Time for a free promo for an artist that I do not know.

Here are some papier mache sculptures by Larisa Churkina, who apparently studied...jengjengjeng...Biology in college, but now makes dolls.

Some of her more stylised sculptures. I think my eldest sis would like these.

My personal favourite. This guy somehow reminds me of Anthony Green from Diana Wynne Jones' book Black Maria...

And a more realistic style.

You can actually comission her to make a sculpture of yourself for $2000. But I like her stylised work more than her portraiture though.

Here's a cute thing to make your day.

It's Firefox! He really exists!

OK, fine, actually it's someone's Pomeranian, given a mohawk. But it's so cute...

I got the pic from oddee.com which btw is an interesting site to go to when you are bored, and look for weird or funny stuff.Or if you want to increase your knowledge of the obscure and totally useless facts. Quite a lot of artsy fart kind of things as well.

Anyways, this is not an advertisement. Can I have a puppy dog please?

Here's a little of what i've been doing lately. It's sort of not really done yet, i just remembered i wanted to put feathers and some more patterns on the eye mask. And also the hat looks a bit plain for my liking...but i'll take my time, just a pet project.

as a side note...i took so long to try to figure out how to compile alpha layers in photoshop...and in the end i used combustion instead. That's pretty sad...

The reason i rendered in layers was because the edge of the hat is a metallic shader, which can only be rendered in mental ray, whereas mental ray doesn't support layered shader which i used for the face. There you go, some technicality notes.

Time for a little showing off...

I finished modeling 2 rooms for my final project!!!

OK,fine, I haven't textured them, and that will be time consuming...but it's satisfying to finish the building part.

Some stairs railings. I jazzed them up since the last modeling entry.
The lamproom, with walls. I'm wondering if I should scale it up a bit. On a side note, it has successfully looked wronger than my sketches. Those 2 obscene ball things are glass windows that are supposed to look like fish eyes.

Hid the wireframe for more clarity.
And a version while hiding the walls. The pink thing is a reference for one of the character's height.

Oh yeah, i was supposed to add this in the mask entry. Remember the mask from The Fall? Turns out that it's a traditional Iranian womens' mask. It's usually red though. I tried looking for more pics online but there weren't many.I think it's only worn in certain regions so it's not that common.

Sneak peak at a low poly version of the lighthouse living room (the entrance part) that I'm building for my final project.

I still have to relocate a window T-T. Boo to bad estimation...

I was looking for my old references of Venetian masks, some of which I put here sometime last year. And it seems they all vanished together with my other stuff when my harddisk ko-ed. So I decided to build a new collection of Venetian mask references. Looks like there's a lot of new pics up on the web. So I'll share some of my faves here.

BTW If you're interested to know the history behind Venetian masks and the Commedia dell'arte characters on which they are based, here's a page to read.

Side note: looks like posting online is one of the ways you can save your digital files,eh? I managed to get back some of my artworks from my dA account when my hd crashed too.

OK, anyway, here we go:

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One of the new things I found out is how Venetians wear their costumes during Carnevale in modern times. Most times their masks are simple but their costumes are flamboyant to the max.

They even do the couple set of costumes thing.
A rather different approach to the jester masks.
One kind of mask that starts to grow on me: the Dama mask.
Another jester mask, but i like the risen collar thing going on there.
Another type of mask that I just found out about; the Moretta mask which has sort of fallen out of fashion. Maybe because it's difficult to wear? It's worn by biting on to a mouthpiece.Kind of freaks me out actually, looks like something Dave McKean would make.
Another jester mask. In olden times, jesters were usually mentally disabled people who couldn't have any other kind of job, so they had to act like a fool to amuse other people. Interesting fact to note is that a jester's hat traditionally has 3 points, to represent a donkey's 2 ears and a tail. Seems that most characters associated with Venetian masks have bizarre and sinister stories behind them, eventhough the masks themselves are beautiful.
I like the fabric used on the horns of the next 2.

Another thing that starts to grow on me: harlequin patterns.
This one is a mask on a mask. Did you notice?
More jester masks.Yeah, I have a thing for them.


I'm not sure what role this mask is called, there are a few types of big nosed masks.
More Carnevale photos.

A couple more masks

Soh in the end I decided that I shouldn't go into Illustration after all. I've been doing lots of research online about job opportunities, pay and also looking for potential unis to go to. But in the end I think that if I become an Illustrator, the pay might be ok early in life, but when I grow older and have more commitments, I might have some difficulties. Darren passed me this forum if any of you are interested. Seems that many young students have the same question, and those in the industry say that they tried to stick to just doing illustrations at the start, but later on were forced to go into something that pays better and has more job security, like Graphic Design. The problem is that it seems that most Illustration jobs are on contract basis only, so after you're done with your project they let you go and you have to find another job. So i'm pretty concerned about what happens if I have a house, car and kids to pay for but yet don't know when I'll be getting my next job.Probably the only exception is that if you are really really good, the kind that literally has scores of fans and can demand any salary that they want from employers. But for practicality I don't want to rely on that.

So instead I am thinking of taking 3D modeling. Seems that the pay for that is double that of an illustrator. So I have to work hard and really brush up my modeling skills. I don't really mind, I'm quite interested in modeling also, just that I have a lot to learn. But I hope where I am at now is just the start of things, since I only first started using '3d software' at all around 1 1/2 years ago. Got to really start following forums and tracking down artists to follow. If anything, this guy can start up some inspiration. The plus side is that if my models are used in say film or games, that would be a real kick. And also one day becoming a grandma who 'made that model you saw on TV'. That would be pretty cool.

Hard work people.

Full steam ahead.