fantasy

Hac Thi Long

Image | | Splendid River

Ms. Dark Dragon – female Vietnamese inspired pirate – Queen of the East Sea – one of my favourite assignments in the character design class I just took this last semester of Fall 2014. This design focuses on picking out iconic, recognizable, interesting details that contribute well to the overall design, giving it a fantasy vibe, and less about cultural or historical accuracy. Top left corner are some exploration thumbnail sketches I did that included a lot of research I did from various sources about Vietnamese attires.

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Buncha A-holes

Image | | Splendid River

Is anyone here obsessed with Guardians of the Galaxy like I am? I’ve seen the movie twice in theatre and listened to the Awesome Mix Vol. 1 thousands of time and still want more. So here’s a little tribute I did for one of/if not the best Marvel studios’ movie yet. This is what I imagine a cartoon version of the movie should look like.

King of the Sea

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Vietnam has its own Aquaman – Long Vuong (The Dragon King) – he basically rules the Eastern Sea, King of all sea creatures and controls everything under water. This character was actually inspired a lot from a similar character in Chinese mythology after a thousand years that they colonized us in the past.

And for those who love merchandises, this drawing is available as a T-shirt on my zazzle store here www.zazzle.com/king_of_the_sea… . Thanks

Adult Mutant Samurai Turtles

Image | | Splendid River

Because these designs of mine are clearly not teenagers nor ninjas. These are my interpretation of the TMNT’s characters, in which I tried to incorporate a lot of elements from different species of real turtles, and Japanese attire, while still maintaining individual personalities of the turtles. I also tried to make the Shredder a bit more Japanese, and Krang a bit more like a modern android. I will continue doing other characters later.

You can see the sketches here https://www.facebook.com/hahuyhoang.art/photos/pb.471650312872103.-2207520000.1404894666./701157753254690/?type=3&theater

Saint Giong

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Saint Giong riding his Metal horse into battle with a flaming bush of bamboos for a weapon.

Saint Giong – a legend from Vietnamese mythology. He didn’t speak a word until he was 3. When our country was invaded and called for volunteers into the army, he started talking and the first thing he asked for was lots of rice to eat. After meals after meals, he stood up and in a blink of an eye, turned into a gigantic and powerful adult man. The Emperor made him a metal armor, and a metal horse, with which he rode into the battle and defeated the enemy like a walk in the park. When his weapon was broken, he pulled a bush of bamboos out of the ground and used it to fight off the rest of the invaders. When the war ended and the country in peace, he rode his metal horse straight for heaven and never came back. People made shrines and temples in his tribute and worship him as a Saint.

See the sketch here: www.facebook.com/hahuyhoang.ar…

Click the following link to purchase a T-shirt with this drawing on it. There’s 2 versions, one with only the line art, and one with colors, it’s all up to you
Colored T-shirt: www.zazzle.com/saint_giong_col…
Line art T-shirt: www.zazzle.com/saint_giong_tsh…

The Cap’n

Image | | Splendid River

Cap’n from Popapocalypse – a comic book about a post apocalyptic world ruled by warlords who are pop culture mascots, created by my good friend and colleague – Matt Harding. This drawing was done to celebrate the success of his kickstarter project for Popapocalypse.

 

 

Sky Holder

Image | | Splendid River
Female Sky Holder (she’s a man in the mythology) – the original Vietnamese Goddess. There are a lot of Photoshop tools experiments in this one, and a lot of them are quite useful I must say.

Before there was even time, the universe was in chaos, sky and earth were mixed together, and no living thing could survive. That was when came the Sky Holder, she pushed the sky up with her hands, and stomped the earth down with her legs, thus, created the world as we know it, and allowed creatures of all kinds to grow and evolve underneath.

Click the link to see the sketch version of this, and follow me on facebook too https://www.facebook.com/hahuyhoang.art

Click to see big size

The God of Thunder

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The Vietnamese equivalent to Thor. His name – Thien Loi, literally means “Sky lightning (or Sky Thunder)”, and he’s the God of Thunder in Vietnamese mythology. Usually he wields an axe and guards the gateway to the Kingdom of Heaven, and protects Ngoc Hoang (The King of Heaven). This was done for Sketch_dailies but I’d like to push it even further in the design, this one is still a work in progress inspired by some stage plays.

The Amazing Spider-man

| Splendid River
Spider-man colored from the sketch I posted the other day (www.facebook.com/hahuyhoang.art/photos/pb.471650312872103.-2207520000.1395731011./651804798189986/?type=3&theater). This was done at the same time with the Ultraman piece, which was also a great experimentation with colors, lighting, and stylization. Like I said before, Spider-man is my all time favourite super hero, so I like to occasionally draw a picture of him, and this time especially is to welcome the new movie The Amazing Spider-man 2 coming up this May. I really am excited for it, the trailers look awesome.

Ultraman

Image | | Splendid River

Yup, Ultraman, now in colors! This was a wonderful experiment for me in lighting, colors, and a few new stylizing techniques. Also, it shows the power of the computer when it comes to this kind of stuffs. You can take a look at the sketch I posted the other day done in ink in sketchbook and compare to this one – https://www.facebook.com/hahuyhoang.art/photos/pb.471650312872103.-2207520000.1395645021./652074794829653/?type=3&theater .

Also, click like to my facebook page on the link above to follow more of my frequent sketches over there. Thank you .

Babayaga’s house

Image | | Splendid River

Babayaga’s chicken legged house. This was a wonderful experiment with brushes and colors. Like some of you may realize, I’ve been trying to vary my rendering style a little bit to give it a more painterly feel compare to the clean and simple cell shading like before.

Mermaid?

Image | | Splendid River
I went a bit too crazy with the brush in this one. But good experiment is still good anyway. I’ve seen some amazing creative mermaids, so I had to do something out of the norm for this.

Review: Doctor Who (phần 2)

| Splendid River
Sau khi đọc đi đọc lại review Doctor Who mà mình viết trước đây mấy lần (đọc ở đây https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151046631239111&set=a.10150629747494111.407877.533129110&type=3&theater) mình mới phát hiện ra là review đó thiếu sót quá nhiều thứ. Vậy nên trước khi đọc tiếp, bạn hãy đọc lại review cũ theo link trên để biết sơ qua về show này.Review này mình viết chủ yếu là phân tích vào những lý do tại sao show này lại hay, và chủ yếu là từ những nhận định của mình nhảy ra khỏi đầu khá random nên cấu trúc bài viết có thể không được thể thống cho lắm, mong các bạn thông cảm:

– Doctor Who là 1 show có khả năng thỏa mãn tất cả mọi người với tất cả các sở thích khác nhau về điện ảnh. Bởi vì mỗi tập phim của Doctor Who gần như là 1 thể loại điện ảnh hoàn toàn khác hẳn, và đôi khi sẽ khiến cho bạn cảm thấy như show này trở thành 1 show hoàn toàn mới chứ không nhất quán theo 1 công thức cố định nào. Nó có thể là phim kinh dị, phim hài, phim tâm lý, phim tình cảm, phim thiếu nhi, phim phiêu lưu, phim hành động, phim viễn tưởng, phim lịch sử, phim thần thoại, phim sử thi, phim trinh thám, phim tội phạm, phim theo kiểu retro, phim noir… Tất cả, vâng, TẤT CẢ các thể loại điện ảnh trên đời này, bạn hoàn toàn có thể tìm thấy trong Doctor Who. Có thể nó sẽ rơi vào từng tập phim, có thể nó sẽ là một sự kết hợp cực kỳ khéo léo và tinh tế giữa các thể loại khác nhau,… Và dù bạn có là fan của thể loại phim nào đi nữa, hoặc là thể loại truyện nào đi nữa, bạn cũng sẽ được thỏa mãn với Doctor Who.

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50 years in Space and Time

Image | | Splendid River

I’ve been drawing a collection of caricatures of all 12 Doctors from Doctor Who, including Peter Capaldi, who will be replacing Matt Smith this Christmas. This was done for the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, the longest running sci-fi TV Show of all time. I got my ticket and am planning to go to the 3-D screening in theatre for the 50th anniversary episode this Saturday – Nov 23rd, exactly 50 years after the very first episode aired on BBC with William Hartnell.

I started watching Doctor Who the new series last year – 2012, and became obsessed by it because of the wonderful, beautiful, creative, and emotional stories that the show brings. To me watching DW is like watching every single genre of films ever, from comedy to sci-fi, from romance to horror, from fantasy to detective, from film noir to art house… everything. Every episode feels like a super good feature film, and they all crossover in incredible bigger story arcs that will blow your mind every time. It’s not about The Doctor himself, it’s not about all the gimmick of CGI, it’s not even about how hot The Doctor or the companions are. It’s all about good stories, and inventive ideas. Now I have seen many TV series, but Doctor Who is hands down the best of all.

Happy Birthday, Doctor Who.

Inktober

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All of my #inktober entries in one image. It was a fun and challenging experience for me since ink is really not a tool that I’m confident of using. But through this challenge, I did a lot of experiments, both in using brush pen, markers, new tools, and in opening up the fields of content that I don’t usually do. Follow me on facebook to keep up with more casual works that I do and post everyday –> www.facebook.com/hahuyhoang.art

Jedi Ninja Spock Na’vi

| Splendid River
A little print I was selling at A.P.E (Alternate Press Expo) in San Francisco a few weeks ago. And of course, for those who have been following me, it’s the next installment in my series of Mash-up art. This time it’s Spock in a Ninja outfit, holding a Jedi lightsaber, having a Na’vi braid and of course, he’s on Pandora. Enjoy.