Mrv Sketchbook

[Mrv]

Well, this is where most of my stuff will go. Mostly sketches as I don't have the luxury of time to sit down and fully flesh out a picture. In fact its starting to become a bad habit for me to throw down a few sketches and then forget about finishing the picture, heh. Hence, I would consider them much closer to gestures? As most of them are 10-15mins long.

Anyways, here goes!:)

[annhell]

nice sketches! all have a warm and fuzzy feeling to it..and the vespa one is especially cute~ studio ghibli inspired maybe? ahah the angry lawyer!! reminds me of the OD*X saga =P

[lin]

Simple lines, yet so effective.

*admire*

[. k .]

nice stuff. simple but charming

[Mrv]

annhell: Yeah, Miyazaki's as well as Moebius' pen/hatching style has inspired me a lot. :) As for the angry lawyers, it was something I saw on the train on the way home. There we two smartly dressed chaps joking with each other, mumbling that very phrase lol.

lin: Thanks! Much appreciated.:)

. k .: Glad you enjoyed it!

[TaKaHaN]

Nice!!! Post more sketches!!!!

[garychoo]

these quickies are great! =) alot of feeling in just so few lines

[Mrv]

TaKaHaN: Thanks! I'll see how it goes.
garychoo: haha thanks. yeah I'm fan of simple drawings XD

[Mrv]

2 more sketches! Here they go:

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/009_playfulness_small.jpg

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/010_monorail.jpg
inspired by http://icanhascheezburger.com/2007/01/12/monorail-cat/

[zszs]

Hahahaa, monorail cat!
This is the last place I`d expect to see it referenced!

[lin]

1st pic: Bhwahahahaha! XDD

2nd pic: The boy's eye does not seem quite focused upon the painting he's talking about... But, ah, the pic is so cute!

[Mrv]

zszs: Haha yeah, monorail cat was introduced to me by one of my friende. They're really awesome! :D

lin: Glad you enjoyed the picture. :)

Here's and old sketch that is updated recently. Bonus points if you can guess the song I based it on. :)

[lin]

Wow, the colours are shockingly bright, but... it's very refreshing to look at. 8D
No good at songs, so, paiseh... XP

[canary]

the angry lawyer, somehow i like dat one XD;; maybe i'll become something like him(inside my head XD; ) if i happened to meet with another MAH FAN client orz

you got simple and nice stuff from u here wor~nice nice ^^

[Oubliette]

MONORAIL KITTEH!!!!Liek, all kinds of awesum. :D Extra points for doing it in Miyazaki humour style. XD

Vespa one's my favourite. It's so oddly peaceful and clean. :)

As for the one based on a song...errr....Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds? XD It's the only psychedelic song I can think of that matches the colours here....

[Mrv]

lin: Thanks! I hope I did not fry your eyes.XD

canary: I know how exactly how you feel haha. Its always good to have threatening melee weapons when talking with them.

Oubliette: Haha yep. Monorail cats are pretty awesome. Just the thought that they are modern upgrades from Totoro's Catbuses is also awesome! :D And I'm afraid that's not the song that I based the image on, in fact its quite far from it.

Heres another bunch of sketches.

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/rocker.jpg

http://www.mervsmantra.com/paintchats/woogie.jpg
Woogie dog!

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/warrior-stand.jpg
A very late night sketch. Most of the proportions are off, but I took her into flash and fixed her. Which brings me to............

http://mervsmantra.com/painted/0000_3.jpg


till next time!

[tolowa]

hey..u might have fixed up e proportions in flash, but i feel that it somehow lost the charm and the flow and looseness you had in the sketch..feels "harder" now too..
her feet seem a lil small..and oh i like how the helmet looks like in the sketch, more closely attached to her head and feeling like its part of the design..

1st pic - you must have done it after your jamming session huh
2nd - 1st flaming bunnies now woogie dog? ahaha

cool stuff as usual man

[zszs]

Wow, nice stuff as usual, I really like the style of your sketches!
I kind of like the first few sketches more than the dragon slayer more, the dragon slayer is a little too dirty/much.

[lin]

There's a kind of "gung-ho" cheerfulness/happiness in your sketches that make me want to smile whenever I see them. =D
1st pic: looks happy. ^^
2nd pic: the doggie is so cute!! I also want one that floats! XD
3rd pic: yeps, a bit messy
4th pic(flash): Wa, very got attitude; I like! Just 1 nitpick... her chest area appears a little blocky; even if armor, maybe can round it off a bit? Or blend in the sides wiz the body a bit?... I dunno how to say, but looks a bit like an extra part stuck on her right now... ^^;

[annhell]

yay more miyazaki please :D can't get enough of those ^o^ on retrospect, i really like how you mixed moebius style linework with miyazaki faces and proportions

[Mrv]

tolowa: haha not really. It was based on an electric bass I was doing some research on. Was deciding on which bass to get some time back. The bass was the Gibson Grabber, which you can see here.http://www.gibsonbass.com/graphics/advert-grabber.jpg

The feet on the dragon slayer are deliberately small. I had them proportionate intially, but they look out of place with her large axe and mechanical arm, so I left them small. its also a bit hard, especially in Flash to keep 100% of the sketchiness, win some loose some. XD

zszs: Haha Thanks again. Yup, the dragon slayer was a very messy sketch at 6am in the morning lol.

lin: Yeah, understand the armor part. But I want to keep it simple as I don't want that to be the centre of attention of the pic. I have plans to animate her one of these (1001)days XD, so its also for a technical viewpoint.

annhell: Thanks again. :) I should also metion I'm also a huge fan of Quentin Blake, illustrator of many Roald Dahl books. His site is:
http://www.quentinblake.com/index.html


A few new skeches as well as something from an earlier pic : ) :

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/013_spacefloat_sm.jpg
Some zero gravity sketch. Might put it into flash.

http://mervsmantra.com/painted/0002_cgirl4.jpg
For those who don't know what this pic was based on, here is the link to the song. Highly reccomend that you listen to it with earphones and not looking at the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2mr2yY5F3c

Until next time!

[lin]

1st pic: ah, before i saw the commentary i thot she slipped.

2nd pic: The cosmic gal is so kawaii! XD Somehow the colours just look very good together, even tho it's just on the edge of frying my eyeballs. XD

Quentin Blake>> Ya, I think she got very unique style. Looks messy at first, but there's a kind of exuberuance in her lines that fits Roald Dahl's stories very well. It just isn't the same when a different edition shows more "conventional" illustrations.

[tictac]

hmmm sketching style kinda reminds me of George Nonis, the one that did "Hello Chok Tong, Goodbye Kuan Yuew"

[annhell]

mrv: ya gosh i grew up looking at those illustrations. and there was an illustration from charlie and the chocolate factory..the one where they go outer space and meet some aliens. the aliens really freaked me out, ha ha. talking about this kind of brit (?) illustrations, i like the wind in the willows kind :D

lin: quentin blake is a old uncle not a 'she' XD

[lin]

lin: quentin blake is a old uncle not a 'she' XD

Oh dear, so paiseh! XDD

[Mrv]

tictac: Haha I guess, thanks! :D

annhell: I think I remember which monster you are talking about, those that form letters or something right? Those kinda freaked me out too, lol.

lin: Glad you like the cosmic girl, she looked very very different when I first drew her out. XD Btw, I think there a few vids on youtube that have Quentin Blake giving some sort of lecture on how he goes about drawing his stuff, very interesting stuff.

Been very busy with real life for the past few weeks, so most of the sketches are very rushed lol. At the same time, I kinda spent more time on my bass to destress heh, so finger also very tired. lol. Anyway here they are:

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/015_sidehead.jpg
A quick profile pic, was more of a semi-caricature.

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/017_breadloaf.jpg
Seems that ponytails are in season!

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/019_flowers.jpg
Or not....lol

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/020_gets.jpg
Or maybe its the mostauche?

*continued on next post*

[Mrv]

*continued from previous post*

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/018_hiss_sm.jpg
Okay, I guess he's upset that he can't have one.

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/016_supperofpain.jpg
Now this is based on a real incident. Was very tired on night, and after making a bowl of instant noodles and a cup of coffee I thought I could relax.
But sadly, thanks to my clumsiness, I ended up with coffee curry noodles. It was bad. XD

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/021_bringpainbig_sm.jpg
I guess I can always take it out on the flaming bunny!

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/022_fairybunny_sm.jpg
But then again, he's such a nice guy, maybe another time.

Paiseh for the long list of images ^_^"".

[lin]

long list of images is nice. And the running commentary makes it all really enjoyable too. I really love the lines and feel of all the pics, it just just kinda makes pple feel v happy and contented looking at them. XD

certainly won't mind another long list of pics. XDD

[Mrv]

lin: Thanks, glad to hear that you are happy. XD Its hard for me to cook up things on a consistant basis, got lots of things to juggle, work/bass/sleep, etc.

[Mrv]

http://sganime.com/customprofilepics/profilepic28_1.gif
*was fooling around to see if I could link the profile picture, looks like it works!*

This is going to be another long post,paiseh ^_^". Been very busy with real life commitments, and its been extra hectic thanks to Animation Nation 08, which was really inspiring and awesome. Especially with Koji Yamamura's seminar. Its easy to see how passionate he is with his work, a great inspiration indeed! At the same time, its just amazing how much effort he goes into making him short films as organic as possible.

While the most convenient way of getting paper texture on to an animation is to digitally overlay a texture during post production, Koji Yamamura does it quite differently. He animated+coloured one of his short films on a notebook paper which has some sort of fine corrugated texture. The final result is something you can never get with a computer, really amazing.

I could ramble on about Animation Nation 08, but I'll leave it to another day, my stamia for typing long posts not as good as before, getting old already lol, must catch up on sleep if there is any free time, heh.

Either ways here are some sketches.Some of them skeches are recent while some popped up while I doing some spring cleaning up on my hard disk.Feel free to comment etc!

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/023_badday_sm.jpg
It all started with a bad day lol. Same thing went for Marauder that night XD

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/stare.jpg
Super rare pencil drawing! Just kidding.XD Its just that I don't have time to scan most of my non-digital stuff.

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/028_egg-cooking.jpg

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/027_eggs-n-spam.jpg
These 2 above are somewhat related, did them when I was thinking what to cook for supper one late Sat night. At the same time, I'm guessing that is how I'll look like when I'm a old grumpy man.

*continued on next post.*

[Mrv]

*see previous page.*

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/recipe_sm.jpg

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/looking_sm.jpg

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/029_someadventure.jpg

Super late night sketch, you can see why I stopped heh.
http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/030_streewalk.jpg

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/seaside.jpg
These 2 above are were quickly drawn out after I listened to this nice song. Go check it out! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxEowpsrD6Q

*continued on next post.*

[Mrv]

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/025_pancakemage.jpg

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/thangar_sm.jpg

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/026_cheeze-day.jpg
And I'll end it off with cheeze day!

Till next time! Paiseh for the long post. ^_^"

[winter_hyde]

i like tat wizard guy who is asking for pancakes..reminds me a bit of the drawings i used to see in roald dahl's books..

[lin]

No crits, just admiration. XD
Love the backgrounds, and how they integrate so well with the characters for the overall look. Learning a lot from looking at your perspectives and backgrounds. Even character expressions and pose.

Also would like to say thanks for coming up with crits and useful suggestions for all of us whenever you check in.

[Mrv]

winter_hyde : heh yeah, Quentin Blake has always been one of my inspirations.

lin: np. ^_^''

Its been another hectic few months, I blame Fallout 3 for eating most of my sleep lol. And now that I've finally completed it, I got a bit more spare time, at last. lol

Very quick sketches for the past few days, here they are:

http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/024_faces_sm.jpg
Some very quick faces I did during a late night. Extra bonus if you can guess some of the characters! (Note that some are just random skectches)
http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/032_beerbunny.jpg
Was done a few weeks back, when I realised how fast my weekend flew by thanks to Fallout 3 lol.
http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/034_flykite.jpg
Taking the anger out on the flamming bunny again, lol
http://mervsmantra.com/paintchats/035_floatyhead.jpg
A quick sketch in flash, again, extra bonus if you can guess whom I referenced from. : )

Till next time!

[Notches]

Nice compositions for the above pics,such sketching must be really fun! =D

[winter_hyde]

haha....the drunk bunny is super nice la..

[lin]

The last pic is very stylo!
But my favorite is that weekend drunk bunny... look sooo groggy. XDD

[Mrv]

Notches: Yup, I a big fan of fast sketches. : )

winter_hyde: Haha glad you like it, its quite an accurate portrayal of me when I've had too much things lol.

lin: Thanks! Weekends, deadlines ,all nighters till 6am and too much games makes me a drunk bunny. XD

So fast and its end of the year, man wished things could slow down just a bit heh. Some quick sketches as well as a little bit of one of my characters that has gone through some changes over time (and still is lol).

http://www.mervsmantra.com/paintchats/041_sleppy_sm.jpg
Looks like someone is sleepy...zzzzs
http://www.mervsmantra.com/paintchats/040_gatorfro_sm.jpg
Introducing the afro gator!
http://www.mervsmantra.com/paintchats/039_drk2_sm.jpg
Looks like someone else is drunk!
http://www.mervsmantra.com/paintchats/038_lifesgreat.jpg
Bowling balls are great!

*continued on next post.*

[Mrv]

Here is a character of mine thats has gone though some changes over the years. Stange as it sounds, she seems to get older ever time I draw her lol. Another notable thing is her ears, as they seem to get even longer and longer in the process.

http://www.mervsmantra.com/paintchats/036_tests.jpg
Notice the change of the ear's neutral position

http://www.mervsmantra.com/paintchats/042_sketches_FLAT.jpg
Oh yes, and introducing her elvish friend, whom is always freaking out! : D


http://www.mervsmantra.com/paintchats/037_katagain_sm.jpg
And the most recent sketch has her much older, for no apparent reason XD

Until next time!

[lin]

Sleepy pic>> Oh, I sooo totally identify with that! XD
Afro Alligator/Drunk gal>> Haha. ^^
Bowling ball>> LOL!! XDD

Character pics>> Hmmm, actually she didn't look older to me le... thot she looks about the same. Love her lively expression and actions! ^^

[winter_hyde]

she didnt look older to me too..just more cool..ha..

anyway whos tat whale thing? interesting..ha