I was commissioned for a cover illustration for some friends over at Salt & Sea Studios for their new kid’s comedy and adventure audio series, “Zoey’s Mythical Menagerie.” The show features some really fun creatures like jellyhorses, a thunder moose, a unicorn band, and a 8-headed dog! Go check out the first season on Apple Podcasts!
Last weekend, someone asked me where I could see my art going. When I started my art career, I had dreams of working at a big animation studio or a well-known property for the clout. Nowadays, I want it to be like the Midnight Diner.
Midnight Diner is a show I found on Netflix a few years back that was adapted from a manga called Shin’ya Shokudō by Yarō Abe. It features a grizzled chef referred to as the “Master” who runs a late-night diner in Tokyo serving a regular group of patrons. There’s a limited menu, but the Master can make certain requests from the customers if the ingredients are available. Each episode centers on a particular customer with a dish serving as the theme for the story.
I like this analogy because the Master is still able to create something memorable and of high quality to a group of people while being small enough to manage. It’s not trying to be a three-star Michelin restaurant empire that dominates the global market. It serves a need to people who are looking to enjoy a delicious meal at an comfortable location.
I think the same could be said for my art. There was a time when I really wanted to work Pixar or Disney or any big studio just so that I can see my name in the end credits. But as time went on that dream lost its luster, and my priorities shifted to more important matters, namely family. Given how things have changed over the years in art, media, and even politics, it’s imperative for me and my family that I create art on my own terms. Whether it be paintings, books, animation, toys, or lanterns, I want to enjoy creating regardless of the end product. Hopefully someone appreciates it to a small degree.
So if you happen to come by this site by chance, take a seat, and have a drink. And if you enjoyed your time here, please come again to visit.
Here is a sneak peek of a story I’ve been working on. It’s titled Hugo’s Perfect Picnic, and is about a giant gorilla trying to find the perfect picnic spot. It’s based on a gag that I thought about a long time ago, but I felt like I needed to work on this story as a way to test out a new paper-cut style. It was a lot of fun to make, but at the moment, I’m not sure if it’s going to be something that I can self-publish, but in the meantime, I can share some of the art here for you all to enjoy.
This was a set of illustrations I made with TDW+Co for a Chinese New Year calendar to be released by US Bank. Thanks to Abe Wong and the TDW+Co team for working on this project.
Happy Year of Pig, hoomans. Pig share a lot of common bonds with panda. Like eating, and snacking, and food, and eating, and snacking…
Hello, hoomans. Panda here again. Panda have new entry for Emerald City Comicon’s Monsters and Dames art book. Panda getting tired of winter weather. Then again, panda usually tired all the time.
Also, panda will be at ECCC this year at the same table, J4, right next to hooman friends Patrick Ballesteros and Genevieve Santos. Hoomans should come by and visit panda, give high five, and free food.
Pet hooman Nolen also made fancy schmancy timelapse video. And below that, hoomans can also see Monsters and Dames pieces from the previous years.
Every year, panda do Inktober, but each year, panda get busier and busier. This year, panda do only 5-minute Inktobers with panda drinking hooman coffee drinks. Coffee drinks are delicious, but panda can’t seem to sleep. Panda will post the rest of Inktobers after panda finishes nap, but the problem is, panda can’t start nap.
Also, pet hooman, Nolen is also doing Inktober on his Instagram. Sometime drawings look weird, but whatever floats hooman boat, I guess.
I recently completed a piece for Q Pop Shop’s “Neo Tokyo: A Tribute to the World of Akira” art show running from July 27 to August 12. 2018 marks the 30th anniversary of the anime film “Akira” directed by Katsuhiro Otomo based on his own anime. The piece is titled “Circles” which I used to base the design on. This piece was done with sumi and vermillion inks on hot-press watercolor paper.
You can visit Q Pop’s site to see the other pieces in the show which are all available for purchase. If you’re in the area, snap a photo of my piece with yourself doing a weird pose in front of it.
Lastly, I made a timelapse of the piece on YouTube below.
Panda watch World Cup on TV and don’t understand hoomans. Panda did not see any cups at all. Just a bunch of hoomans moving ball with feet. It looks too tiring. Panda congratulates French hoomans for moving ball with feet the best.
I recently completed my first mural for Katsu Burger, a local restaurant chain that specializes in Japanese-fusion burgers. The location is in Ballard and is the first Katsu Burger to feature sushi and bento boxes on their menu. Read on to learn about my process for creating my first mural and to watch a timelapse video of the whole process.
So how does on get started on their first mural? With help of course! I reached out to Justin Hillgrove who did a mural at Facebook. He in turn referred me to Mural Joe‘s videos which provided much needed help with how to get started.
The owners were very generous in allowing me the freedom to do whatever I wanted which can sometimes be difficult because there can be infinite possibilities. They expressed that they were open to having elements of Japanese pop culture like robots, Dragonball, ninjas, so I went with that line of thinking and began to brainstorm.
One of the ideas that I had was having a set of warriors battling a giant “hunger monster” in the form of Godzilla. As I continued to develop the idea, the canvas began to feel a bit cramped with all of the characters especially if the hunger monster was going to be a giant. So I eliminated the hunger monster and focused on the warriors. Since this Katsu Burger location was going to feature sushi, I came up with the idea of having a warrior represent a portion of the menu: a robot represent the burger, a samurai for sushi, and a powered-up ninja representing drinks (the flames representing the alcohol burn). I later changed the samurai to a female Gatchaman-style superhero since I didn’t want to have all of the warriors looking masculine. Below is the concept art that I submitted to the owners. I also included a Photoshop mockup to help them visualize how the final design would fit on the wall.
Part of the reason why I made the design in three colors was because I anticipated using the same wall paint used in all of the Katsu Burgers. The only exception was the red, which I needed to find on my own. The way that I selected the red was to make a print out of my concept art and find the matching swatch at Home Depot. One thing I noticed was that the existing wall paints were slightly less saturated than the colors used in my concept art (which I sampled from Katsu Burger’s logo); so I adjusted the red by picking the swatch that was one level desaturated from the matching color. I then took a photo of the swatches next to the existing wall paint and removed the saturation to see how the values compared to one another.
Another reason why I made this mural with three colors was because I wanted a flat graphic look. As part of my research, I also came across a mural done by Kevin Dart for the old location of Q Pop Shop in LA.
With the concept art completed, it was time to do the real painting. I borrowed a friend’s projector and directed it at the wall where I subsequently traced the major shapes in pencil. Afterwards, I blocked off the major shapes for the white with painter’s tape. I probably was a bit too meticulous with some of the details and could’ve done some of it by hand, but since this was my first mural, I wasn’t experienced enough to know any better.
For the colors, I started from light to dark beginning with the white sections, then the yellow, and then the red. Because I had to leave on the tape, the wall looks a bit messy. There were many times that I had to resist the urge to remove the tape just to see what was underneath.
After all the paints have been added, it was time to remove the tape. Removing the tape was one of the most satisfying parts of this process. It’s equivalent to pouring a bunch of Elmer’s glue on your hand and peeling back the dried bits. Don’t judge me.
Finally, all that was left to do was clean up the edges and add the small details which sounds much easier than it actually is. Finishing this piece felt like giving someone a haircut by cutting one hair at a time. I didn’t add in as many grains of rice as in the concept because I felt like it would make the wall look too busy. I might go back and add a couple more details on my next visit if I feel there’s a need.
Finally, here is a timelapse video that I posted to YouTube of the whole process, go check it out.
Thanks to Tom, Stephanie, and Christopher for giving me the opportunity to work on this project and for feeding me for a week. Thanks also to Justin Hillgrove for his insights and introducing me to mural painting. And big thanks to Laura for providing the projector. Lastly, thanks to the panda family for having to adjust to my schedule because I couldn’t paint fast enough.
Cheers
N
