Hopskotch Dance TV

Well I haven't posted in a while. Work kind of does that to you. It challenges you and prepares you skill-wise, but it also drains you.

Here's a short title sequence I created for the guys at Hopskotch Dance TV. They're going around filming lots of stuff for the NZ Dance scene, all out of love. I thought maybe I'd help out too :)




Click here to check out their stuff.

The titles will most probably be incorporated into the upcoming vids.

D.I.Y Postcard Easels

A while back, I made some wooden easels for our good friend Pufftique as part of their display for Auckland Art and Craft Fair at the end of this month. They will be used to hold Pufftique's customised postcards and other trinkety goodness she has made. Made from scrap wood from a colleague's model (keekeekee) and a wooden kebab skewer for the pivot, it's pretty easy to take apart if they need to be painted another colour. 

Good luck Pufftique (Lisa)! Wish you all the best for your first craft fair!

Blackout Poetry

What is it exactly? I didn't know until I gave it a go with fellow contributors last night at one of our "wild" dinner gatherings. This phenomenon all started with a man, a newpaper and a marker. Meet Austin Kleon, the man behind blackout poetry and the creative process. To find out more about his story, click here. I can definitely see the appeal of creating blackout poetry since all you need is some written text, a marker and the ability to read. Simple enough it seems (I was wrong). The process basically involved highlighting words and blacking out the rest on the page.

Armed with markers and pages from old books, here are some of our humble attempts. In retrospect, it seemed the more you blacked out, the better the poem. However, in our case, new stories emerged from the blackout. Pre-reading also would have helped.

D.I.Y. Tea Party Apron

Sometimes it's a challenge finding the right gift to give friends when they have birthdays or farewell parties so we've been sewing aprons as gifts. Each one is unique in pattern and style and most importantly practical (I hope). It isn't so much a "housewife" gift but a statement of independence as many of our friends are now overseas or in other parts of the country. It's a little something-something to remind them of their family and friends back home as they make their new homes elsewhere. This apron was for a friend's little sister who loved pretty colours so we made her a tea party style apron for her to play in.

This is an intermediate level project and will require 1-1.2m long cotton drill fabric or anything that is thicker. The length of fabric you will need depends on how wide the fabric is. If there is any left over pieces of fabric, you can easily make a small pocket to attach to the front.

Happy Sewing!

Pufftique Commish: Graduation Hat

Graduation season is back again!

To celebrate and commemorate the achievement of fellow graduates, Pufftique has been making little clay graduation hat as graduation gifts. I was planning to fly down to Wellington to attend my friends' ceremony but work came up so I missed...everything. To make up for it, I sent down some hat charms to congradulate them on their success.

Not before doing a quick photoshoot with Lisa from Pufftique to show off the fine handy work.

Media Design School Recap

Last year I took a course in Visual Effects and Motion Graphics at MDS. Deadlines were tight and I wasn't exactly an animator before I started the course so it was quite a tough year, for me at least.

Here are some things that I made for MDS:

Bicycle Network Victoria - Map

So this is something that I made a little while back. Couldn't show it back then because it hadn't been released yet, but since the DVD is selling right now, I can finally take that silly password off of the Vimeo page.

So at the start my only reference is a low res picture off their website, and I followed it pretty closely for  the trials. The drawing for this took a long time. Honestly I didn't want to draw the map but I had a lot of time back then so I thought I would challenge myself.

So it started with me doing a simple Google search for Tasmania. Nothing I found was usable really. It took another 2 days of screwing around and wondering whether I should actually take on this project or not before I thought EFF what ever, I'll give it a go.

It took about a week, a couple of hours here and there when I can get myself to stop procrastinating. I drew Tasmania, it's islands, the highlands, wetlands, lakes and rivers. Most of it was pretty accurate, but I know there are some parts in the Southern part of the island that I just got lazy on haha.

Check it out:



Great Escapade Tasmania 2013 Mograph from Andrew Cheung on Vimeo.

Thanks for watching :D

DIY Mountain Pillow

We've reached the age where we think late night visits, tea drinking, moching eating while listening to Frank Ocean (♫ ♪ Channel Orange - Lost) is a cool activity. (not to mention pigging out on a large box of ferreo rocher.) It's pretty nice to chat about random thing with friends, especially close, intimate ones where you can say just about anything without having the feeling of being judged. It also shows that you really don't have to get drunk to have a good time (although a small glass of alcohol wouldn't harm any soul). 

We have an unopened bottle of merlot sitting in the cupboard, I've been meaning to try out a nice old mulled wine recipe. Who says you can only drink mulled wines during Christmas? Or live in Europe? I say screw conventions, It's getting cold over here in the southern hemisphere, we have wind here too and rain. I need to have some to warm myself. I saw this recipe on Frankie magazine that looks pretty simple and delicious, I will give it a go when I come around to making it.

Anyways, I've gone completely out of topic for this post. So the other day, I was just casually browsing Pinterest looking for a cool DIY (I was in the mood for some serious crafting) and I came across this tutorial for making this awesome looking mountain pillow. If you guys are interested, the tutorial can be found here.

I think it really adds a little whimsical ambience into your home. If you can't find the materials they've described, you can always opt for something similar. Who says it has to be exactly the same? By all means you can make your mountain green. We went for polar fleece because they are nice and soft when you hug it and plus they were on sale lol. 

D.I.Y Framing Maps

A lazy Sunday morning D.I.Y became a full day project when I found some old maps around the house and they were seriously out of date. I just happened to have some A4 frames lying around which I was going to fill with family holiday photos but never got around to printing them. I decided to frame some of the places I love visiting in New Zealand and added subtle message representing my emotional attachment to the place.

ANDREW - Logo works

Here's a simple little something that kept me busy for the last few days. Yes I spent more time on this than I did on the Cue logo.

So I wanted to make a logo for myself because I needed something that I could use as watermarks on my videos. But also because I'm unemployed (career-wise) and this keeps me inspired to keep making and creating new stuff.

I was finding it really difficult to make round shapes look good, so I decided to stick to triangles after squares didn't work either haha.

The colours are of lemons, oranges and tangerines. I don't quite know why to be honest... But Heidi approved of it and the colour orange seems to be my favorite lately. So really it just works.


Enjoy! P.S That Quicktime gamma problem had me in such a pickle. I'm glad the colours showed up proper on Vimeo.

Cue Logomotion

Here's a bit of a no brainer I did for Cue Photography.


Cue Photography from Andrew Cheung on Vimeo.

I liked the paper version of it better, but they liked this. All good.

Roadtrips with family is an excuse to camwhore with nature [Karangahake Gorge]

One camera - two photography enthusiasts.

Last minute decision to drive all the way to Karangahake Gorge during Easter Sunday was interesting since there was only 5hours left of daylight when we left. It was definitely one of those family trips where one person takes most of the photos and gets left behind during the entire walk

Credit to Papazhou for taking some of the photos and for not sharing the camera.

Growing in our backyards

The dream of owning the idealized quarter acre section is to some no longer the achievable dream, particularly as the city begins to compress and squeeze habitation vertically. Reclaiming land from the sea has seen shorelines loose its natural forms. Memories of cherished past-times are buried deep in the debris which now host industry and urban development. As part of my thesis this year, I'm exploring the backyards of the industrial zone that backs onto the water or in this case the Mangere Inlet. The once thriving "food bowl" is now stagnant and tarnished and waits to be awaken and renewed from its dormant state.

The journey starts at Onehunga Wharf and continues long the foreshore towards Otahuhu before the trail ends somewhere in the middle of an industrial zone (Southdown Generator).Thanks to Keiti for visiting the site with me on our LONG walk. What I saw did not shock me but rather I was in awe. A new form of industrial urbanism had emerged from the long untamed scrubland into the skyline, which leads to the question - is there room for the rest of us?

Art of Science

Heidi's created a four day old embryo model of a chicken. Apparently this is also what a fifty six day old human embryo would look like. [Insert Alien references here]

Words from the artist:
"Moulding coloured clay felt almost like playing with play dough in primary again, except now it's called science."

Wise words indeed.

Time to wake up!

Hey guys thing's have been awfully quiet around here, so hopefully here's a little something that will help get mon2su back on it's feet.

Enjoy.



Mon2Su - Wake Up from Andrew Cheung on Vimeo.

Resurrect.

Floating upon cyber space for a little while - whoa hang on a second, mon2su has been updated?
Not counting Andrew's post it's been 3 years, can you believe. Days of college, university and the bright-eyed dreams of whatever's beyond that.

...And now we are there.