CTN Expo

I found out about CTN animation Expo a little late, but I decided to go check it out anyways. I heard that it’s a relatively new convention. I finally got to meet Glenn Vilpuu. He is such a kind man. When I was taking oil painting class in college, my teacher was such a big fan of his. He would always tell me that I should look at Vilpuu’s art. I love that teacher. He really loved what he did, and it showed. Since he was such a big Vilpuu’s fan, I’ve always wanted to meet the man in person. Mr. Vilpuu told me that there are so many famous artists at the show. There were also a lot of students everywhere.

I met other artists that came all the way from Canada and from England. They were here for portfolio reviews. Disney booth had a very long line for that. I didn’t see Nickelodeon there which I thought was rather odd. The studio is right down the street from the convention. There were a lot of panels going on. I went to Chris Sander’s How to Train Your Dragon one. They were funny. It was mainly about the storyline. The lines for the panels are super long, so I didn’t really go to too many. I sat in the overflow room to watch some of them on the screen though.


I got to talk to many artists. Armand Serrano from Sony Pictures Animation was especially sweet. I was glad that he was able to see my thought process for many of my works. Not too many people actually notices little things like that. I also got to play with the Cintiq for about an hour at the Wacom booth :p. I think I’m still more of an Intuos person, but it was still fun to play around with the Cintiq for a bit.



~ Patara

Yeti's BG

Background: Yeti's Mountain & Maya's village. I wanted to try to keep it simple, so that it will compliment the characters. It initially started out pretty graphic looking. For me, it's quite hard to draw a simple background without characters. I just kept getting the urge to put in more and more details which I started to do with the village and then forced myself to stop again. *struggles*

~Patara

Snow Bunny

I just made this for one of the Yeti page. It's so hard to animate things x_x. It takes me so long.


~Patara

Website (Finally!!)

Guess what! We just put up our new and improved website. Well, there are still some tweaks that we'll have to do, but I think it came out rather nice especially the Explore section. If you hover over the penguins on the Yeti page, they even say their names :o "oohs and ahhs". I did a lot of illustrations for the backgrounds of each sections and I think they came out nice. I was going for the "stage" feel.

Since my little elves and I do not know how to program, it was very frustrating to try to get the website to do what we wanted it to do. Luckily, master Dormando did some magic and got everything to work (thank you thank you, oh great one).

We're also working on the gallery and online store section, but meanwhile, you can buy some stuff at our Etsy shop :).

~Patara

Picollo Islet

Okay, I think it's about time that I start to update this blog again :p. I've been working on the website art and contents. The technical part is difficult for me because I'm not a programmer, but thankfully someone is helping me :). It's very close to being done. I'm also doing some background designs, so I'll start with Picollo Islet, where the Picolettes live.

Sketch:


Color:


We designed the Picolettes for Comic Con 2010. They are available as limited edition blind box Zipper Pulls. While we're working on the online store, they are available at our newly opened Etsy Shop.

~ Patara

Pailin

Did anyone watch Amazing Race Asia 3 lol. Look who's racing!

Pailin is also going to "Le Cordon Bleu" Culinary Institute. She's going to be making me yummy desserts! We should open a Vuduberi Bakery xD.

~Patara

Cat House & Creepy Shed

On the way back from SDCC, we made a quick stop to the Cat House on Kings. They had about 1600 cats there. Since FSc and I are cat people, we were really glad that they at least have a large area and a nice home to live in. Otherwise, they would have just been killed at the shelter. Some of the cats were sick, and some areas smelled really bad. Overall though, they are still much better off there. I wish more people would adopt them. They are very lonely. The moment they saw us, they all ran towards us. Some started to hop on so that we can carry them.





Right next to the cat house, there was a very old beaten up shed with lots of dead trees and critters everywhere. James and FSc were all into the creepy area lol. I thought it looked like a scene from a scary movie.




~Patara

SDCC 2008

This year, James tagged along to help us out. He also made the super awesome Sign that is glowing in the back. Our booths smell so nice because of FSc's crafty bathsalts. As usual, Comic Con had a lot of fancy booths, and it seems to be getting bigger and bigger every year. Our location is much better than last year's location. Eventhough we were all SUPER tired, we had a lot of fun. FSc and I were talking about how refreshing it is to see the customers and the fans that stopped by. It really makes us want to work harder and make a lot of cool things lol. We are so grateful! Thanks so much!


The first day, we ended up eating our first meal at 7 pm >_<; Everyday was so tiring. I promised to take everyone to watch different movies every night, but we only got to see Wall-E. It was James first Comic Con, so he was the most excited. He was really into the Ironman statues. FSc was signing and sketching so much that her hand was hurting lol. She also got a sketch from Niel Gaiman and Mike Mignola which made her super happy. We bought an artbook and a mini gun replica by Greg Broadmore from Weta Workshop. Megan Franich came by and bought some stuff at the booth too!












There were really pretty cosplayers that stopped by our booth daily to show us their awesome costumes. They were so pretty, sweet, and talented! I hope we get to see them again next year!



~Patara

Logo Sign <3

After hours of hard work, we have a new Logo Sign for the convention. I'm in love. It looks even cooler in real. Thanks James!



~ Patara

Elves - 2008 special set

This is the set of prints that we are selling at the convention this year. Saka and I put so much work into them. They are oversize prints, gorgeous, vibrant, archival prints on watercolor paper. Stop by our booth to see the real thing at San Diego Comic Con booth #4616. ^^



~ Patara