Jang Hyuk Portrait Series | New Portrait Series After A Year of Art Block - Oh Hyun Jae From K-Drama Tell Me What You Saw

Here is my latest portrait drawing in months (or was it a year?). I had a serious art block for more than a year. I talked a bit about it in this past post.

But I have been doing a lot of self-care in the past year, and I figure it's time for me to return to my roots and do pencil portraits. I love making doodle and stencil art, but I am happiest when working with pencils. There is something special about working with a portrait, just staring at facial features and gently trying to capture their likeness on paper. Sometimes I fell in love with my subjects, and sometimes I felt great empathy for them. I remember weeping while sketching a portrait of a friend's dad, who had passed away. He painfully reminded me of my father, who passed away 22 years ago. Had my dad lived, he probably would look like that, wrinkly skin dotted with age spots and gentle, kind eyes with fading sight. But my dad didn't have the privilege to live until old age. He passed away when he was 60. He had been gone for 2 solid decades, but it still pains me to talk about him because I was close to him, and perhaps someday I will write a post about him or perhaps not. Sometimes deeply buried pain is better staying buried in private grief.

So yeah, I guess I will make it a priority to pick up my pencils and start drawing again. And maybe someday, when I am ready, I will begin to accept commission jobs again.

I am working on a new portrait drawing series called Jang Hyuk Portrait Series. I am not sure how many portraits will be included in this series, but I just wanted to go with the flow and see where this will lead me. It's purely for practice and to have fun while doing it.

If you are wondering who Jang Hyuk is, he is a South Korean actor well-known for his action-packed films and drama. I am a big fan, and his shows are the only ones I watch. K-shows can be highly addictive, and to avoid that, I limit myself to only watching movies/dramas from one actor I love the most. I quit watching western shows several years ago because I felt uncomfortable with some of the values presented in those shows. I have become a fan of K-shows since then. We have so many similarities in terms of our cultures and values, making K-shows more personally relatable to me.

Jang Hyuk Portrait Series will showcase portraits of selected characters he played in films, dramas, or variety shows. I am choosing his character Oh Hyun Jae, in the thriller Tell Me What You Saw, as the first portrait in this series.

❤️ Oh Hyun Jae From Tell Me What You Saw ❤️

Who is Oh Hyun Jae?

Oh Hyun-jae (Jang Hyuk) was a genius profiler who cracked many cold cases using his unsurpassed profiling skills. One day, his fiancée was killed in an explosion set by a serial killer and Hyun-jae lived in seclusion after that. Five years later, a new murder takes place using the same method as that serial killer. While investigating the case, team leader Hwang Ha-young (Jin Seo-yeon) meets a detective from the countryside, Cha Soo-young (Choi Soo-young), who has a photographic memory. She introduced Soo-young to Hyun-jae and they work together to go after the serial killer. ~ Wikipedia

I love thrillers or police investigation drama, especially anything involving serial killers. I was a big fan of CSI for many years and loved every episode.

In Tell Me What You Saw (TMWYS), Oh Hyun Jae is a reclusive and genius profiler who deeply grieves the loss of his fiance, Yi Soo, in a car crash. Oh Hyun Jae was badly injured while trying to save Yi Soo. From a brilliant detective, he becomes a shell of the man he used to be. Can he heal from the tragedy that haunts him?

Throughout the 16 episodes, we see how Oh Hyun Jae starts to come out of his shell and get involved in solving various murder cases with the help of a rookie detective, Cha Soo Young.

Jang Hyuk's performance of the grieving, haunted, and driven man was extraordinary. And so does the rest of the amazing cast. We are presented with plot twists, and each episode edges us closer to finding the actual culprit behind those murders. However, the drama is quite graphic, and some scenes are gruesome. If you are squeamish, you may need to close your eyes while watching those scenes.

I highly recommend this drama to all thriller fans out there. It is so well written, and the cast delivered more than I anticipated. I might watch it again, or maybe just the episodes or scenes I like the most.

❤️ The Portrait ❤️

The reference image for this portrait is taken from Jang Hyuk's official Instagram profile. His account is made private, and I am glad he approved my request to follow his account 😍

Image source: Jang Hyuk's Official Instagram

Materials I used:

160gsm acid-free drawing paper
Graphite pencils - HB to 9B
Black pens and markers
Silver colored pencil
Black colored pencil

And the progress photos. It took me about 12 hours to sketch it from start to finish.

And the final portrait...

And here is the official trailer of Tell Me What You Saw.

What do you think of this portrait? Have you watch this drama before or if you have not, will you watch it?

That's it for now. If you read this far, thank you. I appreciate it so much! Kindly give me a follow if you like my content. I mostly write about making art, life musing, and our mundane yet charming family life here in Klang Valley, Malaysia.

Note: All images used belong to me unless stated otherwise.