new website

the new website is up and running, still some tweaking to go, but the amazing squash rental agency is no more :p

http://www.sonnyliew.com/

do leave some comments and all :)

inklings

inking has always kinda sorta frightened me. i've relied mostly on the Staedtler mars 3000 since art school, but its handling has always been a bit erratic and seems to dry up real fast. a recent trip to kinokuniya in La a few weeks back i spent a chunk of moolah buying lots of brush pens; have been trying out some sketches with one of them since and finally did a illustration with it today, with final results here:

Kinokuniya

I'll be at Kinokuniya next sat promoting Re-gifters and Wonderland, possibly doing some sort of demo from script to finished art if i can get the equipment sorted out :p


Kinokuniya Singapore Main Store (Takashimaya) Crossroads
18th August 2007 (Saturday)
2:00pm – 3:00pm

some initial concepts for the First Second project here:

http://sonny123.deviantart.com/

Gift of gab

Reminiscing about art school days in l.a., we inevitably wound up talking about bill T., one of those preternaturally talented art deities who had pieces in all the juried annuals whilst still in school and who seemed poised to take the world by storm. But he always seemed ambivalent about success, or at least the need for self-promotion, and that together with a host of other personal demons has meant that we're all still waiting and hoping for him to find his feet.

The anti-Bill i guess would be this other guy at school, who despite somewhat mediocre talent was so adept at self-promotion he seemed able to fool enough people enough of the time to forge an outlandishly successful career in children's books.

There's small petty jealousy on the part of the rest of us of course, but also i think a valid sense of injustice about the order of things. Encountering a host of comics from Virgin (India) at the bookstore today brought up similar feelings, with the artist for several of their books seemingly chosen more for being indigenous then on merit. Not that it was hopelessly bad; but the kind of stuff you'd expect to find in independent press books rather than a publisher who'd roped in the likes of Garth Ennis and Alex Ross.

Come off it, Bill, save us from charlatans :p

Dead as Dolphins

The Yangtze River Dolphin has been declared extinct.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2843954.ece

I remember reading about their plight in Douglas Adam's "Last Chance to See" years ago. 

Save the dolphins, save the world? If not, what then?

comic con photos!

Throw in waiting times and train rides and the trek from Singapore to Comic-Con is a 30 hour + affair each way... still I can't complain, and here in some of its glory is the convention centre itself:



one of the best things about the con is getting to meet all the fabulous artists whose art you've admired for ages, and this time round i got to see everyone from:



..jeff smith, whose Bone adventures have been an inspiration...



..to Simon Bisley, who blew my mind with his work on ABC warriors and Slaine in 2000AD...



..to the wonderful Sergio Aragones...



.. to (deep breadth) Gene Yang,  GB Tran (who i first met at the comic con years ago when we were both sitting in line for portfolio reviews), Derek Kirk Kim, SLG editor Dan Vado, Mike Carey and Marc Hempel and the always fantastic Jon Foster...



..and of course the Ugly Dolls :p



These folks were part of the announcement that they were finally going to release a proper DVD set for Blade Runner this december. Its gonna be a 4-set humdinger!



Here's Wonderland writer Tommy Kovac and SLG stalwart Serena Valentino. Tommy unfortunately could only make one day of the con, which made the signings less fun than they were last year...



Its still exciting to see big posters of your drawings on display :p



Books on shelves...



And of course again more amazing artitsts like Justin Sweet and Travis Charest, though the latter did seem a little jaded by it all.



And then there's all the original artwork on display: pages from Dave McKean's Cages and drawings by James Jean amongst them. Lots of Alex Ross stuff too, though that particular booth appeared to be manned by his reps who gave off a smarmy vibe. One downer was a fellow at the Drawn and Quarterly booth who stopped me from taking a pic of Tomer Hanuka's art. Bollocks! :p



I got to attend the Eisners (Fables won just bout everything bah! ) which turned out to be a much more entertaining affair than anticipated, though i missed Jonathan Ross and Neil Gaiman's snog. (see it here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8NxWnMhlso )



Here's GB Tran's strangely accurate imaginings of what might have been :p



And  the trio of Singaporeans currently on internship at Lucasarts :)



Darren and Jacinda, soon to be married, art lead and project lead ( i think) at Insomniac games, makers of stuff like Fall of Man and Ratchet and Clank. The game that really caught my eye though was Heavenly Sword :p



There were a bunch of dinners, including one with the DC Minx folks - here's Karen Berger, David Hahn and Jesse Hamm, who did the gray tones on Re-gifters, as well as the art for the upcoming "Good as Lily". Another dinner with the First Second folks had me at various times sitting opposite Eddie Campbell, with the creator of Prince of Persia on my left, Paul Pope on my right and Farel Darymple showing me his amazing sketches for his next project.

"The situation leaves me kinda nervous... " :p



but you can always count on Giant Robots to save the day!



in return i spend a lot of time doodling new ones in my sketchbook :p


..amongst other ne'er do wells...



Can't leave out these knights who battle it out every year at the con..



..or the great toys on display...



Or Ando who will help save the world!



And i guess that's Comic Con 2007 :p Its back to the last issue of Wonderland now, and then Decelerate Blue written by playwright Adam Rapp, which will be something of a sea change, but a necessary one :)