Monkey King

Here's a rough in progress of an illustration for the Monkey King (aka The Journey to the West). It's the part in the story where the Monkey King flies to the outer reaches of what he believes is in the universe when it's only the the hand of Buddha. I mostly wanted to test out a way to draw hands and I figure this would be a nice way of going at it since I've been meaning to do a decent illustration for the Monkey King in ages. I'll hopefully get around to doing one with the four main characters: the monk, the Monkey King, Pigsy and Sandy (the cannibal monk) who has this cool necklace of skulls and is sometimes depicted as a kappa (Japanese water demon). I'll hopefully finish this by week's end since I have Sunday off this week before the nice stretch to Christmas of work.

Christmas Design

So here's the Mucha inspired design I was talking about. It's still in the works and it's sort of gotten through that stage in all my work where the finished work just looks horrible and I shouldn't continue. I've still got a lot to do, but it's been fun designing a piece like this.

Christmas Cards

So here are the final design for the Christmas cards; there's 4 designs instead of 5 though I'm still going to work in the last Mucha-inspired design for myself since I'm really not sure how it'll turn out. They'll be printed in Bristol paper which is a fairly thick card stock at roughly 5.5" x 4.25" and they come with a cream envelope. 3 dollars a card of any design, $2.50 per a card for any order over 10 cards. Now to go back to some sketchy and maybe some more X-mas stuff.

Christmas Robbery .... ?

Here's the second last illustration I'm working on for my Christmas cards. I really do hope I can make the last one turn out well. I ended up buying up a Mucha art book and I've got the rough layout for a piece inspired by his style though I don't have a pretty woman in it so that's kinda odd in a way. So back to the picture ... so what would Santa really do to a burglar? I'll just let every one's imagination think that one through, but on an interesting note: Santa is the richest (fictional) person according to Forbes. He's worth infinite money .....

Christmas Cards Rough - part 2

Here's another rough for my collection of Christmas cards this year. I'm hoping to do about 4 different designs and have them finished by end of November at the latest. I might just stop at 3 different illustrations, but we'll see how it goes. I'm going to sell them yet again if anyone's interested: 3 dollars/ per card. They're roughly 5.5" x 4.25" on bristol paper (which is a fairly thick card stock) plus its own envelope. I'll have a price break at 10 cards so it's 25 dollars per 10 card and you still get to choose how many of each design you want or just all of one design.

Santa-Bot

Here are some of the process work for one of the Christmas card I'm working on. I'm hoping to 2-4 different design this year though with work it's a bit hard. I managed to completely finish this one today though it was relatively simple. I was inspired by the retro-style Wall-E posters done by illustrator Eric Tan. I'll get around to posting the finished one along with the other Christmas illustration when I'm finished them all. I hope to do an Alphonse Mucha inspired piece. I've been meaning to try to do something in the art nouveau style for awhile now and hopefully something fun and amazing turns out.

(American) Football

It's odd how sketches eventually shape out. This originally started off as a really lose gesture/sketch of a fencer or at least that's how I shaped it. I try to keep with the fencer, but slowly didn't feel right and somehow turned into a football player. Hopefully with my new job, once I get into a groove, I can keep up doing a few illustrations a week.

Monsters

Since it's close to Halloween and October, for both are interelated, I decided to do some monster themed illustrations. The funny thing is that the idea originally started with one of the werewolf though I'm really not sure how to draw him now. I thought I'd do something different than just the regular monster pictures with the gentler side of Frankenstein's monster and the perverted, party animal side of Dracula. For the Frankenstein's monster illustration, I'm still playing with swirls in the clouds and I really like how that's looking these days. Maybe it'll be how I'll draw clouds from now on or maybe it's just a passing fancy.

A lonely night

I should do more night pictures. There's something nice about the colours at night, the purples and blues that really appeal to me. Anyways, that's the 2nd last picture of a whole long series that I've been working on. I don't feel anything different about coming to an end, but then I realized I never do. Things just are regardless of the beginning or the end of something or maybe it's just me.

Sketch

I drew this rough sketch and ended up really like the overall look of it. I screwed up on the hand 'cause I still need to practise more on drawing hands; they're probably one of the hardest things to draw besides feets though shoes normally do a good job of handing feets. On a totally unrelated note, I got back from an amazing job drawing at an event for Bombardier Aerospace, arranged by LAD Communications (Montreal). It was tiring, but amazingly fun. I meet two amazing illustrator from Montreal there and a classmate from OCAD: Patrick Dea, Martin Gagnon and Jemma Kim. It was something I've love to do again in the future and I should really have drawn an airplane or something to go along with the blog, but all things are better and clear in hindsight I guess.

Vikings

I drew these two awhile ago, but I thought I'd post them 'cause I really liked how they turned out. I just love working with a pen though I don't do as much anymore since I get lazy if I'm redrawing it all digitally. I should do some more black and white stuff to show off my pen and ink skills.

...'cause sex sells though i'm not sure what I'm selling here

I've been trying to get a fullbody version of this to look right, but I think I should just crop it like I have here in the sketch. The crop angle is looking pretty decent. But the reason I didnt' crop it originally was 'cause I wanted to show and hide part of the leg in the steam swirls so I guess I'll keep working on it.

Dog

It's just a simple spot illustration of a dog. It turned out pretty nice with the simplicity of the overall image.

Animal Spots

Here are some roughs of the animal spots I've been doing lately. They're quickies that keep me doing an illustration a day while I'm too sick to do anything else. I forgot to add in the dog so I guess I'll post the final of that one. I'm going to post the finalized version of all of them once I update my website.

Lions, Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

The line of "lions, tigers and bears, oh my!" always made me laugh a bit and I don't know one. This illustration is completely inspired by that. I love how I've got a bear in disguise reading a newspaper with the lion and tiger hiding behind him on the streets. I'm sure this happens every day in real life, but that's the fun of illustration: suspension of reality.

Sunshine

This is so out of character for me ... I think for anyone that knows me, this is scary as hell.

The Piper

It's been almost a month since the last post, I think. I've actually been doing quite a bit of work, but been lazy to post things. I really like the linework on the piper for this piece .... it just worked out really well by some miracle. Hopefully the final looks as good.

Kid Dragon

So I've been a bit slow lately with my illustrations. It's exhausting sometimes just to think up of new ideas and drawing them all out. This is in the finalizing stages, but I'm liking how it's working out so far.

Dreary September

I hope I spelt "dreary" right, which has absolutely nothing to do with the illustration. I actually found this from an old sketch and I really don't even remember where the idea came from, but it felt fun and I'm in the mood for a really light-hearted illustration.

Life Drawing

I thought I'd post an old life drawing caricature I did in class. I like it and still wish that I haven't gotten so dark with it.

www.brendanhong.com reopening

Well I did finish my new website on time. To anyone that checks out this blog, check out the site: www.brendanhong.com . Now hopefully I don't have to redesign it anytime soon.

Prince Charming

One of the last illustrations I started up on my old computer that I want to finish. I like the piece, but yet I don't. Normally, I could finish this in a few days or a week tops, but for some odd reason I'm going really slowly on it. I think I'm just tired and need a bit of a break. I guess I should explain the concept, but I think it's fairly self-explanatory and hopefully a bit funny.

My computer died ....

So my computer died ... I know it has absolutely no relations to the image I posted, but then things seldom have any relations to each other anyway. Enjoy the eye candy. That'll be the first new illustration I do on my new computer once I finish up the few leftovers from before.

Cool Chair

I always the chair in the picture is kinda cool so I've finally drew one. I'm actually going to try to do it purely graphically without the lines. I'll see how that turns out. I can always go back and do the lines later on if things don't turn out as well. On another side of the news, I'm finally re-designing my website, but I'm kinda slowly working on it. It should be finished by the end of the month. Coding is simply; just resizing and turn stuff into jpgs/gifs are a pain.

EDIT: So I finished this quite fast actually. Redrawing those lines do kill so much time. I left out the shadows and just did it completely tone and make it graphically graphic. I actually liked how it turned out. It's very "retro chic" ... if the handful of people that do get the joke, laugh for my sake at least.

Dragon and palace - rough

A rough for new a surprise project I'm re-working on it.

The Choice (rough)

I'm working on a new illustration again ... finally. It's hard to do anything when you don't feel in the mood for it. Anyways, I'm liking how this is going. I originally had a bird in it though I don't think it's needed anymore.

City and Nature

I've finally gotten around to this after a few years. It's interesting to see how the rough changes all the way to the final. I'm hopefully going to finish this by the end of the week. On a brighter side of things, I've finally got my website up and now I want to change it already.

EDIT: I've posted the old sketch from which the illustration is based on. It's fun to see where a sketch can go sometimes and how much it changes from start to end. I've also posted a working colour rough of the illustration. It's turning out pretty nice. There's a cliché part me of that wants to add in stars, but I'll see how that goes.

Princess - Finished

Two variations of the same piece. I had a friend that still liked the original ink nows more so I just created a cleaner version of that and used the same tonal stuff from the vector version. I like how the textures turned out quite a bit on this one.

Dragon Dress - fin

Well, I finished this awhile ago, but never got around to uploading it. A small sample was shown in the greeting card samples a few post back. I originally wanted to do a different background, but I think this simpler one turned out really well.

Work in Progress #12

The top image is a work in progress for the princess drawing I uploaded a day or two ago. I've been getting quite a few Joan of Arc comments about it. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad one. The second one is just a drawing I did last night that I liked. I should really start doing those drawings on thicker stock paper so I can do washes over it, but then it never feels like I'm just sketching when I use good paper ... it's like I've got to do something that does the paper justice or else t's a waste.

Warrior Princess

I was talking about knights and princesses with a friend earlier last evening and this morning. So here's what I got out of it. I thought had inked more stuff, but I guess not. I've been drawing warriors and knights lately. It's fun to draw people in armor though I don't know why. I'm not sure if I want to take this to a final. I was trying something different with the face and I liked how it turned out.

Space Boy - fin

It took awhile, but I'm finally finished with it. Well sorta, I'm still a bit unhappy about the ray so I'll probably go back and fix that once I figure out what I don't like about it exactly. I do like the overall piece after much frustration with it. I'm still not sure which version I like better, the tilted background for the regular one.

Dream Series - Space Boy

I've been working on this for the last little bit. It's still a work in progress and there's probably a lot of work needed to finish this. It's suppose to be a series about childhood dreams. This one is pretty obvious what it is.

Greeting Cards

Well I'm back to selling greeting cards again. Here are three sample sheets of what they look like (minus the watermark on it). The right side is the front of the card and the left side is the back of it with my logo and copyright info, etc. The inside is black and left open for any personal message anyone wants to write. The cards are printed on Bristol Vellum/Smooth paper, 100lbs. They've got the rough dimenions of 4.25" x 5.5" and comes with its own envelope. I'm selling them for 3 dollars a card. If anyone wants one, just email me to talk about it (email: bhongillustration AT gmail.com)

Dragon Dress - vector

Here's the finished vector version of the this piece. I scrapped my original intentional for the dragon design and switched to this. I think it works better anyway. I'm still working on a background, but the colours of the illustration turned out pretty well so far. It's less of the pastels and more of vibrant colours though I might go back and switch to the pastels to see how it'd look. Expect the photoshop textured version soon enough.

Dragon Dress

Well I'm going to work on this next. I'm going to do another circle floating background since I find them easier to do and more "design-y". I was looking at designer toys recently and I think this could work as one of those toys since the dress gives more for different "limited editon" designs as well as blank ones for people to "customize". For anyone that knows me, I'm sure that sounded sarcastic, but it wasn't meant to be that way and to the people that do know me, you're on the online to buy at least a case of the toys if I ever find a way to get them made 'cause that's what friends are for.

Death (finished)

I finally finished it and it took longer than expected mostly 'cause I was being lazy about it. But I do really like how it turned out. It's offically my desktop wallpaper for the moment. The piece darkened up a bit, but I don't mind it too much. It constrast well with the lightrays and that effect turned out better than I thought it would too. Well onward to another piece.