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A LOVE LETTER TO MY 13-YEAR-OLD SELF
date: June 3rd,
2011
media: digital photos, CG, Wacom
model:
Raven Le Faye
location: Berkeley CA (model), Los Angeles CA (background), various
(robot parts)
behind-the-scenes:
The Making Of: "A
Love Letter to My 13-Year-Old Self"
more information:
original blog post
In the midst of an epic battle, twin psychic school girls deal a decisive
blow upon a towering giant robot.
Pretty much my magnum opus thus far... It's the third in my giant robot
series, but there's more to it than just that. From my
middle school days until the early days of college, I was a huge anime nerd.
I also read a ton of manga. These two mediums have had a profound effect on
my art style, techniques, and favorite themes to this day. Though I am still
being a big manga fan, I don't watch much anime anymore. I got sort of
burned-out, and didn't feel like I was seeing enough variety in the
modern-day anime (with the exceptions of auteurs such as Satoshi Kon, Mamoru
Oshii, and Katsuhiro Otomo).
Despite the disaffection with modern anime, I
still have a strong love of the stuff I grew up on, tracing back to being a
4 year old and watching Robotech with my older brother. That had a profound
effect on me. In this piece, I pay tribute to that, as well as Mai the
Psychic Girl, Gundam, Domu, Project A-Ko, Cutey Honey, and
other bits and bobs of Japanese pop culture that I grew up with, as well as
a little dose of Transformers. Basically
as you can see, giant robots and psychic battles are two of my favorite
subject matters!
On a semi-sad note, this is going to be my last "crazy epic", super-detailed
piece for a while.. It took me too long to make (over 60 hours) as I work
much slower in Wacom than anything analog. Most of my
illustrated-photography pieces take me between 15 and 30 hrs, which is also
a long time, but this one was ridiculous. Just the robot itself would have
normally been a piece on its own, but I decided to take this one
farther. That said, I really need to buy a Wacom Cintiq, for a more 1:1
drawing experience - as opposed to the disconnect one gets from drawing on
the desk and looking at the screen. I think this would speed up my workflow
considerably. Problem is, I'm broke, so until I can scrape together the
extra cash, I'm going to have to stick with more simple pieces for a little
bit, otherwise I'll only get one new piece done every several months, which
is not enough for me. Good to pause this era (for now at least), with a
BANG! (literally, in this case, hence the explosion)
To see a behind-the-scenes view on the
making of this piece, click
here
!
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