Lazy College Senior
Maya, Photoshop

Illustrations and concepts from my final project for my intermediate computer animation course; click the arrows to cycle through. It’s a meditation on life through the eyes of a Lazy College Senior - quite the meta project, as I was myself a second-semester senior at the time. I learnt a great deal as I got to make everything from the character designs to storyboards and 3D assets, which I modeled, textured, rigged, and lit before spending a week and a half animating in Maya. Fun!

You can watch the short at http://vimeo.com/charisloke/lazycollegesenior

Fermi’s Paradox (and color sketch)
Photoshop

This was put out a while back, and is an interior illustration for an article written by a friend for Scientific Malaysian. There are many postulated answers to the paradox that will make for a day or two of interesting reading.

Pick up a print of this here!

Pirates of Penzance Posters
Photoshop

Two posters for the Brown University Gilbert & Sullivan. The Pirates of Penzance is my favourite G&S opera, so this was a really fun assignment to work on. The director made a list of the characters he wanted to appear on each poster, but otherwise I was free to take any direction I wanted. It was an opportunity to explore a simpler, looser style than I normally use.

The Dinner ComicPhotoshop An interactive comic where you attempt to navigate a conversation about your career preferences. It’s based on Malaysian society, drawn from situations I’m personally familiar with, and is partly an exploration in telling stories using staples of the web - buttons, accordion menus.  Try it out at http://charisloke.github.com/Webcomics/!
Pop-upView Separately

The Dinner Comic
Photoshop

An interactive comic where you attempt to navigate a conversation about your career preferences. It’s based on Malaysian society, drawn from situations I’m personally familiar with, and is partly an exploration in telling stories using staples of the web - buttons, accordion menus. 

Try it out at http://charisloke.github.com/Webcomics/!

Community by Design - The Brown Science CenterPhotoshop I conceptualized, designed, and illustrated this 4x4 feet poster for the Science Center to show the good work they’ve been doing for the Brown community and beyond. I wanted to present stories rather than facts. And the stories would be told both verbally through dialogue - just the way the Science Center people told them to me - and through the images.  My initial meetings with Dean David Targan and Science Center staff involved statements like “We have the X program, and the Y program, and Z.” “We should make sure the B program is mentioned on the poster.” “We need to emphasize the role we’re playing in interdisciplinary arts/science efforts.” However, they had also doodled little drawings on sheets of paper representing some of the different things the Center did, as well as a bar chart showing progression on a spectrum from ‘science’ to ‘arts and humanities’, referring to the nature of their programs. Talking with them further opened the floodgates for all kinds of cool stories: “The children loved the lanterns they made”. “It started with a medical student drawing on the walls”. “The architect’s first draft was a cell - seriously!” Storytelling is such a natural thing for humans to do (as the clients demonstrated) and it’s a way for us to process information better - by getting us more interested in the topic through selectively presenting information. You remember that the SC held a trivia showdown event because you saw that the students bested the professors and were celebrating, more than because you read that it held a showdown event. Your brain locks on to those relatable moments and visuals more than it does numbers. This is representative of the work I enjoy doing, and will keep doing - using visuals to help people communicate.
Pop-upView Separately

Community by Design - The Brown Science Center
Photoshop

I conceptualized, designed, and illustrated this 4x4 feet poster for the Science Center to show the good work they’ve been doing for the Brown community and beyond. I wanted to present stories rather than facts. And the stories would be told both verbally through dialogue - just the way the Science Center people told them to me - and through the images. 

My initial meetings with Dean David Targan and Science Center staff involved statements like “We have the X program, and the Y program, and Z.” “We should make sure the B program is mentioned on the poster.” “We need to emphasize the role we’re playing in interdisciplinary arts/science efforts.”

However, they had also doodled little drawings on sheets of paper representing some of the different things the Center did, as well as a bar chart showing progression on a spectrum from ‘science’ to ‘arts and humanities’, referring to the nature of their programs. Talking with them further opened the floodgates for all kinds of cool stories: “The children loved the lanterns they made”. “It started with a medical student drawing on the walls”. “The architect’s first draft was a cell - seriously!”

Storytelling is such a natural thing for humans to do (as the clients demonstrated) and it’s a way for us to process information better - by getting us more interested in the topic through selectively presenting information. You remember that the SC held a trivia showdown event because you saw that the students bested the professors and were celebrating, more than because you read that it held a showdown event. Your brain locks on to those relatable moments and visuals more than it does numbers.

This is representative of the work I enjoy doing, and will keep doing - using visuals to help people communicate.

RegenerationPhotoshop Cover illustration for Scientific Malaysian Issue 4. The theme was regeneration, so I went with a recognizable example for Southeast Asian households - the cicak, or common house gecko. These guys pop off their tails as a form of autotomy to escape from predators, then regenerate them later. The editors wanted something simple and striking this time, in contrast to the Classroom of the Universe cover I did previously, so lizards + the infinity symbol was a nice way to highlight this biological feat.
Pop-upView Separately

Regeneration
Photoshop

Cover illustration for Scientific Malaysian Issue 4. The theme was regeneration, so I went with a recognizable example for Southeast Asian households - the cicak, or common house gecko. These guys pop off their tails as a form of autotomy to escape from predators, then regenerate them later.

The editors wanted something simple and striking this time, in contrast to the Classroom of the Universe cover I did previously, so lizards + the infinity symbol was a nice way to highlight this biological feat.

GM MosquitoesPhotoshop  For Scientific Malaysian. 2.5 hours with the Lasso and Transform tools.If you alter male mosquitoes genetically such that they cannot produce offspring that live for long, and then release them into the wild, theoretically they should breed with existing female mosquitoes and produce babies that die before becoming adults. This should decrease mosquito populations, which is especially nice if they’re causing dengue fever or carrying other diseases.Realistically, there are a lot of other factors that come into play, depending on the actual environment and implementation. A fun illustration opportunity nonetheless!
Pop-upView Separately

GM Mosquitoes
Photoshop 

For Scientific Malaysian. 2.5 hours with the Lasso and Transform tools.

If you alter male mosquitoes genetically such that they cannot produce offspring that live for long, and then release them into the wild, theoretically they should breed with existing female mosquitoes and produce babies that die before becoming adults. This should decrease mosquito populations, which is especially nice if they’re causing dengue fever or carrying other diseases.

Realistically, there are a lot of other factors that come into play, depending on the actual environment and implementation. A fun illustration opportunity nonetheless!

Classroom of the UniversePhotoshop Cover illustration for Scientific Malaysian. The issue had articles on space as well as the local education system, so my original idea was to show students and a teacher having class…in space. It was a good idea in my head, at least, but my thumbnails and sketches were very pedantic, very boring. The focus had to move from the act of holding a class to the magic of learning; the image had to evoke, not depict. I wanted to show a sense of awe and wonder that these students would experience, and that we could experience too along with them. I had great fun revisiting my high school days with the school uniforms, and having specifically Malaysian elements in my illustrations is a plus. There is enough generic art out there that doesn’t need adding to.
Pop-upView Separately

Classroom of the Universe
Photoshop

Cover illustration for Scientific Malaysian. The issue had articles on space as well as the local education system, so my original idea was to show students and a teacher having class…in space.

It was a good idea in my head, at least, but my thumbnails and sketches were very pedantic, very boring. The focus had to move from the act of holding a class to the magic of learning; the image had to evoke, not depict. I wanted to show a sense of awe and wonder that these students would experience, and that we could experience too along with them.

I had great fun revisiting my high school days with the school uniforms, and having specifically Malaysian elements in my illustrations is a plus. There is enough generic art out there that doesn’t need adding to.

Decision TimePhotoshop This is for a short story series in Scientific Malaysian. The request was for an image that showed the right brain-left brain dichotomy; the character is described as spending his day doing ‘right brain’ activities instead of his standard ‘left brain’ research. I suggested something that would tie in more elements of the story, and hint at the brain idea through colour and shape. And after all, there isn’t really a clean division of function between the hemispheres of the brain.
Pop-upView Separately

Decision Time
Photoshop

This is for a short story series in Scientific Malaysian. The request was for an image that showed the right brain-left brain dichotomy; the character is described as spending his day doing ‘right brain’ activities instead of his standard ‘left brain’ research. I suggested something that would tie in more elements of the story, and hint at the brain idea through colour and shape. And after all, there isn’t really a clean division of function between the hemispheres of the brain.

Visual Storytelling Workshops at the Brown Science Center

This summer, my friend and I have been running a series of informal, modular workshops aimed at introducing science students, faculty, and staff to the wonderful world of drawing and visual storytelling. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do!

As a biochem major, I’ve had to make extra effort to take classes that offer visual components instead of just written exams or papers. Science major schedules also make it hard to take studio art classes at Brown, let alone at RISD. Even if you do make it to such a class, some of them emphasize art for fine art’s sake rather than art for storytelling’s sake.

So why not create the opposite of such a class? An informal, free, ungraded weekly session where we introduce a specific area, such as Colour, or Silhouette, or Character Design, and say: here are these things, these skills, here are examples of them in action, say, in Pixar movies - now see what you can do with them in your own fields of study or work!

Not everything is directly connected to science, but I’m excited to see what interdisciplinary connections people will draw from them. And just being able to draw can be very satisfying for someone who’s never been asked to do so, or has never tried because they never thought they could.

Achilles TendonPhotoshop  Spot done for the Providence Alliance of Clinical Educators; this one is for a story about the Achilles tendon. I’m really enjoying doing these story illustrations, as they’re fun, quick ways for me to learn different ways of inking, composing pictures, and designing them so they’ll read well at a small size after being photocopied. 
Pop-upView Separately

Achilles Tendon
Photoshop 

Spot done for the Providence Alliance of Clinical Educators; this one is for a story about the Achilles tendon. I’m really enjoying doing these story illustrations, as they’re fun, quick ways for me to learn different ways of inking, composing pictures, and designing them so they’ll read well at a small size after being photocopied. 

A Story of Egil
Photoshop 

Simple illustrations done for a story meant to explain biology concepts (in particular, the background behind Paget’s disease) to students, for the Providence Alliance of Clinical Educators. Inking digitally allowed for a quick turnaround time. 

Egill Skallagrímsson (warrior, poet) lived during the Viking Age and was thought to have had Paget’s, based on descriptions of his unusually large arms and head and the beserk rages he would go into as a result of the pain he experienced. Read about him on Wikipedia.