Caricature for Jones Lang Lasalle

Urgent job.
Used as an image in his email.
No colour needed.
Should look better in colour, I think.

My first cheque from Adsense!

Finally received my first payment from Google Adsense. No gimmicks! SGD$158.73, but gave it to my wife. Hahaha...
They stated on their website they will pay when I have made my first US$100. I hit the target in mid February, since I started it last December. Considered not bad, since it is a passive income. Do nothing, and it gives me US$2+ average per day.

Think my competitors (especially those following the way I blog one) saw this post, will follow also. Told my friend of these copy cats, they have no prides. But he said they won't care one, since they have no prides. Over time, nobody can tell who copy who. (Some of my friends even mistaken one of the blogs I showed them is my blog. Faint!!!) True. Given all these being equal, what I can work on now, are on the service and the quality if my artworks. They will still copy, but at least not so easy in terms of style and execution, as these need time and years of experience.
No choice. If I need to have online exposure of my artworks to the mass, I can't avoid such case.
They want to copy, let them copy. I will just move faster ahead. See how much they can/will copy. Sooner or later, all blog contents will look identical, except on the quality of artworks.

My friends asked me to add watermarks on my works. That's too much work adding to my current workload. If they want to copy the designs, they can copy and draw in their own style even if the watermark is on top of the artworks. Unless some idiots really download, cut and paste heads on it. I have nothing to say. I put up the high resolution fo my artwork online, so that my visitors and clients can appreciate the details and strokes etc. With the watermark over the artworks, they will look very awful.

Continue copying, if you really have no pride as an artist.
Be original. At least I will respect you as an artist.

Caricature for CitiGold

This guy will be leaving Singapore CitiGold, posted to Shanghai Citibank. The client wanted him to be dressed in '長衫', with a fan in his hand. I added in these words "大展鴻圖" on it.
Background is the popular Shanghai's landmark 明珠塔 - The Oriental Pearl Tower ,and Citibank building in Shanghai.

Caricature live sketching for a wedding dinner

2 hour event at Raffles Hotel, for the wedding dinner of Joelle Lau & Jos Briggs.
Think this sketching service is part of the wedding package the couple got from the wedding specialist - Heaven's Gift.
My job is to sketch the guests' caricatures before the dinner starts.

The lady who controls the crowd for me.



A nice lady, offered me drinks and tidbits while I am sketching the guests.


One of the VIPs for this dinner. Guessed she's the mother of the groom.


What a pity! She blinks while I snap this photo. I think this caricature looks very much like her.


This is a good one, I think.



Sketched half way, and he needs to be in the ballroom, as the wedding dinner is starting soon.
Don't want to ink his caricature based on imagination, as many details and resemblance will be lost.
So while waiting for him, I inked in the torso and fingers part.


Since all the guests are in the ballroom, they request me to shift into the ballroom.


Not much time, and this is the last guest to be sketched before I leave.


Feedback received from the client's email on 21st May 2008:-
"Hi Jit

Not sure if you remember us but you did a "live" caricature session at our wedding on 28 March 2008. Our relatives and friends who got their caricatures drawn at the wedding were all very pleased. Thank you so much for making our party livelier!

I also wanted to let you know that Her World Brides wants to cover our wedding in one of their issues later this year and have asked for the contact details of the vendors at the wedding. I found your contact details on your website and I hope it is ok to forward the details and your web address to them. Please let me know if it's not ok.

Many thanks for being part of our celebration again
Joelle and Jos"

"Great! Thanks Jit. It was such a mad rush for us that day that we did not have the chance to say hi to you. I think you were there when we were getting ready for dinner and when dinner just started. Sorry about that. We saw your works through our guests afterwards though and wished we booked your services for a longer duration! Thanks again. We will let you know when the issue is published. "

I will miss you!

All stuffs moved into my car and Ivan's van, with the help of Ivan and Lee. Seems like I am the last one to move out at this level. The other tenants have shifted out as early as 2 months ago, as this building will be undergoing a revamp.
Used my P990i to snap the last photo of my first shop, as I forgot to bring my Nikon D80 to snap a good photo of it. Bye bye.

This page is going to be history.
Updated the 'Contact us' page with new map, address and contact numbers.
I will miss this shop, the roast pork and duck in Grand Building, Nasi Lemak, Bak Chor Mee and fish soup in Golden Shoe Hawker Centre, the Curry Chicken noodle and fish soup in Hong Lim Hawker Centre etc...... hahaha.... seems like I miss the nice food around this area more....

Caricature theme - Indian wedding

This wedding couple provided me the Indian wedding suit photo as reference.
Looking at the textile pattern of the bridal wedding gone enough to make me faint.
Thus, I did my own version. Looked quite good too, right?
Background is Singapore landmarks as per requested.
Besides the Merlion, Esplanade, Changi Airport etc, I added in the Singapore Flyer, since this is the latest landmark, befor ethe Integrated Resorts (IR) coming soon.
Expecting more clients requesting for that IR icon as soon as next year end.

Moving out!

Tomorrow (27th March 2008) will be my last day in China Square Food Centre.
Initial plan is 28th March, but I have to sketch for a wedding event in that evening.
No choice, but have to bring forward 1 day.
Thank you Ivan, Lee Lee, Wilfred, Adam for their helping hands in packing and shifting, voluntarily.
Thank you my 2 sisters-in-laws and my wife for helping me to paint my SOHO, and clear the mess.
Thank you my parents-in-laws in looking after the 2 kids, so that I can concentrate on the transition.

2 years and 5 months. Time really flies.
This shop has brought awareness of its (Portrait Workshop) existence to the public, and of course with the help of my SEO efforts to my website.
Think the shop has done its job, and it is time to give me a new challenge - from retail shop to SOHO. Quite crazy and risky, and let's see if it works.
And I look forward to my new working environment.

Carucature theme - travel

Both of them loves travel.
They have been to many places like China, Thailand, Japan, US, Australia.
I drew in Great Wall of China, Thai temple, Mount Fuji, San Francisco Bridge, and Sydney Opera House.
All of them are these respective countries landmark.
She wanted him with muscular arms. Both holding maps.
I made some changes for this travelling theme, instead of both in one direction, I have them going in different directions. Why? Because both of them are traveling based on map. They may bound to have times when they view the map differently. Visually, in terms of graphic, it looks better too. Some divergence. Not so boring.
She requested this artwork to be scanned into softcopy for her, printed into puzzle and framed the latter up.
Too bad, that I forgot to take a snapshot of it. So, no chance to post it up here.

Caricature theme - fireman & police woman

Client's brief:-
"I would like to place an order for a caricature in colour. I trust your creativity in your work. Just a few details I would like to highlight. This piece is gonna be his birthday present. He's a firefighter and I am a police officer. There's always these funny little comparisons we make in support of our own organisations just to spite the other. So I would like us both geared up in our individual uniforms and me carrying a cake for him. Something to that effect. I have no idea how the background and all are supposed to be. That I guess I would leave it to you. Plssss do a good job! Tho' I doubt u wun! haha...cheers"

Since he's a firefighter, I have him holding a hose, with water coming out (looking at it now, should change to champaign). The policewoman is using her pistol to light up the candle on the candlestick.

Caricatures for Archipelago

"Size: A2
Required delivery date: 24 March
Theme: Singapore in the 1930s (See picture 1)
Total number of characters: 7
Type: pencil sketch
Essential elements: 1) Microbrewery at the background (See picture 2)
2) Every character must be carrying an Archipelago glass on his/her hand (See picture 3)
3) Archipelago logo must be seen on the glass (see picture 4)

Character 1
Samsui woman with head gear, buckets
(Female lead role to be in the centre and sketch should abit larger than the other characters

Character 2
Triad leader with overhanging shirt and gold chain

Character 3
Policeman in shorts and helmet

Character 4
Rich lady with hat

Character 5
Fine Young Man with suspenders and hat

Character 6
Refined lady in Chinese Cheongsam

Character 7
Chinese Schoolgirl with plaits and handkerchief "

Long request. But this client is very good. Did all the necessary research for me. Saves me the time for doing all these work online.

Extending my vision.....

2 LG 22" LCD monitors. One of them is a wedding anniversary cum Valentine's gift from my wife. The other one is a gift for myself. Hahaha....... Super shiok feel. Suddenly my PC world is so wide. Really multi-tasking, without having to switch from one window to another.

Caricature theme - retired footballer

His wife ordered a caricature of him in February.
Few days later, she felt that that was not fun enough, and placed this order.
Her requests:-
'Football shorts
Football under arms
Skinny legs
"Chalky" is nickname
"Retired"
Sling on arm or bandage?
Crutch? '
Their football is our rugby here.
After this caricature was completed, I looked at the previous caricature.
Hmmm... looks different. This one looked older, and that one looked too young.
No choice. I followed the photo she provided.
(That was her comment too, upon her collection.)
But upon seeing the photo, she agreed it looked like him in the photo.

Looking good.....

After a few weekends of clearing, this room looked less grotesque.

Dumped a lot of rubbish and left some goodies, still a lot of them refused to left this room. Hahaha........

Wondering what will happen when all the stuffs in my shop are moved back?

Started paintwork today, with the help of my 2 younger sisters-in-law and my wife.
The 2 kids just painting on an old shelf, creating a mess for us to clear up.
Continued the colour scheme which was used in my shop.
See if I can achieve the same feel.
Since my website and business cards are using the same scheme, quite unwise for me to change it anyway.

With the strong and bold orange and black colours painted on, this SOHO looked less like a study room at home. Don't you think so?

The most challenging part of this painting job was the part where the 2 colours and the ceiling met. Used masking tape to mask, but the walls were not really flat. In the end, we have to use our artist hands to do it. Just treat it like a straight line art painting job.
One of my sister-in-laws is an art teacher in Serangoon Junior College. I think she did a better job than me. Hahaha....... you will be surprised. I don't have patience in such jobs.

All done. Next stage is to wait for Ivan and Lee to help me shift those stuff in my shop next week.

Caricature live sketching for Avaya, Radiance Communications and Singtel

3 hours event (6:30pm-9:30pm) at Upper Club, CHIJMES.
Used the paper with their company logos on it, prepared by Radiance.

Think this event was to celebrate the achievement of good results of Radiance Communications , Avaya and Singtel partnership.


Kicked off with this bushy eyebrows gentleman.

Easy-to-draw features - round face, short chin, 2 prominent moles.

Looked good to me A good start!


He wanted to check his email with his Blackberry while I was sketching him. Seems like his job/interest whenever he was free.

Told him if he looked down while I was sketching him, his caricature will be looking down.
Think that posture was not what he wanted. He stopped and look up. Hahaha.....


Big bunny teeth.



2 jokers - keep cracking jokes while I was sketching them.


Wanted to check his email from his Blackberry too, buthis colleague (second guy from top) told him that bettter to look up, if he doesn't want to looked down in his caricature. Seems like this method works!


Inetrval as the VIPs are giving speeches. Took some photos of this environment.

Noticed that they didn't hire any professional photographer to shoot for their event.

Saw one of them using those consumer type foolproof digital camera snapping around.
So my Nikon D80 looked a bit 'loud' among them.


See this unique ceiling decorations. Looked like falling knifes to me.
Thought they were steel plates.
After examining for some time, I think they could be made of silver cloth or paper type of material, as they swayed a bit in this air-conditioned club.


After about 20 minutes of VIPs speech, this gentleman grabbed his chance to be the first one to have his caricature sketched.


She said this caricature was better than those photo studio glamour shots.


Played up on his hairstyle, eyebrow and chin.



See? She's back, claiming that all her friends and colleagues said that that caricature didn't look like her, except for the mole. Was it? Then draw the mole can liao. One dot on the paper? She laughed. Maybe I was too lenient in previous drawing. This round, I don't hold back much. Played up more on her mouth and teeth. Added in a cigarette on her lips upon her request. And she was very happy. She said that was the one which was missing. She looked too good in previous caricature. Got such people one meh?!




She said this caricature looked very much like her, even when I was sketching her halfway, and upside down. Was it? Not chance to reverse it and see.


She wanted a sexy good looking body. Gave her a nice bust line, and she was so happy with it.


Left out the braces upon her request.


She doesn't want to include her eyebags, claiming that she didn't sleep well the night before.
Will it be that bad without good sleep overnight?
Told her won't look that close to her, but she said nevermind.
Luckily still turned out good.


Admiring her own caricature?

Family caricatures in colour

The client will be using this family caricature to print on T-shirts.
They will wear it for their family photo studio shoot.
Quite an interesting idea.
Wonder how it will turn out.
Caricatures on the T-shirts, in family photo portraits........

Cover illustration for CNB

Finally done.
Part and parcel for illustrations.

Clinets usually need to see the pencil sketches.


Revised, fine-tune, and outline it.
Shortened the hands of the 2 teens on the left, as I felt that they were too long.


Coloured in Photoshop.
My approach this round is gardient for background, added in texture and shades.
As for the characters, I used flat colours, to give it a more cartoon effect.
The shades are already taken into consideration in the linework earlier, so that the overall effect doesn't look flat and dead. As I have expected, the final effect is quite different from the initial pencil sketch, when colours are added in. Not that it became worse, but looks so much cleaner now.