Mr. Shen - Holiday Cards

I've been away from my workstation (my apartment) for the last few days.

Happy holidays everyone!

The below is the original size:

mr. cheung - clear intent

just out of focus

Christmas Card - Mr. Hu - no promises

Happy Holidays and Season's Greetings. This is what I could come up with given the mad scarcity of my time right now. I swear I'm not a Scrooge. This just seemed funny.

Movie Poster - Mr. Hu - Holding Pattern, concept

This is sort of a concept model for a modern romance about young professionals. Unforeseen delays, layovers, missed connections, the potential for figurative terminology is boundless!

Mr. Shen - Movie Poster

Mr. Shen here.

Apparently Christopher Reeve is in this movie.

mr. cheung - movie poster - invisible waves

invisible waves, by pen-ek ratanaruang, shot by christopher doyle, starring tadanobu asano. this film is surreal and slow, in a good way.

here is the original poster:



kyoji is a japanese cook living in macau. he works for a thai restaurant and sleeps with his boss' wife. his boss finds out and orders him to poison her. he does so. he flees to phuket, thailand. strange things happen to him on his journey there. will he reach his destination and, if so, is it where he wants to be?

i tried to design a poster that captures the film's displaced and paranoid mood while using the visual effects of waves...

mr. cheung - sooooooo cute - nobodies

Supercute - Hu - the supercute life!

An attempt to get slighty more illustrative with AI. The next step is to consider the place of shadows in giving form.

Mr. Shen - So Cute

Mr. Shen here.

This fat baby looks like a dumpling.

mr. cheung - young people don't need to be happy

you look so pretty when you pout.

Young People - Mr. Hu - Forward

A semi-abstract landscape.

Abstract because of my lack of talent when painting in photoshop.

If you're not eating the right bitter, use that cold angry slick to fuel your search for the bitter you need.

Mr. Shen - Young People

Mr. Shen here.

The theme is "Young People Don't Need to be Happy".

A phrase spoken so frequently from an Asian person's parents that it's like saying the sky is blue... and then beating you with a feather duster because of it.

remix - bruce - airport

can i remix with a camera, i wonder?

i took this photograph at the airport:



pretty straight forward, an airplane through a patterned window.

then i took this photograph, of the same subject airplane, same lighting conditions, just with things out of focus, and the depth of field as shallow as possible...

Mr. Shen - Remix

Mr. Shen here.

I decided to remix and draw the Mona Lisa.

My original idea was to redo the Brokeback Mountain movie poster with the following tagline: "Two cowboys. One love. Zero caves unexplored."

Remix - Mr. Hu - The Model of a Modern Major General

This is a deconstruction of a self-portrait drawn by Leonardo Da Vinci. I don't really have an idea what I was trying to accomplish here. Maybe analog into digital. Or fun with layers, I guess.

White - Mr. Hu - Digital Shadow

It appears that my ftp is no longer working, so I can't post the html version of this yet. Here's one screen-shot of it for now.

mr. cheung - white

mmm... first draft of something i was planning on making out of scissors and paper, we'll see how it goes...

Mr. Shen - White

Mr. Shen here.

This week's assignment was interesting. I decided to do a drawing, but in reverse. I've never actually drawn on black. It proved to be a very rewarding and interesting experience.

I didn't have a reference. It was just some random cat man in the end.

Below is the process and how it formed.

Mr. Shen - Hard Work

Mr. Shen here.

Who works harder than a lumberjack?

God does.

The below is the draft I worked with before the vector.

Work Hard - Mr. Hu - Rolling Rocks

This simple visual was based on the myth of Sisyphus, who was doomed to forever push a rock up a hill, which is how I feel when I go into work every so often. Lately, I'm trying to strip my approach down to basics and to think more about composition as opposed to merely the subject itself.

mr. cheung - work hard

because, why not?

quake - mr. cheung

meta-mini-teeth-shattering-delicious-colorful cereal

Quake - Mr. Hu - When the Earth Quakes

I did not follow the full guidelines for this assignment, because - frankly - I forgot what the full guidelines were.

You would not believe how long it took me to try - and ultimately fail - to get a seemingly trivial visual effect in photoshop. This wasn't as I intended. Time for sleep...

Mr. Shen - Quake Oats

recreate - mr cheung

This was shot at night, with a hand held flash, on film with a leica, I think shooting at night is really hit and miss – should have left the shutter open longer I think… oh well, made the two girls into two guys, and made day into night, and kind of tried to make it more sinister…

Recreate - Mr. Hu -the Wires

It appears that Mr. Shen and I chose the same tactic: employing models.

Inspired by Calder’s Circus, I fashioned some people out of chicken wire and fully intended to dress them like their progenitors. Yet, I was just so taken with their simple lines that I didn’t want to cover them up. Unfortunately, the grace that I found in the figures doesn’t quite translate to the photograph that I ended up producing.

Still, I quite enjoyed working spatially with wire, and I intend to try it more in the future.

Mr. Shen - Recreate

Mr. Shen here.

So the assignment was to recreate, photographically, the photo you see below.

I will be the first to admit that my piece is uninspired as I'm not sure what I could do with no photo editing.

Self Help - Mr. Hu - A Reminder

A simple concept. Hard to execute for some.

Self Help - Mr. Cheung

when in need, adopt a puppy, and maybe discuss love and life with it.

Mr. Shen - Self Help

Mr. Shen here.

This is an advertisement I saw in a crappy magazine. Talk about a way to help yourself!

board game - mr cheung - planet of slums

inspired from mike davis' "planet of slums," a board game that takes place on the urban periphery. the players have to work together to develop local businesses, create infrastructure, health care, and foster sustainability. draw "microloan" and "leapfrog technology" cards to help you.

a detail:

Mr. Shen - Board Game

Mr. Shen here.

I've always enjoyed The Game of Life, but could never find enough players who would enjoy playing it with me. It's not like I always win or anything.

For the most part, I'm the poor teacher that has too many kids and has to drag them beneath the car.

Done in CorelDraw 12.

board game - mr. hu - transit system

This is the game of Transit System. The objective of the game is for each player to engineer path to arrive at the central green goal before everybody else. Four players. For every game the green goal tile is always placed in the middle and the blue points tiles are always placed at the middle of the sides. However, every other piece is shuffled and placed randomly so that the board is different every game. Each player starts off at the edge of the board at the blue point tiles. During each player's turn the player automatically accumulates one point, moves their piece across one tile to the edge of the following tile, then may play their point to rotate their following adjacent tile by 90 degrees in either direction. They may also choose to save their point and not rotate the tile. If players have saved up three points, they may play them to rotate any tile on the board (other than the goal) by 90 degrees. The goal tile may be rotated with the use of four points. Every time a player moves across a blue point tile, an additional point is accumulated. Players may not reverse and move their piece back the way they came except when their are about to collide with another player or their path has led them to a dead end. Players may never immediately reverse back across a blue point tile.

2046 - mr cheung

walking the dog in the future...