A record for a new art project I want to do

 

Up to this point, I'm working on an extensive art book project in a bid to make drawing fun again. I wrote a little bit here, and I made a YouTube series where I document my thoughts and process to creating these pages. In sum, though, I've been feeling bored with my work as of late and desperately wanted to give my work some purpose and the opportunity to try new things.

Out of the twenty-four illustrations I have planned, I've officially started work on fifteen and finished three. The video below should give more context as to what I'm doing.

While I adore (almost) everything I've made so far, there's a little nagging in my brain that I want something else. Thus far, I've drawn nothing but fan art—nothing wrong with that, of course—and I think I'm ready for something new... 

In other words, I want to draw some original characters! Have some diversity in my portfolio. Now that the finish line for this art book project is in the distance, I figure why not give this new project some thought!

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K-pop.

Yes, what a wonderful way to start this. For as long as I can remember, I have loved listening to K-pop, and it's pretty much my only source of music. 

Beyond the popular names like Blackpink and BTS, the industry boasts a wide catalogue of groups and soloists, each with their own signature brand and sound. NCT comes to mind here. They're well-known for their 'noise music' nonsense. Highly controversial, but you know something is 'neo' when you hear it.

I've been here since 2012, the rough rise of 3rd gen. This is the time when I wrote fan fiction, did fan art and had delusions about dating them. I logged off for a while in favour of a brief anime phase before coming back when 4th gen's starting to rise, when I heard Promise by ATEEZ for the first time. 

I've been here a while, so here's a playlist of my favourite songs.

As you can see, they're (mostly) arranged by alphabet. Isn't it cool, one illustration dedicated to each letter of the alphabet, except X, because there just aren't many songs with that name...

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Furries.

Yes, what a wonderful way to start this section. Yes, I don't know how else to introduce this section.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I like furry art, especially the not-safe-for-work sort. I love how expressive and colourful everything is. Yes, the attention to anatomy is good, too!

Plus, I enjoy drawing animals just as much as plants, so the idea of drawing anthropomorphic creatures has had a certain allure for years. Besides, human faces are a pain to nail down sometimes. When I've decided that I want to draw some original characters, I pumped my fist in the air (in my head), thinking I can finally do this. It's funny how I don't give a lot of ideas a chance.

At any rate, I've decided that I shall draw anthropomorphic creatures in scenes inspired by the images conjured in my head whenever I listen to my favourite songs. 

I choose them over conventional humans because I don't want to be limited by things like skin tone. If I want to draw a blue parrot for blue hour, I'll do just that. The freedom to play with colour and shape is very attractive. If possible, it'll also be fun to draw an Ant for the letter A or a Tiger for Trampoline. Indeed, I care this much about the little things.

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Some specs, if you will.

All of my illustrations for the art book project is done in A4, which is what I'm used to. However, I don't want to make another book. And then, I thought, why not bookmarks!

My bookmark of Whitebeard, everyone says looks like Poseidon.

These bookmarks measure 35mm by 55mm, which feels smaller than I thought. Nonetheless, I have a soft spot for long illustrations, regardless of orientation. Details just sprawl from one end to the next, creating a pleasing flow that guides the eye from one end to another. I figure this is the perfect chance to play with this aspect ratio and create something magical I can hold and give people.

An art book, plus new bookmarks. That sounds like a fun lineup for the year. Thinking about it already excites me. Since K-pop is a topic close to my heart, perhaps I'll do a better job documenting everything that goes into the process of making this. Perhaps. At present, this blog post archives my excitement on starting this project.

An Afternoon Bathing // Artist Study

Before I make a video and forget the plot again, I've decided to pen my thoughts down before I even start colouring. Like my Ode to the Colour Purple illustration (that's not what it's called, but I don't have another more appropriate name), I'm inspired to create something in another artist's homage. This time, my idol's name is Igor Shcherbakov.

—

Somewhat frequently, I see Scherbakov's work all over Pinterest. More specifically, this painting, called Two on a Bridge, an oil painting depicting two subjects lounging by an overgrown pond. 

Closer to the viewer, we have a tanned masculine back rendered in blue shadows with spots of sunlight, hunched over a rickety wooden plank bridge. He gazes at a pale-skinned woman stretching, her arms featuring this pink tint that glows against the cool blue tone of her body.

Due to the angle, the painting captures a wide view of the pond. In the distance, where the sunlight shines, green and brown lilly pads float into the scene and rest along the curve of the pond, where wild grass, rendered in rough strokes, creates a loose border to encircle the subjects.

Scherbakov renders water ripples in a rather unique way that's vaguely reminiscent of impressionistic brush strokes that prioritise loose brush strokes over realism.

Bright indigo highlights swirl on the water's surface, paralleling the slight curve of the wooden plank. They're swirls of a solid colour, reflecting neither the sky above nor the water bed underneath. Considering how dark the water looks, the swirls look like oil, giving the impression that it's a slow, humid day for the subjects.

—

My first mockup

Hi, YouTube! I probably did a terrible job explaining myself in my video. I'm a better writer than a talker, so may this blurb guide you towards understanding my creative vision. :)

This is the first mock-up for my illustration where Vista is bathing by a pond. I talked a little more about that in this video, but the tldr is, I wanted to portray a sense of calm and tranquillity on a blistering hot day.

In hindsight, this colour palette isn't bad! The purples mingle beautifully with orange highlights, so much so that it turned his dark brown hair to this faded purple. The greens were pleasant to look at, and so were the pops of blues. 

However, while creating this, I was just irritable and very stressed because it doesn't look right. The values didn't line up, and I was confused about where the light should come from. 

Originally, I wanted him to be in shadow while the environment shines in sunlight. Somehow, that didn't work for m,e and I couldn't give up giving him rim lighting along his face and chest. 

Additionally, Vista's warm skin tone and purple water background don't match. As much as his body should have that slight purple glow from the water, the water should also reflect his skin tone. Or, the water should have some orange because water is reflective. I worked hard on my second iteration to reflect that insight.

Second iteration

Not a bad attempt! 

It's more cohesive. The oranges and greens are not as stark of a contrast as the blues and oranges I envisioned. I like the emerald greens in the background paired with some lovely yellowish-greens. The hints of purple were a nice callback to the original idea, injecting whimsy.

I can see why I wanted to go with this. It makes sense, and the values were clearer. Plus, this version more clearly communicates daytime with its more yellowish tint, which implies sunlight, rather than the first iteration, which feels more nighttime. 

However, it lacks the whimsy of the previous iteration, so I couldn't go with it even if it felt 'easier' to execute.

Back to the drawing board!

Third iteration

Literally the following morning (today), I tried to do better and the results were... 

Well, it's a little odd. It's not the worst. I fixed the cohesiveness issue from the first iteration with an overlay layer that creates a dark, bluish-purple shadow over his person. This overlay blending mode also lets me add red highlights like the subtle hints of it found in Scherbakov's painting, so I'll keep it.

Yet, it has yet to meaningfully incorporate those warm yellows I like so much from the second. If anything, they looked out of place in the purple water. Nonetheless, it's a step closer towards the colours I'm thinking of.

Fourth and final (?) iteration

So here we are now! It's still not an afternoon scene set at noon like I promised in my video, but it's certainly passable for a late afternoon scene if I preserve this orange light.

I like the purple on the four corners framing the piece, pushing our attention towards the subject and the leaves just behind him. I think some lily pads should be purple to keep the colours unified—it doesn't have to be realistic—and add some visual interest to the overall scene so it won't just be green, green, green.

While the rest of the illustration will feature rough brush strokes in the overlay layer, I'll do away with the red dappled lights I showed earlier. I still want a clean polish to everything after all. Instead, I'll rough those in on a separate layer for more control over the textures.

Another thing I want to add is sunlight above everything, creating a hazy golden glow that makes the piece feel intimate, like we're really intruding on something. It'll also contrast nicely against the shadows, which I find too dark.

Generally, this is super pretty and has lots of room to develop. I love doing colour mockups like this because they give me a very early indication of what my vision could look like. If I pull it off here, it'll take a load off me and allow me to focus on cleaning up the lines and rendering. 

Is this a good representation of Scherbakov's work? No, far from it. However, I don't regret attempting this experiment. His artistry is beyond me. He depicts the human form with such loose, expressive strokes while imbuing substance to their bodies, and that's something to aspire towards. 

I guess that's the fun of studying others. You raise your standards as you try and chase their's.

An Ode to the Colour Purple

Soon, I'd post my video about embracing purple in my most recent illustration. It's this purple night scene with a beauty sitting on the thicker ends of a protruding tree root with long black hair streaming down his back, surrounded by glowing stars.

My illustration

Before posting it everywhere on social media, I'll bump the saturation up so that the purples and pinks can shine in their glory. It's a unique piece in my portfolio. I don't usually use this many cool tones, preferring warm oranges, bold reds and happy yellows. 

Yet, there's an allure here. It's magical, shining and an ode to how beautiful purples and pinks can be.

The same piece but more saturated. See the beauty in it?

—

This piece is inspired by an artist named Erin Kate Archer, "a new york-based artist creating ethereal mixed media paintings", according to her bio on her website. Although I'll mention her in my video more concretely, I want to take the time to articulate my thoughts properly here. (Hi nuggets who clicked my YouTube description!)

I first discovered her work through an Instagram reel where she dabs on acrylic paint, smooth as butter, onto the canvas for her painting Ever Onward. 

It features three women in a forest lit with morning sunlight where the trees are a bright, cloudy blue, against a peachy skyline peeking through the gaps. 

The three women are rendered in pastel strokes, where the hot pink underpainting quietly shines through. Little twinkling stars dot their hair and garments, making them look like princesses, ethereal guardians from another world leading their horse to a world hidden behind a mess of trees.

Throughout her work, Archer likes to embed her faceless women in lush foresty scenes, set at dawn, where the worlds are dominated by pinkish cool tones with hints of sunlight. For the longest time, I thought cool tones were, well, cold, unwelcoming, sophisticated and detached. 

Yet, I look at Archer's work and I think purples and pinks with a dash of blue create scenes of intimate affection between women. Oranges peek through the gaps of her paintings, little by little, through the sky and the subjects' skin tones, often enough to bring contrast to the scene.

I see this most vividly in her painting Woven Together, my number one colour reference for this piece. 

Also rendered in acrylic paint, the painting depicts seven girls in a circle in some overgrown grass, weaving together a tapestry of stars. Her technique shines the most here, where loose brush strokes form leaves and heart-shaped weeds, and texture on the trees, while reserving the precise lines for the glowing white stars in the centre.

Most of all, however, I fell in love with how she rendered the trees. Rich saturated purples for the shadows and hot pink for the highlights. If you were wondering why I complained about colour models on my Instagram, this is why. I wanted to capture these colours for myself, to inject a dreamy quality that feels absent in my work but that I admire.

In a way, I have. If I saturate the colours enough, I'll easily achieve these pinks and purples. While I think I could've injected more warm tones for contrast, I'm still pleased with how it turned out. The piece is a fun experiment, a foray into a colour palette that felt out of reach for so long in my artistic process.

Our Planet Silly Reflections

I need background noise when I draw. I find it so odd to just shut up and focus without a single decibel of audio playing. Even in the quietest environments, like an office or a library, I need to put on music or an excessively long and interesting video. Blame it on my low attention span, but I somehow need that audio texture to convince my mind to focus on a task rather than the empty, silent void.

After exhausting all the interesting videos I could find on VTuber drama, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I didn’t want to watch One Piece or any anime because I’d be more obsessed with reading subtitles or musi,c because I feel like I’m wasting time chasing good music. Hence, I realised I could put on a documentary—something intellectual but also long-running.

Meet Our Planet.

It’s two seasons long on Netflix and is narrated by David Attenborough. It’s a documentary on animals living in all the little corners of the earth: the white ice lands, lush green tropical forests, and blue oceans lit by sunlight. Attenborough’s narration is sophisticated but also playful and compassionate, a treasure, truly. 

—

Our Planet often showcases brilliant shots of nature. Wide, overhead shots of the ocean where dolphins and whales splash in and out, panning drone shots of rainforest canopies with extravagant trees or close-ups of little ants on the trees or the seal cub are some examples.

There is an artistry I can appreciate. Backgrounds are beautifully softened out, and for the small creatures, every little detail is emphasised with superior camera quality and good lighting. 

The camera is also always there to capture the zenith of some violence—a stampede of walruses or the way dolphins and birds conspire together to hunt for anchovies swimming in coordinated whirlpools like a dance. 

It’s there for the sadness, like a baby flamingo who trips and falls with salt accumulating on its legs like chains or a chunk of ice falling into the ocean. 

Alternatively, the camera is invited to spectate on an animal's playful scenes, like a bird's courting ritual or the epic moments of an eagle soaring through the rainforest for the first time. All from multiple angles.

They’re stock footage to the normal view, but as someone who enjoys drawing nature, they are a work of pure cinema, capturing nature at its multifaceted complexity. It's especially so when we pair this footage with music. Playful bursts of sound on beat to a mating dance, dramatic orchestral crescendos to a hunt scene or tender piano pieces to mourn a death. The audio experience is given as much love as the visual to create a human touch in a high-end nature documentary.

—

The people who deserve my flowers here are wildlife photographers and videographers. They're the ones in the trenches, or if not, they're the ones who set up the equipment and follow the animals in the wild for days. They're the ones who spend forever to get that perfect shot, to invest real energy planning when and how to get that shot, alongside their resilience in failed attempts.

Additionally, real people need to colour-correct the footage and sequence it all neatly. They also have to find appropriate music and time it to the spontaneity found in the natural world. There also needs to be scriptwriters to come up with Attenborough's poetic lines, and then Attenborough himself needs to narrate it beautifully and carefully. In sum, Our Planet is a joint human effort celebrating nature's liveliness. 

Perhaps tangentially, this could lend itself to discussions on AI. People fret all the time about whether AI can replace human creatives, especially human videographers who make stock footage. As biased as I am, I strongly believe that AI can never replace human creative effort.

No AI tool can replicate the love and attention to detail that a human can to the thing they care about. An AI  cannot go to these forests and film these animals in their natural habitat. Behind the colour corrections, cuts, and composition is a mark of authenticity that the camera caught a real animal, that there's care for the viewer's time and feelings. 

Emotional rant aside, the simple takeaway is that I'm inspired by this documentary. I'm delighted. 

It threw me back to the days when I spent afternoons after school in my parents' bedroom watching nature documentaries that made me think that not only were there worlds outside my home in Singapore, but also that they are absolutely worth seeing.

How to write descriptively

In the How I Write Podcast, Harry Dry emphasised that good copywriting must be concrete, visual, and falsifiable. 

Say for instance, you want to say someone is rich in a story. Well, it's not very fun to say, "This person has a crap ton of money". The way I prefer to describe it instead is to say "This person flaunts black credit cards at luxury stores without blinking; they wear designer, neatly pressed shirts". A stereotypical image, for sure, but one you can see.

To be fair, "having a crap ton of money" can be visualised in other ways, and that's the beauty of it. Based on how you describe and unpack a certain thing, it gives people a vibe and a certain feeling. You're painting with words.

—

I mention all this because earlier in 2025, I did an internship at a florist studio. I recall reading the brand guide on the first day and being struck by a single sentence.

Be inspired by our imagination.

It's a line that I try to take with me whenever I create something. Bursting with saturated colours, nature and subtle details in the foliage, I want my drawings to inspire tranquillity and fun in the viewer.

But, back to the original quote. I just came fresh from an internship at a very corporate-sounding brand. Rather than inspiration or imagination, they focus on news reporting with a touch of corporate jargon like sustainability and inspiring future leaders.

Hence, I had a culture shock when I realised that creativity is valued over formality. I struggled with adapting, but it's an uphill battle I'm ready to fight. 

Indeed, as I read the copy across the website and socials, I was, indeed, inspired by their imagination.

—

Flowers are a perishable good. When I showed a friend this luxurious $600 bouquet for Valentines day that's bigger than the florist who made it, she said it is beautiful but you need a lot of disposable income to buy something like that. 

Knowing this, my supervisor tells me that when you sell flowers, you're selling feelings. You're selling the vibes a beautiful bunch of flowers bring to a space—a story about love, affection, creativity, of being in the moment, of injecting colour into the every day with tiny little details.

That's the point I want to make here. When you write descriptively, you're giving the viewer feelings, you're using words to paint a very vivid image of what you want them to see but also feel.

Let's take this painting I found on Instagram as a test subject.

Twin Flames, Irina Cumberland.

A blunt description would be: A painting of the ocean waves. (or if we're generous, add the phrase, 'on a sunny day'). It's perfect for an alt description, but it doesn't evoke feelings, let alone immerse me into the artistry. Let's try again.

A gentle scene of water flowing across a shallow bed of rocks, stained green with moss and the sunlight above. Waves ripple into the distance, forming abstract circular patterns, lulling the eye into a peaceful infinity beyond the canvas.

This type of copy takes more effort to write. It's tough to 'ChatGPT' stuff like this, and you'd have to refine it further for it to hit just right.

The difficulty comes from first identifying what you want readers to feel, and then the specific aspects of the thing you want to describe, either lovingly or scornfully. From there, you have to feel what you want the readers to feel. Then, to impart it all in a way that doesn't feel cringe. 

Once successful, though, you get copy that's in every way as beautiful as the thing you're trying to describe, or in a better case, more so. From one human's aesthetic sensibility to another.

—

As I got the hang of writing, I waxed poetry like no one's business. My boss would look at it and tell me to make it shorter because "no one will read it". True, but I don't think that's the point.

When your writing is too long, not many will tough it out in the never-ending scroll of social media. I say this because I dislike reading long blocks of text online.

Yet, if the writing is engaging, why wouldn't I want to read it? If I can read text walls of 4k words on AO3 for a good fan fiction, I'm not opposed to reading three paragraphs on Instagram. No, what matters is that you capture people's attention, and a shorter text block is more efficient in that.

Speaking of efficiency, there's beauty in brevity. In the How I write podcast, once more, brevity is the soul of wit—soul, a very evocative word, something living, something essential and heartfelt about the thing. The same is here.

Writing briefly forces me to crystallise all of my most descriptive phrases and words into one perfect sentence that just sings to the mind's eye. Go too long and you risk diluting your words.

To bring it back, being rich isn't a personality trait; it's just a trait that's part of a whole person. If I spend five paragraphs showing you how rich he is, you'd roll your eyes and say, "Damn, this narrator has a problem like can we move on already!"

Likewise, you're describing a feeling of the larger, more concrete thing, whether it is flowers, a person or whatever your subject is. It's one thing to play with language and create something beautiful but let words represent, rather than reduce the thing to, in my dad's words, 'pretty words that don't mean anything'.

Some art I'm working on

As I wait for my opening gif to load, I figure I'll take the time to show you some art I've been working on.

Currently, I'm working on an art book to make drawing fun again. Of course, there's the added emphasis on improving my colouring skills, compositions, and ideas, but I simply want something real and substantial to show off my ideas. Whenever I feel my project is in any way meaningless, a waste of time or dread like 'man, I can never finish this', I lay in bed dreaming of holding my colourful babies printed on paper and the sparkle of motivation instantly returns.

—

Granted, I have a dedicated Tumblr blog to record my progress. I'm delighted with it. I love the theme so much I made my own dedicated website and I like that my four followers are from my main blog.

Yet, I'm bored and want to share my art here. Pardon my vanity. I hope you find these pleasing in a collection with some extra details in italics.

A lighting study of sorts from Heart Burn by Sunmi. I'm not very fond of the bursts of pink in his face. His skin's also a bit on the dull side, compared to his red hair and bluish-white shirt. He looks like if Ariel and Eric had a baby. I should define his facial structure more with subtle highlights.

His face looks odd. I think it's his left jaw—it should be larger and more square. His forehead is a bit small as well. Perhaps, it's just the odd angle I drew him in, but there's an undeniable handsomeness. His hair's a treat to look at. The messiness grew on me.

A beauty I worked on these few days. He intended for him to smoke but his lazy index finger sticking out has elegance too. I love putting flowers in my men's hair. They look lovely. The wisteria flowers behind him have such lovely shapes.

I can feel the sweltering heat from here. This is a piece I'm anxious about. Dominated by soft oranges and glowing yellows, with the ocassional pop of saturated red in the lineart, I'm afraid my printer can't get these subtle shades right. After all, CMYK can barely handle it... Concerned but pleased.

The second batch of illustrations! You may peruse the first quartet on my aforementioned 'main blog'. Thanks for checking me out!

My internet access is wonky lately

For the past few days, I’ve been complaining to my dad about the wifi. It’s been perfectly fine these past few months—even years, I say—but these past few days, the wifi’s been slower than ever and I have no idea why. It’s like the signal’s been tripped, but every damned time.

I suspect it’s because the Wi-Fi router simply doesn’t work or because of any other tech-nonsense I’m not equipped to deal with. Nonetheless, I firmly believe it isn’t my devices because why doesn’t work on my laptop and phones. It’s silly to think why only now, without any foreshadowing (like my old laptop, whose screen issues were made known for some time with glitchy graphics and suddenly turning black while my Kpop music still plays) that this becomes a problem.

My dad keeps telling me ‘it’s just like that sometimes’ and even once suggested I sit outside where the signal is stronger. I often feel slighted because why only now, when my wifi causes problems. Though I admit, looking at my habits lately, I decide it’s a good idea, even if an unwilling one.

—

I love numbers. Nothing makes me happier than seeing comments and seeing me grow in numbers. I remember the first time a video of mine went absolutely viral. Stagnant at 8 views for three days, then suddenly at 5pm, the views shoot up to 20 and then a hundred and then today, 2.9k views—a respectable number for YouTube! I’ve been chasing that high since.

Anyways, since I’m also at home and online more, I check my socials more to see if anything I’ve made gets traction, more specifically, comments. I love reading and replying to comments, so I suppose this is a normal thing to look forward to. 

Eventually, though, I realise I find myself glued to my phone, always refreshing to see if I have new email notifications. First thing I do when I wake up in the morning is not to use the restroom or even to yawn, but to check my email and Tumblr notifications to see if anything happened. Of course, nothing happens. Then, I get sulky before the day even begins. It doesn’t help if I’m actively losing followers, either (though I’ll save that for a separate, more candid blog post).

I believe in God intervening at random little moments in my life. My laggy wifi signal causes Tumblr and YouTube to load more slowly. It sometimes causes AO3 to glitch out on my phone, denying me the sight of how many bookmarks I get on my work. I suppose this is a good thing. 

I cannot be a healthy, or even good content creator if I’m more interested in feeling bummed out over numbers over being inspired to create. It’s not fair to myself. Of course, my creativity deserves the space and free time to breathe outside this number game. I will find my audience eventually. I just need to be patient. Besides, I might already have an audience of lurkers. After all, I’m like that to many creators I’m interested in. 

If this perpetual disappointment won’t discipline my need to chase clout, then perhaps my unfortunate wifi will force me to stop checking.

—

After my obligatory health screening yesterday, I decided to head to my university’s library for old time’s sake. The place was as cold as ever, as quiet as ever, with its cream coloured walls, slim tables by the left wall and rows upon rows of books on the right side. I sat in a stiff chair by the corner and took out my book to read. I finished it in three hours.

I owe it to the quiet environment, the slight hum of the air conditioning, the fact that I’m surrounded by books with a limited view of the outside world, to my unusual concentration. More than that, though, I don’t have constant wifi access. I merely have a tote bag, which will not support my laptop. I don’t have access to my university’s wifi (I’ve graduated and am waiting to set everything up for master's matriculation). I don’t feel comfortable using my data all the time, except to check emails (lol). Hence, you can say I’ve artificially limited my access to the internet.

It was lovely. 

Yes, I was irritable over my lack of numbers and lack of drawing time, yet in this quiet, I kept my head down and finished reading 100+ pages. 

Naturally, I owe it to the book for being so wonderfully written, for appealling so much to my sensibilities but I also owe it to the lack of internet that forced me to narrow my focus to my book, to something real, to something that matters beyond the world of social media on my phone where no use owes their creators anything. 

Reading the book won’t result in more glamorous artwork for my YouTube, Instagram or Tumblr. It won’t help create more videos. It won’t inspire more artwork. 

Yet, I had a vision for what a normal life could be, one where I’m at peace and where my eyes don’t burn with blue light. For once, I feel present.