Inkibot Saves The Day!

Defunct

2011-01-13T09:50:00.000-08:00

All right.. This blog is now defunct.

What happened is, I have a Blogger blog, Wordpress blog, DeviantArt, Tumblr, Flickr, and a few other ones I can't remember. What I'm doing is closing down all my extraneous blogs and deciding on one (or two).

I'll now only be updating my DeviantArt and my Tumblr.

See ya guys.

I Need To Focus...

2010-10-16T06:33:00.000-07:00

...on one venue, and I think that DeviantArt is it. It's kind of over-saturated, but that same saturation is inspiring. I don't have anything up yet in my gallery, as of this writing, but you can find me at: http://inkicho.deviantart.com/

See ya there.

I'm Back...

2010-08-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

...in California! I gotta hit the ground running. I have to pack for the move to my new house, and then get ready for the new semester!

Here's a quick watercolor of a Himalayan Monal. It was a beautiful bird, and it was a challenge to try and capture its colors with only 8 or 9 basic colors. Gotta go study! See ya for now!

And So We Trek...

2010-08-12T03:14:00.000-07:00

...back to our lives. I'm setting off for California in a few minutes - I'm all packed up and ready to go. I'm looking forward to the trip back. My family and I will be driving the 1,045 miles back home (Google Maps FTW!) with a night's stay in Las Vegas. My iPod is charged and my sketchbook is ready!

Above is a figure drawing from a while ago. It was one of the first drawings I ever "emoted" on, at the insistence of a substitute teacher. Raging teen hormones narrowed my range of expression to "angst" and that was that. It was a fun experience, though. It planted a seed in me. I've been thinking of different ways to convey emotion through drawings, and I'm itching to try them out! Oh man, I need to make some time!

See ya for now... Space Cowboy. [tee hee.]

Isaac and a Random Guy From San Francisco

2010-08-11T08:51:00.000-07:00

Here are two quick heads that I did in Photoshop a while back. Painting is fun, but I want to get better! I think I have the day off today, so I'll attempt to do some painting.

I wonder what I should paint...

Some Figure Drawings...

2010-08-10T09:36:00.000-07:00

So, I'm in Colorado right now, visiting my folks. Ever notice how family vacations are more tiring than non-vacations? Anyway, here are a few figure drawings from last semester. I can't wait to start fall semester! I have 3 art classes!

Oop - gotta go. Vacation time.

Time To Get Back Into The Swing Of Things..

2010-08-09T11:06:00.000-07:00

It's been a while. I've been busy. Schoolwork!

I've been learning a very difficult lesson these days. The theme of my life these past few months have been discipline, discipline, discipline. Anyway, though I haven't been uploading any new drawings onto the site, I've been drawing in my sketchbook - and I've been getting better! There are a few things going on right now that I have to deal with, but I'll be back with some new (and improved) drawings soon! For now, here's an orangutan I drew on a Sketchcrawl session!

It's Crunch-Time At School...

2010-05-03T02:45:00.000-07:00

...so I've been pretty busy. Here are some figure drawings I've done in class. Being a student is more exhausting than I thought. I've got to keep working hard. I'm going to keep working hard. I'm going to become a great person.

A Doodle Dee Doo~

2010-01-21T17:11:00.000-08:00

My days are now packed with school. I have six classes: English 100, Nutrition 210, Logic and Critical Reasoning 170, Public Speaking 100, US History 170, and Intermediate Figure Drawing 186. There's so much homework and so much organizing to do! It's only the first week and I have all this reading to get done, as well as a few handouts and projects. It's exhausting but at the same time it's gratifying. I've never before had so many classes at once before, but I've never been so determined to get those grades. It's gonna be a crazy semester, people.

My favorite class is Life Drawing, of course. Usually, I'm kind of ambivalent about my life drawing classes because of the teachers' methods, but I lucked out this semester! Since most junior college artists major in graphic design, illustration, and the like, the teachers tend to prefer long poses. While those poses do have their place, since I'm an animation major, what really benefits me are the short poses. My teacher this semester, Mr. Martinez, LOVES the short pose. I'm so happy I could do a jig! Today in class, we had 30 minutes of JUST 30 second to 1 minute poses! After that, we had 3 to 5 minute poses for the rest of the class! It was so much fun.. I can't wait until next week.

Anyway, enough rambling. I have homework to get done!

P.S. - I never understood why my friends were always so happy whenever the weekend came about and why they made such a big deal about it, but now I understand. It's because I never studied hard enough for it to matter. =_=;; Here's to a homework-filled (but class-free) weekend!

Things Are Picking Up! (part deux)

2010-01-17T18:46:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of things coming up in my life right now. Now is when things really kick into high gear.

First off, I start school this Tuesday. I'll be taking six semester classes for a total of 18 units. This is the most I've ever attempted in one semester, and I'm determined to succeed. It's a lot easier to say this right now, before I'm swallowed up in a rush of schedules, homework, and fatigue, but I'm hoping that saying this right now will help me stick to it and succeed. I've wasted so many years of my life half-assing my effort at school, and it's hit me hard. The consequences of my short-sightedness has and still is costing me dearly. No more of that, folks. I'm running out of life, here.

On top of that, my responsibilities and commitments to my church will be increasing, and there's a lot of trust on the line. I won't betray that trust. A line from my (now) favorite movie puts it quite succinctly: "It's time to nut up, or shut up."

Haha, I know.. "Your favorite movie is Zombieland?" What can I say? I love my zombies. Seriously.. I have fantasies about what I would do in the event of a Z-Day. I LOVE MAH BLOWED UP ZOMBIES!!!

On a brighter note, there are two events at church that are coming up that I'm looking forward to! The first is called, "Ekko Exhibition". It'll be an art show, showcasing original works of art relating to what God is doing in my life right now, as well as my feelings about Ekko. It's going to be held January 31st, so there are two weeks until the deadline. I'm thinking that, realistically, I can do one or two finished pieces in that time; factoring in the time I'll be committing to classes and schoolwork. There is an eager, optimistic side of me though, that tells me to do as many works as I can, and I'm inclined to listen. I have so many ideas and techniques that I want to implement that I can't imagine being able to create enough artwork to showcase them all! That however, bring us to the second event!

The second event will take place in early April in the form of an art auction. The theme is drawn from the book of Exodus, and all of the proceeds will go to a non-profit organization helping out in Haiti right now. I'll have all of February and March to implement all of my new ideas, so I hope to be super-prolific and crank out the art. I'm excited! I don't know very many details yet, but maybe that's a good thing. I should focus on the Ekko Exhibition for now.

Anyway, today's post is more of a status update rather than a finished product. At the behest of a good friend of mine, I've been studying up on my anatomy. I've found a great combination of art books in George Bridgman's "Constructive Anatomy" and Sarah Simblet's "Anatomy For The Artist". Where one book is unclear, the other clarifies. It's been very helpful learning the general masses of muscle and bone, as well as where the muscles attach, what their functions are, and how they all wedge together. What do you know? I'm gettin' my learnin' on in more than one way! Here's to many more years of gettin' my learnin' on.

Year Of The Tiger, Year Of Investment

2010-01-01T01:47:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year, everyone! If I have the time, I hope to do at least a quick New Year's sketch to put up tomorrow, but if not, then Happy 2010! I hope you all have a great year. :)

This Is Madness

2009-12-23T03:07:00.000-08:00

My life is madness right now. It's a constant push and pull between rapture and depression. My faith is secure, and it's constantly growing, but peace and surrender are still elusive. "Just keep working," my heart tells me, "and as your discipline and devotion to duty, productivity and hard work grows, so will your peace and security." Prudence and obedience is the name of the game. I have to seek guidance and wise counsel, but I'm still afraid of what I think I may hear. It's a twisted and crooked path that I've carved out for myself with my laziness and procrastination.

I find myself fearing not just the journey, but also who I'll be once I reach a destination. "Will I like who I've become?" "Must I throw away everything I treasure about myself: my values, my humor, and my zeal for romance?" People have told me that I'm a brave person, but right now, it just feels like blind foolishness to me. I think it's a fine line between the two.

This pace is tiring me out, I think. I'm not used to this yet, but I remind myself that it's only been two weeks. A part of me wonders if I can endure it, but a part of me urges me forward and encourages me to keep taking it step by painful step. Landing on the moon seemed like an impossible dream, yet by breaking it down into manageable steps, those ordinary men succeeded, and now they're regarded as extraordinary heroes. That's what I have to do right now. I've yet to reach my moon, and it feels impossible, but I have hope that if I can just focus on the step before me, I just might get there someday. What was it that kept those men going?

Anyway, this drawing was a picture I did on a friend's gift wrapping. I usually wrap my gifts in some ordinary, recycled brown paper that I have, and I always end up doodling on it because it looks so plain. I bought this friend a boxed set of 'Planet Earth' DVDs, but I played a joke and drew the cover of the '300' DVD to mislead her. Her reaction when she found out that it wasn't the '300' DVD was pretty funny, but she loved 'Planet Earth' as well, so it all worked out in the end.

This drawing took me about 3 hours to do (minus some distractions and procrastinations), and it was done with Colerase, color pencils, a lead pencil, a Sharpie marker, and copic markers. It was fun to copy something and see it take shape in front of me. I hope I get a chance to do some more stuff like this in the future.

Christmas Is Coming...

2009-12-15T12:24:00.000-08:00

...and things are picking up! Lots of things are going on in my life right now: signing up for new classes for the Spring semester, applying to various jobs, meeting new people at church, at Borders, and classes.. My head is a jumble right now. Times are difficult and wonderful at the same time!

Anyway, I thought that I'd take a break and do a quick update on the blog. This is a quick 5-minute drawing I did of Dug on Photoshop. I was thinking about how I haven't really done a Christmas drawing yet, and what with Christmas being one of my favorite holidays (along with Halloween), I figured I really needed to do a Christmas pic! So, here it is. Happy Holidays, people!

Discipline Is Bitter, But The Fruits Of Discipline Are Sweet!

2009-12-07T03:11:00.000-08:00

Hello, blogees. It's been a while, hasn't it? Drawing my heart out is even more difficult that I had anticipated it would be. It seems to take a perfect storm of creativity, passion, discipline, and correct allocation of time in order to crank out a quality drawing! I have a new-found respect for those super-prolific, professional artists! Heck, I have a new-found respect for those super-prolific amateur artists!

I wonder what drives them. Is it a torrent of creativity that just gushes forth? Is it the discipline to sit down, start a drawing, and then come back to finish even when they're tired of the drawing? Is it a passion and genuine love for art that spurs them on to create? I wonder what it is that makes them so prolific. I would love to be able to churn out quality drawings like them someday.

Anyway, this is one of my most complete drawings to date! I feel like this drawing is kind of an allegory for the growing process I'm going through right now. It's a journey, and I've yet taken but a few steps. It was arduous, and it was tedious, but man, looking at it now, it was worth the hard work! With this drawing, I feel like I can confidently say that I am on my way to being a professional artist! Creativity! Discipline! Passion! Confidence! These are the seeds I'm sowing right now, and if I continue to keep this up, I will be a prolific professional artist! I'm gonna do it, world! Just you watch! I BELIEVE IN ME!

P.S. - While I'm at it, I should learn to manage my layers more efficiently when I'm working in Photoshop. Not counting my roughs, I had 61 layers of line art, coloring, and shading! I wonder if that's normal, or if it's just me being super inefficient. Hrm..

Another Busy Weekend...

2009-10-16T14:30:00.000-07:00

*sigh* It looks like it's going to be another busy weekend for me. Someone from my old church is getting married to my friend's sister, and I'm going to be helping out at their wedding! They needed some hands, and I wanted to do as much as I could do to make sure that things went along as smoothly as possible. It's their wedding, after all! (I'm excited!)

So, there's going to be a rehearsal dinner at 6pm tonight, and I have to get to their wedding before or by 2pm tomorrow. I expect the wedding + reception to run on for a pretty good length of time, so that's probably going to be my entire day. Then, I have church on Sunday, which usually takes up the entire day as well. I have school on Monday, but after that, I'm going to try to get some drawings finished! I have a couple of sketches going, but nothing concrete yet.

Anyway, all excuses aside, I promised to update with a drawing soon, so here's one from the archives! These are from an exercise I was doing, where you draw on post-it notes in order to loosen up. The cramped composition forces you think outside your comfort zone, as well as forces you to get more creative with your framing! It's lots of fun! Anybody can do it!

Two Weeks Of Tumble Tumble Tumble

2009-10-13T23:54:00.000-07:00

I think that it's ironic that my last post is titled, "Desire Without Follow-Through Is Nothing," and I haven't updated in two weeks. Oh well.

I've been pretty busy with some complications in my personal life. Most of them have been resolved, and the few that remain should be resolved within another week or two. Hopefully I'll have some time to draw some new pictures tomorrow. If I don't, then I'll do my best to make time. I can't afford to be slacking off on any of this.

Expect some new updates soon.

Desire Without Follow-Through Is Nothing

2009-09-27T22:53:00.000-07:00

H'lo, world. How are you? I've been pretty swollen.

For some reason, my right wrist started getting these sharp, stabbing pains. I suspect that my being on the computer every single moment I'm awake, as well as the bad posture of my hands while they rest awkwardly on it has something to do with it. I put up with it for a day, until the pain got intense enough that I gave in and bought one of those kind-of-cool-looking hand/wrist wraps with the butterfly clips that keep your carpals and tendons from jangling all about the place. (I think.) However, this only resulted in my hand swelling to gargantuan proportions, so I ended up taking it off.

My wrist's kind of gotten better, for the most part, though now my left wrist is starting to act up. Oh well. A fellow artist friend of mine also had this problem a few years back, but recovered after getting acupuncture, so I might follow suit and schedule an appointment with my friend's dad (who likes to poke holes in people for a living). We'll see how that goes.

Also, my mother's visiting from Colorado for two weeks, and I'll be pretty busy spending time with her while she's here, so I'm kind of expecting updates and posts to be somewhat sparse. But then again, you never know when that urge to churn out a finished drawing is gonna strike. I kind of feel an anxiety about it, actually; probably because I have more than a few things that I'd like to try out soon.

These ideas, sometimes they stay, sometimes they go - they don't always stay there in my noggin, swimming happily until I have the luxury of plucking them out as I please - so, I've decided to list what few of them I can remember here, for future reference. Here we go:

DRAWING IDEAS:
      1. a drawing with multiple elements
          --characters
          --BG elements
           (think retro movie posters, or anime game illustrations)
     2. a drawing with line art done in pencil and scanned so that the texture and grit of the line is preserved.
     3. a picture done in traditional media (color pencil, markers, ink, pencil, watercolor, etc.)

Mm.. So that's all I have for now. Hopefully I'll come back to this soon and follow through on some, if not all of these ideas. Wish me luck! See ya for now.

EDIT: another drawing idea. i'll probably be updating this as ideas come into my head.

     4. sketch out and design various weapons, and then design characters to go with those weapons. think of what kind of character would use that kind of weapon, and why. think of history, setting, personality, and culture.

GUH.

2009-09-24T01:40:00.000-07:00

Guh.. A quick note.. I think that I may be considering switching blogs (again), this time over to Wordpress.com. It seems just as good as Blogger, but with more layouts to choose from, as well as more features, such as a stats counter.

I suppose we'll see where this ends up. I may have to move all my stuff again.

Anyway, another quick note: I'm pretty busy with schoolwork and probably will be for at least a week or so, so don't hold your breath for new updates during that time.

EDIT: NOPE! I'M HERE TO STAY! (Wordpress resizes all your pictures, doesn't let you click to a larger version, and only gives you 3 gigs of free space until you have to upgrade. I'm thinking that what with this being an image-heavy blog, it would run out too soon. Hello, Blogger! Thank you for being so awesome!)

Those're Late Nite Fightin' Werks!

2009-09-21T12:26:00.000-07:00

Augh! It’s 5 in the morning now!!! I can’t believe it.. I was supposed to wake up early tomorrow, too!

At first, I was just going to scan the character, but then I started INKING… Then it was all a non-stop, “full steam ahead”-type deal, and before I knew it, it was done. Oh well. I can’t say I’m not pleased with myself. This is a good thing! I don’t think I’ve ever really done a finished drawing that I haven’t done out of last-minute panic!

Okay, so pros and cons:
-Pro: I’m getting better and learning lots
-Pro: I’m still super excited and raring to draw another one
-Con: I have to wake up in two hours and I think I have Carpal Tunnel…

BUT THE PROS OUTWEIGH THE CONS! I love drawing. <3 <3 <3

*(moved here from my old site)

BG Studies @Borders

2009-09-21T12:24:00.000-07:00

H’lo, interweb.. A lot’s been going on lately. I’ve had lots of schoolwork to do, friends to meet and catch up with, things to study, and family to visit. Thankfully, I’ve not neglected my artwork, and have kept up with this project.

I’ve steadily been improving, interweb, and let me tell ya: it feels GREAT. I love this. I could get used to this. I’ve finally found my passion for animation, and it’s only going to grow more and more passionate! By trying to do finished, complete drawings, I’m learning to be disciplined, finding my weaknesses, and systematically working to improve myself in those areas!

This week, I’ve been working on my character design and backgrounds. I don’t have any character stuff yet (I’ll scan them in when I can), but here are two background vignettes that I liked! I’m getting the hang of working in photoshop, and I’m even learning to customize brushes for cool effects! This is so much fun! I love this! I’ve found my passion! I’m going for it with all I’ve got!
<3

*(moved here from my old site)

Batman is My Favorite Superhero

2009-09-21T12:21:00.000-07:00

Whew.. This is harder than I thought.. Mm.. I guess this will have to do for now.

This picture was done in ArtRage 2.0, which is a great software when you consider that it costs $25 to download, but man is it difficult to get a hang of that program! I’m used to drawing in Photoshop, so ArtRage, which is a relatively bare-bones program, seems stifling and constricting to me. One problem is that I can’t customize any of the brushes; I just had to make do with whatever properties the brushes were programmed with. Another is that there’s no canvas/picture cropping capability, which is a problem for me, because I tend to create one huge canvas and doodle until I have a drawing that I like. More often than not, the doodle that I end up working on isn’t at the center of the canvas, so I’ll have to move it around and resize it to my liking in order to be able to work on it.

Anyway, lots of little problems like that with ArtRage. That, and it was my first time really drawing/painting with this program, so all things considered, I think that I did pretty well! Anyway, thankfully, I’ve gotten hold of a copy of Photoshop for the mac! I’m so excited! I can’t wait to start drawing on there! Hopefully I’ll remember how to navigate around Photoshop and will be adept at it to draw in a background next time!

Hrm.. And as far as this art blog goes, I think that I’ll keep it relatively informal.. I want an outlet for my creative endeavors, and I think that I’d rather not limit myself by saying that I can only post drawings that are “finished,” which in my head means cleaned up, colored, rendered, and with a background drawn in. I think that I’ll strive towards “finished” drawings, but every once in a while, I’ll probably have a quick doodle that I like and want to post up.

Anyway! This blog is looking to be pretty productive! Wish me luck! :)

*(moved here from my old site)

My First Post Is About Retarded Babies

2009-09-21T05:48:00.000-07:00

Okay. This is my first post here.

I think that I should start by declaring that from this day forth, this is my art blog. I’m not sure yet whether it’ll be a formal portfolio blog or an informal sketch-of-the-day type blog, but what is assured is that this will be my art blog. So, having said that, I suppose an introduction is in order.
My name is Inki Cho, and I’m a 22-year old animation student living in Brea, California. I first got into thinking about animation as a career during my junior year of high school, and have been at it ever since. The problem is, up until now, it’s been a sort of half-assed attempt, and.. it really has to stop. I’m sick of the on-again, off-again type of drawing spurts, and the cycle of improving and then getting rusty. It’s dawning on me that this just will not do.

So, in hopes of putting an end to that cycle and finally improving for good, I’ve started this art blog. Now, this first post may not look like much, but at least it’s something. Let me tell you: During the five years that I’ve been drawing in sketchbooks, I’ve had page after page of doodles and sketches, but never have I brought a sketch to completion. I’m not calling this drawing complete, but like I said, it’s a start. Like someone important to me once said,

“Sure, it’s a retarded baby, but it’s YOUR retarded baby.”

And let me tell you, I love my retarded babies.

So, world, reader, or whoever is reading this - here’s to starting. I aim to bring you a complete picture next time. I’m gonna do it.

*(moved here from my old site)

Abracadabra.

2009-09-21T03:26:00.001-07:00

I'm moving to this website (from Tumblr) because Tumblr doesn't allow commenting. The inventive layouts on Tumblr were really great, but I don't think that I could do without (potential) comments and criticisms. Also, I think that there are more artists/animators on Blogger, so that's another very compelling reason. So, I'm gonna move what few posts I have on Tumblr over here, and it'll be a kind of re-starting over. Hello there.