Ancient Japan Sketches Book

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2 days left to pre-order for a signed copy.

It's here! Our newest book Ancient Japan Sketches!


It's 72 pages soft cover 7x10 inches

The book includes tutorials on the making of the "Mayan Samurai"


Making Custom Brushes


and another tutorial on fog and atmosphere.

And 5 AWESOME guest artists!
SHAZ LYM
ROBIN MITCHELL
JUSTIN RIDGE
ALBERTO RUIZ
STEPHEN SILVER

Here's some of the many pics









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Photoshop Painting Video from Bobby

It's been a while but I finally found some time this morning to do a new video podcast! It's about how I start off my day by putting myself in the right state of mind.

Bobby

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4

Teaching Life Drawing at Sheridan College

I've recently accepted the challenge of teaching lifedrawing to the 3rd year animators at Sheridan College and it's been a fantastic ride.

I wish I could teach them for the whole school year but unfortunately I'll only have them for 4 1/2 weeks. Next semester they will be taught by one of my former teachers Gerry Zeldin. It's ok though because I know they'll be in good hands and also 2007 I'll be doing a lot of travelling around North America (Calgary, LA, SF, SD, Chicago, Detroit, Philly) so I wouldn't have time anyways.

Still though... I wish I could have had these students from the beginning of the semester because there's just so much I want to tell them and so little time. Not just about teaching them to draw but how to present themselves as artists.

I feel it's going good though. I feel like I'm really starting to reach a lot of them and I can already start to see improvements in their work. It's weird though because that's just not enough for me. I want to see everybody noticably improve, not just the majority of the students. It's tough because I can see the potential in everyone of these students but many of them don't. I wish I could just take them back into the past when I was a student and show them that all it takes is some passion for learning and some hard work. I still have a few weeks left with them so I still have time. It's been a blast so far! Can't wait to see all their portfolios in two weeks.

Here's some demos I did in class yesterday. I added a bit of tone in photoshop.

Robin Mitchell - Ancient Japan Sketches Guest Artist

The last guest star but certainly not least, we have our very good friend Robin Mitchell in Ancient Japan Sketches!!

Little known fact: Robin and I went to school together back in the day. He was a year ahead of me and the star of his class. Lots of people in my year really looked up to him, including myself. We later on became friends and have remained friends.

It's been a pleasure to have this talented artist in every one of our books! I should have got him to sign some last time I saw him.

Definitely check out his BLOG

Only 9 more days to PREORDER your autographed copy of "Ancient Japan Sketches"

Justin Ridge - Ancient Japan Sketches Guest Artist

We've been very blessed with 5 extremely talented guest artist for Ancient Japan Sketches.(coming out December 1st)

One of these guests is Justin Ridge.

His style is refreshing and fun. I'm also happy to say that he's a very nice and friendly person as well. So when Kei and I met Justin for the first time, we had to ask him to be a guest artist. And of course being the friendly guy he is, he said yes. It turns out that we were fans of each other's work and didn't know it!

Only 9 more days to PREORDER your autographed copy of "Ancient Japan Sketches"

Here's some of Justin Ridge's work. Check out more of his works on Justin's BLOG

Mayan Samurai by Alberto Ruiz & Bobby Chiu. Ancient Japan Sketches

This is a collaborative piece drawn by Alberto Ruiz and painted by me, Bobby Chiu. (I've waited MONTHS to write that sentence!)

Now, you might be thinking that Mayan and Japanese are worlds apart. Believe me, I thought so too at first, but then decided that "Ancient Japan Sketches" needn't be taken so literally. The Japanese elements were present, so we included her. I wouldn't want to tell this Mayan samurai woman that she's not getting into the book, would you?

I've been a fan of Alberto's for a while now. I've always admired his unique "Alberto Ruiz style" of designing women. And at the 2006 Toronto Fan Expo, I had the opportunity to tell him this in person. Ironically, he came over to our booth before I had a chance to find HIM. He introduced himself and said he was a fan of our work! This just goes to show: the internet is an incredible networking tool.

I wasted no time in asking him to be a guest artist for this book. Then he came up with the idea for a collaborative piece, and just like that, "Mayan Samurai" was born.

To see more of Alberto's girls,

CLICK HERE

Imaginism's next book "ANCIENT JAPAN SKETCHES" coming out December 1st. For more on Imaginism books click on the book cover below.

Stephen Silver - Ancient Japan Sketches Guest Artist

There's lots of BIG reasons why I'm excited about our book coming out... and this is one of them: Stephen Silver. He's one of our friends we've invited to be in our Ancient Japan Sketches. Every book we have guest artists that contribute a pic or two to our pages. They are all personally invited so you know they have our seal of approval :)

If you don't know him, you should definitely check out his SITE and his BLOG

The videocasts that I do, I got the idea from Stephen. He does Podcasts that are informative, inspirational, honest, and motivational. Definitely something you should check out.

Little known fact: he was one of the few people that really encouraged me to persue being independent and to put out my own books when I was first starting off. Now look at us... 6 books later and still going strong! He is not only a very talented artist but a genuinely good person as well.



Only 12 more days to PREORDER your autographed copy of "Ancient Japan Sketches"

Stephen Silver also has sketchbooks. His newest one I highly recommend. It's an exact duplicate of his real sketchbook! Same size, paper... everything.
Here's some pics from Stephen Silver's latest sketchbook.