Sunday, July 19, 2020

Inktober 2019 - a twist in the story


This blog post is a continuation, and hopefully, the last part of the Inktober 2019 series. If you are interested, you can check out my journey in my last two posts: Kdrama and Inktober 2019, prep work and beginning  and  Inktober 2019 - More on Kdrama and trailers.

Before we get started, let's check some facts and statistics. So far, I was doing good in terms of Inktober. Things were going as per expectations, especially considering work-load at the time. Select a theme that I am interested in- check. Make a list of topics to sketch - check. Try to reduce resistance to sketching - check. Then, suddenly, something happened. It was 2 Nov 2019, I was done with 23 sketches out of 31, a satisfactory number. Even though I exceeded the timeline, I did 21 in a month as opposed to about 4 to 5 in a month. That was not so bad! My main goal was to overcome paralysis of analysis and get to it, and I was improving on it! I could have finished the rest 8. But, something happened. I did not want to sketch any more. I just did not. Why? I am still trying to figure out. I did not even try. I just gave up, and I was not even guilty about it.

Time flew by, my project at work got completed successfully, I traveled to India and had an awesome trip, came back started working on some more projects, I continued sketching. And then COVID-19 pandemic started in USA. As the lock-down began, I decided to rearrange my art table, clean it up and set it up to sketch more regularly. And while doing so, I discovered something... one of the two lists of K-Drama characters I wanted to sketch. Somehow it clicked at that moment, I sat down and crossed all the characters I had already sketched. And I was determined to finish sketching the rest of the characters so that I can tick off the line in my todo list and finally dispose the post-it note. Just for the sake of crossing the lines in the post-it note, I obsessively worked on the sketches. I lay it at a noticeable part of my table, and got back to it whenever possible until I finished all of them eventually. I was so happy that I crossed off all the characters in that list! It was so satisfying!

Well, now I am excited to show you the sketches, and some interesting clips and trailers. Hope you enjoy them!

Strong Girl Do Bong Soon


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 While You Were Sleeping

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 Romance Is a Bonus Book


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My ID is Gangnam Beauty


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I felt as if this set of sketches were slightly better than the previous ones. I think I was able to draw the lines more confidently. The faces were slightly more accurate even though still not very similar. I still struggled with the beautiful conch-like eyes, and soft facial contours. In addition, I remember struggling with drawing the  hair, not knowing how far to keep going and where to stop at. I enjoyed the struggle too.  Overall, it was a fun learning experience. Now that I look at the set of sketches, I feel a sense of accomplishment. It is a good feeling to look at the album and see its completion. I do have another post-it note lying abandoned somewhere with a list of characters to sketch. Will I draw them again? Who know, may be... may be not.

KDrama

How am I doing with Kdramas? I continue to explore more. I have discovered some interesting, and some not-so-interesting Korean dramas and movies. They span multiple genres, and often combine many genres together. Often, they have a romantic story going on, but they act more like protagonists of an underlying story. I am able to pick up words and phrases. I and my sister have started exchanging Korean words now :D I have found some great patterns and some not-so-appealing ones as well. So far they manage to keep me fascinated enough to keep exploring more.

With this, I end last years Inktober series. The exercise sure helped me deal with paralysis of analysis better. I do not have anything in mind yet about this year's Inktober. But I do have some interesting sketches to share and I am excited to share them!

Until then, take care and stay safe.

Sunday, July 5, 2020

More on korean drama, Inktober 2019, and trailers



Hey there. This post is a continuation of my previous blog post  korean-drama-and-inktober-2019-prep .  If you are interested, you can learn about my motivation and beginnings for doing Inktober,  decision to use my own theme, and choosing Korean drama characters as a theme in that post.

After hesitating for a while on whether to participate on Inktober or not, I  decided to give it a go. Having had not so great experience on following the standard themes for each day of sketching, I decided to draw and ink Korean drama actors this time. And, it paid off. I noticed that I offered less resistance to sketch every day. Even though I would skip a day or two here and there, I would not struggle to get back. On top of that, some of my impromptu sketching/journaling meetups with a few friends living nearby, gave the community-boost to come back to it regularly. It was overall a great experience. Although I had a list of 31 characters to sketch, I did not necessarily follow it and used it only as a fall-back mechanism.

I have displayed below some of the sketches from different series and their trailer as well. I am hoping to expose more people to Korean Drama :D :D They are from different genres and vary in the degree of realism. You can watch them on Netflix and Viki, if you are interested. Let's get started with the tour! We will talk more on the sketches after it :)

Suspicious Partner





 
Back to inktober after a week's gap #inktober2019 #inktober2019day14 #jichangwook #suspiciouspartner #koreandrama


           




Rookie Historian

 

 


           


Strong girl bong-soon

 


             


Legend of the blue sea

#inktober #inktober2019 #inktober2019day6 . #thelegendofthebluesea #kdrama #sehwa #junjihyun #shimcheong

 
              



Something in the rain

 




           



The tale of Nokdu

 
#kimsohyun as #dongdongjoo in #thetaleofnokdu #kdrama #peoplesketching #inktober2019



            


Healer



 

 

 
#healerahjumma #jominja #kimmikyung #healer #kdrama #koreandrama . #inktober2019day13 #inktober2019
        

 

W

#hanyojoo as #ohyeonjoo in #kdrama W #w #peoplesketching #inktober2019


       


While you were sleeping

#baesuzy as #namhongjoo in #kdrama #whileyouweresleeping #peoplesketching #inktober2019
       


Romance is a bonus Book

#leenayoung as #kangdani in #romanceisabonusbook #kdrama #peoplesketching #inktober2019




              

Oh My Venus!



            



So, here we are at the end of the tour! I hope you enjoyed it, and found some series to your liking to binge watch, especially during the pandemic. 

Now that the sketch tour and K-drama advertising is out of the way, let me share some of my experience about the sketches. I found the faces challenging right from the beginning. The Mongoloid facial structure is very different from Caucasian facial structure, thus forcing me to pay attention to different aspects of the face than I usually do. On top of that, I guess the high quality of Korean makeup also made the contours look much softer and smoother. It made it challenging to define the shapes in a face that lacked strong edges. I would constantly hold my pen on the tip, trying to draw a shape oh-so-lightly. I definitely struggled to achieve the accuracy of the faces, and butchered many faces.

Oddly enough, I enjoyed drawing the neck and collar a lot. Every time I would finish drawing the collar, I would feel an odd satisfaction. I enjoyed drawing the conch-shaped eyes also, of course; oh-so-lightly. Drawing the cheek shapes was hard. I had to make confident yet soft and light contours to make it right. Overall, it was a good and interesting challenge, a right mix of things I was comfortable with and things that were new. I enjoyed it. But...

.... towards the end of the series, I paused it suddenly. And did not bother to come back and finish it. Reason. None. Did I feel bad? Not at all. It is weird why I acted that way... why I did not care about finishing it when I was this close and was even enjoying it. I am still searching for an answer to that weirdness of mine.

However, ...

the story does not end here. There is a little more to it... coming up in my next blog post. Take care until then! 

Monday, May 4, 2020

Korean drama and Inktober 2019 - prep work and beginning



It is slightly weird to revisit this blog after a long time, especially because I had to recover a few logins. If you got a chance to read my previous posts, you might be aware of Inktober. Take a look at my Inktober journey in the year of 2018. [Inktober 2018 beginning   Inktober 2018 - cruising through  Inktober 2018 final journey ]

One of the habits I have been trying to develop is to sketch every day. There have been hits and misses, but I am consistently improving in forming the habit. I try to use Inktober as a catalyst to make the habit more regular. However, I kept finding the prompts given by Jake Parker uninspiring. At first, I thought they are not great prompts, but then I saw other artists' instagram posts with the same prompts. And I must say, they were amazing! It was just me then, huh. So, after my last Inktober series, I decided I would decide my own prompts or, may be do spontaneous sketches during Inktober next year.

Soon it was end of September in 2019. I was super busy at work. Although the project was interesting and had the right amount of challenges,  it did keep me busy and left me thinking about it 24x7. So, I hesitated quite a few times. After doing a  back and forth for quite a few times I finally decided to give it a shot. I want to use it to sketch regularly any way... I thought to myself. 

I threw the idea of spontaneously sketching something out of the window. I knew it would be less of a struggle if I had a set of prompts to pick up the idea from. What prompts should I select then, hmm? Kdrama actors don't sound like a bad idea! Then I took a few sticky notes and jotted down a few memorable characters I could instantly recollect. So, I had a list of prompts for 31 days ready. I think I can do it... yeah... I think so.

Well, Kdrama, how come? I am sure I am not the only one who finds shelter in binging on movies and series and youtube and netflix. Yeah, I know it is a problem. But while randomly exploring different movies and series, I ended up finding some asian dramas on netflix. I don't remember which one was my first one though. They have their flaws, but I found them interesting in many ways. And that's how my Kdrama journey began. I did watch a few Japanese, Thai and  Chinese dramas. I think, however, that Korean dramas manage to outshine them.  They  span many genres although like Indian movies romance is a predominant theme in many of them. They almost always have great cinematography, and a good story-line that explores different topics. They also do some cool stuff in terms of mixing genres elegantly. Characters are three-dimensional and even the most evil character has a perspective. Food is almost always an important character, with utmost importance given to their presentation, cooking, and eating. Often I regained my appetite after watching an episode, because they were eating and relishing food so well! They do vary in degree of realistic portrayal and you have to pick and choose based on your taste. 

Well, that's my intro of Kdramas to you just in case you did not know about them yet. Now let's get back to the inktober series. Well, I made a list of prompts. But did I follow them accurately? No. Knowing me, I knew I will soon be bored. So I picked a character that came to my mind as I sat down to sketch. Then, why was the prompt list for? It was supposed to be my backup, for days when I could not think of any character, or was too tired to do much decision making. Seemed like a good idea, so far...

So, let's get, set and go!

My first two sketches were of the lead actors in the series Goblin. Checkout the trailer below. I think I had recently watched it, so it was fresh in my mind and decided to sketch the lead actors.





Gong Yoo
I am reluctantly starting inktober this year due to busy schedule... my theme is Korean drama.. let's see how far I go. Day 1. A somewhat OK portrait of goblin. #gongyoo #kimshin #goblinkdrama #inktober2019
 
Kim Go-Eun (I loved the sketch by the way...)

 #inktober2019 #inktober2019day2 #kimgoeun #jieuntak #goblinkdrama 


It is considered one of the most loved Kdramas, known for fantasy, love story, music an bromance. But what was my biggest take away? I need to invest in good coats :D  If you have seen the drama, you know what I mean.

 Alright, this is good. It is a good start. I will share more about my journey in the next blog post!