Evangelion Illustration
Digital Painting with Sketchbook Pro
1997, I was 19 years old when Micronet sent me to Sapporo, Japan to work on game projects. One of this shooting game for Playstation one is called EOS or Edge of Skyhigh, don’t ask me how they title games in Japan. Most game titles in English is based in good sounding before the fact. The company had a many game designer but the Protagonist Mecha was commissioned from Mr. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, the Evangelion designer.This is the first time I was exposed to the new style of robot design, they are not bulky and clunky and often times illogical design. This was organic style which cater to my liking. As a kid I refrain from drawing anything that is not organic in shape, my influence is heavily on the classical arts. But… I find Mr. Sadamoto’s design intriguing, from then on I was a fan. Mid 90’s was when Evangelion took its height of fame before it’s current rebirth. The melancholic theme is so different from the usual heroic and magestic anime. This one has a lot of emotion, too much that it’s sometimes felt depressing. Sadamato was able to capture the sadness of the world in apocalypse thru colors and design language. The lines thru the eyes made it look like it is crying, the slenderness of the mech gives and impression of scarcity and the almost hunching posture looks like it’s ready to die than menacing.
The last day of my tour in Osaka in 2018, a friend of mine went to BIC CAMERA to buy toys, yes they sell toys there. Then nostalgia came when I see the 3 original Evangelion mecha. I bought 3 of them and carry it with me back in Shenzhen. I opened the box, started putting them together. I forgot the feeling of putting the cut pieces together, last time I had a Gundam was years ago. I am truely amaze of the engineering done and how clean the molds of the plastic. As a designer, I can see the amount of precision the model maker did it’s a labor of so much love and dedication to the craft. I built one and put it on my desk at home, a display to remind me of the early days when I was a game designer.
Anyway, This is the very few moment I do fan art. My sketch is base on the diorama photography of EVA Unit 1, I got from the internet and also reference from my toy. It was done on an iPad. I do most of my concept works using Sketchbook Pro. The first time I use Sketchbook was in 2002, when it was still Alias on a very expensive machine, Silicon Graphics Computer. Now I have it on my iPad free and I can sketch anytime I want, what a lucky time for young generation of artist these days.
I start drawing by doodling the shape, like the wire, I can pose any direction I want. Then proceed in flesing out the unique shape of the robot. Because this is my first time drawing the character, there was no familiarity yet, that’s why my doodles are messy at times. Then made a second layer just for the clean up sketches. Third layer is where I do the digital painting. This time I wanted to have a anime style sketch with line drawings. This piece on and off took me about 3 days, I would just draw it while on a lunch break and continue a bit at home.
