❤ Thank you ❤

Thank you very much for visiting me at Fan Expo 2011. It was exhausting four days, but fun days at that. These are drawings I did while sitting at the table. It was quite busy, people to see, hair barrettes to make, smiles to smile. So I didn't get to draw as much. My German grammar book also went untouched. Yes, I'm learning German by myself, preparing for the Pictoplasma 2012. I'm determine to speak at least, 'Entschuldigung (Excuse me),' although I heard I don't really need it.

I like these dudes! They will be Snakes in the Forest attempt two

They are sheep... I can hear my teacher from college days yelling at me. "What is that? Pig? Cow? It's a Pigcow! Go learn how to draw properly!" Well, if you get a ridiculously useless over education like me, you can draw sheep like me. I'm kidding.  They are terrible.

These ghosts are saying 'Hello' in Korean

I LOVE triangles lately 

I got drawings from my fans! Thanks girls ❤

Some photos with girls who gave me drawing gifts:

With Roma

With Sarah

Awesome & beautiful things I got. From top left corner, Kailey, Miko, Anne Koyama, Charlene Chua❤
 and Taryn.

Now back to work on my Master's. My apartment looks like a serial killer's room right now. It is disturbingly messy. I will clean after I finish school. I can't wait to make it presentable enough to have friends over.

Anyways, thank you again, and see you again at Fan Expo 2012❤ ❤

More Stuff for FanExpo 2011 ~✿

Oh the night's rapidly passing and I am injecting caffeine (I wish!) to stay up, making things for FanExpo. I still have a lot to do. Look at the pins and barrettes I'm making. These little dudes are going to be lions  Oㅅ O  More update photos soon as I complete them. Skull, strawberry and monster barrettes are coming also.

Drying future lions ❤

Making skull, yeti & animal barrettes and pins

Yeti with manly chest hair

Rings! It was the first time I made rings

Special Macaron for my friend <3

If you've met me, you saw me wearing these. Mine are over 5 years old but I'm strangely attached to them. 

There are mini plaques for my work. 

Mouspads! They come in two designs. I made a very few of these (4 or 5 I think), so come and get them while they last.

Oh I wish I were sleeping. One day, I'm going to sleep all day. Yes.

Fan Expo 2011 ~✿ (2" Buttons, Magic Mugs and Mouse Pads)

Two inch buttons! Two inch buttons are here for FanExpo. I made 2 inch ones 4~5 years ago, but they didn't sell as well, so I stopped making them. But this year, I brought them back. My weekend was spent assembling buttons, getting poked by sharp pins, iron-smelling fingers, endless Jurassic Park series, and heart break. These are going to be 3 dollars each at FanExpo (I think). 

This is a silly drawing of slugs in my sketchbook. Do they look depressing? I cannot tell because I've been drawing crying monsters way too often. I love these dudes... Especially the one with five-o-clock shadow.

Snakes in the Forest was painted for Erika's Canvas Collective site. You can download this image as a desktop wallpaper from her site. 

Jellyfish Wrangler! I love jellyfish. I wouldn't go near them, no, but they are cool. Did you know that some jellyfish is immortal? I wish I were immortal. There. I admit it. World is big and many things to see. I also wish I could time travel. Oh~ all the mistakes I made in the past! I'd go back and NOT DROP THAT COCONUT ICECREAM SANDWICH ON THE GROUND.

This painting makes me feel infinitely guilty. I am sorry that I painted boobs. I mean, I paint boobs all the time, but not for illustrations. Ooooh the guilt. Please take this painting off my hands. I'll be selling the original at QWAC next month.

Come visit my table at FanExpo 2011! My table is A98 at the Artist Alley. I got a corner table again, yes! Please come and say hello. If you mention my blog, I will give you 1" button of your choice. Wait, we need a secret code. Say, "hoot hoot" and I'll give you a button of your choice. Bring me a vegan snack, I'll give you three buttons.

FanExpo is 4 days this year:

Thursday, August 25 - 4PM TO 9PM

Friday, August 26 - 10AM TO 8PM

Saturday, August 27 - 10AM TO 8PM

Sunday, August 28 - 10AM TO 6PM

At Metro Toronto Convention Centre 

How to find Hyein! Find DC table and walk straight to the back. :D

Limited Quantity Magic Mugs! It's a black mug when it's cold. When you pour hot water, my painting shows up.

Lastly... the magic mugs are here again! Sorry for not having enough last year and they were sold out very fast. I didn't know how many they might sell, so I only made a small quantity. Because I am an idiot, I made the same quantity as the last year. I should've made more, but the material cost is quite a lot, so I got scared.  Come and get them on the first two days!
I made the mugs with In Bruges I &amp;amp; In Bruges II and Mr. Furry Pants.

In Bruges I &amp;amp; In Bruges II together on a magic mug. I like how they almost connect. :)

Mr. Furry Pants will also be on magic mugs.

I will also have Mouse Pads of some of my work! I am only making 5 mouse pads, again, the materials are expensive and I'm not sure how many I can sell. Do people buy mouse pads? I will update photos of mouse pads when they arrive tomorrow.

Last of shameless self promotion. Society 6 is having a free shipping world wide week! Until Sunday August 28th. Come and get your iphone cases, tshirts and more (I wish I had an iPhone...) at www.Society6/HyeinLee.
You know what I'm going to get? John Malta's prints! I absolutely LOVE LOVE his work. He is my current favourite artist. Maybe I should also get his iPad skin...

Oh and my another favourite artist, Alex McLeod is having a show this week. Opening is Thursday. I'm so sad that I cannot make it to his opening (I have to be at FanExpo). His art works have been my monitor wall paper for two years now. Please go check out his work this Thursday at Angell Gallery. I promise you, he's AWESOME.

Again, my apologies for the thin content on my blog. I'm so, very busy. I panic everytime I look at my calendar. I just handed in the final final rough (Wut? Only in grad school) of my thesis paper. I cannot wait for my Master's to be over. The end is nigh!

I want to get back to painting, drawing and moving images. Aaaaanyways. See come visit me at FanExpo. Say "hoot hoot," I'll give you a button.

On Billboards in Toronto - Thanks Courvoisier

Thanks Wilbur and Selena for sending me this photo. It was at Union Station. Unfortunately, it was taken off before I went to see it. 

There are more around the town, but I've been too busy to go take photographs.

My painting, In Bruges I is all over downtown in billboards and advertisement boxes. I'm very excited about this. Now I can check that off my Life Wish List:

In Bruges I is a special piece for me, the painting was inspired by trip to Bruges. I always wanted to go to Bruges after watching Daughters of Darkness as a teenager. Then in 2008, a great black comedy, In Bruges came out. I needed to go there. When I told people I'm going to Bruges, everyone asked, "Where is that?" or "Never heard of it. Why do you want to go there??" It is a beautiful Gothic city above water, perfectly preserved. It is sort of like Venice, but I love it more than Venice. Bruges has surprisingly affordable and beautiful Bed n' Breakfast places with skeleton keys. I was alone there, once again. After 5pm, all the museums and shops close in Bruges and tourists leave the city. I was strolling between the striking Gothic buildings eating Belgian fries, I felt happy in loneliness.
As a sneaky sneaky-little-doo, I sneakily linked the image to my Society 6 page. If you have a disposable income and like my piece, you can order prints :D

Anyways, In Bruges I won second place at The Courvoisier Collective awards. I'm very grateful for the wonderful people at Courvoisier. They kindly sent me two mini bottles of their delicious cognac. A small drop tastes like a burst of grapes!
My piece is shown at Gallery 1313 starting tonight, August 10th to September 4th, 2011.
Opening reception starts at 7:30PM.

Canzine Ad Campaign

I am working with the wonderful people at Broken Pencil magazine for their Canzine 2011 advertisement campaign. This is a magazine ad, and we'll have a completely new image for the posters around the town. Canzine is one of my favourite events, and I am very honoured and excited to take on this job. Check out Broken Pencil's brand new pimpin' website!

Thank you Benjamin Rivers and Sean Martindale for all your help. :)

This year's Canzine theme is piracy. I pictured digital piracy. I painted circuit-looking board with resistors and chips. Animal paws and a tentacle are grabbing/stealing whatever they can. It's a playful way of showing illegal data downloads. I must admit. I was listening to TRON: Legacy soundtrack a lot, while painting this. I love the movie, it makes my heart swell! I love the soundtrack so much. Daft Punk, dude. This is my favourite of it all: "Game has Changed."

 I know you cannot really tell from the illustration, but all the little wood pieces are actually laser cut and hand painted. It was an insane amount of work. At this point, I am not sure if it was worth the hassle because it looked computerized anyways! And I could make pretty convincing wood texture digitally. But it is definitely fun to paint with hands instead of staring at computer screens.

Look at these little dudes... I like them!

Keep posted for the Canzine Toronto posters with brand new images! I am so excited and grateful for Broken Pencil team for letting me paint two different images for this ad campaign.

And I will see you at this year's Canzine. Follow me on twitter @HyeinPain and tell me when you visit my booth at Canzine. I'll give you a free button just for being an owly person. It should be a lot of fun. :)

Canzine Toronto:
Sunday, October 23
Toronto – 918 Bathurst Centre
918 Bathurst St. @ 1 – 7 pm

Baby Skincare - Canadian Family

I did a small spot illustration for wonderful Canadian Family magazine's baby skin care article. The whole page was cut, so it didn't get published, but here it is! Thank you Colleen for a wonderful art direction. It's so much fun to work with Canadian Family. I was very happy to get away with drawing bottles with funny faces. Haha...
The article is about choosing a right skincare product for your baby. And the right answer is whatever you and your baby like the best. The so-called "natural" products aren't necessarily good. As a weirdo who uses "natural/organic/paraben-free" skincare products, it was good to learn that. I will still stick with paraben-free products, however.

Here are some rejected roughs:

I know this one's a bit silly, but I really liked it. Talk bubbles!

The baby and the lotion are high-fiving each other. Yeah. Another silly idea.