Digital Art: My Dream Wedding Dress

Every girl has her own dream wedding dress. It has been an ongoing fantasy to wear extravagant luxurious dress with the beautiful fabric and the biggest skirt, preferably in the color of white. Of course nowadays, Wedding dresses do not have to be white. It is even recommended to wear one with light ivory coloring to add a more romantic air to it.

My favorite color - if I were allowed to wear a wedding dress in the color other than white - would be pink. Not shocking pink, though. But lighter dusty pink, veering to purple, even.

This one is not the final design. More like a rough draft to put on the more intricate patterns and embellishments. The blue gems will have to go and will be substituted with smattering of Swarovski crystals and rose gold threads.

The Harmony of Me

Metallic silver and the color purple conjoined and intertwined created an atmosphere of powered modernization with a hint of ancient traditional heritage. That was the first impression I got when I saw the silver Sony Vaio E14P. From the tag line, one can be certain about who will be most suitable to utilize this gadget, the cool and creative people. As an amateur graphic designer, an art enthusiast, and a versatile musician, I sincerely believe it suits me just as well. 

One example that represents the harmonious marriage between modern and tradition is the fusion music. I'm talking about a combination of various musical styles like jazz and rock, with a heavy influence of Gamelan. My favorite band that carries this style of music is Simak Dialog, formed by Riza Arshad and Tohpati. Their albums have been distributed internationally, although only a few of Indonesian people have actually heard them. Their third album "Trance/Mission" has the sound of contemporary music with a touch of mysticism. Another musician I adore is Ananda Sukarlan who has successfully incorporated the pentatonic scales of Gamelan music into modern classical piano pieces. They are whom I would call cool and creative musician of our time. 

In order to follow the footsteps of my idols, naturally I started listening to Gamelan music to understand the mysterious charm of Indonesia's ancient orchestra. The pentatonic tone and echoing vibe created an aura of spiritual calmness reverberating though the soul. In an experiment, I tried merging it with techno beat to counterbalance the calm and collected expression. The sound of course did not come out as beautifully as my idols' creation, but it is a wonderful start. Currently I have been working on a simple piano piece using Gamelan's pentatonic scale. It is a work-in-progress and hopefully one day, I too can give a meaningful contribution to the preservation of traditional art. With that, I think I can call myself a cool and creative person. 

So if you ask me why I think the silver Sony Vaio E14P suits me...

Well, ... Because it's me...

Original Art Print on Demand T-Shirts on RedBubble

If you want a customized t-shirt that can show your uniqueness, you can get them here at RedBubble. There are a lot of one of the kind t-shirt designs on many subjects of your interest.

Music lovers, ethnic enthusiasts, fun loving people, feel free to browse around the ready made designs.

Or if you want a specific design exclusively made for you, feel free to request on the comment box below or directly by email in my contact info.

Cheers!

"Musical Angel Tee 02" T-Shirts & Hoodies by shabbysketchpad | RedBubble

"Musical Angel Tee 02" T-Shirts & Hoodies by shabbysketchpad | RedBubble:

Best Books About Drawing Manga For Beginners

People who want to learn about drawing manga sometimes ask themselves, "Where to start? How?". There are a lot of books about drawing manga out there. But how to choose the best one for you?

Here's a few tips. If you are a true beginner, pick books with the word "Beginner" in the title. These books contain all the basics you need to learn to start drawing manga, usually in a straight forward step-by-step style. Some of those basic information are about drawing the head and face, the body proportion, how to draw adorable manga eyes, and how to draw trendy clothes usually appear in a manga. A few books also hold information about special effects, lighting and shading, and also simple perspective.

Here I list a few manga drawing books for beginners.

Manga for the Beginner: Everything you Need to Start Drawing Right Away!


Manga for the Beginner Shoujo: Everything You Need to Start Drawing the Most Popular Style of Japanese Comics


Mastering Manga with Mark Crilley: 30 drawing lessons from the creator of Akiko


Basic Anatomy for the Manga Artist: Everything You Need to Start Drawing Authentic Manga Characters


Comickers Art: Tools and Techniques for Drawing Amazing Manga

Hand Drawing & Digital Coloring: Uta Hime Niko

New image, titled: Uta Hime Niko. Not sure what the name means, but it sounds cool and manga-like. Roughly it could mean Song Princess Erhu. Maybe...

I did this recently in my crazy phase after watching magical princess anime marathon on youtube. I remembered watching Sailor Moon when I was a little girl. Another reason why I did the picture was the competition posted on The Book Depository. Whoever won would get a set of manga books. Who wouldn't want that? The competition called for a drawing of your original manga or anime style superhero (or superheroine, whichever you like).

Seriously, I'm not sure what possessed me to make this design. It just happened. The costume looks a bit like latex. I was actually going for stretchy blue jeans and pink satin, but it kind of failed to look it. The boots weren't supposed to be brown (at first), but this earthy color was milder and more benign for a heroine. If the character was a villainess, I'd make the boots black with metal spikes. The style was a mix between western square dance fiddler and eastern court musician. Do you think it works?

Like most of the pictures in this blog, the first sketch was hand drawn and then it was colored using computer software such as Adobe Photoshop. So, here it is.

Digital Art: Chinese Fan Dance

A personal favorite Asian traditional dance of mine. The Chinese Fan Dance. I got hooked the first time I saw it on TV. The twirl of elegant fans coupled with the swirl of extravagant dresses was enough to captivate my uncultured eyes.

At first, the image was pencil sketched based on memory of the dance show on TV. The costume might not be accurately traditional, but I like the design. It's simple to edit with my graphic software. I scanned the picture and edited it in Adobe Photoshop, as usual. Selected the outlines, and then filled the selected area with white wash on a different layer. I tend to keep the original intact. I cleaned some mess I made in the original sketch to get clear lines. Made another layer underneath the line art and painted the whole background with black. The white line art image just pops, doesn't it?