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.

Shaz Lym - Ancient Japan Sketches Guest Artist

Here's an artist I need to mention: the Chinese-Jamaican-Canadian Shaz Lym. He's one of 5 guest artists in our upcoming book: Ancient Japan Sketches (coming out December 1st)

His style is well refined, super fresh and appealling. I'm glad to be the first to publish his works. (First publication was in "Guy Sketches." Second in "Ancient Japan Sketches.")

Only 13 more days to PREORDER your autographed copy of "Ancient Japan Sketches"

Here's some pics from Shaz. Check out the mad genius at his BLOG

Teaching Sheridan 3rd yrs. and Ancient Japan Sketches

That's right. I just got off the phone and it has been confirmed. Sheridan has asked me to teach 3rd year life drawing for animation and I of course said yes. People that know me, know I love life drawing so I'm very excited to come in this Friday. Bring some notes people because I'll be telling you things that you're going to want to write down!

Here's the scoop on the winter semester digital painting classes at Sheridan College as well. I will be teaching a second digital painting class in addition to my original class.

So the first class is still the same. All about multiple digital painting techniques. How to use the tools and functions professionally in effective painterly and illustrative ways. Custom brushes, vector art, smudge technique, painterly technique...etc.

The new advanced class will be all about how to paint, draw, see, and analysis what you imagine or observe and expressing them in all different ways using Photoshop. Including matte painting classes with my friend Jordan Nieuwland who's done matte paintings for Capote, The Producers, The Fountain as well he worked on a film that I can't wait to see: "300" and many more. A very modest low key super talented individual.

The original class will now be on Tuesdays 7-10pm starting January 10th, 2007.
Sign up starts in December. 30 spots avalible.

The advanced class will be on Thursdays 7-10pm starting January 12th, 2007.
Sign up starts in December. 30 spots avalible.

If you'd like to join my mailing list, just email me at mailinglist @ imaginismstudios.com and we will notify you when Sheridan starts signing people up.

Anyhow life has been extremely good but extremely busy. My newest book "Ancient Japan Sketches" will be out on December 1st so if you'd like an autographed copy from Kei and I, you should preorder soon. After December 1st all orders will be handled by our distributor and will not be signed.

Besides the book I've been working on character designs for EA games and it's been one of most fun projects I've had in a while. I'd love to post some pics but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to so I'd better not try.

And if you heard about a possible on-line class in the works, you could be right. Lots of things will be happening in 2007... so stay tuned!

New videocast coming soon as well. Just have to find a break sometime in the next few days.

For now here's the cover of "Ancient Japan Sketches." Preorder to get autographed copy HERE

Little Geisha

This is a painting for our new book "Ancient Japan Sketches". It comes out this December.
This painting was actually inspired by an old japanese fairytale called "Kaguya Hime". It is about a childless couple who finds a baby inside an enchanted bamboo--they raised the baby as their own, and called her Kaguya Hime, who grew up to become an extremely beautiful girl, and later revealed that she was actually from the moon.
It was a nice little story that made me imagine this cute little girl :)

Fairy Art Print on Ebay - "Fairy Tales"

Hi everyone!

Every month we select one of our limited edition giclee prints to put up for auction on Ebay.

We start all bids at $20 (reg price $120) so everyone has an opportunity to own a print.

This month it's "Fairy Tales." This is a colaboration piece that Bobby and I did for the cover of our book "Fairy Sketches."
The prints are limited to 100. Size 13x19 inches.
Signed and numbered by Kei Acedera and Bobby Chiu

Good luck to all bidders!

Sneak peek from "Ancient Japan Sketches"

Ancient Japan Sketches comes out December 1, 2006. Pre-order to get an autographed copy!! PREORDER HERE
Here's one of mine from the book. Hope you like it!

It's my version of an old Japanese folk-tale called Urashima Taro. The tale is about a boy who saves this enchanted turtoise who brings him to this magical kingdom under the sea to meet the beautiful queen, Otohime.
Its a cute little fairy tale, almost like Rip Van Winkle I think--but without the sleeping :P. Check out this link to read his story..http://www.darsie.net/talesofwonder/japan/utaro.html

Life Drawings - 5 minute, 1 minute poses

I thought I'd put a couple life drawings I did on the weekend at Sheridan College. We had one of my least favorite models there. Just tons of awkward poses that don't really express too much but I tried my best to work with what we had. When in doubt, invent the rest to make it interesting! Anyhow... here's a couple pics.

Email from viewer

hey bobby. just wanted to thank you for putting out that old man video on cgtalk. i have cgtalk as my homepage to keep me inspired to stick with art. i really love the video though and just your outlook on art. i feel the same way. i worked at a call center for general motors for three years and pretty much took endless ammounts of phone calls and delt with crappy employees all day. it was such a mindless job that when i went home i would constantly work on projects and music all night trying to better myself and continue to do what i loved. i would stay up till four in the morning workin on something, and then get up at 630am and go to work. at work, my good friend dave and i would always be sketching things and just trying to push the envelope on what was acceptable and what was not, but it seems like our job didn't encourage that type of behavior. so over the course of a month i drew on this red paper and put it all over my cubicle, it was probably the crazies thing you could see at a call center. about three months later i ended up turnin my desk into what i called dracula's bereau.. but i covred it with stuff like picture frames, a old school mac computer and a rubiks cube. so it looked like a 3d flash thing. ill throw some pics on here for ya. anways, i managed to get myself fired from my job three days before i was gonna quit so i was able to get unemployment...which im three months into. but i promised myself that if i could do that and get six months of money i would do whatever i could to beef up my animation skills and make myself a better person so at the end of the six months i would be on a better path.... continued.

Hahaha..Thanks for sending me this. Too funny. Kei, T and I all had a great laugh. You are one crazy man!