#maxsterism

Heya peeps, it’s almost the end of the year. I hope 2017 has been a good year for you guys!

2017 has been a year of great artistic and personal growth for me, full of opportunities and challenges that I had to face head on. I felt that I didn’t post as much art as I wanted to here, mostly because I had stuff I was working on that I couldn’t share yet, but I should be able to real soon!

Just to take stock of the year for myself artistically, and also to reflect on the things I am thankful for this year, I:

- Gave a talk to students about balancing a non-visual arts-related job with an active creative and personal life.

- Ventured around Southeast Asia to explore what other local comic communities are up to outside of Malaysia and Singapore and taking part in conventions there.

- Managed to score my very first international commission from none other than C.B Cebulski.

- Took part in the Comic Art Workshop, an experience that I am very grateful to have been a part of.

- Completed my longest comic ever. (The stuff I mentioned above that I’m working on that can’t share yet? This is one of them.)

- Had a truly great time at Comic Fiesta this year meeting old and new friends (Though I’m a little bummed that I didn’t manage to hit up all my friends’ booths...but it only goes to show that Comic Fiesta has truly grown into such a huge event that combing the floor while having a booth is almost impossible!)

So to play a bit of catchup, here’s some highlights from my Inktober attempt this year (very late, I know)! I’ve previously posted them on my Instagram and Facebook accounts as I was actively drawing them, but I ended up not completing the challenge because of deadlines getting moved around. I was originally planning to put them together into a book, but that ship has sailed.

2017 has been a year of ups and downs, and I’m battered but stronger for it. I’m pretty neutral about 2018 at the moment, cautiously making plans of what I want to do and working on them. Thanks for sticking around to see what I’m up to, and I can’t wait to share the things I’ve been working on with you guys!

So here it is guys! I’ll be at Popcon Asia in Jakarta, Indonesia this weekend with my friends! It’ll be my first time boothing in Indonesia, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed!

Can’t wait to be there! See you in 2 days!

Hello again peeps! It’s the weekend soon and do I have some updates for you!

The Comic Art Workshop I'll be attending in October is running a crowd funding campaign now to make up for some expenses and I would really appreciate it if you guys could chip in!

A recap: The Comic Art Workshop is a 2 week residency where 15 comic artists are put together to improve on their comic projects, under the watchful eye of 2 invited guests, which are Sarah Glidden and Sonny Liew this time around!

I'm offering a reward for people who back us for $200 AUD, and it goes something like this:

'Taking pictures of yourself with your favourite food is so last season…time to show just how much you love food…by turning into it yourself! For $200, Max Loh will chronicle the epic journey you took to become your favourite dish in a black and white one-page comic. A bungled kitchen experiment resulting in a mysteriously delicious shepherd's pie? A robot rearranged your molecules into a bowl of laksa? The possibilities are endless!'

There're loads of interesting rewards from the other lovely participants too, so do check out the link to the Kickstarter (if only to look at the awesome art)! 

In other news, if you’re in Singapore this weekend, I’ll be at the Illustration Arts Fest boothing with The Rolling Ronins!

We’ll have some great stuff on sale, and I’ll have copies of Pointes de Controle, About Food, the Gorillaz Zine and more! Including this lovely Hamilton Fanzine Charsiewspace and I put together:

Finally, the first post of 2017 on my tumblr!

I’m sorry for the lack of updates for the past year and a half. In between life and making art, it has been a pretty hectic time in my life and also a time of great change.

Anyway! Here I am jumping back in the saddle again! So, a quick update:

I made a new self-published one-shot original slice-of-life comic in the middle of 2016 named ‘Pointes De Contrôle’. I was going through some stuff that I processed by making this comic (and on a pretty tight self-imposed deadline), and this time around I didn’t want to make it autobiographical like other comics I’ve done before, so Pointes was born. 

Why the French title? It’s kind of loosely tied to something in the story, but it basically means ‘Checkpoints’. (One of the people who browsed the book and knew French told me that I could have just gone with ‘Pointes Contrôle’. That’ll teach me for using Google Translate to help with a book title!) 

A few months after that I got to work on my first paid commercial project, which was to draw a comic for an anthology by Grab (a ride-sharing service app), published by Maple Comics. 

The premise for this book was to pair artists with true stories shared by people who used Grab’s services and turn them into comics. I am truly grateful to Amir from Maple Comics for this opportunity, and for the chance to be in this book with other great local comic artists! It’s also thanks to this book that I got to draw on an actual car for the first time in my life, as part of this book’s tie-in promotion at Comic Fiesta 2016! If you’d like to grab (hurhur) this book, you may order it from their official website!

And now we’ve reached 2017. I’ve yet to put out anything new, but I’m working on a longer story which will hopefully be out later this year.

There’s a piece of good news though: I’ve been accepted to be part of this year’s Comic Art Workshop that’ll be taking place in Jogjakarta at the end of October!

I honestly didn’t think I would get in (especially since I did apply for their first residency in 2015 and only got to the shortlist), but after some encouragement from loved ones, I decided to try again and-...! I’m elated and excited to meet new and talented people...but currently I’m still frantically working on the aforementioned long-form story, trying to finish it as soon as I can while working on the project I’ll be bringing to this residency. Exciting times!

So, yeah, that’s about it for me, art-wise. Comic Art Festival Kuala Lumpur is coming up next weekend, but for the first time since they started 3 years ago I won’t be boothing because of deadlines. I’ll still be visiting the event on both days though! 

However, I’ll be up and about for the first 2 weekends in October at 2 different events in 2 countries. I’ll definitely be updating about them real soon, with previews and other stuff that I’ve yet to share!

I decided to test out my new watercolours so I made a comic, inspired by the movie comics made by Little Thunder. It was a fun experiment though it took me much longer than expected.

The amazing @maxsterism​ drew this based on my prompt: “Luke Skywalker’s lazy weekend” on twitter.

This was a commissioned postcard image I did that was given away at the Singapore Toy, Game and Comic Convention last weekend.

How I ended up getting this commission was through a series of serendipitous events, so long story short: a big thank you to all you peeps who were looking out for me on Twitter, and a big thank you too to Mr Cebulski for taking a chance on me.

...Aaaaand here’s the last batch! I didn’t finish Inktober last year (was one illustration short!), so I guess one of my New Year’s Resolutions this year is to complete Inktober 2016!