Ondoy
As some of you know, the Philippines has recently been struck by devastating floods. Several people lost homes, livelihood, and loved ones. If you're overseas and wish to help, here's a list of organizations you can donate to [link] as compiled by Madame Paraluman. Every little bit helps, so don't be shy about giving any amount. I'm rarely one to ask others for help, but during these trying times, the flood victims really need it.

Mangaholix Convention
So I'll be making an appearance at the M3con09 next month as one of the guests. I have absolutely no idea what we'll be talking about. I *might* be selling some stuff, we'll see. If you're in Manila on November 21 - 22, and you're interested in anime, comics, and videogames, drop by and say hi.


ImagineFX
Been doing some Q&A illustrations over for ImagineFX these past few issues. If you've got any particular art-related questions you'd like me to answer, send them an e-mail and we'll see what we can do about it. You'll have to buy the magazine to find out the answer, though. Thems the breaks.


EA Comics [link]
The teaser site for games publisher EA's Comics line has gone live. Points to those who can recognize whose artwork is on the front page... At the moment, I can't say anything else about it. Register for updates if it's gotten you curious.

Uncharted 2 Multiplayer Beta
I suck at Deathmatch, but boy oh boy, do I love Naughty Dog. Can't wait for the full version.

Fallout 3 Game of the Year Edition
Definitely looking forward to continuing the adventures of my lone wanderer. Easily one of the best and most time-consuming (as if I had any to begin with) games I've ever played.

Free Time
I miss you badly. I wish we could be together again.


Catch you later, folks. Hope you're all doing fine.

Let's play catch-up...
I know, I know, it's been a while. Lots of stuff happening lately, and all before the year ends. One thing's for sure, though: I'm back in the motherland. Good or bad (like it was ever only good or ever only bad...), there's no place like home. Here's a shout-out to the awesome folks at IFS, my home away from home; you guys rock! No goodbyes 'cause we'll definitely meet again.

Oh look! A website!
Finally have my website set up, from bits and pieces of CSS tutorials i cobbled over the 'net. Please be gentle, it's still in its early stages (well, it's mostly functional and totally done, but please be gentle anyway ). If you can spare me a click and check it out, it's www.chesterocampo.net.

Pepper Project is OUT! Grab a copy!
See `Artgerm's beloved Pepper as rendered by a multitude of artists in a multitude of styles. Just in time for the holidays. Here's hoping they do a World Tour for book signings *cough*Philippines*cough*

Stuff I did for the Pepper Project:


Later, y'all!

Allow me a few words of pimpage, please...

Exotique

A few days ago, I received a confirmation e-mail from Ballistic Publishing; "The Gods of Harvest" made the final cut for Exotique 4. Having spent countless hours of my after-work free time on it, I am no doubt pleased that it got accepted.



Needless to say, whether it made the cut or not, I was still happy with how it turned out.



Freedom Formula

So I finally got my hands on a printed version of the comic book `ukitakumuki and I slaved over for 2 months. All things considered, I think we managed to make a decent issue with a distinct art direction. It's totally different from what you usually see from our individual works, making it a totally collaborative piece of work. Cheers to you, man, we had one helluva ride. The first issue's out, so if you happen to pass by a comic book shop and you're interested, do give it a shot.


On other news, Singapore weather is taking a turn for the worse; it's been raining non-stop for the past few days and leaves a sour smell in our laundry. It almost matches the ever-changing weather we have back in the Philippines. What a way to spend a Saturday.

I hope you're enjoying your weekend. Later.








_____________________________________________________

the imaginary friends are:

WARNING: long, insignificant journal entry up ahead.

July marks my first year in IFS. To say that a lot of things have happened since I got here would be an oversimplification. For starters, Singapore is way different from Manila, but still very similar in societal norms, being a Southeast Asian country and all. Also, I've stayed in 4 different places in total, before finally settling in the recently-leased (more like 4-month old) IFS dojo. It's where IFS houses all us foreign nationals.

The IFS Frat House is empty except for me and . He's hard at work playing Monster Hunter Freedom 2, so don't disturb him. Saturdays are usually like that in our little semi-detached mansionette. It's impossible to keep clean because we're rarely ever here, and on weekends like this, when we actually have time to do laundry, it rains for the entire day. and are off hanging out with their non-work friends. is probably at church. and his sidekick V are most likely in the office playing Ninja Gaiden. , i bet, is spending quality time with his ladylove. Likewise for .

And I, having spent most of my drawing anergies at work, would rather write ridiculously long journal entries. Excuse me while I administer some self-inflicted therapy.

STCC (Singapore Toy & Comic Convention) 08 was a fun, exhausting ride. It's my first time to go to a Comic Convention as a participant. I've always been kind of a lurker in the Philippine Komikons, at the most, only spending half an hour to make the rounds and bugger off. STCC 08 was also the first time I've ever drawn in front of a large number of people. Stage fright kicked in for the first half hour of the demo, being unaccustomed to being watched while drawing and adjusting to a laptop's weird keyboard layout. Nevertheless, I finally became conscious of my drawing methods, more specifically my bad CTRL-Z habit hahaha

got a neat idea for a digital brush from plue yesterday... might be testing that one out on a new piece one of these days.

Okay, that's it, back to spacing out and shortening my life 5 minutes a stick.

I hope you're having a great weekend.

the imaginary friends are:

a note from the imaginary friends...



Hi everyone! Right now we are still sorting through the 700 + entries for Pepper. The response has truly been much better than we could have dreamed and as a result we are also going to include a lot more entries into the books than we originally planned!

Now for an added bonus. We are doing a very VERY special promotion for our Imagine and Imagine Prime Artbooks to help make it more affordable for those of you who haven’t yet bought a copy for yourself.

For a limited time only (or while stocks last), we are offering

30% OFF ALL PURCHASES (that’s a savings of almost USD$30 for the Imagine1+ Imagine Prime Bundle!)

The discount will show up automatically and all you need to do is to enter the codeword in the shopping cart: PEPPER

*You don’t need to have submitted anything to the Pepper Project to enjoy this.

This goes out to all those who could not enter but supported with comments, watching and spreading the word! Thank you all of you!

Visit our store: [link].





the imaginary friends are:

You asked for it! (well, some of you, anyway)

Hi, guys.

Recently, I've had a lot of inquiries regarding my work process. And although this journal is anything but comprehensive, I thought it would be worth sharing anyway, to appease some of you curious minds. I don't usually work this way, it actually depends on what type of illustration / comic / subject matter I'm working on.

This image was created using Adobe Photoshop CS2 and a Wacom Intuos 3, at 300 dpi on an A4 canvas. It was completed in roughly 24 hours, spread across 3 days. A bit slow, I admit. That's what I get for not having a definite work process to stick to (although working on this did give me a few ideas on that...). And for not having a clear idea of what I wanted for the image.

When I first started with the image, I had no idea of what the final outcome would look like. All I knew was that I wanted a girl, a guy, guns, and blades. Danger, a hint of action, tension. And with inspiration coming in different forms, no matter how absurd or simplistic, this was as good a starting point as any. Besides, I just wanted to draw a finished piece so bad.


I sketched out some silhouettes. At this early stage, my only concern was the composition.


Once I settled the composition, I put in rough values using varying degrees of gray. Then I made a rough color guide using gradients with a few select colors. This color guide is the topmost layer, set on the layer blending option overlay.


Time to put in rough details on the subjects. All colors assigned to the characters were picked from the canvas and adjusted slightly, according to my preferences. This ensures that the subjects will match with the background later on.


Based on the rough details and character color guides, I proceed to smoothen out and create fine details in certain areas. The character renderings are not finalized yet, but they're nearly done.


Now it's time to move on to the background. Based on the intial rough guide, I create a more refined structure for the background, blocking in all the basic shapes. Along the way, I also add more detail to the characters; they're close to finished.


I continue refining the background by adding textures to it (photographs I took and textures I created using custom brushes and filters). At this point, the rendering part is finished.


The last step, a step I haven't done much until recently, is applying treatment on the image. I added a subtle texture on top of the rendered image, a few filters here and there, darkening some parts and lightening up other areas. Also, using the color balance image adjustment tool, I amped up the red, which the image seems to have lost in the rendering process. There, done! Hooray!

I hope that helps.

Later, y'all!


The Imaginary Friends are:

i'm on my way back to be with the imaginary friends

i took some much-needed vacation to be with loved ones, family, and friends for the holidays. had a lot of catching up and lots of great times, reminding me how uplifting it is to simply be back home. now, i can safely say that i'm reinvigorated in both mind and spirit (but alas, my body is still reeling from the lethargy brought about by vacations). i've also gathered enough inspirational creative media to help me rev up for this brand new year.

and no matter what the fortunetellers say, us year-of-the-dog folks will kick ass in the year of the rat! we are stubborn mo-fos, yes we are! 2008 is gonna be interesting.

apologies for not being able to respond to notes and comments lately. i purposely fell off-grid to make the most out of my vacation, i hope you understand. rest assured that i *will* respond when i find the time.

for now, i gotta fly back to singapore and get my ass back in gear.

later, y'all!




the imaginary friends are:

Exclusive limited edition autographed artbook!



** To preview the contents of the artbook, please click this [link] **

Special bundle offer is also available for those who wanna get both of the artbooks.

www.imaginaryfs.com

+
+
+

UPDATE! (For you guys going to the Philippine Komikon 2007 this Saturday)

will be there at Komikon; he'll be bringing along hardcover copies of the brand-spanking new Imagine Prime and copies of Imagine (the first IFS artbook).

Check out mark's journal to learn more.

+
+
+

i'll go to sleep now.


(please ignore this post. just bumping down my previous journal entry. to quote tim gunn, "carry on.")

Okay, I got a shitload of things to talk about today, so please bear with me. A lot of things have been going down on my end lately, resulting in the lack of activity in my gallery, as well as stuff I really should be working on. You see, I’ve recently joined up with…

Imaginary Friends Studios
An opportunity too cool to pass up. I am so stoked as to what projects we’ll be working on and of course I’m excited to meet some people I hold professionally in high regard. Plus I’ll finally get to see what Singapore is like. Anyhoo, since I’m joining up with IFS, there’s the matter of my former job, where I used to make…

FantaSiege: The Three-Kingdom War
Some of you are probably wondering, if I’m gonna be an Imaginary Friend, what about FantaSiege? FantaSiege was a project I and a few others worked on as part of our daily responsibilities for the company we used to work for. Sadly, we (the creators) don’t own the rights to FantaSiege, so it’s really up to our former employers if they wish to continue it or not. I’ve written the general plotline for the first six issues anyway, so they can go with that, if they want. In any case, half of FantaSiege Issue 02 was already finished when I decided to call it quits with the company. My apologies to those who look forward to it; it’s out of my hands now. Personally, I have mixed emotions about letting FantaSiege go, mainly because of the details surrounding its conception (which I am not at the liberty to divulge here). To appease some of you who’ve followed FantaSiege, I’ll be uploading selected pages from Issue 02. Only time will tell if it’ll ever get continued. Speaking of discontinued projects, there’s the matter regarding…

My FHM Girls
I’ve contributed illustrations to FHM Philippines for exactly one year now, with my latest deviation marking my last illustration for the magazine. I’ve received some exposure for my work in that, and I’m very grateful to FHM for the chance. But I feel I’ve got to move on; I don’t want to be known as ‘the FHM artist’ forever because, honestly, I believe I’ve got so much more to show for than just that. It was just one of those freelance gigs that got me (some) acclaim, not something I see myself doing for long. Anyway, below are illustrations I did for FHM; they don’t include everything I did for the magazine, just a select few that I saw fit for uploading here on deviantART.



Whew. So that’s about it for now. I got a lot of stuff to take care of these next few weeks. Hopefully, I’ll be able to squeeze in a few submissions every now and then. But for now, I gotta get back to working my ass off and worrying about wrapping up affairs here at home. ‘Cause I’m going to Singapore, baby.



P. S. I just noticed that I've broken through the 500,000 hits mark... I'll try and cook up something to celebrate that, when I find the time. Needless to say, I appreciate the views, comments, and faves. I try my best to respond whenever I have time. Thank you, everyone. Good Night!


journal CSS by
Terms of Use

This journal is meant for those of you who have been sending me notes and e-mails asking for permission regarding signature tags and queries of a similar nature. I find it difficult to respond to each and every one of you. And since my response is the same for all of those notes and e-mails, just read this for your guidance, should you wish to subject my artwork to signature tagging and the like.


TERMS OF USE

Consider yourself granted permission if you abide by the following:

1. You may use my artworks for signature tagging provided that
a) the signature tags produced will not be used for financial gain--it must be strictly non-profit and only used for practicing your hobby/craft.
b) include the words illustrated by elpinoy(dot)deviantart(dot)com in readable text; clear enough to be seen, but not intrusive to the main image itself (replace 'dot' with real . ).

2. The artwork's original lines and colors must not be tampered with. You can do anything you want with the background, but leave the character/main subject untouched.

3. You may not use my artworks for signature tags that contain offensive content such as racism, defamation of other people's character, or any other propaganda.

4. You may not use my fan artworks and/or commissioned work. Fan artworks are my renditions of other people's characters/stories/properties. Commissioned artworks are properties of other people who have asked for my services in creating artwork for them. Since neither of those are my copyright, I cannot allow those artworks to be used for signature tags.

5. Signature tags using my artworks may not be submitted  as artworks in deviantart and websites of a similar nature. You may only use it in your forums and amongst yourselves.

That's it. Happy tagging.

UPDATE (04/04/07): FULL VERSION OF ISSUE 01 is now online! check it out at [link]


FANTASIEGE ISSUE 01 BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

writer / line art / editor

color shading

color flats

line art enhancements


here are some fantasiege-related artworks from my gallery:



for more fantasiege goodies, check out the official website www.fantasiege.com


that's all for now, folks!

+
+
+

CSS journal courtesy of