Whew

Considering that I’ve been working from home lately (often dressed in pajamas with wild “house hair”), the past few days have felt oddly like going back to the office. It's been a crazy rush to beat deadlines, please clients and get work done!

The Drummer in the Band, 2009

First, I had to draw illustrations for two “big books” to be used in a school in Malaysia. One story was called “The Drummer in the Band” and I had a lot of fun drawing the uniforms and instruments. However, I was also relieved that the lead character was a drummer. I didn’t want to be drawing 12 pages of trombones!

The next project was an emergency request from the Asian Civilizations Museum. They wanted to develop an activity booklet for their upcoming exhibit on Emperor KangXi. And unfortunately, the artist they hired was unable to continue the project. This left me with 7 activities, 4 pages and 4 days to finish everything (although revisions stretched out to an entire week!). I contracted my brother to help me with the layout and we invaded the kitchen table with our laptops and sketchbooks, forcing the family to have meals somewhere else.

ACM Booklet Cover, 2009

The original artist had a very digital anime style and part of the challenge was blending his “Emperor KangXi” with my own hand-drawn art. I think the result was not bad at all! Quite impressive for someone who just learned how to use the gradient tool two days ago ;)

While it's great to be so busy with new projects, I’ve hardly had time for other creative work. I’m starting to crave for some “fun art” before another wave of deadlines arrives.