Bye Bye 2012, Bring on 2013!

So 2012 is almost over! In terms of art it's been a quiet year for me. I was really happy to see my illustrations feature on the Playful Promises gift tins that came out this year. Thank you again to the staff at Playful Promises. :) 

From January till July this year I was working really hard completing my teacher training, which was very time consuming and stressful.
I had a great holiday in August in the USA and after that I got some extra teaching qualifications so that I could teach abroad and thankfully all the hard work paid off as I got a new job as a teacher starting in March 2013 in Tokyo Japan!

In the later part of this year I also did some really exciting things including:

• Helping my friend and artist Elena/ Yamino at London MCMEXPO on her stall both in May and October.
• Going to DisneyWorld and Universal Studios and getting to act like a kid again! 
• Attending London 'Hyper Japan' in cosplay (Sailor Mars)
• Seeing Lady Gaga and Angelspit in concert again.
• Meeting my favourite Korean actor Lee Byung Hun at the London Korean film festival closing Gala.
• Seeing the Kpop group BIGBANG live in London at Wembley arena, which I can honestly say is the best concert I have ever been to. It was AMAZING!

I will still be using this blog to post any art I do whilst in Japan. I am sure there will be many exciting places to go sketching!

I will be documenting all my adventures in Japan on another blog which I will set up soon. 

I've got a really good feeling about 2013 and I can't wait for it to begin!

Happy New Year! 

XXX

Lady Vengeance- old work

Haven't had time for any new art recently, but I came across this painting from 2009 on my hard drive. It's from when I did a project on Korean films by Park Chan Wook at University. It's based on a still from the film 친절한 금자씨 'Kind-hearted Ms Geum-Ja' or the English title 'Lady Vengeance' It's an amazing film and worth a watch. (it looks as if a hollywood remake is in the works... unfortunately)

My paperwork is getting sorted for moving to Tokyo. Two and a half months to go! 

New job, moving to Tokyo Japan

Big news!

A life long dream of mine has come true! It looks as if next year I will be moving to Tokyo Japan as I have been offered a job working there.

This is incredibly exciting and I can barely believe it. I'll probably make another blog to document my adventures there nearer the time I leave. I'll be there for at least a year, but I am hoping to make it even longer if I can!

I'll be living only a 30-40 minute subway ride away from places like Harajuku and Shibuya.

Although I'll be busy in a full time job, I know many new and wonderful experiences await me and I will definitely be taking some sketchbooks and a camera with me. 

Sera Myu- Sailor Moon musicals

'Sailor Moon' is a Japanese manga created by Naoko Takeuchi that was made into a hit anime series. The anime spanned from 1992 -1997.  Due to its huge popularity there were many media franchises that spun off from the show including video games, a live action series and musicals.

The Sailor Moon musicals, aka: 'Sera Myu', were performed between 1993 and 2005 with over 800 performances. The cast changed several times over the years. Compared to their anime counterparts, the costumes were very detailed, flamboyant and shiny. As a fan of Sailor Moon, the musicals are really good fun to watch.

I made this image just for fun. It shows the 'inner senshi' representing the planets of Jupiter, Mercury, Moon, Mars and Venus. It was based on a scan from a sera myu leaflet. I expect I'll be making some more Sera Myu related art in the future.

Playful Promises- Beauty Queen tins

I received a really exciting parcel the other day. Playful promises sent me a couple of sets of their beauty Queens gift tins featuring my illustrations. See the artwork better HERE. Thank you again to the team at Playful promises! I am very grateful to you all.

Lady Gaga- Free as my hair

Finally got around to updating this painting that I last updated in July 2011. I had some catching up to do! Again, I haven't included every single hairstyle Gaga has worn since then... because that would be pretty ambitious. haha. But I've picked out some of my most memorable wigs and hairstyles.

Beauty Queens gift tins- Playful Promises

Logo (c) Playful Promises

I am really happy to say that Playful Promises now have released their new gift tins featuring my illustrations and they are now on sale here! 

There are 12 kinds, one for each month of the year and each set includes a different design of panties and the decorative tin. My personal favourite images are Miss February, April, August and October.

Sorry for this rather image heavy post but I want to show all the drawings. :)

(Photos of the tins are from the Playful Promises website)

Here they are, January - December in month order

A big thank you again to everyone involved at Playful Promises for giving me this opportunity and to my friend Fab for posing for me for reference.

2NE1 New Evolution + Playful promises beauty queen tins

Currently on their 'New evolution' tour, K-pop girl group 2NE1 have had lots of recent success and are set to take the world by storm! I am a huge fan and I hope they make it to the UK one day soon.

 I made this painting of CL based on the promo image released before their tour began. CL is wearing an amazing unicorn dress by designer Jeremy Scott.

And as mentioned a while back, I did 12 paintings for Playful promises last year and they released this teaser image today on their tumblr! :D looks as if they will be out soon! I'll update again when they're out and get some more photos. I can't wait to see them in real life.

And I have been made aware of yet another tattoo based on my Alice in Wonderland drawing. (This is the 9th version I have found! See the rest here)

K-POP aka: Korean Pop music

I've been working very hard recently on coursework for my postgraduate degree and my final assessment is next week! I had to do 17 hours of coursework this weekend which was exhausting!

So this evening I opened a few abandoned drawings from last year and threw them together in this edit just for fun :)

I should really add a male representative of K-pop to the image but I didn't have an existing drawing.
I don't have time to draw one right now, so maybe I'll add one at a later date when I have time to paint.

I also realised I never posted these paintings of Minzy from 2NE1 on my blog

and here is some of my 2NE1 fanart in a book that was made by EROMAKNAE and given to 2NE1 themselves! Here is on example page with my art on:

My art- Alice painting the roses tattoos

As I've mentioned before in this post, a painting I made back in 2010 for my final degree show somehow caught a lot of attention and many people have got various versions as tattoos based off my drawing and the collection of them is ever-growing!

Some of these people contacted me and asked if they could use it (a big thank you to those people!), others got it done and then managed to track me down, some are unaware still of it's source and I just happened to stumble across the photos on tumblr.

Seen or own a tattoo based on my Alice drawing? Please contact me/ leave a comment!

Wow. Fantastic baby

Just for fun, here is the rather handsome TOP of Korean group BIGBANG. This image is based on a still from their music video. 

Check out Big Bang's 'Fantastic baby' music video: here
Once again YGFamily have created such a great video!

Playful Promises gifting tins- preview

On Saturday Playful promises revealed on their facebook a preview of one of their new gifting tins that will feature my illustrations and be released online and in store in August.

In other news:
The Bizart craft fair in Malvern was a great experience. Even though it was snowy, icy and VERY cold, many people supported my art and the whole event in general and I enjoyed it a lot.

I am hoping to get some time to do some more painting, just for fun, over the next couple of weeks. :)

Harajuku 原宿

I was clearing up some folders on my macbook and found this outtake from my illustrations inspired by Japanese street fashion for the SORTED London exhibition.

'Harajuku'

Playful Promises gift tins preview

Playful promises recently updated their facebook with a photo preview of their new gifting tins with my illustrations on! (minus the top two 'circus' themed tins)

 They are not in full production yet or on sale in shops, but they should be later on this year! (12 designs in all) Each tin contains a pair of knickers! how cute! 

Image Source: Playful Promises official facebook

My 'teaser artwork' for this commission can be seen here here and here.