Dr. Sam Lam Art

Illustration by Dr Samuel Lam from his book “Complementary Fat Grafting”- Chapter 4

Fortunately, this book required far fewer drawings than my previous ones since it only covered one topic, and I could use the same illustrations with overlays to convey different teaching points.  I started out using only Adobe Illustrator but found that to convey facial volume effectively that Illustrator was simply not equipped to do that well.  Accordingly, I made some investigations and found a program, Corel Painter, paired with a Wacom tablet that allowed me to be entirely liberated as an artist.  Using the Wacom tablet, I could tilt and push the pen like a brush and create over 200 levels of pressure points and different degrees of drag as I moved my pen across the tablet.  I could even use oil (which I did for the face), acrylic (for the hair), and watercolor (for the lips), something that would have been impossible in real life.  Also, as anyone who works on oil can tell you, drying time is terribly long.  With digital oil, I could set the drying time to immediate or return the condition to semi-wet or wet, which is amazing.  I was also able to then blend the features of Corel Painter for softer, artistic renderings with the hard-edged communication advantages of Illustrator.  In short, it was a fun, creative exercise working with digital painting.

Illustration by Dr Samuel Lam from his book titled ”Complementary Fat Grafting”-Chapter 3

Like the illustration in Chapter 4, I performed this illustration using a combination of Corel Painter and Adobe Illustrator programs.  I think I spent countless hours tinkering with the beautiful qualities of Corel Painter doing this painting.   I particularly liked mixing oil pastels as I applied nose highlights onto the oil painted face.  It actually reminded me of my father’s wonderful artwork that he did with oil paints and with oil pastels.  He was truly a master artist (and physician).  He painted from newspapers clippings, from photographs, from imagination, and also from the Great Masters, all of which hang in my house as a tribute to his artistic legacy.  My book in which these illustrations were featured was dedicated in loving memory to my father, who compassionately shared his service both for those whom he cared for professionally and also in his wonderful expression as a fellow artist.

Illustration by Dr Sam Lam from his book “Cosmetic Surgery of the Asian Face” -Chapter 5

This illustration comes from my second published book, and I was able to refine my drawing skills that I learned from my first book.  I particularly like this drawing because it conveys multiple layers of depth despite the flatness of the technology.  Using strategically nuanced screens of which I could alter the transparency, I was able to create the illusion of three-dimensionality.  This was before I discovered the wonders of the Corel Painter program.  However, I believe that the intricate anatomic layers would still have been best communicated using simply the Illustrator program, which this drawing exclusively relied on.

Illustration by Dr Sam Lam found in his book “Comprehensive Facial Rejuvenation”- Chapter 7

It is funny that this illustration is so outdated from how I perform the featured procedure today.  Still I love the illustration and used it to convey how alternatively one can perform this procedure at a conference I directed just this month.  I guess I used the drawing because I liked the style of it more than the content.  This drawing comes from the first book I wrote that was published wow 7 years ago, which seems like a lifetime.  I really learned so very much from one chapter to the next while doing these illustrations.  In fact, I clearly recall doing one chapter, liking what I did, going on to create another set of drawings for the next chapter, then hating all my previous work forcing me to start from scratch on the previous chapter’s work.  This ferocious level of insanity continued until I finished the book’s illustrations, about 80 or so in total.  Chapter 7 indicates that this was one of my more mature efforts, as I learned to harness the power of the Illustrator program for optimal beauty and communication.

Illustration by Dr Sam Lam from Chapter 6 of his book “Comprehensive Facial Rejuvenation”

I remember that when I created this image I was completely entranced with how Illustrator could be used to create subtle, gradients to evoke a three-dimensional structure, which is so important when illustrating the nose.  As you can hear in my struggles with these drawings like any drawing, it is the artist’s effort to create a plausible three-dimensional world with a two-dimensional medium.  This task becomes more difficult when scientific communication takes precedence over painterly expression of beauty.

Illustration from Chapter 3 of Comprehensive Facial Rejuvenation by Dr Samuel Lam.

Like the drawing of the nose, I created a lot of sequential images for these illustrations that were critical for clear communication.  At the beginning of writing this book, I had no idea how to convey consistently clean images that would not reveal the sloppy nature of the artist’s hand laboring repeatedly to create the same image.  In the past, I used pen and ink to perform many of my drawings (which you can glimpse in my reception area if you peak through the glass where my books and journals are displayed).  However, it was not until I discovered that the program Illustrator could be a force that would liberate me as an artist to create not only my drawings but has become the principal method by which I create my logos and other graphic art work.  Being vector based, when I send these illustrations into the publisher, there is absolutely no loss in resolution.  That is also why I can create a sign for my building and have it blown up to have the size of the building’s facade and have no degradation in quality.