A Zombie's Tale

Light Ver.
Dark Ver.

While working on a series of pin-up based illustrations, one piece became horror themed. This piece depicts a classic katana wielding high-schooler hacking zombies left and right with more coming; greatly inspired by Japanese cartoons and their style of horror. Finished in May/June 2010.

Copyright: All rights of this piece belong to J.S. Choi (C)
Medium: Pencil, Photoshop, Gouache, Watercolor, & Textures.

Sleeping Beauty - La Belle Au Bois Dormant

Sleeping Beauty is a dark tale. It's interesting to compare from the original to the modern version. Originally, a princess is taken by force unconsciously by her king or prince to waken and find she had given birth to twins. What's the curse? Sleeping or waking up? A dark prince, twin fetuses, and a dress turning from white to red showing a loss of innocence- Hints to a tragic end. Originally illustrated in December 2009.

Copyright: All rights of this piece belongs to J.S. Choi (C) DO NOT USE!
Medium: Photoshop & Varied Pencils

Elven Noir: Sophisticated ver.

This is a version of the elf girl in a more sophisticated color scheme rather than the more retro vibe I gave to the previous palette. This palette and style was inspired by Ragnar, a illustrator known for his graphic design and pin-ups along side other infleunce, Coles Phillips. It was also funny enough inspired by Poison Ivy from Batman, most specific, Bruce Timm's green skinned version. ^^

NOTE: DO NOT USE! This is copyrighted by J.S. Choi(C)

Elven Noir: Retro

This is a pin-up based illustration with influences of noir and art nouveau that became more concept based than its original intent. My original inspiration though was the illustrator, Coles Phillips, creator of the Fade-Away Girls. I was so inspired by Phillips' girls that I felt the need to try the technique he used on his Fade-Away Girl series. For me who loves to put everything in a piece, every nuance and detail... It was quite a challenge to keep things simple in this illustration. Even now, I feel the Fade-Away Girl should have been more so simple, but as a final result- I'm still content. However, I think I will plan to do more Fade-Aways as a way to learn how to deal with graphic shapes, composition, and simplicity.


NOTE: DO NOT USE! Copyright of J.S. Choi(C) 2009

Odin - Prophesy

Hi guys!

This is a montage I did loosely based on an event in Ragnarok from Norse Mythology. The characters presented in this piece are Odin(All-father god of all of the Aesirs), Hugin(Crow-Odin's thought), Munin(Crow- Odin's memory), and Fenrir(Wolf-god and son of Loki, the Trickster God).
It was destiny that they (Odin and Fenrir) would intertwine and it was fate they would die by each other's hand.

Copyrights: All rights of this piece belongs to J.S. Choi (C) DO NOT USE!
media: Watercolor, gouache, color pencil, and gesso

Female Cruel Vengence

This is my first piece I did in Syracuse University for one of the greek myths about Artemis and her encounter with Actaeon. The piece was completed around August of 2009. For those who are interested in the story here is a website telling the tale: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actaeon.

Media: I scanned my original line art, lightened it in photoshop, printed it on stratsmore 500 board and painted with watercolor and gouache.

Copyrights: All rights of this piece belongs to J.S. Choi (C) DO NOT USE!

Kaiko - Sea of Clouds

I originally posted this on DA with a bad resolution and saturation. This is a better resolution and soon, DA should have the same quality for those who follow me there.

This was a class piece I did in 2009 that I had fun doing with mostly complimentary colors of oranges and blues inspired by a European animated movie called, Nocturne. I can't remember the exact purpose of this project, but I do recall the course required a person to pick a phrase out of the list of words mentioned in the professor's sheet to create an illustration. Mine was 'Sea of Clouds'. This led me to create Kaiko, the flying fish soaring through a 'sea of clouds'. Kaiko is a creature mixed of an array of fish, bird, and water mammal such as an orca, shark, gold fish, flying fish, and the cockatiel parrot. The fish's name means, Sea Child. I chose the reading of Kaiko instead of Umiko, which people may misread on its name tag, which has duel pronunciation in Japanese's kanji. Why? Umiko sounded too girly and possibly common since Umi is a well known girl name, where as the sharp strike of the word 'Kai' with the soft 'Ko' felt more pleasing to me. It also had a tomboy ring to it since Kai is a boy name, with the softness of Ko which is a girl ending for names. I could be wrong, but at the very least, I liked the sound. For those who know about the popularity of Japanese names, do correct me if I am wrong. I love the concept of making names and learning languages. It's really fascinating!

Illustration by: J.S. Choi (C) DO NOT USE!!
Media: Pencil, Watercolor, and Gouache

Alice's Mad Height Contest

This is a piece I did early in 2009 for a project at my other grad school, SCAD. The theme had something to do with world records and I stretched the idea with the quirky novel of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. I could imagine the characters having a mad contest of sorts to see who was the tallest and if they lost in this area-- Well, the next would be to try and be the smallest; cheating in anyway they could. Thus, the image here before you.

Media: Ink and watercolor with a bit of gouache I believe.
Completed by: Spring quarter 2009
Copyrights: All rights of this piece belongs to J.S. Choi (C) DO NOT USE!!

More...

3 to 4 hour painting

A calm, landscape painting I did a while ago at a Christian picnic gathering I was persuaded to attend around December in 2008. Sometime that day, I crept away to paint in some quiet and remote area far away from the community for about 3 to 4 hours. It was a nice escape. The air was cool. The few random strangers such as children came to talk. The birds chirped. A raccoon hide near the lake. Ducks swam. The nature was ever so pleasant... Till my mother somehow found me in her Christian driving crusade throughout the park with the Evil-Matriarch face that I know all you Asian gents and ladies know when faced with it. It always throws you into surprise to remember they can be insane at any turn, especially the gentle, naive ones! So I left the group cause I was sick of the preaching, I'm sorry! All that went through my head was:"SHE HAS ZOMBIE JESUS HUNTING/HAUNTING POWERS! HOLY SH--!" I was in an obscure place far from the picnic center they were at! I recall glaring at the sky mumbling obscene things. Now that I think about it as a memory, half the things she said and did were kind of funny. But yes, this odd event happened all for a quick painting session.

Media: Watercolor and gouache on blue tone paper. Pencil was barely used for composition.

Copyrights: Artwork belongs to J.S. Choi (C) DO NOT USE!

Clock Town: Cauchemar & Traum

Clock Town: Cauchemar & Traum

Clock Town: Nightmare and Dream.It's a project I did a few years ago in my undergrad at Ringling in 2007. This was a free assignment based on one of the many lucid dreams I have. I normally always look different in each dream I'm in. I thought this piece was still okay enough to post online. I hope you guys like it to a degree.

Copyrights: All rights of this piece belongs to J.S. Choi (C)
DO NOT USE!
Media: Ink & Markers

Hi Everyone!

Hello everyone!
I finally decided to post a comment after having this blog for years! I figured I would introduce myself before posting any images. My name is J.S. Choi aka 'Jin' and for those who have not read my profile, I am a Ringling College of Art and Design graduate working on a MFA at Syracuse University. I am a freelance illustrator and am open to all sorts of commissions for the most part. For those of you who do know me, please do keep all comments professional/clean. Also, please keep my gender to yourself. Call it being eccentric if you will. I would appreciate that very much! ^_^ With that said, I will be posting both new and old images that I find descent to show on this blog until I create a professional website including sketches, thumbs, finished works, and etc. I hope you enjoy your stay and find my work somewhat entertaining in whatever shape or form. Good day!


-J.S. Choi-
Jschoiilustration@gmail.com