Graduated!!

I just graduated this summer!! It has been five years. Can't believe I made it!!
You can view my portfolio website through the link here:
http://ninaleeart.blogspot.com

For future update, I will probably use the new website or another new blog, but I will leave this blog just for record.

Character Jam & Monster Mashup - Part 2

This assignment was to design a series of crazy athlete characters that could be used on a collection of cards and funny enough to make middle-grade kids laugh. At first I sort of misunderstood the assignment so I didn't make them really funny. As soon as I realized the actual topic, I started to exaggerate more.

It became more fun to draw and I was happy about many of them. I tried a bunch of sports and researched about them. I think the one I had most fun is the lucha libre characters. When I researched about the sports, there were so many interesting actual pictures that were even funnIer than my drawings!

So I chose two of my lucha libre characters and made a composition. I used a pen I bought in Japan that was really easy to ink and have line variations. I wished I had bought more of that pen because I cannot find it anywhere!


The next assignment is to design KAIJU, the Japanese monster. I have to say that I was VERY excited for this project because I really like Japanese Tokusatsu shows with superheroes and monsters. Although I didn't watch much of Gozilla or Gamera or other monster movies, I love Ultraman series, which has so many memorable kaiju.

So, I started again with copying some famous kaiju from Tokusatsu shows. I did much more this time because I had so much fun drawing them! I also researched about their background stories, design concepts, personalities, and other information that only made me love them more. There are so many nicely designed kaiju and their stories make them even more successful characters. I also had learned a lot from researching the great designer Narita Toru. His concepts for designing kaiju are really interesting.

So, I started my own kaiju designing, and it was much difficult than I thought. It is not easy to make a good kaiju character and there are so many different approaches. I just keep come up more ideas. It seems to be easier to have a motif in mind than random sketches.

Finally I made a fight scene of two of my original kaiju. I really had fun drawing them. I am actually trying to color them now. But I think my favorite design is the series of Volcano kaiju. I used them in my final piece.

What is interesting about this assignment is that everyone design kaiju quite differently. When I saw the works from other classmates, I realized maybe I limited myself too much from trying to make my designs really similar to those in Japanese shows. And I actually considered about that there are people inside the suits. But actually there are no limit on designing kaiju. It was really nice to see everyone has his own thought about kaiju.

The next assignment is to draw many face expressions. This one was really fun, too. But I think I should have exaggerated the expressions even more. And I found out that it wasn't easy to keep the character look like the same character when repeating him so many times.

 Last but not least, our final project was to create a composition by using characters we previously designed. I chose the ones I had most fun, the lucha libre wrestlers and the volcano kaiju brothers. I actually did two pieces and I might ink the first one some other time.

Last assignment is an in-class assignment we did in the final week. We had to design an urban legend character that looked really cute. I researched about cute animals and I chose a sea otter as my final design, combining with turtle!


I really enjoyed doing all the drawings for this class. But I can't believe I am going to graduate the next term! Hope everything will be alright...

Character Jam & Monster Mashup - Part 1

This was a pretty fun class where I did many drawings and sketches. Basically we had different project every week and we had to come up many ideas and a final design. I don't think I am really good at design but this class inspired me to try many designs I never come up before.

This is the first assignment, making a self-portrait, a manual about myself.

This is a practice to exaggerate proportion and to make a turn around, which is much difficult than I thought.

For this one, we were shown pictures of a motorcycle that seems to be belonging to a homeless who travels with it. So we needed to imagine how the rider looks like. It was pretty fun drawing homeless guys.

This one was to design a character for an origami company. I started with copying some actual origami pictures to help me come up ideas. I wanted to have a simple shape and it actually wasn't easy.

This was a character design for a frozen yogurt store. Actually I wasn't sure what is frozen yogurt. I think it is similar to ice cream? I never try this kind of character before and it is quite interesting.

Here comes probably the most difficult and frustrating assignment of the class. We had to design sculptures for the "Burning Man" festival. Before doing this assignment, I had never heard about Burning Man, and I was amazed when I saw the pictures of really bizarre vehicles and people with strange costumes. It only became more amazing when I researched more about the festival.

Anyway, we not only had to come up of the designs but also had to consider about the materials and the construction. This added the difficulty since the size of the sculpture had to be larger than 24ft and the materials had to be light enough to carry into the desert and be assembled.

I did a bunch of sketches and spent a lot of time on this assignment. As usual, I started by copying some pictures. This assignment was to come up three different styles of designs with a same theme. We were given some artists' names or artworks for reference, so I researched about all of them and copied them so I could get a sense of the styles. Also, I chose rabbit as my theme. It was a fast decision but it was not easy to decide the best solutions as I made sketches. I just felt none of them was good enough so I kept drawing. Finally, I came up some better solutions.

it was pretty hard to have to make both front and side views work. I drew the side views first and it gave me a headache to figure out the front view, since I am not really good at 3D stuffs. Nonetheless, I think I succeed in making them to have very different styles.

Lastly, we had to make one more design, with a style we decided by ourselves. I was inspired by artworks I saw in a gallery show of Native Taiwanese artists. I remembered that there was an artwork made from linens and fabrics. So, I decided to make a design using fabrics and used clothes as materials. For other designs, I usually first came up the shapes only and then decided the materials. For this one, I thought of the materials first and which actually was easier. It took time to draw the details but it was pretty fun. And I actually didn't struggle on this one as much as the others. The outcome was pretty satisfying.

Overall, I don't really like this assignment but I think it was a good practice. It was challenging but rewarding.

And this was not the final assignment. I will have another post of the other half of sketches soon!