I have two pieces of exciting news for you!

I WON FIRST PLACE! 

The first news is I recently won first place in the Sketch Club Competition. Yay!

The theme on this comp was ‘Poems’ where we were to draw art with our original poems. I used one from my short story “The Third Heaven”. Those who have read this may recognise it Yes, that one with the Angel of Death who fell in love with a mortal and went on strike against God. I drew a sketch of weeping Azrael sitting atop the cathedral to go with the words.

Anyway, I am so stoked that the SC community loved it that much, it won first place. Details on other winners and entries can be found here.

A DREAM COME TRUE!

The second news is my dream has finally come true Yay! That is the dream of creating a multimedia work combining art, music and words into one. Some of you know I have been striving towards this goal since I finished my novel. My two current projects ‘Lost In Colours‘ and ‘Mission One‘ are kind of milestones towards it,  but not quite ‘it’ yet because the music was not my own, mostly rearranged samples from Acid or GarageBand; and both projects are incomplete one-minute-length animated episodes.

This recent one is the FIRST EVER complete, stand alone, three-minute-length animated feature! Well, it is a music video actually, yes with our own original song and all! (oh gosh, pardon my voice, haha) Of course I did not do it alone, I had help from my good friend Isaia . Yes. We have become somewhat of a team lately. I suppose it’s because we work so well together.

I cannot tell you how proud and happy we are with this project. We both worked so hard on it, pouring everything we got to make it as wonderful as could be. It was such an amazing experience, I still can’t believe we finished it!

Isaia and I did everything from scratch and I mean everything…

The song

When I discovered Isaia was not only an incredible artist but guitarist as well, I knew I just HAD to write a song with this dude. Internet really makes the world a much smaller place.

Between Rome and Sydney, we have no convenient overlapping timezones to discuss and jam, but distance doesn’t matter to us. The song came to fruition as though it had a life of its own.

The words

Writing the lyrics was a funny experience for me. It brought me right back to uni days when I was all mellow and cranky, haha. I apologise in advance for the whiny words but they did come from the heart. Once. And I think they ring true for anyone who has been trapped in the land of the broken-hearted.

The art

We’ve collaborated on the art front so many times now, so the sketches were actually the easiest part of the project. We just fell into our roles seamlessly: Isaia with his amazing landscapes and I, the character. He helped with the animation too this time, using the SC recording feature. Everything you see on this video was drawn on an ipad using the Sketch Club app. I tell you. That app changed my life!
I must also give credits to my talented husband, Glenn, who helped with the sound mixing and video rendering. I already took him out to dinner as a thank you

I hope you enjoy the video, my peeps!!! Take care and have a wonderful weekend!

Long time no post! So sorry, but here I am, I’m still alive

I have been busy drawing, and doing more fun collaborations with various artist friends from Sketch Club. Today, I thought I’d share with you this particular one: “Mission One”, because I am sooooo proud with what we recently completed

This is an animation project I have been working on with my good friend Isaia, who has been a huge source of inspiration and learning for me in the digital drawing department. We have been working on it for about three months now, and it has kind of evolved from a simple break-in idea to a semi full-blown story.

Anyway, the most recent episode took us about three weeks to do because we both really wanted to achieve the best in the details, lighting, and everything else. The feature itself only ended up being… one minute and seven seconds. Ha! But it was sooo worth it. We had so much fun doing it and I am very happy we finished it.

Anyway, here it is. Enjoy!

Click here to watch Episode One and Two.

So sorry I have not blogged since… gosh, February?? Oh, I should be ashamed of myself. Apologies. I have been busy with the real world, but I haven’t lost sight of what’s important: getting creative.

I have done a few more art collaborations since last I shared with you, but perhaps I should concentrate on my own for this post.

Kookabura

My friend Koban did a tutorial on drawing feathers and I drew a Kookabura for practice. Koban’s tutorial can be found here

Koban’s artwork can be found here.

Curiosity

I needed to practice shading and filters. I like how this one turned out, simple and lovely, I thought.

Lescot’s Girl

My friend Lescot did a tutorial on vectors and I followed his instructions so I called this one Lescot’s girl. He did a video recently on vectors, which is just plain awesome. Click here to watch it.

Lescot’s artwork can be found here.

Sacrifice

This is one of my personal favourites. I just love the idea of a vampire in love with the sun. I tried to capture that precious impossible moment where they are together for a few seconds before he dies.

Paradise

I’m very proud of this one. It’s my first time EVER to draw a skull. It was horrendously difficult and more so because I had not drawn ‘dark’ much either. This turned out beautiful, I thought and I won twenty-five dollar gift voucher for it

Reach

I drew this for the Sketch Club Spirit competition and wrote this little poem to accompany the sketch:

There is a star for everyone
They grow on trees
In secret caves filled with
Floating dreams
I found mine
But I could not reach it
Until you came

I did not at all expect the success of this one, it was overwhelming. When I posted this on Sketch Club, comments, votes, hearts, they just kept pouring in. This has become my highest rated sketch in that community. By the way, that little robot is Sketch Club’s mascot

Essence Of Life

I drew this one purely because I missed Stargate, haha, but this also turned out unexpectedly popular with the Sketch Club community. I do like how it turned out, more Zen than I planned, but I love it.

Wistful

This was for one of the daily challenges, to draw how you feel that day. I felt… dreamy, so I drew a fairy.

All right, that’s it for now Will share more later. Thanks again, my peeps, for the visit.

Also, when you get a chance please check out my new Videos page. I have updated it with my most recent videos and tutorials too.