PHIL CHEN'S BLOG

Spider-Ghouls!

2010-04-06T23:50:00.000-07:00

Well, earlier I posted some quick roughs of the ghouls for this Arabian themed project I'm working on. Here they are again with some more development.

Sushinobi: A 5 Ninja Star Restaurant

2010-04-01T01:21:00.000-07:00

So this is just a fun concept I had in my head for a little while which I decided to base my "theme park" project on. It got pushed towards the more fantastical, when originally, it was going to be slightly exaggerated but still within the confines of reality. Spent too much time on my rough sketches and other projects because I felt ahead, but sadly it ended up not having the amount of finish I would like. I'll redo it later, in a style more like what I did for the characters/staff.

Canadian History Project

2010-03-25T21:44:00.000-07:00

These two illustrations were part of a project for my Information Illustration class. There's a portrait of J.B. Tyrrell, the man who discovered the first Albertosaurus fossil in Alberta and the namesake of the Royal Tyrrell Museum. The other is a spot of an Albertosaurus' fossilized skull.

Concepts

2010-03-25T20:49:00.000-07:00

Desert environment and quick designs of ghouls, which originate from Arabian folklore. Infused elements of trap-door spiders and camel spiders, and think I may push that even further.

Figure Drawings

2010-03-25T20:41:00.000-07:00

*Nudity Warning

Just some figures, being drawn.

Character Roughs

2010-03-17T00:35:00.000-07:00

Some rough stuff. Just playing around, really. Arabic warrior/inventor with robotic augmentation.

Now, for a little something different.

2010-03-06T02:04:00.000-08:00

So, my friends are designing a fashion magazine and they needed an opening illustration and a few spots for a series of articles. Anyways, they thought to ask me to give it a shot, since they were waiting for permission to use illustrations from another illustrator. They wanted something loose, expressive and to have it look like fashion illustration and also relate to the articles. This was the result, and I don't think they'll be using it, but it was an interesting experiment.

Here's my attempt at creating a loose, pretty, fashion-illustration-like, editorial illustration. The right side was supposed to bleed over, and it would've been a 2 page spread with the text/type/copy on the right side.

Elasmotherium

2010-03-06T01:42:00.000-08:00

Here's the rendered version of the Elasmotherium. Yeah, I accidentally labelled it as Coelodonta in an earlier post. Good thing it's just a class project and I caught it before it was due. Doing the hair was a good study, although I still could shade this a bit more. It was fun.

Monster Mash-Ups!

2010-02-24T21:06:00.000-08:00

Rough concept sketches in Photoshop of this idea I had of combining the concept behind The Deadliest Warrior with monsters. Specifically Hollywood/Universal Monsters and/or monsters than can create more of themselves; zombies, vampires, werewolves, mummies (by mummifying other people), etc. The idea could be that these monsters have converted almost all of humankind and are now at war with each other, so each type of monster would be populating the most powerful countries in the world. Anyways the idea still needs tweaking, so therefore the concepts will change as well, so these are just really rough.

Frankenstein's Monster as a Boxer/Street Fighter.

Viking/Barbarian Werewolf.

Ghost Samurai.

Mummy Ninja.

Gill-Man/Creature From Black Lagoon Gladiator.

Environments

2010-02-24T20:57:00.000-08:00

One of my goals is to get better at environments. It is probably one of my weakest areas, although architecture and environments are something that I'm really interested in personally. Here is some process for some of the environments I have been working on. I haven't scanned the sketches, but I think that the concept was better represented by my quick sketches so I may put them up eventually.

For Ages 6 and Up

2010-02-18T03:06:00.000-08:00

For the last part of this art-dump, it's a page from a children's book project. The story was something that I just came up with, with classic adventure stories in mind. At first I was thinking of allegories and morals to base the story from, but I started to just think of my childhood and stories like The Time Warp Trio, Where the Wild Things Are and Alice in Wonderland; stories where kids would just get whisked away to a magical land and the whole basis of the story was the adventure and the goal is to get home.

I titled the story The Other Side of the Night and it was about this boy who gets lured into another world (one filled with adventure and whimsy of course) through a series of unusual events. The scan turned out a bit blurry...

Acrylic on Masonite.

MEGA-FaUNa

2010-02-18T03:05:00.000-08:00

This is what I've loved working on the most lately. Clean, simple illustrations of megafauna for Information Illustration. Oh my god, it's been satisfying my craving for rendering. I've been wanting to do more serious and clean drawings, and while I enjoy painting and stylizing as well, I've been itching to do more serious and realistic art (or at least a style that combines realism with a clean graphic quality). I've been spending more time than I should on this project in particular, just because I also am fascinated by animals in general, and even more so by some of the crazy prehistoric species with really distinct or unique anatomy.

There's the finished (though I may touch them up) renders of the Paraceratherium and the White Rhinoceros, as well as the line drawings of the ground sloths and three toed sloth. I've also included a rough layout of how the pages will kind of look. I need to rearrange some type, and finish rendering the Coelodonta (it's not done, that's why it looks bad) and possibly add some more spot drawings like the skulls to highlight interesting facts about each species.

Crooked Critters

2010-02-18T02:45:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since I've posted, and it's mostly due to me not wanting to scan things (partially due to being busy and not wanting to waste time scanning, and partially due to my lack of access to a functional scanner, so I must rely on the ones at school, which suck). I've mostly been working on things here and there, some extremely sub-par work, and others where I've been really conflicted in the direction I should be taking.

I'll make a few separate posts for some of the latest stuff I've been doing. This "Crooked Critter" project was a quick in-class assignment in which we had to create an anthropomorphic animal that was some sort of criminal (or just really sketchy). Instead of creating just one and refining it, I went to town and just sketched up a whole bunch of different ones instead. I never really draw animal-people, mostly because it's kind of a niche-genre in itself and not really my thing, but I have to admit I had fun with this! I do love drawing animals and people, so maybe I'll start delving into it some more.

Whimsy! Fun! Done!

2009-12-15T17:40:00.000-08:00

This was the result of my costume/environment/artifact design project. The diving suit was the costume, the environment is a coral reef and the treasure chest was the artifact. It was supposed to look like a paradise where this treasure chest resided, and with a rainbow in the water I just made a logical conclusion to make the leprechaun the guard of the chest. The octopus just comes and throws a wrench in everything though. It's done more child-friendly and whimsically than some of my other works and was just quick and fun.

A Recent Work

2009-12-11T16:06:00.000-08:00

I've been insanely busy lately, and this is just a cover for an annual report for a fictitious coffee company. It is based on south american culture, due to the origins of many coffee beans and farms. I took Incan influences, and depicted coffee as a source of life and energy in this fountain of youth inspired image.

Finally, Sleep!

2009-11-23T21:15:00.000-08:00

I've been working on these nonstop for the last little bit. Now I can finally start on the projects that I've been handed out recently. This was fun though, I really just enjoy drawing figures. I've composed all of the finished drawings on one image. Also did some stone tablets, for this book but they're not that interesting. Good night.

More Fashion Drawings

2009-11-19T00:16:00.000-08:00

Here are some new drawings for the previously mentioned project. I'm pretty behind schedule, but hopefully I can pull it together and get it all done. And I fixed up some things on the basic male, so he's back again.

(The Start of a) Comic Book

2009-11-16T06:22:00.000-08:00

Here are the 4 pages that I have been working on for the last couple of days... it had to be kind of a rush job. I had a lot of fun coming up with the characters, probably wasted too much time coming up with a whole story and the characters, only to have it not read or be presented at all in the comic itself. Perhaps I'll do something with these characters in the future. Disfunctional/Ironic superpowers is the name of the game, without further ado...

Trendy Stylish Illustrations!

2009-11-15T17:55:00.000-08:00

I've been working non-stop for the last 2 days and my hands are dead right now, so as I'll post something as I let them recuperate. I'm still working on a comic book project right now, but I just finished these for a friend's book based around street-style. They're just plain ink drawings, but I threw a gradient on them just for now. These guys are pretty plain, but I'll be doing a whole lot more with a lot more clothes on them.

The Masque of the Red Death

2009-11-05T00:46:00.000-08:00

Lately I've been working on a few long projects, primarily a comic book project (I only have character designs done and I'm working on the script), and this project, the Theatre Poster. I chose an Edgar Allan Poe Story, The Masque of the Red Death, although his other tales were also in contention along with The Phantom of the Opera and Y the Last Man. Anyways, here's the image with and without Text.

I'm starting to realize I like to use red in a lot of my work...

Transform!

2009-10-20T20:42:00.001-07:00

Two things I had morphed myself into for class. A rhino and a carnotaurus. Done in Photoshop and acrylics respectively.

Designs for Process Book

2009-10-19T00:26:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been working on a Process book non-stop, and it's finally (almost) done! That was some of the rough concept art I was working on. Two of them are for an Alchemist class, one for a Tank character, and one environment. It's a world created for an imaginary video game, based upon Asian fantasy mixed with some European fantasy aspects.

It's a world where Monks have to fight demons based off of animals from the Chinese Zodiac (two of which were posted earlier) and expel them from the world, or seal them away. Whichever. I never got to do all 12 animals, or all 5 classes for that matter, but it's been a fun project. The book layout actually looks decent!

Another Sketchbook Compilation

2009-10-14T16:04:00.000-07:00

Here's some random stuff from my sketchbook thrown together in one page.

My favorite's probably the angry guy I've been calling the "Fffffffffairy". The idea sprouted from a conversation that I had with a friend about how drawing any kind of human with bug wings would turn them into a fairy.

The idea for the guy in the top right corner is that he's kind of a spoof of racial allegory in science fiction. Obviously the idea came while talking about District 9. Jokingly, a synopsis about a movie with aliens who built space-railroads and were addicted to space-opium (spopium), came about. They also make good food.

Latest Work

2009-10-11T22:14:00.000-07:00

Well, here are some of the last few projects I have worked on for class. First up are four spot drawings based on an article about underground music in China starting to emerge. Carsick Cars, Birdstriking and The Offset: Spectacles are all bands, and Maybe Mars is a significant Chinese indie music label. The last one is kind of rushed, it was a late night/early morning finish.

Next up are the finished Medusa and Perseus. Added the graphic outline to pop them both out and tie them together. I think I could make adjustments to Perseus based on how Medusa turned out. Detailed engravings on the armor, and perhaps a less stylized figure/face.

Works in Progress

2009-09-30T00:57:00.001-07:00

So I've got some really fun and interesting projects in class, one of them being a Development Book (basically a compilation of roughs and concept art), and another being a Character Portrait project where we depict a protagonist and antagonist.

Those two are demons/monsters that I'm working on for the book project, and for the Protagonist/Antagonist portraits I am drawing Perseus and Medusa. Here's the start of Perseus:

There's still a long ways to go, and I'm definitely going to be doing a lot of tweaking.

Rotoscope Project - Asian Kung-Fu Generation - Kimi to Iu Hana

2009-09-28T00:02:00.000-07:00

For an animation project, we had to rotoscope something short in one week. My laptop at that point was inoperable, and it was taking forever for me to get my replacement from Apple. Anyways, I pulled a couple of long nights at ACAD, tracing frames and this is all I got. There's also some glitches I still have to fix.

If you haven't seen the music video for Asian Kung-Fu Generation's Kimi to iu Hana, (and many of you will have not) it has quite possibly my favorite dance sequence out of anything, ever. There's a dancing elf! This was just a tiny bit of it.

First Project of the Year

2009-09-27T21:31:00.000-07:00

This was the first illustration project of the year, and I did this for an editorial about the state of people who were uninsured and how they are more likely to encounter problems where they would need insurance. I went with the general feeling of going under and how hopeless and dire the situation would feel.

First Art-Dump

2009-09-27T20:58:00.000-07:00

Here's some old stuff I decided to post. The first picture was done for a children's storybook project at ACAD last year. It's Jack & the Beanstalk, and I had fun doing it. It's done in acrylic and touched up a little bit in Photoshop.

The second piece is unfinished, but I was working on it for a character redesign "assignment" that my friends and I were giving ourselves, and also was going to be the R in a Marvel A-Z project with another group of friends :) Anyways, it's Ricochet from Slingers, and later Runaways and Loners. My favorite obscure Marvel character.

Next is a couple of quick compilations of random things from old sketchbooks. I'll probably post more recent stuff next time.

Jumpin' on the Blogwagon

2009-09-27T19:27:00.000-07:00

After putting it off for so long, I've finally decided to start up a blog where I can post my random sketches, works in progress, and even finished works up for everyone to see. Hopefully I'll be able to keep this updated on a regular basis. I'm in my 4th year at ACAD (the Alberta College of Art and Design) and am majoring in Character Design/Illustration.

I get a kick out of drawing monsters and creatures, and also little bizarre quirky things that just pop into my head. I also like to draw people, modern style and music instruments as much as I like to draw things more geared towards gaming. So you'll find a little of everything here. I think that other aspects of my personality and the like will start to emerge as this blog goes on, so I'll keep this introduction simple. Hope you enjoy your stay.