Thoughts leading up to the Faith Summer Conference

From left: Sophia, Sylvia, Isabelle, Evelina, Stacey, myself, Fr Mark, Damian, Gonçalo, Christo, Peter, Kennedy, Dannie and Michael. I really want to include more, but this paper only had space for fourteen people!

During this time leading up to the Faith Summer Conference in Woldingham School, Surrey, we at the University of Hertfordshire's Catholic Society are getting a visual identity at last. T-shirts, logo, the like. People are finally going to be able to pick us apart. We'll be stepping into that hall wearing purple. Considering we're one of the top Catholic Societies in the UK, it's about time!

I must say, I am excited, and I am looking forward to it. ^_^ I'm looking forward to it especially because the Faith Movement are celebrating their 40th anniversary, so it's going to be an absolute blast.

This evening, I found a letter addressed to me in the mail room — it was the programme for the Faith Conference. The theme for this year is going to be "The Year of Faith: Reasons for Believing". I am looking forward to this year's lineup, and I'm looking forward to taking down notes during the talks/catechesis.

And I'm also hoping to snag a recording or two in the music room! ^_-

I will be updating with pictures and videos. Keep watch for updates after 3 August!

Super Mario Shoes!

Super Mario Shoes! :D Hand-drawn on white canvas shoes with permanent Sharpie markers.

The canvas shoes were a gift from Tilly, and they are my most used pair to date. I got around to drawing on those shoes just because I wanted to be a little productive. Some of the designs were done by memory, others were done by referencing Super Mario Wiki. Most of my friends grew up playing at least the very first Super Mario Bros., so it really evokes nostalgia.

There's a little bit of blue colour splashed on places where it shouldn't be. This is because I wore these shoes on one rainy day and I accidentally stepped into a puddle...





Here are the full pictures of those shoes:

The Super Mario franchise and characters © Nintendo.

Chibi Sora, Riku and Kairi sketch

More Kingdom Hearts goodness! This was done as a point commission on DeviantArt. Points, on that site, allow us to buy prints and merchandise.

This drawing features chibis, which are super-deformed anime versions of people. The term chibi (Jap. ちび) means "short person" or "small child"

This drawing features the three main characters from the Kingdom Hearts series - Sora, Riku and Kairi. The three of them are garbed in their original outfits from the first game.

See the image on DeviantArt here!

Epic Battle Fantasy I: The Summoning (Fan Art)

DeviantArt muro drawings, some filtering, and some failed attempts with hardlighting, softlighting, brushing and burning on Photoshop CS5.1 resulted in this. Here, I pictured Regice and Registeel as summons. What gave me the idea was seeing a beta Flash file in Matt Roszak's DA gallery, which had all the animations of the summons in the first Epic Battle Fantasy, including Registeel.

In case you're wondering, Epic Battle Fantasy is a game on DeviantArt, Newgrounds and Kongregate, which had a strong following ever since the game's first release. The game is based on a number of other games for other platforms, as well as other pop culture references. However, its strongest influence is that of the Final Fantasy series.

I did this drawing as part of a collaboration on Newgrounds to celebrate three years since the series' first release.

For all the blood, burns and rust I gave Registeel, I'm not giving him much love. But heck, he's not my favourite Pokemon, and neither is he my favourite summon in EBF, aesthetically speaking.
Natalie is much less whore-riffic. Unlike most people's depictions of her on Newgrounds' Art Portal. I made sure she was not scantily-clad!
Natalie, Regice and Registeel have aureolae on them because I drew them in their capacity as summons, not in their capacity as enemies. (And yes, I know Regice is pronounced "regi-ice", but I usually pronounce it as I pronounce "Hedge Mice".)

Not my best work, to be honest, but I thought I'd get this to Newgrounds' Art Portal in time for the Epic Battle Fantasy collaboration. And considering I haven't submitted anything in weeks, I thought I'd post this here. That having been said, I did learn quite a bit of colouring technique today with what I did.

Time taken: Approx. 2 days (minus frustration breaks, which lasted several days).

Natalie and Epic Battle Fantasy © Matt Roszak.
Regice and Registeel © Nintendo.

See the drawing on DeviantArt!
See the drawing on Newgrounds! 

UH CathSoc now has a new logo!

This was suggested by Peter Murphy and illustrated by yours truly.

And here's the step-by-step process for it:

Now one of Britain's most prolific Catholic Socties gets an identity. You may see us with tees bearing this logo when we go to Woldingham School for the Faith Summer Conference!

These can be used for something.

Mouse-drawn on DeviantArt muro.

I know I'll leave skilled digital artists on Newgrounds rather aghast, but I really love how smooth the thing is.

The Conflict at Stonyhurst

The most badass conflict to have ever crossed my mind. I really mean it. This is also effectively one of the best pictures I've drawn to date. You will see this (or something along these lines) in the final version of Project Chaplaincy. I assure you.

The background is a cartoonish version of the Boys' Chapel in Stonyhurst College, Lancashire, where Masses are celebrated and the Divine Office is said during the Faith Winter Conferences.

Mouse-drawn on DeviantArt muro.

Basic colouring done on DeviantArt muro.

Touching up done on Photoshop CS5.1.

World Youth Day Bookcover Mockup

There's a book about World Youth Day being written by three young people from the Archdiocese of Westminster -- Jo-Anne Rowney (former president of the UH CathSoc), James Kelliher and Paula Mendez. I am friends with Rowney and Kelliher, and the two of them personally asked me to draw a mock-up of the book's cover.

And this is what I came up with.

I'm quite happy with this picture -- it may be crowded, and some people may be bigger than others, but here's the thing: I wanted to capture the spirit of the events of World Youth Day.

And so while drawing this I remembered the hundreds of flags that were flown, the millions of young people who flooded the city of Madrid, the vibrance, the festive air, the sweltering heat, the joy of being a pilgrim, the awe at the multitude of young people gathered to worship, the applause and cheers upon seeing Pope Benedict XVI... I wanted to picture that every youth present there rejoiced at the fact that they were Catholic.

After returning from the evening out with Fr Mark Vickers, Rowney, Kelliher and friends, I sat down to work on this drawing. This thing took me a few days to complete it. I coloured whenever I had the opportunity. Now I am aware that this thing may not make it onto the cover, but if it doesn't, it'll at least make it into the book, and for that, I'm glad. ^_^

Sharpie markers and coloured pens on A4 card.
Digital touching-up done on Photoshop CS5.1.

Ta-daaaa!

Enemy designs. I guess my digital drawing (using a mouse / touchpad) is getting better.

That is all.

P.S. I say that is all because it is now assignment time, and I will be blogging about things — I haven't done so for a few months — I'll backdate posts or update them accordingly. Most, if not all my posts during this period, will be short and succint.

More Kirby!

The first of my released images which has been drawn as if it were for a children's book. I did this during the week before the spring term, when I was in Essex.

Structure done on DeviantArt muro.

Colouring done on GIMP 2.6.

Kirby and Kracko Junior belong to Nintendo and HAL Laboratory.

A poster for Saints' and Sinners' Night

Remember last year's Saints' and Sinners' Halloween Party?
Being in the committee for the chaplaincy, I had to handle promo, and so worked on a quick poster on DeviantArt muro, MS Paint and Microsoft PowerPoint (for the final touches and text).

And here they are:

Version with text.

Version without text. This version is being sold as a print on DeviantArt, so if you're up for a mousepad, greeting card or any bit of merchandise which has this design on it, I'd appreciate it!

It's just one of the little things that I can do, just because I love it, and I know I'm capable of it is all.

Chaplaincy

Today is Sunday. And with term having begun, the first Student Mass for the academic year is today.

Oh, how I am looking forward to that. And how I am looking forward to meeting my closest friends again!

I must be in bed — a long day awaits me. But really, I am excited.

In truth, it isn’t the law school that has taken me places. The one affiliation that has indeed taken me places is the university’s Catholic chaplaincy (a.k.a. UH CathSoc). Had it not been for them, I wouldn’t have found myself. I wouldn’t have been able to go to Stonyhurst and Woldingham to discuss questions of faith openly. I wouldn’t have made the company I’ve made. Had it not been for them, I wouldn’t have known what World Youth Day is all about. I wouldn’t have had such a profound encounter and change of heart — that which resulted from an event which almost claimed my life. My dream of meeting the Holy Father face-to-face wouldn’t have been true. And every question for which the answer is, ‘God is love’, would not have been answered.

I’m now part of the committee (as secretary), along with Michael, Peter and Mark (Tanner). My other friends — Gonçalo, Sophia and loads of others — are there to help too. I must bear in mind that whatever I do, I must put God at the centre, and all things good will come out of it.

I’ve been going on and on about the chaplaincy without actually showing you the new CathSoc logotype, which I conjured about a week before the Faith Summer Conference:

It’s getting late, so I’m going to throw in a link to the description.

Alright. I’d better do my Lectio and head off to bed kthxbai.

YouCat becomes a visual project.

One member of DACatholics, a group for Catholic artists on the popular art site DeviantArt, suggested that the YouCat (the Youth Catechism of the Catholic Church) be brought to everyone's knowledge, considering only a select few of us were able to go to Madrid for World Youth Day and got our copies of YouCat. At the time, two ideas crossed my mind: either present points from the YouCat as journal entries, or present them in visuals. My idea of visuals back then was to do Flash/video animations, with voice acting, similar to Portal 2-styled videos such as this.

This proved too difficult, because there was only one known animator on DACatholics, and she was running on a time constraint with everything else, so the Flash animation felt like a no go. Peter (Murphy) then asked me to share my ideas with him, and I told him about all this. I also told him that practically anyone can present the YouCat in text in journal entries. That wouldn't make it special and easy for people to remember their Catechism.

Then, he recommended that I draw pictures for those points on Microsoft Paint. Spot on!

Which leads me to my next major project, which won't be done over a consistent period of time, but I'm planning to get all 500-something points covered.




I acted on Peter's advice and this is an example of what resulted from it:





I decided to begin the YouCat in visuals with "Why is Sunday important?" because it seemed like a pretty simple point to render into visuals. The Flash animator from DACatholics approved! I'll admit, this is not the entire point 187, but I put this on the blog so that you may get an idea of what is to come. Because each drawing is going to take me quite a bit of time, and because I want to give my best in putting up every point of the YouCat, I will not do it weekly. I'll do it when I feel I can deliver best, and when I'm not handling my LLB material.

God willing, may this project be a success. Some of these drawings shall be hilarious, yes, but more importantly, I hope that all these drawings drive a point home and help us to remember the fundamentals of our faith, the same faith that has been handed down to us by the apostles. I'm truly happy to embark on this project, and this example seems to show some promise.

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On a side note, I am posting from the DeHavilland LRC, and I drew that YouCat title picture in the LRC. Yes, we are now running on Windows 7. New CPUs, new browser, new everything. Even new Microsoft Paint and PowerPoint. You can't imagine how thrilled I am! Firefox 6 seems strangely stable on this PC (when it's unstable on mine). I'm going to see what I can do about updating when I get back...

I also paid a visit to the new law school: I set foot in it for the first time today after induction talks. When I get my hands on my camera battery charger (which I can't find at the moment, and my battery is running flat from all that photo-taking in World Youth Day T_T) I shall post pictures and videos. The new courtroom is astoundingly beautiful, and so are the seminar rooms. The courtroom also is a great place for people cosplaying as characters from Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, and I am seriously contemplating a courtroom photoshoot some time in the near future. I've asked one of my friends to get a picture of the courtroom, and he lent me his camera for a short time, and I snapped a photo from the first floor of the courtroom. I'm going to have him upload that pic and send it to me! I guess that gives me some form of motivation for Year 3 LLB, and I'd like to see what this brings. I'll have done three years of LLB in three completely different environments, and I'm grateful for that.

This week is the international students' orientation programme, and next Monday, the home students come into the halls. And then Freshers' Weeks begin. Freshers' Fair is on 30 September, and I shall be joining Fr Mark, Peter, Michael and the rest in running the UH Catholic Society booth. I'm really looking forward to that afternoon. Sunday 25 September is the first student mass of the academic year, and I'm looking forward to that too. Ah, the joys of the beginning of academic year. ^_^

Drawings.

One is a step-by-step explanation of a drawing, and the other is the final result of a work I just completed today.

I recently completed a drawing of Reyvateil sisters Luca and Leyka Trulyworth from Ar tonelico II — otherwise known as Luca Trulyworth and Cloche Leythal Pastalia respectively. This is one drawing I’m actually quite happy about, because of the thick outlines and vivid colours.

In case you’re wondering which one is Luca and which one is Cloche, Luca has blue hair.

Alright, time for a step-by-step explanation of how it was done:

On DeviantArt Muro, I began drawing Cloche. Light blue is my ideal skeleton colour, as you can tell — it’s easy on the eyes, and I can erase the blue parts on GIMP once the drawing is done.

Then, I flipped the image…

… and drew Luca. Now, I thought of the ending scene — there’s a song that the two of them sing together, and this drawing was heavily inspired by that. The song in question is EXEC_with.METHOD_METAFALICA/.

Removed the blue lines on GIMP, and rendered the image transparent.

Still on GIMP, I coloured the drawing in.

I copied the drawing on PowerPoint and passed it through the Cutout filter. Note that this is a later version of the drawing, because I only added the lighting marks on GIMP some time after filtering.

The original version of the filtered drawing. I added a crescent moon, which I drew from scratch on Paint, copied to PowerPoint and filtered. Ar tonelico II enthusiats would immediately think this refers to Viola Moon, but I didn’t even have that in mind.

The near-final version of the drawing. A background was added on a separate layer. The houses are arranged in a curved pattern, reminiscent of the actual layout of Ar Ciel, the fictional planet where Ar tonelico takes place.

Final result. The opening lines of EXEC_with.METHOD_METAFALICA/. were added to the drawing. The lines read, Was yea ra chs ieeya fhyu (I will gladly become the wind of hope) for Luca, and Wee ki ra chs wasara dor (I will honestly become the abundant earth) for Cloche.

 

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The other drawing I’d like to share with you guys is this:

This is the large version of an entry to a contest on DeviantArt. The group holding the contest is Happy Animé Art. Their tagline: “pictures that make us smile”.

This was pretty much my first try with magnified animé faces and…. well, this style of drawing. It isn’t too far from my actual style, but it isn’t one I’d have come up with overnight.

 

Like it? I’d be glad if you faved the drawings in their respective pages:

Hymme Trulyworth  /  Happy Animé Art Icon, Size L

Time of rejoicing

“I want to give myself to You, for You have provided for me with great friends.”

                                                                        — Aimée Duchemin

 

Another passion-fuelled sketch, set to the tone of a drum loop I had recently completed, drawn on DeviantArt Muro, touched up on GIMP and PowerPoint 2010.

 

Love it? Support me by purchasing the print here!

A new drawing is done!

I had thought of this wallpaper/background idea yesterday evening, and started doing it — it took me four to five hours in total, but it’s finally done…

Presenting… Terra’s, Aqua’s and Ventus’ Wayfinders from Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep! Well, it’s actually in the order of Terra’s, Ventus’ and Aqua’s.

And with the exception of the background colours, which were edited by Erry, I did not use Photoshop. The software at hand were PowerPoint, GIMP and Paint, and so I had to use those to the best of my ability.

This post is up because I told a few friends — notably Phil — that I’d let them see the finished drawing. I’m quite pleased with how it turned out, considering I’ve only recently begun to draw decently, though over time, I may experiment with more textures and make them more realistic than ever.

This drawing began on Friday, and ended either on Saturday night or Sunday morning — I forget. And since I took about four to five hours, there were breaks in between. Long breaks.

So here’s how it went, from start to end:

 

1. A Wayfinder fragment, drawn on Paint.

2. The Wayfinder base. This was done on PowerPoint — by making the white parts of the Wayfinder fragment transparent, and then copying, pasting and rotating.

3. A base with three Wayfinders. Still on PowerPoint, I copied/pasted the single Wayfinder base thrice, then used 3D Rotation to give different angles to each one.

4. I opened Microsoft Paint (I’m on Windows 7, in case you ask) and I coloured them in with an oil brush.

5. I salvaged some Mark of Mastery pictures I made on Paint some time ago (for archive images on Kingdom Hearts Wiki), made the white bits transparent for the Wayfinders on PowerPoint, edited the colours/contrast on the Marks of Mastery on Microsoft Office Picture Manager, superimposed them onto the Wayfinders, grouped them and saved them (on PowerPoint).

6. Still on PowerPoint, I added a Paint Brush effect to the coloured Wayfinders.

7. I smoothened out the colours on GIMP and began to bore holes in the metal parts, for the strings. The Wayfinders now look cartoony.

8. To make them less cartoony, I redid the Paint Brush effect on PowerPoint, and gave them a second edit over on GIMP.

9. Then, on GIMP, I made a background, with orange for the foreground and blue for the background, and I made it a HSV gradient, and I gave it a bit of texture —

but, as you can see, it's too bright.

10. Then I passed it to Erry, who darkened the background on Photoshop:

Just the timbre I needed! Thanks, Erry!

11. Added bokeh and minimal glitter on GIMP.

12. Copied/pasted the supposedly finished Wayfinders onto the BG. So on GIMP, this file had two layers. This was to be the wallpaper base.

13. Added glitter, softlighted some edges of the Wayfinders so that they’d glow (both on GIMP), and added strings on Paint. Reopened GIMP and gave the strings a bit more detail, so that at full download size it wouldn’t look unrealistic.

Before I added the strings I showed Unbirth the picture, and he noticed that the Wayfinders were opaque, although they were made of glass. So he advised me to make the glass a bit more translucent.

14. Erased a bit of colour from the glass parts of the Wayfinders, and there you have the finished picture:

Love it? Show your support by favouriting the artwork here!

The Wayfinders are from Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep © Disney and Square Enix.