Sorry, didn’t have time to do a new picture! Happy Lunar New Year! May the magikal rabbit bring good fortune and golden carrots to everyone!

WSJ Ask Teri / Charlene Chua illustration

This was done for the Wall Street Journal’s Ask Teri column for Thursday Jan 20. It was a very quick turnaround (same day). The column is about a man who lost weight and so got his suits remade to fit. He was asking if he should get his shirts remade as well since the necklines were still uncomfortable. The art director originally asked for a picture of a tailor working at making a suit, and I supplied him a sketch of that. I also supplied an alternative sketch for an idea with a pair of hands with a measuring tape across a businessman’s neck, which I thought had related more to the text. The team at the Journal liked the idea and we ran with that. I ended up making the guy look older with a bit of a heavier neck. It was a nice, quick job, and it was great working with the folks at the Journal again (who are simply amazing with their response time!).

These were the sketches I provided:

This was the original tailor idea.

This was my original alternative. I adjusted the guy to be older.

Did this last night, just for fun. I thought it would be fun to pretend to do fashion illustration, and I actually quite enjoyed drawing these. I was sort of thinking about what clothes I would like to have if I actually could sew (or had oodles of money sitting around).

I’ve never thought of myself as much of a fashion person, and I don’t think I will ever really get fashion. But it was a fun exercise to do these up, and I liked having something different to concentrate on (usually I focus on the figure first).

Click on the image if you want to see the sketches in larger detail.

Some new work for Penthouse. Did these recently for their December erotic fiction piece. It was a fun piece although somewhat challenging since not all that much was happening in the story (a girl meets an old flame at a condo she’s eyeing, they make out in the pad’s outdoor shower). I tried to come up with some ideas that didn’t involve showers, but couldn’t really. The magazine prefers the images to be more direct and less conceptual anyway. The suds were quite fun to figure out, and I think generally it worked out well.

Here’s the spot that accompanied it:

I kinda liked this sketch that didn’t make it (thanks for the anatomy help Vince!), might do it up when I have the time:

Had a great time on Monday night with my friends Jori and Vince at Dr Sketchy’s. It’s been a really, really long time since I did any life drawing, so it was nice to do a session in a chill, relaxed atmosphere. We had a great table too so it was a lot more pleasant for me this time, where I was sitting somewhat precariously on the edge of a step, sharing a tiny table with someone.

Below are more sketches from the night:

Got a new scanner yesterday, so I can finally scan in some sketches I’ve been meaning to. These are from my sketchbook, not off the Cintiq. Which I guess is kinda a redundant point, since I wouldn’t have to scan in anything from the Cintiq now would I… (more…)

My husband is an avid gamer and game reviewer. One of his passions is tackling the matter of narrative in games by examining their current state in the medium, and anticipating their development. This piece was done to accompany one such feature article in C&G Monthly, a Canadian pop culture magazine focusing on comics and video games.

Being married to someone who is passionate about games, it’s inevitable I suppose that I share some of his love for them. I’ll admit I’m much more of a backseat gamer than one that actually plays games, mostly because I don’t have the reflexes for many games and I tend to panic under the time-sensitive stresses that are core to the gameplay of most games. But I do enjoy watching the games that we buy, in  particular the ones that have good storylines.

Rough concepts for the illustration

To me, the current attitudes towards stories in games is similar to the attitude people had towards comics when I was growing up. Comics were viewed as this sub-par combination of badly drawn pictures and bland, 2-dimensional stories for children and no-too-bright adults. In recent years, thanks to successful movie adaptations (or so i think), the public has come to accept that it is possible to tell a deep, meaningful and engaging story through comics, and at some level  it’s more socially acceptable now. Games, in turn, have moved in to fill the spot vacated by comics to being the pariahs of  storytelling.

Which is a darn shame because while some games still have bad stories, there are some stories to be enjoyed in the still-developing medium.  Stories in games are uniquely experienced, both as gamer and observer, and the bottom line is that it’s a bit unfair for people to dismiss the stories or to simply say that there is no story to be had.

So, when my husband said he was doing a piece about narrative in games, I wanted to cook up something that helped illustrate the article in a nutshell, in a way that looked hopefully more mature and intelligent. It’s not much, but I hope that combining a thoughtful essay with a picture that isn’t just space marine/bikini warrior will help to eventually get people to realize the same thing they did about comics – that both comics and games don’t need to be stupid entertainment for kids, and that you can get some good stories out of both.

Went to the Toronto Zoo a couple of weeks ago with some friends, and we had a great day just drawing the animals. It was rather so most of the animals seemed to be rather inactive, which made it easier for us to draw them. Below are more sketches of various critters: (more…)

These were some of the unused sketches that I did last year for the laptop skin project for Acco Brands. You can see the final art of the ones the picked here and here.

Spring is here! Happy Spring! This piece went out as a email promo with the message ‘spring cleaning is good for your soul’. Below are some of the rough concepts I drew up beforehand – thank you to everyone who gave their input!