Restaurant Mural (in progress)

I was approached by the owner of the Jerusalem Bakery in Atlanta the other day. He wanted to remodel the restaurant and paint the entire wall with scenes from the Holy Land. Since the restaurant is average-sized, I can't work during open hours, so my work starts after they close (around 9:00pm) and stay there late. Overall it is a fun project that is still under progress; only one scene is completed and 3 more are still to come. The idea is to feel as if you are sitting inside a historical place, peeping at the landscapes through arched windows.

Here's what I've done for him so far: the first scene is for the Wall of Akkah off the Mediterranean sea (aka Nepoleon's Defeater), which is a historical wall that guarded the old city of Akkah from invaders.

The second scene is for the historical city Petra, I'm currently still working on it:

Here I am in action... it's kinda freaky to work alone at 2:am in a dark restaurant; you never know who might be standing outside waiting!

I chose to use Acrylics for this job, because they dry much faster than oils and are very hardy.
More to come.

Night Photo Shoot

Last night I felt like going out and finding something to photograph. My theme was finding a simple topic, as simple as a traffic light, and make something interesting out of it.

My first attempt was a light behind a tree. Many photos were taken here but only one made it to my collection.

f/9, shutter speed 6sec, ISO 100

At first I wanted to show the entire tree, but that seemed too boring as a composition; it's good to try
I different ideas.

The second "keeper" was this photograph of a traffic light, which was taken reluctantly.

f/22,  shutter speed 4sec, ISO 100

 To achieve this effect I had to use an 8-point star filter.

Mosquito illustration

Here's my latest 3D illustration of a cartoonish mosquito...

This was basically modeled in Blender and detailed in ZBrush (only the mosquito part of it). The skin is a bent plane with multiple layers of skin texture that were blended in Photoshop.

A Logo Design

This is a logo design I did a while back for a native american design company (or was it gallery?)
I added that brownish shade in the background so the design can show better on this blog.

Drawing a Screaming Man!

Hi there! here's a new quick demo of me drawing a screaming man in an inked-style cartoon.
I hope you find it useful

Landscape Tutorial (timelapse)

Hello all, here's a new video tutorial that demonstrates one way to paint landscapes in Photoshop. I like to use the Smudge tool a lot to add that painterly feel to the painting, a process which some artists don't like, but it's up to you if you want to use it.
I hope you find this tutorial useful.

Sweet Water at dawn

I went to SweetWater lake the other day right before the sun rose up. The air was unbelievably nice and the lake had a nice misty surface.
To my luck, there were clouds in the sky that day, or else the scene would have been super boring.

I met another photographer over there who was quite as excited as I was about the clouds in the sky. I never really asked for his name; we just spoke like geeks.

Ah well, more days to come and more places to explore.