No Shadow Kick!?!?

I'm too tired to post an abbreviated comment, so please refer to the comment tag for all the relevant info.

All I need say *here* is that Orlestat © Dong, Feb 2006 and Jahari (the hyena) © Strawcat...I don't know the exact month but it was in 2006 too.

This is actually a sketch, unfinished product. As you can see, my pencil work was hasty because in the end I'm going to be rubbing most of it out and coloring it in properly, anyhow.

You might have seen Orlestat in the sketches folder. I spent a bit of time studying anatomy as well as Karabiner/Den's avian art to figure out the layout, so I think it does look better as a result. This is the small version of the image- for more detail on the pencil work (don't know why you'd want to look at that...since it's draft): http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/29841306/

Orlestat©D.Ong,Feb.2006

A quick, wispy portrait of Aeryn. Took me literally 3 minutes to do. It's supposed to be some kind of indication as to Aeryn's default expression, which is kind of vague or even vapid. When it comes to everyday things that real people take for granted, Aeryn can only be described as an ingenue. Done using fine markers, Stabilo felt tip (black, 05) and a HB pencil for the 'wispy' effect.
Aeryn©D.Ong, Nov2004

Sorry bout absence, I haven't had much time- a few days ago my father was killed in a car accident...(but I'm ok, mentally), so as soon as I get everything sorted out, I'll finish off that growing list of things I hafta do :P (if you want to read more then go to livejournal- my username is dongstyle_ltd)
This is a REUPLOAD- the scanner and compression destroyed my first attempt. This image is about 1/16th the size it is in RL, but I can't manage anything better atm. It's a b'day pressie for one of my best friends, actually, since it resembles him (slightly).
Otherwise this is another character from LfaPS: Morgan (again read LJ...) I currently use this as my MSN display pic-someone was kind enough to mistake it for CG...I'm flattered.
Morgan©D.Ong,Jan2005

Another completed CG, the culmination of curious circumstances:

1) I wanted to do proper renderings of both Morgan and Strawcat. The .jpg conversion killed my filter effect, so you can't see it properly. And the *stripes* Strawcat wanted were not really doable at the resolution I selected.
2) I'm normally not one for hugs- what Strawcat is doing would be very much my own reaction. But given the way they were characterised, it was much more fitting that Strawcat be the one overwhelmed. It just seems so much more stereotypically geared now-
3) Speaking of which, I came down with a case of the cute again. Hence the anime ditz smiley that substitutes for Morgan's mouth. Such a 2-d expression on 3-d makes for a strange effect- not unlike 3-d animated cel shading.

Big boots, big gun, big gloves, big ears, big breasts...yup. That's a cartoon character if ever I saw one. Also note the panty-flash, which is a sure sign of a flirt. Or an exhibitionist, depending on how extreme she happens to be. This is an alternative set of clothing, perhaps a skin mod the bunny might use to play something like CS or something (have not played CS for ages, on account of using this piece-of-shit laptop which has a tendency to overheat.
Hunny_Bunny©D.Ong, Aug2004

And one more before going to bed (it's 4am on a new year's morning...argh running out of upload allowance...I'm a loser) We have some slightly metaphysical, self-referential joke here: a computer generated character playing with a computer. WOW O_o ...and again that panty flash. I dunno what's with the shirt though. It looks way too starched. How does one type with 4 fingers in bulky gloves? (Very much the same way Strong Bad can type with boxing gloves on...duh.) And if you don't know who Strong Bad is, then you're missing out: www.homestarrunner.com .
Hunny_Bunny©D.Ong, Aug2004

Yet another counterpart...not this time, technically speaking. But it is another fictional character from that fictional MMORPG that the Alaskan_Hound plays a part in (and a whole bunch of characters I haven't bothered to draw yet.) Hunny_Bunny (as she called herself) was meant to be based loosely on Cream (that wittle kawaii rabbit from the Sonic seres (tm by Sega I assume)). But all you can see of that, is that for a head all I did was take a sphere and whack on a nose, and some ridiculous ears. Also, I decided to enhance the proportions slightly (nowhere near that of say Doug Winger or Mark Stretch), in keeping with the nature of the human character that Hunny_Bunny is a digital representation of.

Raise your hand (or email me or something) if you know what any one of:
a) Barani
b) Capoeira
c) Parkour

means. Extra kudos to you if you can do a) (I have difficulty presently) or try your hand at b) and c).

I love gymnastics. Not just watching, but doing. That's me in a nutshell. So since my mother has acquiesced to my horsey fursona, I couldn't help but doodle this tidbit. This was actually taken from a photo reference (alas, the clip was too low quality and taken at night so I have to wait till my hoof heals to do another shoot).

Morgan © D.Ong, Jan 2005

Wallpaper! The (VCL)denotes specially adapted for VCL (duh). Originally the image was 1024x768, but since I just stole the background from the bank of bg images Win-XP provides the user,it's not enough detail to warrant it being any larger that 800x600. The image of Aeryn was lifted from another character sheet (probably to be placed in Sketches...since its annotated an' all that.)
Aeryn©D.Ong, Nov 2004

Pardon my absence, to anyone that asked (which might be like 0 people), but I've been rather busy. This is actually not the first pic I started since my father's death, but more like the 3rd (and most recent).
Up till now I've never drawn a character that belonged entirely to someone else. However, Strawcat has kindly given me permission to draw his character- Anathema (based on a portrait by Emiya.) I can only hope I'm doing him justice.
At present, this is a scribble done entirely with an 0.3 clutch (HBs), but it shall be coloured later.
Anathema©B.Kehler,Jan2005
Morgan©D.Ong,Jan2005

The coloured version to the scribble earlier. I had no idea how I was going to do the background, so I used the 'easy way out,' the street-lamp effect (as suggested by Strawcat.) Unfortunately, while he had nihilism in mind, I had chaos, so I stuffed it up and ended up doing some funny trilayer filter- you can see it easily. There's the shades of grey, which is the plain lamplight and shadow, then there's these circular blue streaks which was my original idea, which, after three minutes and irreversible damage, seemed not to be working after all.
I really ought to use 110gsm paper, this is a lousy 70 and it really shows.
Also pardon the compression- it sucks coz I only have MS Paint here.
Anathema©Strawcat,Jan2005
Morgan©D.Ong,Jan2005

The friend I did this for couldn't tell that it was a doodle, so I'm submitting it as an actual piece. I know you can barely discern a generalised tinting and this is in fact necessary otherwise either the lot of it will be too light and hurt one's eyes, or the contrast will be too high, and also hurt one's eyes. Ergo- colorised tint with brightness settings deliberately reduced.

But yeah. Done perched (eccentrically- you'll only get the joke if you've done biomechanics :P) on a right-(wrong, since I'm left) handed wing table you find in them lecture theatres, within the space of the lecture. Thought my (oh-so-very-typically-foxy) friend could do with at least one PG rated pic out of his whole collection.

Y-Fox©his player, you can see my sig in the bottom right.

Homegirl Aeryn

This is a sketch done with a random pacer with leads that liked to smudge...but I cleaned it up so it goes in home :)

Aeryn was one of the first characters I ever generated, and also the most troublesome. Being a unicorn, I felt she should carry a mythical air, but this does not suit my fondness for gritty, down-to-earth characters well. So initially, she was really feminine and ethereal. Then eventually in subsequent incarnations, she became shorter (she was supposed to be short anyway), stockier and more rugged, until you have the current "homely" look.

You'll note her arms are BUILT for a female. See that Dragunov? I kept her sniper background with her throughout: lugging a 10lb rifle around for years would do *something* to them!

Aeryn © strop

So I tried doing a quick sketch and then spent several hours learning how to handle layer tools on GIMP. So much for mid-semesterlys and an overdue assignment.

Basically, 10 minutes with a HB and 6B pencil, then several hours masking, leveling, motion blur, and depth-merging. I thought I might as well use some characters I haven't done in a while and practice my quick sketching. I'll also post the original.

It's a sparring session- obviously. Note the strange postures and hand forms- Xin is teaching Aeryn some newer, more esoteric forms of combat.

Aeryn©D.Ong,Nov2004, Xinoeph©J.Young,Nov2004

The original pic- comparing this to the completed version is like comparing a still with a delayed exposure with flash (photographic), I guess.

Note: I cheated- I already modified this by creating another layer, filling it with a black to white gradient and merging the two to make the background shadow look darker and Xin look lighter. I also desaturated the picture since my scanner light tends to add a small amount of blue to every image I have, and this is meant to be black and white.

Aeryn©D.Ong,Nov2004, Xinoeph©J.Young,Nov2004

Ok technically THIS is a sketch, but it also passes as a picture. With no background. I screwed up the muzzle with the penwork (again), which is why I started looking around for a fountain pen. Part of yet another character sheet.
Another note: Aeryn is a character from a project I was doing with somebody else (yeh real specific Dong), but normally she's human. However that's offtopic, so I'll wait for a few more images b4 I post that one.
Aeryn©D.Ong, Nov 2004

And to complete the study...the rear end. Maybe I'll post the character summary pertaining to Aeryn (a text file)...which would be easier than feeling compelled to give snippets everytime I post. I shall limit commentary on this one to saying that the tail (and what it covered) turned out better than expected, and I changed my mind about the stance halfway through the waist. Which is why it looks screwy if you look at it too long.
Aeryn©D.Ong, Nov 2004

A rather violent way to say hello...well it's not so much a greeting so much as the first image in this account.
HI EVERYBODY! *whack* (Ok that done, remind self that 'The description field is NOT a BBS, blog etc. etc.'
Rite, now to the business end of matters: Done using an ok Derwent HB pencil, a crappy Stabilo 05 felt tip pen, a shitty scanner and an excerable compression tool (thank you MS Paint.) Also you can see some parallax error in the shadow about 2/3 down the image...I was too hasty. Again.
Aeryn©D.Ong, Nov2004

This should be named 'I SUCK AT CHARCOALS.' Because this is my second attempt at using them, and it took me 3 reworkings (i.e. 10 hours) to get it half right. This is an extract of the 3rd reworking. I say extract, because I drew it at the wrong angle (about 17 degrees anti-clockwise from what I wanted it) and on a poky corner of the page. I also used some graphite sticks I had handy, but mainly the only thing I was happy with was the tail. Which had to be cut out due to editing and orientation and all that shit. Oh and Aeryn is actually colored like an Arabian, but this is nightime, in the middle of a blazing fire. Only you can't really see that either.
Aeryn©D.Ong, Nov2004

Yes yes I know this is off-topic (it's the first one, incidentally). But it's here for a sense of completeness. This is Aeryn, as a human, in full dress. It's a kind of casual military wear typical of her people. The boots and gloves seem to have alot of buckles on them...and the gloves look like they come from a HEV suit from Half-life. Especially due to the colouring (electric orange and gunmetal.) At any rate, I tried to do a good colouring job i.e. convey texture through layering...but I'm still pretty new at it. Pastels, and felt tip.
Aeryn©D.Ong, Nov2004

I TRIED to resist the temptation, but I couldn't.

I thought those ipod ads were real effective coz I haven't seen a TV ad like that in a while. Like, ever. Which is a longish while.

So as you know, this is Aeryn, learning how to jive. I assume Xinoeph taught her...more on that later. And she doesn't have an ipod- that thing around her neck is her ID amulet. It should be attached with 2 strings, but that wrecked the composition.
I'm growing rather fond of Aeryn- she's what one might call a 'nice girl,' if only she didn't have such a strange strange upbringing.

GO FLOODFILL!!! I mucked around in photoshop for a goodly 3 hours before pressing one button to give the present effect.
Blah.
Aeryn©D.Ong,Nov2004

Why I haven't uploaded anything in a while.

Okay okay so 2 days isn't much of a 'while', but really I've got 4 requests in queue, and I haven't gotten underway on any of them yet XD . And I haven't got jacksquat to upload either.
More lineart, this. The fountain pen is supposed to aid me in making the outline surgically precise and even, but having eschewed drinks and a shower, and trying to do it at 3am in the morning gave me shakes to rival the DTs. This is just a preliminary stage and I wanted to preserve it before going on the fuck it up in various ways.
Aeryn©D.Ong,Nov2004

Lineart. Semi-on-topic lineart. I WAS going to do a background and proper rendering, but the way it looked I wasn't going to pass up the chance to scan it and immortalise it before I went and fucked it up, like I just fucked up my latest colour job. Again. Remind me NOT to attempt to substitute saliva for water on a watercolour job. One of these days I'm going to win a Darwin Award...
Anyhow, so this is more like what you'd see of Aeryn, should she have to change into a fully quadrupedal unicorn. She'd most likely be scared witless. And running like hell. What I really like about THIS one is the expression. Oh yeh, she's scared alright.
Aeryn©D.Ong, Nov2004

This doesn't need a title because I think it's as self-explanatory as it is lame xD

One might think that I did this because I've been watching the beach-volleyball in the Beijing Olympics. But this is in fact the secondary reason: the main reason was because the theme for the ArmorGames art battle was "Unicorns" and everybody was doing a Charlie the Unicorn spinoff. I wanted to do something a little more *topical*.

I figured a long horse face was perfect to carry the expression, so the joke was born. I did try to be somewhat accurate in portraying the stadium, but obviously it's all compositional background to the punchline.

Note: I've tried to stay true to Aeryn's actual build as I've re-envisaged it- athletic, not waifish nor voluptuous...like beach volleyball athletes!

Yeah yeah I know that all the images here have been uploaded already...but here's a simple example of what an amateur can do with some images, and MS Paint. The text is just all the stuff off the character sheet, done using Paint. The real problem is that the contrast and brightness cannot be set too high, since the images are not strictly black and white. Hence I tend to spend 3-8 hours or so doing masking and cleaning the outline so I can paste the image in paint without unsightly extraeneous pixel crap messing up the whole image. (The same applied to Aerynwallpaper3).
This will probably be the last upload for a bit, since I'm astonishingly low on upload allowance now :( (and I'm working on an ink which takes ages.)
copyright info is on the image itself.

A brief (and rather faded) pacer sketch of Rael's counterpart. Her name is Arael (wow). Actually the story goes that Rael lost his memory temporarily and simply took the 'masculine' form of the name for a bit- and it happened to stick (useless trivia). ANYWAY, Arael only has one variation: this one (NB: By variation, I mean from a human format). She's nice and comfy in this form, unlike Rael, who takes the opportunity to psychologically torture himself at every waking moment (hence his having 4&1/2 variations).
Arael©D.Ong, Apr2004

Coz where there's a front, there's also a rear (or something stupid like that). Her presence has (or is meant to have) a certain element of sexuality to it :P This drives Rael nuts for reasons you would not think of *chuckles derisively* (again read text file...to be uploaded later). Also: Arael is actually white, almost translucent such that the shadow on her skin, if any, is a light gray-blue. The same applies to the wing membranes. I really should do a coloured version sometime.
Arael©D.Ong, Apr2002

Hooray for generic stuff and pin-up posters.

Adapted from a very quick and scrappy sketch done during another class. All these dynamic poses and all look cool and everything- but really, you try doing them! It does take some fitness, otherwise it takes a lot of effort.

Anyhow, goals here were improvement of perspective and spatial representation, which actually came out decent here. Pardon the variable outline lengths though- such sloppiness wouldn't happen if I were doing a proper piece, or so I do hope.

Arael(i)©D.Ong,May2004

Dancer

FINAL (sorry!) uploaded following the last corrections to his eye and xiphisternum.

So I wanted to try a make a new character for an online text RPG (specifically ICO). So I sketched this one out- he's a continuation of that bunny in hot-pants I put in here earlier.

It was easy enough to start with but I'm hopeless with rabbit heads. I think I ought to delete the earlier ones (which were essentially raunchy adaptations of Cream from Sonic et al...god), but as you can see the head has changed alot since the last version. I'm going with a more realistic angle as opposed to the humanoid skull with the muzzle and ears.

I inked after I realised I actually liked how it was turning out. He's nekkid as I, once again, cannot decide on his costume.

©Dong, Jan 2007