ヒキガエル - drafting

Whilst walking through Nakano, I bumped into this little guy. 

Hikigaeru (ヒキガエル - common toad) are pretty aggressive, and I'm pretty sure could take down a small child.

Currently I'm looking for realism in tones and textures, so toads seem like a good starting point.

Sekaido - 2013

2013 entry - F3 canvas / Acrylics

Initially setting out for a bugs-eye-view visual, missed the mark a fair bit. With a few more hours I'd like to have darken the women's facial contours a little, as the light against dark backdrop was a little harsh. But all in all, scaling up on last years work, creating 2 pieces on a right deadline, it didn't turn out half bad!

2012 entry - F2 canvas / Acrylics

Sekaido work - week deadline

The previous canvas debacle left me with just 7 days to create a new piece in time for the exhibit. Recreating the same visual on a smaller canvas would've been much simpler but where's the fun in that.

Time restraints led to a limited pallet, meaning black would be taken out of the equation. Initially I wanted a more vibrant bubbly piece anyway since the last had been pretty morbid.

The yellow sky was a base layer to motivate a lighter mood whilst working, but eventually needed to be darkened to balance the shading on the plants.

Sonic Soba

Ordinarily I would never play with my food, but after seeing "Sugar Rush" (シュガーラッシュ)  or "Wreck-It-Ralph" in the US, I just couldn't resist a walk down memory lane.

Sekkaido - Final Sketch

The previous sketch seemed a little too simple, so decided to build more layers and textures.

Also insects are going to break up the colours a little, as will the sleeping women.

 Composition was tough, but once the sketch is there, it's a huge weight of my shoulder. 

Sekkaido entry .. or was..!

The past few weeks I'd been focused on the annual Sekkaido competition (which always seems to sneak up on me somehow).

Still about 12 hours from completion I was quite happy with the direction and colour coding, unfortunatly realised 2 weeks before the deadline that I'd been too ambitious and had been working on an F5 piece when it should've been an F4.

No biggie. It's pretty rare to get the chance to work on something that size, and it was a heck of a learning curve.

 So back to the drawing board!

Pixels!

I've had pixels on the brain the past few weeks.

Not too bad for a first try, squares themselves don't lend themselves to interesting textures, but I've got a few ideas in mind for the next piece.