Guy portrait in pencil

Super Saiyan's hairstyle in Dragonballz?!:)
Better job when time is not a factor.....
Pure 8B pencil cross-hatching.

Client's response:-
"It's really good!"

Live portrait sketching for Chanel Fine Jewellery Exhibition - Day 2

Day 2: 12:30pm - 1:30pm & 7pm - 8:30pm.
Same venue.



This lady was smiling in the beginning. However, right after I sketched out the draft, she received a call, and her face turned 'black'. Started frowning.
After this portrait was done, Reggie asked me, " talking on handphone, how to draw?"
Told him the hard part was the change in expression.
His subject was worse, to me - Chating away with her firend, not only expression keeps changing, angle too! He said she looked pretty, so was not that tough. :D




"Absolutely amazing!" This lady told me.
Wow, thank you.
She was coorporative too. Stayed still, which was one of the very important factors for a good portrait in live sketching.



Rubbing helped to speed up the shading process, especially when time was running out.
This method was also quite well received by subjects, of course it has to be done aesthetically.

Live portrait sketching for Chanel Fine Jewellery Exhibition - Day 1

This event was pretty rare, as the client requested for portrait live sketching. The nearest one was 3 years ago (browsing through my blog) when I did live sketching for Dior Addict. That event was mainly to draw the lips of the guests, with some portrait and caricature live sketching done.


This one was pure portrait live sketching for 3 days.
Venue was Theatreworks at Mohammed Sultan Lane.
First day was 12:30pm - 1:30pm, and 7pm - 8:30pm.
These 2 timings were right before their lunch and dinner hosted by Chanel.
They need 2 portrait artists. Thus, I got Reggie to partner me.
If fact, the client has no other choice, since there are only both of us which do live portrait sketching for events, from what I know. The rest are caricaturists. There are quite a lot of them in the market, in relation to portrait artists.
Live portrait sketching is a lot harder, as you need to take into consideration of proportion, lighting, and speed. You don't expect the guest to sit in front of you for 1-2 hours, like studio sketching. You must be able to capture their features in a very short time frame.
Caricature, on the other hand, is to capture their essence. You can go out of proportion. Some 'caricaturists' can't capture the resemblence at all (no joke). When the guest asked why it doesn't look like me, they can get away by saying"this is a caricature, and my impression of you."


Nice setting, but considerably dim lighting for us.
First session was for the media.
As for previous Chanel event, we agreed not to show the guest faces in the photos.
Thus, you can only see the portraits here for this event.

This was simple sketch of pencil portrait, without full shading. Took me about 10 minutes.


Some finger rubbing for the shades here.


Pure pencil cross-hatching techniques.


End of first session, after the above portrait sketch was done.


First guest of the evening session.
She told me that this is the "Best portrait I have!"
Oh thank you.:)


Added more shading, given that the response from the guests was better.
Almost all of them wanted to look pretty, and the client was happy with our speed, we decided to give higher quality portraits, than just pure quantity.


This guest was here this evening. I have sketched a caricature for her for previous Chanel event on day 2. See if you can spot her here?


Seems like the guests all dolled up for this evening event.:)
Dim lighting. I snapped this photo in the dark at low speed. The photo turned out blur.


I like this portrait - the mood, the smile, the execution, despite without full shading.

Lady portrait in colourpencil

This portrait came out better than what I have expected. I like it.
Spent 2 nights to get it done.
First night on the head, and second nite on the shoulder and clothing.

Good warm-up for my Chanel event for the next 3 days.....

While I was drawing, I explained to my daughter - do it with patience, and it will turn out good. She has the problem when she has a few large pages to colour, she will complain to me that she cannot finish it, because she has to sleep pretty soon.:D

Caricature theme - Dad cooking

Client's brief:-
"I would like a caricature done for my dearest Dad who is turning 60 in May.

Would like to leave it to you whether it should be ink or ink with marker, etc.
Like something that has a vibrant effect.. =)
Do give me some advice.

My dad loves to cook, and enjoys food A LOT!
So the caricature needs to have a food galore...
And he is very much a family man, so lots of hearts and probably sync it with like a "home".
He is also funny, loves to tell jokes. Don't know how that can be expressed in photo though.
Oh, and he loves to rear fishes.
And also include the IR picture, he kinda likes casino too.. hee hee!"

Caricature of Thierry Henry

One more drawing. Think got to stop the drawings on my iPhone for a while after this.
Jobs are piling up.
Need to settle them before my clients kill me.:D
Back to my commissioned works........

Knockout Challenge on Okto

Received an email from Hoods Inc. yesterday that it will be broadcasted on 8th March 2010, 8:30pm.
Oh! 1 week earlier!



My daughter was so excited when I told her the first part of the shooting was done at Little Skool House. She keeps asking me when was that. Hahaha.....

Anyway, looking at the video, so many hours of shooting, reduced to about 12 minutes clip. Not an easy job.

If I remembered correctly, this should be the fifth shooting.

First one was around 1995 on 早安您好 on Channel 8.
Second was with an overesea company hosted by 钟琴 Kym Ng (1996?), who wasn't with TCS at that time.
These 2 videos are recorded on those analog tapes, which I can't find them now.:(

Third one was 创业无敌手2 - The Mission II (24th Jan 2003) on Channel 8. Think I missed the broadcast. Left photos only.

Fourth one was on 城人杂志2 - CityBeat 2 (20th Jan 2005) on Channel 8. Recorded the video on harddisk. Surprisingly, this was gone too. Where has it gone to? :D Now, left photos too.

The fifth one and lastest one, I must upload to Youtube before it is gone again.
Need to be more organised from now on, as this blog will be a good memory for me when I get older.

Tiger Woods caricature refined

Playing with the new brush. Thus, decided to fine-tune this Tiger Woods caricature.
Good thing with iPhone is that I can draw anywhere, anytime I like :)

Another Barack Obama caricature

I bought another app to finish off this caricature.
Looked better now - the stroke and blending.
Finally managed to find a brush which is thin on start and end of each stroke.

Caricature for K.C. Dat - part 2

These are the 34 individual caricatures without the mugs.

Though they are in black and white, it is still quite a tedious job to finish all of them.
































Two more big jobs coming too.
One to be completed by next Friday. Another one in mid May.....
More hardwork.......