My Poster

Heh, look what I found!



Last year, Suzan Khoo asked me to make a magazine cover for them to participate in the Star NiE thing. So I made this, which actually looks more like a poster!

Their magazine is titled "What The Heck?"

Since they have such a title, I decided WHAT THE HECK would have a big question mark. So I got the idea for the poster. Then I gave it to them and they add the titles, highlights and more to make their magazine cover.




They won Pizza Hut vouchers! So Suzan gave me one of these epic vouchers for a free regular pizza, awwww. But when my family and I went there, we got summoned 'cuz we can't get a parking and had to park somewhere by the road and that made us pay more than that! >:(






Love,
Nicholas.

WNxH: Wallpaper!

The first WNx Homestay wallpaper! Based on Ohmchii the Lolcat comic strip.



Special thanks to Evo who helped a lot in defining the lines and putting in some great colouring into it. I did the initial lineart, colouring and shading. Evo helped to bring out something better, and these are a few pictures we came up with which you can use as your wallpaper. You can see which one you like!




Lineart Only (Uncoloured)














Finished (Coloured)





























They aren't very nice...but oh well, it's a start for this comic series. ^_^

CG Girl Artwork

Drawing of Nico, CG practice.

Initial Sketch

Completed Coloured Drawing

Completed Coloured Drawing with Dramatic Lighting

Nicholas.

How to Make a Simple Logo?

This guide is to teach you how to make a very simple Nuffnang styled logo using Adobe Photoshop.


The Nuffnang logo is apparently a simple body figure shouting, whitish in colour. Its background is gradient blue. The logo is then outlined with black to create a nice cartoon effect.








We will create a similar logo but more different looking and in our own style instead.




Steps
1. First, select the Rounded Rectangle Tool. Hold Shift and drag it across your canvas to make a rounded square.


2. Select the Magic Wand tool to select the square you just made.


3. Select the Gradient Tool and click on the gradient to edit it. Do the following.





Click on the bottom part of the gradient bar to add a colour. In the picture above, there are 3 points. The first point being a darker blue (007bd1), the 2nd being a lighter blue (00a8ff) at 30% and last one being white.

Drag to colour the square. You will get something like this.








4. Now select the Text Tool and use Verdana. Make your font bold and put a "N" in your square. Pick a nice brighter colour so your letter can be seen. In my case, I made the letter jutting out of the square to make it look nice.

I then added white letters, "EXUS", to show that my example company's name is Nexus. It can be a shape instead of letters too.






5. As it seemed a little too blank, I selected the Custom Shape Tool and selected Ornament 1 to draw at the bottom part of the square. I also made it a little big so it sticks out from the square for some style.






6. Lastly, merge all layers together. Right-click on the layer and apply Stroke with 5 pixels and coloured black.








If you do not like the colour blue, you can also use Hue to adjust the colour you like. You can also add in different shapes or texts and even colours depending on how you want your logo to be.

A good way is to add Drop Shadows and greyish gradients to make the elements in your square more attractive.



Love,
Nicholas.

How to Do Word Clouds?

Word clouds are a bunch of words arranged in different ways and different sizes.


As seen in many different sites, word clouds alone are done best using the computer with a plain dark background, filled with words of different sizes and different arrangements as well as different colours.

These words express and catch the attention of many viewers, to see what the writer has written and be able to know what they thought at that time, as well as the progression of the thoughts into other keywords. It's very interesting to view how it is and the various things that comes into your mind when looking at the word and how it is emphasized or subscripted in word clouds.



Doodling
Apart from plain words, you can try adding in drawings and sentences that will tell more of a story or comedy instead.

Some lovers/couples have a doodle book to draw or write in their own ways to express instead of just talking. Here is a simple example of a doodle communication.





As shown above, they're all sentences instead of words. Drawings show and tell as one lover tells that he has played The Sims 3. Then it moved on to how he made his sims WooHoo and the way sims recycle by throwing stuff into the dustbin. The black arrow leads to the piece of dung which is then seen as a way of recycling to save the trees by another small arrow. Many other paths can be seen, and it's up to the viewer how they would see the story, which is pretty hard to find the right way.


All to all, this way of art as well as the pictures can make a good decoration or art for clothes or anything. With random ideas jumbled together, word clouds make a very good piece of art.


Love,
Nicholas.

DOts!?

You can find arts in all sort of ways...
This is a kind of art that is done with dots...







This drawing was completed last school holiday...
A shout out from Lemon to all our viewers...
Hope to see that fun holidays awaits you...



Love Lemon~

How to Draw Anime Cats?

How to draw a cute cartoony cat that is not realistic? Here's how.


This cat is actually Ohmchii the Cat from my WNx Homestay comic. So this is how I draw anime-style cats, with those big anime eyes. It's actually pretty simple and what we want to do is to make it cute and cartoony. In my comic, Ohmchii the Cat is a cute and innocent cat with a slightly elegant look.

What You Need
- Pencil
- Compass

Steps

1. Use the compass to draw a circle.

2. Draw a curve inwards on the left side of the circle near the middle like this.




3. At the deepest point of the curve is where the eyes can be drawn. Draw two curves like this, like a frowning curve as the eyes. Join it together to form a square-like shape.





4. Add a circle at the top right corner in the eyes as highlights. Draw a small triangle slighty lower in between the eyes and draw a "3" pointing upwards as the cute smile. Draw ears at the side of the head with some distance between each other.





5. Add in some spikes around the circle to show fur. Draw a smaller body below the head.

This is the completed version of the drawing. I added all the stuff that Ohmchii needs to have.

Conclusion
I've added in a ribbon collar, some stripes at the side of the head and these two blushie ovals near the eyes to add in the overall cuteness of the kitty. Adding these feminine items show that the cat is a girl. Good luck in adding your own accessories and customizing your kitty!

Love,
Nicholas.

How to Layout a Comic?

Don't know how to make your panels in comics? Learn a simple way here.

I'm sure many of you have read comics such as Garfield and many others as well as manga. When you look at these comics, they always have a spacing in between panels. This little spacing can sometimes be present or absent depending on situations. I have made an example.

WNx Homestay: Playful Animals

Panel Boxes
1. Shape
Your boxes can be triangular in shape or any kind of shape you like. It is not necessary a square panel. The good thing about doing a shape that points towards another panel is it directs the reader to that panel.

2. Frameless
You don't even need to add a box frame as shown in the 1st panel sometimes. Careful not to make too many without boxes or else everything will seem like it's blending together and it will be harder to read.

3. Overlapping
Overlapping two panels with one can make a connection as well to direct readers to anywhere you want as shown in the 3rd panel.

4. Shorter Panels
Short panels indicate a shorter timeframe. It means if the event is happening very quickly, then your panel should be shorter as shown in the 6th panel. A big panel would take a longer time. Use this panel size to simulate the time in your comic.

Story Elements
1. Character
You can draw your character's full body at one point in the page where it overlaps everything as shown in the 1st panel. This makes the character stand out and readers will read that first, before continuing. It can also show that the character is present in all other boxes it has overlapped as well.

2. Speech Bubbles
You can use your computer to add in text and speech bubbles in your comic. This is a better choice and makes a clear reading for readers.

3. Toning
Shadowing and toning can be done by the computer as well to produce very good effects than using pencil like the example.

Conclusion
Always leave some spacing between panels except certain ones so that readers can tell and read easily. Sometimes direct your readers around your page so that it isn't too boring. Please erase all your pencil guidelines...I didn't erase much for the example above.

Love,
Nicholas.

How to Animate?

This is how you animate things the traditional way...


With computers and technology rising in this digital age, many/all animators use computer programmes and graphics to create animation for realistic effects. Some of them even used 3D Modelling programmes to create them, but because of the cell shading rendering, it will look like 2D drawings. However, for those interested you can just simply make one, using your own hands.




Tools Required
- Pencil
- Pen
- Paper
- Adobe/Macromedia Flash Programme -OR- Flipbook/Book where you can flip easily




Drawing Precisely
When you use this method, there isn't really a way of drawing so precisely that every line you draw is the same as the previous one. If you want to retain any part of the drawings from the last scene, you could just draw it separately and only animate the parts you want to animate.

Example: Character doesn't move, but he's blinking his eyes. So draw the face without his eyes and draw frame by frame for the eyes.

This only applies if you use Flash. Else, if you're using a flipbook, you gotta redraw everything.




How to Determine the Frames Per Second?
The more FPS you have, the more detailed your animation is. The more slight movements you draw, the better. Just imagine that time is passing, and you are holding a camera. You are going to take a burst shot (frame-by-frame capture) and it will be what your camera can capture. Draw that in. You can also vary the FPS soon if it doesn't match in Flash. If you're using a Flipbook, just flip it slower or quicker when you reach that part.




Simple Steps
1. Draw anything on the first frame/paper, let's say a guy.
2. Put the 2nd paper on top of the first one and draw it as if time is passing. (Think of it as frame-by-frame camera shot.)
3. Repeat it until you have what you want.




Here is one simple 3 frame animation I made using this traditional way...it's kinda boring and it loops over and over again. It explains my lazy nature =D

Right-click and click Zoom In once, then drag around for better quality/animation feel.
Yes, it looks different if you don't zoom in once because the initial resolution is bigger.

Looks dumb and ugly, eyes won't blink! I'm not a good animator anyway so this is just a rough guide. It's animated at 12 frames-per-second, which is actually good enough if you don't want to draw so much.




Colouring
Search Youtube.com for colouring guides using computer programmes like Photoshop! For skintones, you can go to this site (http://www.jaredandlindsay.com/tutorialcdsample/html/chapter4-color1.html) as they provide all the skintones and a few guides there!




Love,
Nicholas.

How to Sketch Anime Heads?

How to sketch a simple, anime-style head that is facing you in 8 steps.

If you love to draw, but your drawing sucks, don't worry! Practice makes perfect, and here is a short guide on how to sketch a simple anime head that anyone can do if you follow closely.


What You Need
- Pencil
- Eraser
- Compass
- Paper

Steps

1. Use a compass to draw a circle on a piece of paper.

2. At about the edge of the circle, draw two lines down which are pointing slightly inwards.

3. Join the lines together by drawing another 2 lines down inwards where it connects at a point in-line with the centre of the circle.



4. At the intersection between the added lines and the circle, draw a horizontal curved line across, it doesn't have to be perfect, just a guideline.



5. Start the eyes on the line you've just drawn like this. The nostrils is located at the end of the circle below, and you can just draw the mouth in-line with the intersection of the 2 lines below.




6. Draw the bangs in whatever style you like. I prefer sharp and spiky.

7. Remember that hair is spoofy, it doesn't stick to the head flat. So draw along the head with a slight distance.

8. Erase the lines you are not supposed to see, add whatever you like. This is a completed version with longer hair just by adding extra 2 lines.

Yes, I'm using my phone camera, very bad quality. This is just a simple guide to get anyone to be able to start sketching anime heads, because sketching is simple and quick. Front view will be your easiest sketch and getting your proportions right before you work on persepective. You can vary the height of the face, the eye positions, nose, size of the eyes, size of mouth and so on to create many different characters. Don't forget to add eyebrows and ears if your character's hair isn't blocking them unlike mine.

Every person's drawing style differs from the other, as long as it looks okay, you won't have a problem. Some of us won't notice proportion and perspective mistakes, sometimes our drawings are exaggerated, but as long as it looks alright, people will still like it. Keep up the good work!

Eye Shading?
I don't have time to make this but there are many kinds of shading, it's just how you want to do it. Here's how I did for the one above.

1. Draw two little balls at one corner in the eyes, top and bottom for the gloss/reflection.
2. Divide the eyes into 3 sections by drawing 3 horizontal lines equally.
3. Shade from darkest to lightest from top to bottom.
4. Draw an oval at the middle and shade it darkest.

Love,
Nicholas.