The main project I embarked on last year during the lockdown was this 3D food truck scene that's based on a concept art by Olga Permiakova. While I have attempted handpainted models before, this is the first time I am trying out on a scene of such a scale. Initially I wanted to use this opportunity to try out modeling and texturing in Blender, but I decided to go back to 3DS Max as there were too much new information to absorb. I will make it an effort to use Blender next time!

Some additional renders of the scene

A character I designed and animated for an art test last year. Disclaimer: I did not create the background.

Step-by-step character creation guide for my students with videos. I also made an environment concept to accompany the character.

Recently, my dad and nephews started watching wrestling clips on YouTube. My 2-year old son, being ever so curious, joined in the fun. A few days after that, we kept hearing him chant this wrestler's name.

Before I left my previous job, I refreshed parts of the syllabus and updated some of the tutorials. In doing so, I created some new artwork to supplement the content.

I also designed some characters to introduce my students to alternative methods of rendering their character designs.

Here are some notes and drawings I made to supplement my drawing lessons during my previous job. Due to home-based learning because of COVID-19, I relied on digital tools to teach traditional drawing.

I decided to move on from Hearthstone after so many years. It wasn't because I hated any new mechanic or set that came out. I guess I grew tired of the same gameplay after so many years. The new Battlegrounds mode did injected some new excitement but I felt that I hit my own personal skill-cap brickwall after hitting ~7K MMR.

I started playing Slay the Spire last year during my trip to Taiwan. Since then I have been playing the game on and off. I love the rogue-like gameplay and the card-based combat system. It felt like a natural progression coming from another digital card game. I also created a number of fanart for the game last year which I did not posted here.

This year, I returned to the game briefly after the Watcher character was released. I updated the fanart series with on that featured her, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to share it right now over here:

Hey guys, its been a while!

As 2020 is about to come to an end, I will be doing a series of posts here to wrap up on the year. And what a crazy year it has been. I think the COVID-19 pandemic will be on everyone's minds when they think about 2020, but this year was so much more for me.

This year, I moved two times, changed my job, bought a car and my second child was born 11 days ago. I was constantly fighting fires both during my work (I switched to another school, so yeah, more or less same same but different) and at home. But I see it as a good form of challenge.

I think most people have a pessimistic view on COVID-19. Don't get me wrong, I can see why. I do miss the travelling and the social gatherings. And I can sympathize with people who lost their livelihoods during this period; My dad did too. But I think it forced us to rethink the way we work and play. It also accelerated the adoption of digital tools in our lives.

For my drawing lessons, I brought my lecture and demo content online onto my YouTube channel. I was initially apprehensive about showing my face to the world (my previous tutorials only included audio narrations over the screen captures) but I had to do so because I think it will bring across a stronger personal touch. Keep in mind that the students viewing these videos started their first day of school at home and have thus never met me in person.

You can view the first video of the series here:

You can also check out the rest of the playlist here.

I think this experiment paid off. My students feedback that they liked the format as they could consume the content at their own pace. They could also refer back to the videos if they encountered any difficulties with their assignments. Moving forward, I will like to incorporate this mode of lesson delivery in future classes and continue with this workflow beyond the pandemic.

Some caricatures I did for my YouTube channel.

Excavated this old drawing I did a few years ago from my hard disk and decided to colour it.

Illidan Hearthstone Battlegrounds fanart. In these dark times, I can only say that we are definitely not prepared. Stay home, stay safe!