Mars: Random Designs & Illustrations

Adele drawing WIP

2011-12-09T15:15:00.001+08:00

Just a quick update of the drawing. The face is pretty much done for now. What's left is the hair! It won't be very detailed, except for the random strands near the cheek area. The dark tones are as good as black, so yeap, i'll be using a lot of black and browns.

These are the colours that i've used (so far...) for this drawing.

Skin

Eyes

p.s. do not draw under yellow lighting.

Coloured

2011-12-09T00:05:00.001+08:00

It's the holidays and i've started drawing again. But this time, with colour pencils. I've always wanted to try coloured portraits (i have drawn objects and animals in colour but never humans). So i thought i'd give it a go.

I started this one last night... and there is still a long way to go til i finish it. It's the colour-mixing that takes up most of the time. So compared to a black and grey portrait, a coloured one is a b**** (rhymes with stitch) to draw. So far, for this portrait, there're a lot of odd combinations of colours, i.e. black+light brown+purple for darker tones. it's looking a little weird at the moment. i think i need to tweak the colours and probably try to smooth-en some areas.

You can try to guess who it is, the answer is in the tags.

Tools & Materials:
01. A4 200gsm Syamal Acid Free Drawing Paper
02. Faber-Castell Colour Pencils
03. Eraser

Start: 08 December 2011

Mini project and updates

2011-09-22T16:06:00.002+08:00

Look what i've got here! teehee...and i'm happy with them. always wanted to make these badges and finally got to do it yesterday! there were altogether seven designs printed. 5 of them are from the go veggie design, which i made t-shirts a long time ago. initially, there were some faulty ones, but i managed to get them remade. so you will be seeing some of the faulty ones being sold at central market lol. the smaller badges are 38mm in diameter and the larger ones are 55mm. yes, i'll be selling them soon :D

small: SGD3.00 each | SGD2.50 for >1pc

large SGD3.50 each | SGD3.00 for >1pc

so...if you're a vegetarian/vegan or someone who really likes vegetables...and prolly supports mars? haha, feel free to leave a comment if you're interested!

...and i know i haven't updated the florence welch drawing for a really long time... but it has progressed quite a bit since i last shared it here. i might post a scan of it just to show how it looks like at the moment.

Go veggie!

mars

Florence Welch Drawing WIP

2011-01-20T23:18:00.000+08:00

Florence Welch

Tools & Materials
1. A4 out of A3 Acid free 200 gsm White (Syamal)
2. Eraser
3. 0.5 Mechanical Pencil (3B, 4B)
4. Tissue

5. Blending stumps

I've been working on this drawing since last weekend...on and off whenever there were pockets of free time here and there. Anyway, here's how it looks so far. I scanned my drawing this time...so no worries of camera shake = blurred image etc :)

Lauren Lane Drawing

2011-01-15T19:21:00.001+08:00

Lauren Lane

Tools & Materials
1. A4 out of A3 Acid free 200 gsm White (Syamal)
2. Eraser
3. 0.5 Mechanical Pencil (3B, 4B)
4. Tissue

5. Blending stumps

Here's a portrait of Lauren Lane, best known for her role as C.C. in the sitcom, The Nanny. The "style" of this portrait was inspired by the previous drawing, of Idina. I wanted it to look sorta soft and light...which means, more white space! Hence i left the blouse white, no patterns etc, blending in with a clean, white background. i apologize for the photo quality. i'll be scanning it later on and upload it to my webpage gallery, which makes this portrait the first drawing for 2011!

i think i may have to correct the area above the lips, the shading seem a lil harsh in this photo, it looks awkward after looking at the photo for a while...or am i just paranoid.

It's the weekend and i've been aching to draw at least one more portrait since the holidays have ended. It's very rare to get some "free-time" during my week-ends while school's on, so i'm going to savour it! lol because i'm expecting the complete opposite starting this coming Monday til my semester ends.

*Update 21/01/2011: Scanned Version of Drawing

Idina Menzel Drawing Complete!

2010-12-30T11:27:00.000+08:00

Idina Menzel

i took a photo of it instead for this post because i don't have a scanner with me at the moment. finally completed after a week of NOT working on the drawing lol. i have been going out and spending time with my family. sorry for being idle if you've been following this.

in comparison to the Tina Fey drawing, this drawing is definitely less complicated since there were less areas to fill. in the original photo, Idina's hands are holding a pearl necklace (?). i decided not to include that in this drawing and wanted to make it look as tho her hands were down instead. i thought it would be a nice change and would look just as good. all in all, i like how the drawing turned out :)

Tools & Materials
1. A4 out of A3 Acid free 200 gsm White (Syamal)
2. Eraser
3. 0.5 Mechanical Pencil (2H, 2B, 3B)
4. Tissue
5. Blending stumps

Start: 20 December 2010

Complete: 30 December 2010

Idina Menzel WIP

2010-12-22T14:14:00.001+08:00

most of you may know her from the movie Enchanted or Glee as Shelby Corcoran (former Vocal Adrenaline coach). this drawing was done based on my friend Tiann Nerng's request. he's a big fan of Idina's.

this one didn't take a lot of time since the portrait has a lot of white space. details are all concentrated on the face. since the hair is black, there was really no need for me to show different tones, 'cept for the sides where there are catch lights etc.

here's a mini tutorial:

the shading for this drawing was mostly done with blending sticks and a piece of tissue, taking the carbon from the hair with just a light stroke. or you can make some carbon dusts on another paper and use that.

i started the shading (for skin) with the blending stick. to create darker tones, just go over the area again and again, applying a little more pressure and add more carbon dust to it if necessary.

then i took a piece of tissue and sorta wrapped it around my finger and just go over some areas to correct some shadings that are sort of uneven. :)

hope that helped in some ways.

i'm still contemplating whether to finish the drawing with her hands included or leave it as it is.

Tools & Materials
1. A4 out of A3 Acid free 200 gsm White (Syamal)
2. Eraser
3. 0.5 Mechanical Pencil (2H, 2B, 3B)
4. Tissue
5. Blending stumps

Start: 20 December 2010

Complete: -

will upload it again once it's done.

Tina Fey drawing complete!

2010-12-20T00:07:00.000+08:00

Start : 11th of December 2010

Complete : 19th December 2010.

That makes it a total of 9 days! but then again, bear in mind it's not continuously...it's on and off. so it's good.

ok i won't deny it... i nearly gave up on this because there was so much erasing and redrawing at one point which nearly drove me mad. but here it is...finished! some parts that were sorta rushed...but i tried not to do that because learning from past drawings, things do not look too good when you do that. i chose to darkened some parts which gives that big contrast and of course helped ease some form of burden(?) lol . i used a mechanical pencil for most parts of the drawing even though i did use a few wood pencils (of different grades), especially for the hair. so there's no need to constantly resharpen pencils only to get that sharp tip.

all in all, i'm pretty happy with how this drawing looks.

well, i hope you peeps like it :) i'll keep you posted if i do start on a new drawing!

Tina Fey Final WIP Peek

2010-12-19T15:52:00.001+08:00

here's a peek at the drawing now! sorry for being MIA for a few days now. anyway, this will be the last WIP. so the next time i'll be posting the real deal. so look out for that, peeps! i'm reworking the eye area at the moment and the hair...so it looks pretty creepy at the moment. but i wanna show you that i've finally drew the necklace and finished the dress bit. yes, there's a background...but i'm gonna make it real dark. i blended the skin...so it looks pretty smooth right now. give me at least one more day, and i think i might be able to complete this and move on, it's been too long. but for now, i'll keep you in suspense til i finish this.

..and to answer my friend Debbie's question "what's a blending stump?",

blending sticks/stumps are very densely rolled paper with a sharp point at one end, almost like a pencil. 'cept that it's used to blend graphite/carbon marks on paper to create a smooth shading. so i'm using that right now for the skin. there are different sizes of blending sticks. sizes vary according to which the size of the area you wanna blend i.e. small ones for, obviously, fine/small areas. i got these from the czip lee stationery shop in Bangsar for 5 ringgit (6 sticks).

hope that helps! :)

Tina Fey WIP II

2010-12-13T01:17:00.001+08:00

you guessed it right, peeps! she's Tina Fey! *big grand confetti rain...with victory music* lol

...ok so here's an update on the drawing so far. i've pretty much started on her hair. the hatch-like shading is me being just a little impatient. hence i think i'm gonna take a short break from this and continue later. i haven't made any changes to the face as far as shading goes (still un-blended). once i'm done with the hair, i guess the next step would be the dress... or necklace.

the updated list of tools and materials i've used for this drawing,

1. A3 Acid free 200 gsm White (Syamal) *Edit: A3 cut into 2 for an A4 size

2. 4H, F, HB, B, 3B, 6B Mars Lumograph Pencils

3. Eraser

4. 0.5 Mechanical Pencil (3B)

5. Blending stump

i'll be posting another update tomorrow. hope you peeps like how it's looking so far!

Back to the drawing board!

2010-12-12T04:52:00.001+08:00

it's the holidays, and that means... i get to draw something like this again! come to think of it, can't remember the last time i drew something like this. but anyway, here's a WIP shot of the drawing which i'm currently working on. i started yesterday, in the afternoon, and continued until now...which is 4.23am, not continuously, but on and off. so much drawing, erasing and redrawing to get the outline just right before shading.

LOTS more to go, i haven't blended anything yet, so the skin looks pretty rough. i may or may not blend it, we'll see how it goes. the hair is gonna be...haha..ha....oh god.

i bought a new A3 drawing pad somewhere in August before i left for Singapore. it's almost like cartridge paper except that this one's white...unlike the usual off white ones. also new, is a set of pencils! was excited to use them, so this is the perfect time put them to good use? :)

well, just in case you're wondering, here's the list of things i used for this drawing so far!

1. A3 Acid free 200 gsm White (Syamal)

2. 4H, F, HB, 3B, 6B Mars Lumograph Pencils

3. Eraser

4. 0.5 Mechanical Pencil (3B)

well, wish me luck!

p.s. i'll let you peeps guess who she is, leave your guesses at the comments section or something... if you guessed it right, then i'm doing good. if you didn't guess it right, well, ...let's just not go there. haha

p.p.s. i'm gonna document my process here :) so look out for the next update! hopefully soon.

Sketch

2010-09-05T23:43:00.000+08:00

I sketched something up recently out of boredom about a week ago. so i thought i'd share it here! An update for this blog was long overdue... so here it is! my random little sketch. I was browsing through a book (Harvard Studio Works)... decided to sketch one of the photos that was in it. I chose that particular photo simply because it was the clearest of them all lol. Hope you guys like it!

I've scanned a couple of sketches with this one being one of the 2 and uploaded them to my website Drawings page. click on the link to have a look...feel free to leave me a comment if you like! :)

Postponed

2010-08-09T16:22:00.001+08:00

Sadly, i won't be able to have the 28 t-shirts printed anytime soon. But definitely to be printed before the end of 2010. Time was pretty much a factor in this delay. The t-shirts wouldn't make it in time before i leave for Singapore. i didn't want to create any complications had i chose to have them printed while i'm not around. so i hope i'll be able to print them when i get back home during the holidays.

I got my self some pastels by the way... i've thought of getting them for a while now. so i'm sorta thinking of what to do with them...as in what to draw with them and stuff. stay tune! i might just post up some of my pastel work here.

Twenty Eight

2010-07-09T00:34:00.001+08:00

After a long long looong time of absence, i'm finally unveilin' a new design. It's not exactly new since it was designed last year but never really got to post it. So here it is...today! :D

If you're wondering what's the significance of the number 28, it's a design dedicated to all peeps with their birthday falling on the 28th of [insert month here]... or anyone who loves the number 28!

I'll be having these t-shirts printed soon. Keeping my fingers crossed that i'll be able to get them all done before end of July. The design will be printed on black tees (sizes XS, S, M, L, XL). In addition to the series of blacks, i've created 2 limited editions of the 28 tees (black dye on white/yellow t-shirts)(sizes XS, S, M, L, XL). One tee will cost approximately RM 25.00. Will confirm the price in the next blog post.

If you're reading this and you're interested in buying a 28 tee, feel free to send me an email (marisakueh@hotmail.com) to place an order. In the email, please include the following details.
Name:
Design: 28 (Red/Yellow/Light Blue/Green/Purple/White)
T-shirt colour: (Black/White*/Yellow*)
Size: (XS/S/M/L/XL)
Quantity:
Total $: (i.e RM 25.00)

*limited edition: only available with black dye print.

Thankyou for droppin by! :) I'll be updating this blog soon on the progress. So stay tuned!

Mars

Go Veggie Update!

2010-04-14T21:59:00.000+08:00

Only 2 White "Go Veggie" Tees left!

Sizes \ T-shirt Colour	White	Black
XS	-	-
S	-	-
M	2	-
L	-	-
XL	-	-

I don't plan on reprinting the Go Veggie tee anytime soon. It's time for a new one :) stay tune, folks!

"...and I wanna thank you guys for the support :)"

Mars

"Chip-Skate"

2010-02-27T15:33:00.000+08:00

The idea for this lame ol' joke sketch sprung into my head from listening to a conversation between my elder sister and my younger brother while the 3 of us were in a car on the way to someplacewhichican'tseemtorememberrightnow- my sister, jokingly, called my brother a cheapskate. After listening to the word repetitively at the back seat sorta gave me a light bulb moment (lol) and got me thinking... "Hey a potato chip on a pair of skates would be called a chipskate! Hahaha" and I'm planning on putting this little joke on a t-shirt. You bet I'm feeling a little brilliant at the moment for this!

I have to admit I laughed at the lame-ness of this while I was sketching it. I'm going bonkers!

T-shirts are here!

2010-02-05T15:08:00.003+08:00

After a couple of weeks of following closely with the tee process, the t-shirts are finally done! Everything about this t-shirt stuff is new to me. So I've pretty much gained good experiences from all of it. I now understand how the printing process works etc. I was so stoked to see the t-shirts. It was a little surreal to me, seeing my work on an actual tee and I'm looking forward to getting some more designs printed. But for my very first one, it's my "Go Veggie" tee.

I took close-up photos for both black and white t-shirts with the designs to let you guys see how they look like.

I currently have XS, Sand M sizes for both black and white. I'm out of L sizes. Here's the quantity for each sizes I have available if you're interested :)

If you'd like to know how you can purchase a tee from me, feel free to refer to my previous post here. I'll put up all the necessary information in my website soon.

White Black

XS 1 -

S 2 2

M 1 1

L - -

XL - -

...and I have a new tee design, will post it up later on. Thanks for dropping by.

Mars

*Update (10.26pm): L and XL sizes are out.

Mars Website Icons

2010-01-25T13:45:00.002+08:00

Last night, I was up doing some changes to my website... I think it has been long overdue. So I came up with some icons for my web pages. The first one at the top is the header/banner. The middle portion are icons for each web page title. The bottom two icons are for links to my 2 blogs - Design + Illustration & Photography.
You'll also find the header icon at the right side bar of my blog pages to link you guys up to my website, if you guys want to visit.

Right now, my website looks pretty minimal right now. I like how it looks at the moment. Prolly will fill up with some more stuffs in future... gradually. Hope you guys like 'em.

Mars

Go Veggie T-shirts will be out soon!

2010-01-18T23:43:00.005+08:00

Wow it's really gonna happen. iamstoked

I'm gonna get my t-shirts prolly by this weekend or next week. Basically, I've decided to go ahead and print my "Go Veggie" design... because I like it lol. If you're reading this and you're interested in buying one from me, do send me an email to marisakueh@hotmail.com. In the email, please include the following details.

Name:
Design: Go Veggie
T-shirt colour: (Black/White)
Size: (XS, S, M, L, XL)
Quantity:

...and to all my friends, if any of you guys are interested in getting one. Feel free to text me or somethin! :D

...and if you're studying in SM All Saints and you want one, email me and I will pass the tees to my lil bro and he will pass it to you.

It'll cost RM 25 for a tee. To send the tee by post, an addition of RM 2.50 is needed for postage fee.

If you wanna know how the t-shirt sizes are like,

	1	2	3	4
XS	46 cm	16 cm	62 cm	21 cm
S	49 cm	18 cm	65 cm	23 cm
M	52 cm	19 cm	67 cm	24 cm
L	54 cm	19 cm	70 cm	24 cm
XL	57 cm	19 cm	73 cm	26 cm

I've measured for each t-shirt size. So to determine the size you want, all you have to do is measure a t-shirt you own and measure at the same areas shown in the diagram and pick the one that is closest to it. Easy, no? :D

Just a Little Sketch

2009-11-19T11:26:00.008+08:00

Hey people!

It's been a while since I last updated this blog. So I decided to put this up. It's not meant to be uploaded here though. It's just a sketch I did when I was on a plane yesterday. Plus, my website which I usually post this kind of stuff up is ''under construction".

About the sketch, it was all done with a black pen. Why you ask? That's because I left both my pencil and eraser in my bag...and I put it in the luggage compartment. I was pretty upset with myself for a few seconds there. Haha but at least I had a pen with me. So throughout the flight, it was just me, a small sketchbook and my pen. The challenge to draw with a pen is that every line stroke is permanent. So I had to be extra extra careful.

I was flippin' through the Air Asia magazine, and decided to use the ad photo in it as reference simply because it was clear enough to see the shades but I still had to squint my eyes at times. Initially, I wanted to draw the lady instead because of the hair and stuff, but it was way way too small. : / Oh well

I wasn't finished with it... my pen died on me in halfway. Hope you guys like this. :) A couple of air stewardess passed by and saw me sketching this. They were very nice. :)

My favourite question from one of the air stewardess

''Are you an artist?"

I replied ''Nope, this is just a hobby :)"

I'm guessing what she meant by artist was as a profession.

I'll be updating soon with some designs for tees. I intend to sell some tees soon. Hopefully

Mars

Tired?

2009-10-06T17:56:00.002+08:00

Hey folks!

As mentioned in the previous post, I'll be posting some more of my doodles that I've done last week. Well, I was feeling tired while I was doodling and hence the subject matter. I wanted to go really cartoony with this. So the lines are pretty much raw(?) Ok that didn't exactly make sense. Anyway, this was drawn directly with my pen.

I've got another one yet to be posted. So I'll save the other one for another day. I've just created a blog for photography. The link is available on the side bar... so feel free to check it out. :)

I'll probably let the doodle do the talking today.

Do click on the image to have a closer look. :)

...and of course, the ''I'm Tired" tees!

Here's something for those who love blue or pink.

Would you like one? (...or both lol)

Hope you guys like 'em. :)

Mars

P.s. The tees here you see in this blog will be MADE available soon, prolly somewhere in December. Hopefully all goes well.

Goin' Veggie

2009-10-03T00:41:00.001+08:00

Hey people,

It's been quite a while since I last updated. I have been doodling from time to time. So there's a few done and can't wait to show them but I'm going to start with this one first - my veggie motiveswhich was done earlier this week. The idea was to make it look kinda simple and clean-lookin' so that it'll make a good tee print (well, at least I hope it would). Just to clarify, there are tomatoes, carrots, brocolli and cabbages only.

Here's how it would look like on a plain white tee.

Would you like one?

Tell me what you think about it. :)

Mars

Tharrr she blows! (Whales)

2009-09-11T18:00:00.001+08:00

Why whales? ... I do not know either.

Did this one in the morning/afternoon today. I was staring at the white piece of paper for a while... then thought of drawin' a whale ...in the sea. where there's a lot of water. The point is, I didn't exactly have it planned out. :)

Right. Let's start with this one.

(the lil whale was added at the end... you know, to keep mama whale company)

...and of course there was some other colour changing-mixing-matching... You get the idea.

Ok this one was done real quick just give a rough idea how it'd look like on a Tee. :) Got the t-shirt template off Google search.

Well, that's all for now. Hope you guys like 'em.

Mars

Hey look it's me!

2009-08-29T00:22:00.000+08:00

So...

I've been doodlin'... me! Didn't take long at all. Probably a few mins or so. It's just my head after all and it's small. Hey who knows...maybe this cartoon-me could be the face/logo for my t-shirts. :D Lol how narcissistic. It'll be everywhere I tell ya! Everywhere! *mischievious grin*

Right... I'll start with this one. It's normal-lookin'. Dark brown hair etc.

(Oh Geez... just realised how big this is.)

Then mixed those colours up!

Hope you guys enjoyed this one. You'll probably see more of it around soon in my upcoming doodles.

Mars

Little Critters

2009-08-24T17:11:00.000+08:00

This is something I came up with when I was restless over the weekend. It was so spontaneously done. At first, I wanted to draw monsters but then I thought why not have a go at something more...erm...tame? So I guess I'll save the little-mosnters-thing for another day. :) Then I'll have a series of creatures! A series! :D The quality of the pictures (esp. colours) ain't that great so bear with me aight.

Basically it started out with plain black outlines.

I sorta like it with light-blue outlines instead.

Then I decided to mess around with background colour

(Uh-oh...it's kinda small to see isn't it.)

Hope you like 'em.

Mars

All Smiles & Colours

2009-08-14T20:41:00.000+08:00

Hello there! Here's something I whipped up when I was bored the other day. I scanned it up... and then coloured it at home with Paint on my laptop. Thankyou Ms Vidhya "Thea'' Vijayan for lending me her pen when mine ran out of ink!

Hopefully I'll have this one printed on T-shirts (without the watermark). That's what I want... my very own T-shirts with my random scribbles and doodles and for everyone who would like to wear them. Lol. I'll be doodlin' some more. Til' then enjoy this one.

Mars

All Smiles (well almost) & Colours