Character Design/Development - Bakkunaua of the Seas

Dragons. What do we know about them? I began researching for dragons in our culture, folklore and tales handed down from the stories of old. I was reluctant to illustrate dragons as told by our European brothers, nor follow the Oriental description of dragons.

As with my previous posts, I am reinventing the dragons in my story as somewhat rooted on the animals themselves, but immensely larger and has the intelligence and wit of wizards and wise men.

I[d like them to be oracles, 

keepers of the wisdom of ages, and the sentinels of their domain.

Sketch A Day Dec.23

Merry Creatures 009

Ta-dah!

These happy group of monsters will be up for coloring. Either that or I could purchase a tablet to add the colors in a more organized fashion or just with the mouse and Photoshop.

Looks like it is going to have some colors, after all!

Sketch A Day Dec.22

Merry Creatures 008

Hah! Recalled a creature I thought up when I was in grade school - an owl-like bird, but not really a bird, with spread wings, and a thick mop of hair and beard.

Sketch A Day Dec.21

Merry Creatures 007

Sketch A Day Dec.20

Merry Creatures 006

Getting there. But not just yet. That empty space near long-neck is driving me nuts.

Anyway, illustration is my way of easing down. Something that relaxes me. Doing simulation drawings (the kind that depicts certain incidents not caught on camera that I do for my team at TV5, where reporters rush in and write the news while me and some of my team mates rush to create something, which is often frustrating because there's always not enough time to produce good quality drawings, but it gets done) is very different. The times I do these sketches doesn't limit the canvas, pardon the pun.

And of course, even whimsical in nature, I get to draw stuff not necessarily violent in nature. Being with my badass graphics team, we get to see news reports that are often heart rending.

So I guess that is why I blog my sketches.

Sketch A Day Dec.18

Merry Creatures 004

This time, the sketch is cleaned up a bit, and some details that fit the eyes for each creature. There's a large space on the right that I am not really sure to leave the way it is or add something that has feathers.

Anyway, the internal debate of finishing this with just shading and thicker lines is tempting. Should I add color at the end? Or add more detail? If this was a larger sheet of paper, say, 11x17 inches or the tabloid size, it would have been more detailed, but this is actually a letter sized document, so better save that for later.

I post the drawings with a layer of old paper texture. A cop out should I decide to leave it as it is. 

Sketch A Day Dec.17

Merry Creatures 003

Because I don't know what to call them. These creatures have been in my mind since my childhood. And it's only now that I want to draw them and see if I can capture the wonder and the delight, the fright and mystery that surrounds these imaginary cryptids of my youth.

Still a work in progress.

Sketch A Day Dec. 15

Merry Creatures 002

Sketch A Day Dec.13

 Merry Creatures 001

Sketch A Day - November 13, 2012

Sketch A Day - November 5, 2012

I was wondering why I keep sketching in a manner most fit for character designers in animation. Truth is, I'm putting on paper my own take on some of our colorful, mysterious cryptids and monsters.

The Tianakk is, by far one of the most feared, most familiar creature of the dark almost every child    whose nanay or yaya uses to frighten with, when the kid becomes unruly. Often times, the Tianakk has varying origins, the most popular is the aborted fetus, thrown away to hide an unwanted pregnancy. 

But I doubt, it's the only story behind this small, dark demon.

Of course I'm getting ahead of myself. All these sketches and drawings have a certain direction, and it won't be too long till all of these come together.

Sketch A Day [Found Sketches]

Just a sketch I did several months ago.

Things have been hectic kind of late. So many stuff needed my immediate attention, some more pressing than others, but I'm back, finding a whole lot of time to draw and sketch this coming days, me being alone in the apartment most of the time.

Daluiong Character Design - Ragu & Battis

Phantomanok. 

The Tikbalang.

All those Dragons and creatures.

They all will appear on a story with these two main characters - Ragu, a boy of 15 in all appearances, with a very strange lineage, and Battis, a girl of 13, a direct descendant of the Diwatas who has managed to live among humans.

The story is Daluiong.

And it's all about rediscovering. Our ancestors, our heritage, our mythologies.

Workplace + Habitat

I was just into doing my Phantomanok illustration studies when my tablet just conked out on me. It wasn't really the tab itself but the cable. Must've disconnected something inside. I whipped out some paper and pen and doodled and sketched and a Tikbalang came to view.

Well, not the Tikbalang some movies and tv soaps try to sell, but more of the Tikbalang, that cryptid whose head resembles that of a horse, taller than any human, and legs large and powerful, which I imagined would be more horse-like.

But I refuse to subscribe to popular beliefs and views. I really think Tikbalangs are more mysterious and , well, definitely not the typecast. They should be monstrous yet interesting, wild and magical.

Excuse the images' blurry resolution, I only have a MyPhone. I don't really need a camera with it, but now I think I just might need one with a better resolution.

So Phantomanok will get it's life through the time tested method - old school pen and paper - which probably is for the best since I am more proficient with it.

NOTE:

The video was from my mobile phone too. It's where I live when I am in the city, and doubles as my creative studio. That's Silence of The Lambs playing in the background.

Between Work and Personal Life

This was  a sketch I did for a game UI that didn't make it to production. Which is fine really, since I can still use this for my own. I'm into mixing some influences from steampunk, industrial machines and the coolness of  every game I have played when I was younger.

Don't worry about stuff we left off before, they will be continued in its own pace. I was busy for a while. But all things considered (referring to my other blog), I am now about to embark on one of my ambitious delusions of creating characters and the environment for a game. Some of the illustrations you've seen here may find it's way into the story.

Cryptids

Been busy. Work. Stuff you do to make a living.

Also, I am trying to scan old character designs and sketches for my story. These dragons are from our own Myth and Mythology. 

Cryptids.

Long lost creatures that should be rediscovered. I have to get back to the National Library to dig up more about these wonderful creatures that time forgot. Or were taken out of the books.