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Urban sketching workshop at National Museum of Singapore | Parka Blogs
Urban Sketchers Singapore will be collaborating with National Museum of Singapore for an urban sketching workshop. Learn about the history of National Museum and The Peranakan Museum, and how to sketch them! Drawing materials will be provided. This programme is suitable for participants new to urban sketching. #SGHeritageFest Tickets available for purchase at
Review: Ranvoo AICE Lite | Parka Blogs
Review unit provided by Ranvoo Urban sketching in Singapore is hot and sweaty activity, unless you're in an air-conditioned environment. So recently, Ranvoo, a company that makes personal lifestyle appliances, contacted me to asked if I wanted to test their new neck air conditioner, the AICE Lite, I thought why not. I am skeptical at its cooling effectiveness but I can
Review: Ohuhu Marker Pad (150gsm) - 100% bleedproof | Parka Blogs
Review sample provided by Ohuhu Ohuhu has just released new marker pads with 150gsm bleed-proof double-sided marker paper in 2024. I've tested the paper and they are indeed totally bleed-proof when used with alcohol inks. These new marker pads are using paper that's actually treated to work with alcohol inks. This is different from the other black hardcover marker pad with
Book Reivew: The Art of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba the Anime | Parka Blogs
This companion artbook for the animation Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is packed with beautiful splash artworks and promotional art created for events and merchandise. This 120-page paperback published by Viz is obviously for the fans. In addition to the splash art, you'll also get to see sketches, and the characters drawn in different styles, e.g. chibi. There isn't any text
Book Review: Marvel Studios The Marvel Cinematic Universe An Official Timeline | Parka Blogs
You can always count on DK to provide encyclopedic content to whatever books they publish. The book's a large format 344-page hardcover that recounts the all the events that happen in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The timeline starts are the dawn of the universe where Ego takes shape all the way to the end that includes The Marvels, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3, She-Hulk:
Designer Review: ASUS Zenbook Duo (2024) UX8406 | Parka Blogs
Review unit on loan from Asus Singapore The ASUS Zenbook Duo UX8406 is the new model released in 2024 for the Zenbook Duo series. As the name suggests, there are two displays, and this time there are two full-sized displays compared to the half-height ones from the previous models. This laptop has two 14-inch 16:10 touchscreen 120Hz OLED displays. Weight is advertised as
Review: Fabriano 1264 Watercolour Paper (25% Cotton) | Parka Blogs
Fabriano 1264 is a series with paper for drawing, sketching, watercolour, mixed media and there's also bristol paper. 1264 by the way is the year that Fabriano paper mill was created in Italy. The Fabriano 1264 watercolour paper is made with 25% cotton content. This student grade watercolour paper and the quality is almost similar to the Fabriano Studio watercolour paper.
Review: Datacolor Spyder X2 Ultra colour calibrator | Parka Blogs
Datacolor released the Spyder X2 colour calibrators in mid 2023 to replace their previous model, the Spyder X. The two models released are Spyder X2 Elite and Spyder X2 Ultra, priced at USD 269 and USD 299 respectively. The main difference is the Elite model can measure brightness up to 750 nits and the Ultra model can measure up to 2000 nits. In other words, the Ultra model
Urban Sketching: Draw Quicker, Smaller and Simpler (Skillshare) | Parka Blogs
My friend and fellow urban sketcher Drewscape has just launched his first urban sketching course on Skillshare for beginners and those who have busy schedule. Drewscape is a full-time illustrator with two decades of experience. And while you're on Skillshare, check out my many urban sketching courses too.
Book Review: Nioh & Nioh 2: Official Artworks | Parka Blogs
If you're a fan of the Nioh games and like artbooks, this companion artbook for the game is pretty much a must-buy. This is a large format 304-page hardcover published by Udon Entertainment. The book collects the concept art for the two games. There are designs for characters, environment and enemies. There's a good mix of hand drawn art and polished high res renders. Designs
Book Review: Sketching Outdoors: Discover the Joy of Painting Outdoors by Barry Herniman | Parka Blogs
Barry Herniman is a full-time artist who enjoys traveling and painting outdoors, en plein air. He has also published several books and the one that you should also check out is Barry Herniman's Travelling Sketchbook, which unfortunately is out of print. Barry has also designed and made his own watercolour palette. This book is a 144-page paperback instructional artbook
Book Review: Iridescent: The Art of Laia Lopez | Parka Blogs
Laia López is a Spanish artist with more than 1.2 million followers on Instagram. Iridescent is a 112-page large format artbook that collects the characters that she has created over the years. Laia's characters are lively and expressive. The stylised character designs reminds me of Japanese manga and anime style but there also seems to be a hint of Disney influence. Her
Book Review: The Art Journey of Lord Gris | Parka Blogs
Lord Gris is a freelance artist, illustrator and character designer from Portland, Oregon, USA. Lord Gris is known for her beautiful female character designs, and she has more than 700K followers on Instagram and 200K followers on Facebook. This 184-page hardcover is one of many artbooks from 3Dtotal Illustrator series. As the title of the book suggests, this book covers the
Urban Sketching books discounted on the Kindle store (March 2024) | Parka Blogs
There are several Urban Sketching books in Kindle format on discount on Amazon right now. After purchase, they can be viewed on Kindle or through your web browser. These are the titles on sale: The World of Urban Sketching: Celebrating the Evolution of Drawing and Painting on Location Around the Globe - US $4.99 The Urban Sketching Handbook Techniques for Beginners: How to
Book Review: Overwatch: Declassified - An Official History | Parka Blogs
As the book title suggests, this is the history book of Overwatch. This large format 208-page hardcover is published by Blizzard Entertainment, the publisher and developer of the game. Thick low gloss paper is used and the binding is good. The author is Seanan McGuire and has done a great job with this book to make it an engaging and interesting read. The cover art is gorgeous
LincStudio S1 (artist review): Worthy Surface Pro alternative | Parka Blogs
Review unit provided by LincPlus LincPlus is a company that sells laptops, tablets and computer accessories. LincStudio S1 is a 13-inch Windows tablet is the most premium product that the company has ever released considering most of their products are in the budget category. This tablet is clearly targeted at digital artist because the tablet comes with hotkeys and sliders by
Book Review: Local Fauna: The Art of Peter de Sève | Parka Blogs
Local Fauna: The Art of Peter de Sève is the second compilation of artworks from Peter de Sève, an American artist and character designer who has worked in the illustration and animation industry. The first artbook A Sketchy Past: The Art of Peter de Sève was released in 2009 and is already out of print, currently selling at over USD 500 on Amazon. This large format hardcover
Book Review: The Art of System Shock | Parka Blogs
System Shock (2023) is the remake of the 1994 first person shoot video game that goes by the same name.. I've not played both games so I can't really talk about the visual differences between the two game. On first impression, I actually thought this game was related to Bioshock (2007) as the visual style looks and feels kinda similar to me. The art direction of System Shock
Book Review: The Art of Skulls and Bones | Parka Blogs
It has been ten years since Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag was released and the accompanying artbook back then was on my 2013 favourite artbooks list. Skulls and Bones actually started out as a spin off but eventually became a standalone game. You can read more about the difficulties with its development from the Wikipedia page, but you won't find any (negative) stuff in this
Daniel Smith has started selling gouache | Parka Blogs
John Cogley, the owner of Daniel Smith, was in Singapore to conduct a workshop recently and that's when I found out that Daniel Smith has started selling gouache. John Cogley said he travels eight months out of a year to talk to artists around the work regarding his paint. He would hold workshops talking about characteristics of paint and how paint is made. This workshop was
Book Review: Artists’ Master Series: Color and Light | Parka Blogs
Artists’ Master Series from publisher 3dtotal Publishing are advanced books that cover the fundamentals of making art. These are books for artists who want the extra knowledge to bring their art to the next level. Color and Light was published in 2022 and is the first book. Composition & Narrative is the second book. The third book Perspective and Depth will be released in
Book Review: Grafis Nusantara - Indonesian labels and stickers | Parka Blogs
Book description: Grafis Nusantara is a platform and collective dedicated to archiving vintage Indonesian labels and stickers from the 70s to the 90s. The label collection is divided into textile, health, tea, cigarettes, and food, whereas the sticker collection is divided into erotic, religion, cartoon, classic text, and image text. This archive book is presented in its
Book Review: COASTALVISION: Heavily-saturated Tropicália by Ardneks | Parka Blogs
COASTALVISION: Heavily-saturated Tropicália by Ardneks is the artbook that collects more than 10 years of illustrations created by Kendra Ahimsa, AKA Ardneks from Indonesia. His style of art is characterised by precise line art with flat style vibrant and contrasting colours. In other words, his illustrations are striking and if you're a follower of his art, you can probably
App Review: Medibang Pro (2024) for iPad | Parka Blogs
Medibang, a company founded in Tokyo in 2014, has released a new iPad exclusive app called Medibang Pro on 11 Jan 2024. Let's make the naming convention clear first. Medibang Paint is a tablet app Medibang Paint Pro is a desktop app. Medibang Pro is the new iPad-only app. I can foresee difficulty when searching for Medibang Pro help online because search engines will show
Book Review: Inspired By Nature: Designing botanical characters | Parka Blogs
Inspired By Nature: Designing botanical characters is a 296-page large format hardcover on character designs inspired by plants, flora, fauna, fungi, botany. This book covers the concepts and not so much on the technical aspects of drawing so you'll need to know the basics of drawing to get the most out of the book. There are 17 projects contributed by various artists. Each
Open Call for USk Symposium Buenos Aires 2024 Correspondents | Parka Blogs
There's now an open call for correspondents for the Urban Sketchers Symposium Buenos Aires 2024 which will happen from 9 - 12 October 2024. I have been fortunate and happy to be the video correspondent for several USk Symposiums over the years but this year I am very unlikely to apply. The flight time from Singapore to Argentina is 36 hours and that doesn't even include travel
Artist Review: Samsung S24 Ultra with S Pen | Parka Blogs
Review unit on loan from Samsung Singapore This is an artist review that will focus more on the experience with drawing and note taking. I won't cover much on the technical aspect of the phone since there are other reviewers better at those reviews. Bottom line Main selling point of the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra over the S24+ and S24 is the included S Pen and perhaps the
Book Preview: Top Secret: The Book of Spies and Agents | Parka Blogs
This book was released in Jan 2024 by publisher Gestalten. This book is part of the Little Gestalten series and is kids ages 10-13. The book's a 64-page hardcover that measures 22 x 27 cm. From ancient Rome to Tudor England and up to the 20th century, the art of espionage has come a long way. But one thing has never changed—humans have always found surprisingly creative ways
Book Preview: Epic Journeys: Incredible Tales of Amazing Trails | Parka Blogs
This book will be released in March 2024 by publisher Gestalten. This book is part of the Little Gestalten series and is kids ages 10-13. The book's a 48-page hardcover that measures 25.7 × 32 cm. Sam G. C. and Raquel Martín undertake their most ambitious and original work to date: the history of the routes that women and men have taken throughout the ages. Sam’s telling of
Book Review: 悍将108 苏健著绘 (108 Furious Warriors) | Parka Blogs
The concept in 悍将108 苏健著绘 (108 Furious Warriors) is a modern sci-fi take on an old but popular Chinese novel Water Margin (水滸傳). The original story has 108 outlaws who gathered at Mount Liang (or Liangshan Marsh) to rebel against the government. In this concept art book, we have 108 furious warriors who are fighting against expeditioners who just cares about mining the planet
Artist Review: Duet Display wireless display app | Parka Blogs
Duet display is an app that lets you use your tablet or laptop as an external display for another computer. For example, this app will let you extend your Windows or MacOS desktop over to your iPad or Android tablet. I've been using Duet Display for years so let me share with you the pros and cons, and how this app compares to more affordable options. This is a difficult
Book Review: Yuji Murakami "The World of Godzilla" 村上裕二画集 ゴジラの世界 | Parka Blogs
This is a collection of works drawn by Japanese painter Yuji Murakami with the theme of Godzilla. Includes 286 “Godzilla Worlds” including Godzilla, Mothra, Anguirus, King Ghidorah, Hedorah, Mechagodzilla, Gigan and Xilien. I'm not familiar with Yuji Murakami and Godzilla so I can't really say much about both, and there isn't much information about the painter online. This