Charlene Chua, illustration news

Santa Fe Reporter cover

Did this recently for Santa Fe Reporter, for their 2009 ‘Sweat’ issue. The art director wanted a kickboxing girl (since that is a feature article), and it so happened that I already had a girl in a kickboxing pose from an old illustration. I showed it to her and she was happy with reusing it, with some new elements in the background.

santa fe reporter, cover sketch

So this was the sketch for the cover. I was asked to do something dynamic, with Chinese dragons, so I came up with the dragon and various lines and elements behind the girl to make her look cooler. I asked for the masthead so that I could work the design around the main elements on the page.

This was the final art, without the masthead.

Went life drawing at TSA today. Man, I miss going for life drawing. I wish I could do it more regularly – so hard to find the time! Anyway there are a bunch of sketches, click the link below if you want to see them all.

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Here’s the latest cover for OWL Kids. Halloween this year features Mummies thanks to the upcoming King Tut exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario.

Here’s a better look at the cover.

These were some of the sketches that didn’t make the cut. Originally I was planning to have a more Egyptian theme but it was decided that the issue didn’t have enough Egypt-mummy content to warrant the history lesson!

Also in this issue (I think) is a how-to spread on how to make your own headless man costume. The illustrations were actually done last year for the previous Halloween issue. However, at the time, an incident in Canada made the article seem to be in poor taste and the magazine decided to keep the article for this year instead. Will try to take some pics of this when I get the magazine.

Sketch of crow. Ink pen and watercolor. I think I need a new scanner to scan anything that’s not black and white. This one is making my browns look purple and neon-ish. This was the best I could do to adjust the color in Photoshop to look like the original.

Sketches for some new pinups I made for FanExpo at the end of the month. The ’school’ series actually has 5 pinups but I’ve only had the time to do up these 3. And really, 3 is enough I think…

From the top: Headmistress, teacher, student

Nothing fancy, just a quick sketch before bed yesterday. I still doodle girls when I’m tired or bored. It… relaxes the mind

Random sketches of people around Kensington market. Lots of great people to draw, only wish they’d stop more often instead of just walking by in like 5 seconds.

Selected sketches from interesting life drawing ‘The Keyhole Sessions‘.  Mostly did short 1-2min poses, would have liked some longer poses like 30min or so, but intresting 2hours nontheless.

Just a couple of sketches done yesterday, ink brush pen over pencil. My back is hurting – boo.

It’s been a long time since I posted any sketches! It’s a bit of a drag since Wordpress jams up on me half the time – I don’t know why. Anyway, just some quick Sunday sketches.