared among four of us. Eventually we couldn't finish the meal and have to packed to go. The entire dinner cost about SGD80 plus.

During the course of dinner, I drew the busy scene in front of me, with some personal interpretations and capturing some likeness as well. I simply populated the entire sketch with people coming and going, usually from memory. The trick is to remember (as much as possible) the shape that constitute to the figure, pose and so forth. Every figure has its unique stance, pose and the sum of it is the shape or silhouette we register in our mind, more or less with or without the details. Some knowledge of anatomy would be helpful, certainly the ability to draw the proportion is good too.

Overall I am satisfied with the result of this sketch. The composition was balanced with the strategic placements of the darks creating a rhythm leading the eyes from one point to another and back again. The white spaces also create spots of resting areas for the viewer's eyes but also place certain emphasis on specific areas of the sketch/ drawing. Sometimes not much planning was made during the process of sketching, most of the time many decisions were made somewhat intuitively. Draw more think less.... hmmmm.

Since the launch of the hardware last year in Oct 2015, there have been many positive reviews by users all over the world. My rating for the Apple Pencil and the technology behind it: Awesome, and a 5 Stars rating. I am always attracted to the ease of use of a new hardware. In this case, all you need to do to connect the Apple Pencil to the iPad Pro is by sticking the Pencil's rear end into the charging port. There is no need for syncing to be done. There is no calibration. The Apple Pencil works like a charm with Procreate once the app is activated.

I am not totally bought into drawing digitally yet, in contrary to all my friends' presumption. I actually draw more with pen on paper and on my newly bought iPad Pro, which is already about 1.5 months old. However, my time for sketching has been limited these days, as I am currently teaching several classes and 4 days in a work week. I would actually draw a little when I have assigned work to my students. Most of the time I would practice sketching them as they work.

Hanging out in the cafe was fun too if I have my iPad Pro with me. I am not going to be deterred by dim lighting anymore. Drawing with Procreate offers me with lotsa versatility. With all the digital advantages I have on hand, I have kept in mind to not to rely too much on the digital format, so besides the eraser tool and scaling function, I have tried to minimise the use of other functions, even avoiding the use of zooming in to draw details. This is actually made possible with the use of Apple Pencil, which has a good "point" just like a sharpened pencil or fine point pen. I could see what and where I am drawing now because of that.


Here's a good example of not making my digital drawing look to digital. I have kept the toning or shading rough and "dirty". I avoided blending or creating gradients, even filling out large areas with blacks or a shade. You get a little impatience sometimes with drawing digitally but I tried my best not to use shortcuts. Fortunately, Procreate does not have too many tools like Photoshop, so doing that is not so difficult.


Overall, drawing digitally allows me draw much faster and more without having to carry with me too many things. Adding white for example was easy in this case. Not using transparency tools, but simply controlling the pressure on the pen to get different degrees of lightness. I am still trying to make my lines for gestural, just needing practice on the tool.