John Guy's Art Study Blog

Working with Dialogue, Music, and Sound

2012-01-08T22:13:00.000-08:00

Working with sound adds a whole other element to animation. Since the timing of animation can be controlled precisely within the fraction of a second it can be synced perfectly with both speech and music.
First, we covered lip sync. Lip sync can be done simply by breaking down dialogue into the individual sounds that occur during each frame. Then, the mouth shape is drawn to match the specific sounds. Mouths shapes are covered in too many books in too many different ways for me to go into detail here. It is slightly more complex in practice since multiple syllables can occur quickly in a single frame. The important thing in making a mouth look convincing is to open quickly on the vowels and close slower into consonants. Also, the longer a vowel is held, generally the more open the mouth. Here is an exercise just for lip sync.

Animating dialogue is not simply making the character appear to be talking but to make the character act. This is something a character animator works on an entire career. Here is my first taste of it. The first video is something I did on the side. The voice is my friend Jarryd Meyer prank calling a blood bank. This was practice for our dialogue assignment.

The assignment was to record one six second line of dialogue, then animate a character delivering the line. The character must be shown in a wide shot (full body) and use his whole body to act. I decided to go for some serious over acting. The line is delivered by Nathan (sorry, don't know his last name) who is a very talented voice actor. This was definitely the hardest assignment of the first semester.

Animation can be set to music as well as sound effects. A beat can be placed at a regular number of frames (for example an accent every 12 frames), then music can be written to match or music with the same beat can be used. Sound effects can be broken down frame by frame and noted on an exposure sheet. Of coarse, syncing to music can be much more complex. Mark Mayerson and Amir Avni both wrote excellent posts on the subject. This is one of my favorite aspects of animation. Below is one of my favorite examples of music and animation synced.

Vezi mai multe peTeava.ro

Our final assignment for the semester was to animate a character moving around to music. The actual syncing with the music was not part of the grade. It was more about showing all the principles we had covered during the semester. Since the character had to jump around, I did not try to sync it to the music at all. The jumps take too long to hit every beat. The assignments were linked up to form a class anajam. At the beginning of each assignment we were to morph the previous character into our character.. This was to be synced with a sound effect we recorded.
The first video is my assignment. The next is that of the whole class.

Walks and Runs

2012-01-03T22:51:00.000-08:00

After an overview of The Principles of Animation, The next things we learned are walks and runs. Animating walks and runs is simple to understand but infinitely complex in its variation. Everybody has a distinct way of walking. The way a character walks says a lot about a character and his/her mood. For example a confident character will walk differently than a wimpy character. That same confident character will walk differently when he's sad. As you can see, there are as many way to do a walk as there are characters and emotions.
The nuts and bolts basics of how to make a two-legged character walk is fairly simple. However he/she walks, he/she will go through some variation of four key drawings. The first is the stride or contact, where the forward foot first contacts the ground, but before the weight has been shifted to it. The second is the down or squash. Here, the character has shifted his/her weight to the forward foot. Usually, you would squash the character's leg down to take the weight. In real life, this squash is very slight, usually imperceptible; however, in cartoon animation this squash gives the walk and up and down action which is much more lively and appealing. The next key is the crossover or passing position. Here, the rear leg has left the ground and is coming in front of the front leg. Without this frame, the leg seems to pop from one side of the body to the other. The last key is the step or up position. Here, what was the rear leg has now passed the front leg and is outstretched, ready to make contact. After the step, the other leg contacts and the cycle begins again. With these four key, infinite variations are possible.
Walks can be animated from one part of the screen to another, or they can be done in a cycle. In a cycle, the foot on the ground, that would be stationary in real life, must move at an equal rate throughout the cycle, as if it were on a treadmill. Also, the first frame of the cycle should follow the last frame. With a cycle a background could be panned behind it, and it would look like one continuous walk. The first walk exercise we were given was a cycle of a character with extremely loose joints. I took this to an extreme.

Walks can also be done in perspective. The keys are the same. The only difference is the added complexity of perspective drawing. Start with a perspective grid on the ground plane. The length of a grid square is the length of the character's stride. First, using the grid, draw in the stride positions. Then it is simply a matter of animating through the four keys between each stride. The next exercise was to animate the same character from the cycle in a perspective walk.

After walking we covered runs and turning. A run is basically the same as a walk except its faster and at one point both feet are off the ground. With a run there are also four keys. The first is the launch, were one leg is pushing off the ground, launching the body. The next is the mid-air key, where both legs are of the ground. Then the landing, where one leg, usually the one that did not launch, first makes contact with the ground. Finally, in the squash position, the landing leg squashes to take the weight, while the other leg passes in front. The squashed leg will be the one that launches in the next key. In a simple 90 degree turn, after the squash, instead of passing the front leg, that leg turns. Then the step is pretty much the same except now at a 90 degree angle, same with the contact. Here is a quick exercise I did to practice turning.

For the major assignment on walks, we had to animate the pink panther walking in a way that expressed emotion. First he had to walk across the screen, then turn an walk away from the camera in perspective. After four strides he had to stop, turn 270 degrees, then run off the screen. We were to follow the formula on all the walks, runs, and turns, except for the 270 turn we could be creative with. The emotion I chose for him was upbeat. I had him walking with a double bounce, where he goes down a second time during an extended crossover. For the 270 turn, I had him pirouette. To do this I studied youtube videos on how to pirouette.

Since the assignment I have continued to practice walks weekly. There is so much of character animation in this motion. I created another blog for my class to practice walks. Check them out a The Weekly Walk.

Principles of Animation

2011-11-06T22:29:00.000-08:00

The next subject covered in animation class, after basic timing, is the principles of animation. First laid out by the pioneers at Disney, these principles are necessary to make animation look convincing. They apply to any medium of character animation, whether hand-drawn on paper, 3d, or a whiteboard and camcorder.

Stretch and Squash - Making the character compress and expand with the forces involved in the movement. This could be literally stretching and squashing a rubbery cartoon character. However, stretch and squash can be achieved without changing the characters shape by movement through the joints.

Anticipation - A minor, often opposite, movement that precedes an action. Anticipation allows the character to generate the necessary force to carry it through the action. It also prepares the audience for the action. The classic example of anticipation is crouching down before jumping. Without the crouch the character would seem to be being lifted off the ground instead of jumping under its own power.

Secondary Action - Parts of the character that attach to the moving body follow. Hair and clothing do not move on their own unless the character moves or they are acted upon by some other force. They follow the moving character instead of moving at the same time.

Overlapping Action - Related objects start and end their movements at different times. If every part of the character moves at the same time and same pace it looks unnatural. For example, when flicking one's wrist, the arm and hand move in opposite directions, the hand starts later and moves faster.

Follow-through - Things don't just come to a dead stop suddenly. The motion will continue as it decelerates. For example a batter doesn't stop swinging after he makes contact with the ball (or not) but continues through the swing,

Slow-in, Slow-out - Objects must accelerate before reaching full speed and must decelerate before stopping. Objects generally move fastest in the middle of an action and slower at the beginning and end.

Arcs and Trajectories - Objects in motion follow a path and do not suddenly change direction without a cause. Arcs and curves are beautiful to look at and see in motion.

Drag - Objects tend to remain where they are until moved by an a force.

Pacing - Characters do different actions at different speeds instead of every action taking the same amount of time. Varying the pacing prevents the motion from being monotonous.

Exaggeration - Animated characters can do much more than real life characters. Total realism is boring in animation. It is the responsibility of the animator to take things further.

Appeal - Character and motion should both be aesthetically pleasing. This is the hardest principle to define.

I have read these principles many times before. However, you don't really know the principles until you use them. As you can see, there is a lot of overlap in the principles. That is because all of these principles should be applied simultaneously in all character animation.
To help clarify these principles we were given four short exercises to apply the principles.

The first exercise is for the principle of drag. Here a spaceship is dragging a ribbon behind it.

The second exercise is secondary action. Here nun-chucks swing from a pendulum. The nun-chucks follow the primary action of the pendulum. I realize it is unrealistic for the nun-chucks to go higher on the second swing than on the first, but this is just an exercise and I wanted to try both a smaller movement and a larger one.

The Third exercise is for overlapping action. As the train hits the wall, when the front of the train is being pushed off the tracks the rear cars are still moving forward.

The forth exercise is for follow-through and secondary action. Here a ball is wearing a skirt. As it bounces it pulls the skirt with it. When the ball changes direction, the skirt continues its path until the ball pulls it the other direction. This was my favorite exercise.

Now these principles are applied to a character. This is exciting, after using the flour sac, to move onto a character with arms and legs. It is the next logical step since the character is basically a flour sac with arms and legs. The character looks very similar to Stitch from the Disney feature Lilo and Stitch, but he isn't; so don't sue me. Here, he jumps a couple times then falls on his face. The principle should all be in this animation and every animation I do for the rest of my career. A few example: Before he jumps, he crouches down, applying the principle of anticipation. When jumping, he follows an arc and moves slowest at the top of the arc. Here we see an arc, slow-in, slow-out and pacing. When he lands on the first jump, his force causes him to use his hand to catch himself, demonstrating follow-through. When he falls on his face, his hips land before his head and arms; then his hips bounce off the ground before the head. This demonstrates overlapping action.

This was practice for the principles assignment. Again, the character is Stitch-like. He starts on his back. He stands up; then an object hits him on the top of the head, knocking him out. He falls to the ground, unconscious, and bounces upon impact. The above-mentioned principles should all be applied in the assignment. How he stands up was left up to us to figure out. Since we know the principles we should be able to figure it out. I am very happy with the way this turned out.

It is great to be working with characters already. With these principles, I should be able to make any character move believably. I feel like I am just starting to understand the principles. It will probably take me years to truly master them. My long term goal is to understand them so well I apply them automatically, without thinking about them so I can focus on acting.

Animation School - The Beginning

2011-10-10T20:33:00.000-07:00

So far, this blog has been mainly concerned with self taught art study. Now that I am in school, I still believe all the same principles this blog was about before still apply. The only difference now is instead of self-directed study, I will be posting about my study under the direction of the staff at Capilano University. Whether teaching myself or being taught by someone else, I still need to develop skill through acquiring knowledge and putting it to practice until I have mastered it. My years of self-teaching have given me insight into why my professor give the assignments that they do. The teaching philosophy at Capilano is also based on giving knowledge and assigning practice to develop skill. It has allowed my to learn a great deal in only about a month.

In this post I will cover my progress in developing the skills of animation. I have spent a lot of time animating and receiving critique on my work. I will skip the first exercise, which was just to get used to the procedure and using the equipment. The first real exercise was the bouncing ball. This is a classic animation exercise designed to teach the basics of timing and a little stretch and squash. I had done this exercise many times before coming to school. In fact, I did this the first time when I was only fifteen. It is not a hard exercise but it does serve an important function. To make a ball bounce look realistic, the ball must follow an arc, ascending and descending on a symmetrical parabola. The drawings must be spaced closer together at the top of the arc and further apart on the way up and down to give it the appearance of accelerating and decelerating. The ball should also squash when it hits the ground and stretch when it moves fast. This is an exaggeration of what happens in real life to give the animation more life. I do not have a video of the bouncing ball I animated.

The next animation exercise was slightly more complicated. This time, the bouncing ball has a single leg. It jumps and lands instead of just bounces. On the first jump, the ball had to perform a movement of anticipation. This is where the subject makes a smaller move to prepare for a larger move. In this exercise the ball squats down before jumping up. This is necessary to make the action look realistic and also lets the audience know the action is coming. Since the ball lands and jumps, it must show the point when the foot first contacts, followed by the ball crouching to accept the force of the landing. Then, it must show the last point of contact as it leaves for its next jump. These three key drawings are necessary for the action to read.
I feel my jumping ball moves somewhat stiffly. It could use less drawings on the assent to make the action seem faster.

The next exercise, again slightly more complicated than the last, is a jumping flour sac. This "character" is a little more complex than the ball with a single leg. It is basically two balls enclosed in a bag. The flour sac was originated at the Walt Disney studio to train young animators. In addition to jumping, the exercise was also to have it rotate. He must ascend and descend, stretch and squash, and anticipate just like in the previous exercises; But now it is with a more complicated character and must rotate in addition. This exercise was also an introduction to using key frames. Instead of animating the drawings in order, one at a time, (this is called animating straight ahead) the most important drawings are done first. These are the drawings that define the motion, called key frames or keys. Next, timing charts are drawn on the keys to indicate how many drawing will be between the keys and how they are to be spaced. Then the less important drawings are added. I am much happier with the results of this exercise.

The last assignment I will post, is our first major assignment of the semester. The previous exercises were leading up to this. In this assignment the flour sac must perform two jumps before jumping onto a platform on a spring. The platform swings back and forth, swing the poor flour sac with it. This tests our understanding of the previous principles and adds another, overlapping action. This is where different parts of an object start and stop at different times and move at different rates. In this example, the bottom of the flour sac is pulled by its connection to the moving platform. The top of the flour sac trails behind it. When the platform changes direction, the momentum of the top part continues to push it forward as the bottom part changes direction, until it pulls the top to the other direction. This is also called drag. I am pretty happy with this assignment, however I feel the first jump moves too slowly.

I have been learning much faster and much better than I had been when teaching myself. I think this is because I know exactly what knowledge I need to learn and what I need to practice to develop the skill. Getting feedback from the professor is invaluable to I know exactly what I am doing right and should repeat, and what I am doing wrong and should avoid. Also, it is very helpful to see the work of my fellow students, seeing what they do right and learning from their mistakes as well as my own. My fellow students are a talented bunch. Seeing their work pushes me to do better. In learning to animate, as in learning to draw, learning to see things critically is important. In this case it is important to be able to look at your animation, see what is not working, and be able to understand WHY it is not working; then it can be corrected and improved. I have learned so much in the first month and this is only the beginning. I am excited to learn more and continue to improve my skills.

Digital Painting

2011-08-30T17:17:00.000-07:00

It has been a while since I have posted, because I have bee moving. I am now living in Vancouver. School starts in a couple weeks. In the meantime I have been doing a lot of digital painting. I'm not new to digital painting, but this time I approached it like a beginner over again, and learned a lot.

The fresh start began at CTRL + Paint, a great tutorial website. Even though I have experience digital painting I learned a little from the digital painting 101 section. Next, I did the Basic Photoshop Rendering Tutorial. This is the best basic photoshop tutorial I have ever came across. It covers everything you need to get started in depth. I learned photoshop painting basically by trial and error. Learning a few simple applications of the software really changed the way I work in it. I wish I had found this years ago. After completing this tutorial I applied what I learned to my own still life.

Next, I continued re-learning the basics, this time with better control of the medium. I believe the most fundamental skill to know in painting, digital or otherwise, is rendering forms in light in three dimensions. I found these basic oil painting exercises applied to digital painting. The first covers rendering basic geometric forms. The second cover painting with value. I did not continue with the later exercises as they were less applicable to digital painting. I practiced rendering basic forms from my imagination as well.

Then I began focusing more on color. I found a wealth of information on color on this amazing free resource, Dimensions of Color. Color theory is much more complicated then I realized. I feel like this knowledge has helped my use of color. As I continue to practice and apply it, more of the color theory will become clear. I made an exercise out of the first section about light and shade. I made a study of the photograph, placing each area of light mentioned on its own layer, ei: one layer for form shadow, one layer for reflected light. Then, I painted a similar sphere from imagination.

After becoming more comfortable with the basics, I did some photo studies to have fun with the medium.

I also spent some time learning to paint realistic surfaces from CTRL+Paint. Again I made my own still life to try out the techniques I learned.

Now I am trying to digitally paint figures from imagination. I am much better at it than before I did all the above studies but I still have a lot of work to do.

For comparisons sake here is my best attempt at painting a figure from imagination about a year ago.

Cartoon character walk

2011-07-10T21:24:00.000-07:00

I have copied several of the walks from Richard Williams' Animator's Survival Kit. So, I wanted to try my hand at creating my own walk with one of my own characters. You may recognize the cat from my portfolio for Capilano's Commercial Animation program. I draw him quite frequently. I wanted to give him a relaxed, confident stride. This is by far the most complex animation I have ever attempted. I am very happy with the results. The motion of the arms is more stiff than I would like. Also, some of the frames by themselves are actually kind of ugly. I think it would read better and boil less with thinner lines on the final colored version.

Chapter 5 - Ellipses and Cylinders

2011-06-28T21:58:00.000-07:00

Chapter 5 expands on Chapter 4 by adding Cylinders to represent the limbs. This is a useful way to render the limbs as simple shapes, and keep the three-dimensional in perspective. I have used cylinders to represent limbs before. I was tempted to breeze over this chapter. However, throughout the book, Vilppu warns about the student thinking he has advanced beyond the material and skipping ahead. I put the time into this chapter and it was well worth it. As I progress in these studies I feel more and more confident in drawing the figure from memory and imagination. These were drawn in ball point pen at Rittenhouse park.

Rough Animation

2011-06-14T21:29:00.000-07:00

I did these short very rough animations for fun. I didn't plan out the action ahead of time. I just animated them straight through, tweaking as I went. My goal was just to play around with the medium.

Climbing over a wall

Jumping Rope - This one is my favorite

Doing Flips - This one was slightly more planned out. Next time I do something more complicated like this one, I will plan it out more. I ended up redoing almost the entire thing after my original idea didn't look right. It still doesn't look quite right, but I am new at this.

Box and Sphere - Vilppu drawing manual chapter 4

2011-06-07T21:30:00.001-07:00

In this last chapter I drew figures out of boxes. In the chapter before that, I drew figures out of rounded shapes. In this chapter I combine the box and the sphere. The box representing the pelvis and the sphere representing the rib cage. I did this with drawings of people in the park. Unfortunately the studio where I do longer studies has been closed. So, I was not able to do any longer studies. To bring home the concept I decided to do a very short animation. In order to make the animation work, I really needed to understand the concept in three dimensions. All studies done on sketch paper with ball point pen. Animation done in Toon Boom Studio.

Boxes - Vilppu drawing manual chapter 3

2011-05-30T11:16:00.000-07:00

Chapter 3 of Vilppu's drawing manual teaches drawing the human figure as a group of boxes. I did this both slowly, and in detail during figure drawing sessions, and quickly drawing in parks and coffee shops. I found this exercise very useful because it forced me to conceptualize the subject in three dimensions in perspective. Of course, humans are not square. In order to render the figure, I had to use shapes beside boxes. However I still kept these shapes geometrical, with clearly defined edges. This really helped my understanding of using planes to describe form. I feel my drawings are more structurally sound, and better conceptualized in three dimensions as a result of the time I spent on these exercises even when I am not drawing boxes.

Anatomy Studies - Torso and Posemaniacs

2011-05-27T09:51:00.000-07:00

I applied a similar method to the study of the torso as applied to the arms and legs. Since the ribcage is so complex, I did separate studies for the bones and the muscles. However, using myself as a model is not practical for anatomy studies outside of simple poses. For variety to these studies, I have supplemented posemaniacs. It is not as good as using myself as a model but I have found it very helpful. My approach to using posemanics has been to use it as a base to construct the pose in my study. I use photoshop so I can separate each step of the drawing to its own layer. I start with gesture and structure. Next I fill in the anatomy. The last layer is a contour drawing of the figure. The contour drawings tend to be a little flat. I think it is because the line work is flat. I add the line work more to check for mistakes that I would otherwise miss than as a finished drawing in itself. I have done quite a few of these studies and others with the same approach without a reference. I have found this method useful in learning to construct the figure as well as drill in my study of anatomy from many angles.

Anatomy Studies - Arms and Legs

2011-05-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

For these studies, I used my own arms and legs as my subject and Jeno Bracsay's Anatomy for the Artists for reference. The first studies were from the same angles as in the book to make it easier to identify the muscles on my own body. First, I do a very quick line drawing of my arm or leg. Next, I draw in the bones, starting with the landmarks then filling in the rest from the book. Then, I draw in and label the muscles. I like this method because identifying the muscles on my own body makes the knowledge very tangible. I can look at the muscles in three dimensions right in front of me where ever I am. After identifying the muscles from straight on, I repeated the process from various angles and poses. This is not my first time studying anatomy, but so far, it is the method that has worked best for me. I feel like I really have this knowledge down. Since doing these studies I have had a much easier time identifying muscles when drawing from a live model.

Next I drew more arm and leg anatomy from imagination. here are a few.

Form Study

2011-05-08T21:32:00.000-07:00

Today, I tried something new in my study that was very successful. I have been reading Vilppu's Drawing Manual. One of the main points of the Manual is to "invent" the figure out of simple forms. I applied that technique to this figure drawing. I went one step further and drew the shapes in isolation off to the side as I was drawing the figure. This step really brought the lesson home for me. I made a logical connection in my mind. If I can draw a form so it looks three dimensional and I can build a figure out of simple forms, then I can draw a figure so it looks three dimensional. This is my first time taking this specific approach to figure drawing and I am very happy with the results.

Capilano Commercial Animation Portfolio

2011-04-28T12:42:00.000-07:00

For anyone interested in applying to Capilano's Commercial Animation Program, This is my portfolio that got me admitted into the program.

Figure Drawing - 3 to 5 minute drawings. These were done with a china marker on newsprint. I was focusing on expressive use of line.

Figure Drawing - 3 hour studies - The first two were done in colored pencil on sketch paper. The Other two were done in black and white conte crayon on craft paper. I was focusing on as realistic a representation I could.

Hand Drawings - 20 minutes - These were done in colored pencil on sketch paper, again focusing on as realistic a representation as I could.

Gesture of the Moving Model - These were done either in china marker on newsprint or ball point pen on sketch paper. I wasn't focused on anything except capturing as much as I could as fast as I could since the model was in constant motion.

Sketchbook Drawings - These were either done in ball point pen or ebony graphite pencil on sketch paper. I found various public venues where I could sit and draw people going about their lives. Sometimes they would hold still for long enough, but more often I would draw what I could and then finish the rest from imagination after they moved on. The last drawing is an entire scene I drew in pencil and finished the line work in marker. Throughout the process of preparing my portfolio, this is the exercise I feel did the most for my artistic growth. I highly recommend all artists devote some time to this type of study.

Perspective Drawings - These were drawn on location with mechanical pencil using point to point technique. Then, I went home and traced a new drawing over the original sketches using a ruler to place a horizon line and vanishing points to make the perspective theoretically correct. Finally the line work was finished with marker.

Arm Anatomy - These were drawn in colored pencil on sketch paper. For this study I drew my own arm in the mirror then used Jeno Barcsay's Anatomy for the Artist as a reference to identify the bones and muscles. Using my own arm as a reference allowed me to show my knowledge of anatomy without copying directly from a textbook. It was a humbling exercise because I discovered I did not know the anatomy of the arm as well as I had thought. I have since developed this method of study further and will write about it soon.

Dog Drawings - As with the sketchbook drawings, I worked in ball point pen and ebony graphite pencil on sketch paper. I spend hours drawing in the dog park. Since dogs will not pose for you, I had to learn to capture the basic action of the dog's pose then fill in the rest from imagination. To do this I needed to really know what dogs look like down to the structure and anatomy. Joe Weatherly's The Weatherly Guide to Drawing Animals was a great help in this. Still, it took me weeks before I could get anything that looked decent.

Dog and Horse Anatomy - These were done in pencil on sketch paper. I studied the Anatomy of the animals in Joe Weatherly's Weatherly Guide to Drawing Animals then applied what I know while observing the animals themselves.

Cartoon Characters - If you look in the blog archive you will see I have been drawing in this style for years. The color drawings were cleaned up using Illustrator and Photoshop. The eight drawing turnaround were done to show that I understand the characters in three dimensions.

Knowledge and Practice: Purpose of this blog

2011-04-28T11:11:00.000-07:00

This blog is dedicated to art studies. The purpose is to determine what studies lead to improvement of one's artistic ability. I will be the test subject to determine, as empirically as possible what studies work and what do not. I am not an authority on art instruction, nor have I ever been a teacher or tutor. I am just a man who has dedicated years to the improvement of my artistic ability. As a self-taught artist, I have learned first hand what studies have worked for me and what has been less effective. It is my hope that by keeping detailed records of my studies I will provide a valuable resource for artists and instructors. I also hope others will contribute with critiques and studies of their own. Ideally this will be a place we can all help each other grow artistically.

I will report on my studies in as much detail as possible. I will report the medium I used, the model or subject, the process, and the amount of time it took. Most importantly, I will discuss the purpose of the study. Purpose is what separates a study from any other work of art. I will include the knowledge I am applying to the study, and what I how I hope to improve as a result. My goal is that an artist on the other side of the world would be able to recreate the study provided they had access to similar materials and subjects. This way one can critique not only the final piece but the process that went into producing it.

I believe improvement in artistic ability requires two elements: knowledge and practice. Knowledge meaning an artistic concept such as: anatomy, perspective, or construction. Practice is the experience of using the concept until it becomes integrated into ones ability. Real improvement cannot happen with the absence of either element. One can practice many hours and see improvement. However, without integrating new knowledge into ones practice improvement will stagnate. Repeating the same practice indefinitely will lead to the same results. Conversely, knowledge does not lead to improvement without putting it into practice. One can memorize the names and placement of all the muscles and bones in the human body, but without practice drawing them, this knowledge will be of little use. In my studies I am to focus on the meeting of these two elements where knowledge is put into practice and becomes ability.

Digital Painting

2010-08-07T21:29:00.000-07:00

I took a month or so break from working on my cartoon project to study digital painting. When working on my cartoon project I had become overly focused on line art at the expense of rendering form with color and value. I did tutorials from the book Digital Character Painting Using Photoshop CS3 by Don Seegmiller. I enjoyed this book because it focused more on artistic fundamentals in character desgin rather than digital tricks yet still included some tricks I've been able to apply effectively in my own work. I also did Xia Taptara's Female Fusion Figure I tutorial. This was good because you can watch his drawing develop in real time, however his explanations of what he was doing and why are rambling and often lacked clarity. Overall I am very glad I took spent time working on this. I feel like I improved a lot not only in my skill with photoshop but in my over all artistic ability. Ultimately digital painting is just another medium and the better an all-around artist I am the better my digital painting will be.

My results from Digital Character painting tutorials

Female Fusion Figure Tutorial embarrassingly badOther digital painting work
This one is another rendering of the human figure from imagination like the ones I had been doing before. However, with this one I did not map out every muscle in detail before adding the value and color as I had been doing before. Drawing out the anatomy in detail from imagination is a great way to really learn anatomy, however I feel like once you get it, you no longer have to draw out every muscle. Infact, it looks more natural if you don't in most cases as long as you understand that the muscle is there. I've also stopped drawing out every muscle in figure drawing from life too because most people don't have highly defined muscles.
I did this lizard warrior type creature before doing any tutorials to establish my digital painting skill going into it. I hope you can see improvement.

Studies and Noah Hulihan

2010-08-03T22:25:00.000-07:00

I've been falling behind on posting my studies. These are mostly about a month old. It takes time to go through my work, select the best, and scan and post them. I would rather spend this time doing more studies.

Another Comedian Approached me to caricature him. This is the very funny Noah Hulihan. I am happy with the caricature but a little disappointing with the way the hair turned out.
Figure Drawing

Gesture

Figure from imagination I did these figures from imagination with a mechanical pencil using a very similar method to the way I was doing figures from life. I found it helped a lot.
Minute Cartoons

Studies

2010-07-09T09:07:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a lot of studies recently. Here are some of them. I started using a mechanical pencil for figure drawing. I like the precision, I am able to capture lots of detail. I've also been doing more with color in photoshop. My first attempt at a figure from imagination in color came out better than I was expecting. I still have a lot to learn about making a figure from imagination look natural
Figure Drawing

Gesture

Figure from imagination

Minute Cartoons

More Studies

2010-06-20T20:18:00.001-07:00

I've been getting behind on my posting. Here are some more recent studies. I feel better about my recent figure drawings because I have been spending more time on each drawing giving them a more finished look.
Figure DrawingGesture Rendering the Human form from imagination
Minute Cartoons

Danny Ozark and Recent Studies

2010-05-30T20:45:00.000-07:00

Comedian Danny Ozark asked me to do a caricature of him. It had been months since I had done any artwork that wasn't either for a larger project or a study. I had a lot of fun making this and it was good practice. Onto the studies.
Life DrawingGesture

Rendering the Human Form

I feel like the rendering looks a lot better than the last one. However the line version looks worse. It could be the way I did the line or the underlying stucture itself. Hard to tell. Anyway the next one will be better
Minute Drawings

Recent Studies

2010-05-18T18:32:00.000-07:00

Because what would an art study blog be without some studies?
Anyway, I feel like these drawings are better than the previous post, especially the figure from imagination. Proportions are a little off, it looks stiff, and the light source is still a little unclear. Does anybody know how to place imaginary light sources in three dimensions as it relates to the figure.
Life Drawing
Of course, in real life she has skin. This is an anatomy study from a live model.
Gesture

Rendering Minute Cartoons

I'm Back!

2010-05-02T19:43:00.000-07:00

After months I am starting my art study blog back up. I stopped in posting in July because I began work on a personal cartoon project that will not be featured on this blog anytime soon. Since the blog was a study blog and I was not doing studies there was nothing to post. I figured I would get better through working on my project. While I was improving, it was much slower than when I was focused on studying. I decided I would continue studying on the side while I produce my cartoons. First, I studied from the book Figure Drawing: Design and Invention by Michael Hampton. I read the book and then went back through and copied every drawing in the book. It is a great book, and I learned a lot. I had studied anatomy quite a bit before, but this book simplifies it and gives you a method that works for both observational drawing and drawing from imagination. My drawing has improved a lot from these studies and it is giving me a base for further studies.

I've also made it a point to go to an sketch club once a week for a few hours of figure drawing

I have been doing a hour and a half of daily drawing exercises. It used to be half and hour of gesture followed by an hour of one minute cartoons. I changed this to half an hour of gesture, then half an hour of trying to realistically render the human figure from imagination, right now in greyscale, then half an hour of minute cartoons
Gesture

Rendering (in steps)
Step 1 Gesture and base structure
Step 2 StructureStep 3 Greyscale renderStep 4 Line DrawingI am a little embarissed to post this one because it is so bad. The proportions are all out of whack and there is no clear light source. However, this is a first attempt, and I realized these problems but never went back to fix them. Instead I pushed through. I will do better on my next attempt
Minute Cartoons

Weeks 29 and 30 - Hunt Emerson

2009-07-01T21:31:00.000-07:00

I've been lazy about posting but I am still doing artwork and studies. For weeks 29 and 30 I studied Hunt Emerson. I studied from his book Casanova's Last Stand. I chose his work because of his great cartoony style. After the past month being realistic and serious I wanted to go back to my cartoony roots. I can tell we both draw influence from classic cartoon animation. These were very enjoyable studies.
Gesture -Hunt Emerson copies -Originals -I am no longer following a schedual. I've been doing finished digital character illustration and working on a personal project of mine. These lessons of copying a classic cartoonist/illustrator then doing originals with his style in mind has helped me improve alot. As much as I would like to continue studies like this, It is time to focus on creating original work. I am trying to improve in taking drawings from start to finish. Also, I am very excited to do my personal project and it can't wait for my skills to improve anymore. Time to get to work.

Weeks 27 and 28 - Jack Kirby

2009-06-03T21:37:00.000-07:00

These past two weeks I decided to study Jack Kirby. His style is so dynamic. Every pose is filled with action. He uses anatomy very well. You can see the tension in the muscles of his characters.
Gesture -Jack Kirby Copies -Originals - Next two weeks Hunt Emerson

Weeks 25 and 26 - Milton Caniff

2009-05-16T23:07:00.000-07:00

For these weeks schedules I studied the work of Milton Caniff. I chose Milton Caniff for his realistic style, heavy brushwork, use of lighting his subjects, and realistic clothing. I studied from his book Enter the Dragon Lady from the Philadelphia Free Library.
Gesture Milton Caniff Originals Next two weeks - Jack Kirby

Week 24 - Focus on Originals

2009-04-29T22:20:00.000-07:00

The previous weeks studies I spent much more time copying than doing originals. As a result of always trying to apply new techniques and styles to my originals I feel like they become stiff. In an effort to correct this, this week I devoted to originals. Besides a half hour of gesture to warm up, this weeks exercises were all originals. This was a good measuring stick for my progress. I am surprised to say, I have improved more than I realized before doing this weeks exercises.
Gesture -Originals -

Week 23 - Pretty Girls

2009-04-21T21:45:00.000-07:00

This week I studied the idealized female figure in chapter 7 of the Famous Artists Cartoon Course.
Gesture -Famous Artists Cartoon Course -
Originals -

Weeks 20, 21, 22 - Clothes and Fold

2009-04-15T22:35:00.000-07:00

Weeks 20, 21, and 21 are from the chapter 9 of the Famous Artist Cartoon Course. When I started, I didn't know it would take 3 weeks. It is a very in depth chapter. It is an excellent lesson, in the way it shows how folds work, then shows where they usually appear on clothing. After the first week of studies, I began to notice the rules on every bodies shirts, pants and jackets in day to day life. Week 20 was how folds fall in general, week 21 was how folds fall on the male figure, week 22 was how folds fall on the female figure.
Gesture -Chapter 9 studies-Originals -

Sketch dump

2009-04-01T22:56:00.000-07:00

ahhhhh... I had been holding that one in for a while

Week 19 - Studies of Al Capp

2009-03-19T20:02:00.000-07:00

This week I used the same schedule as the past two weeks, expect I replaced all studies of photos, with studies of the work of cartoonist Al Capp. I studied from The Short Life and Happy Times of the Shmoo a book of Lil' Abner dailies from Life magazine 1948 to 1959. I love Al Capp's line style. He has great economy of line. He suggests form very well without shading or hatching. He is great at capturing expression and emotion in the faces and hands. I definitely learned alot from studies the way we rendered faces.
Cartoon Gesture - Al Capp Studies -Originals -

Week 18 - General figure study from photograph

2009-03-15T21:50:00.000-07:00

This week is the same as last week.
Cartoon Gesture -Studies from photo -Studies from Imagination -

Week 17 - General figure study from photographs

2009-03-08T21:05:00.000-07:00

The schedule this week is a combination of the exercises from the previous weeks. I have felt an immediate improvement in my skills, from these past studies. In this, schedule I applied the structure breakdown technique to creating figures from imagination. The purpose of the structure studies from the beginning was to be able to constantly draw realistic figures from imagination. I think its working. Also, from this weeks cartoon gesture, I studied the work of cartoonists such as Al Capp, and Robert Crumb.Cartoon Gesture

Studies from Photo Studies from Imagination.

Week 16 - Clothed Figure from Structure Study

2009-02-26T21:50:00.001-08:00

This week is like the previous structure study schedules, except now with clothes.
Cartoon Gesture - 30 min
Clothed Figure from Structure Study - approx 2 1/2 hours

week 15 - Head Study

2009-02-24T19:22:00.000-08:00

This week I focused on drawing heads and faces. During the last two weeks I have struggled with placing the head and face correctly in context of the drawing, So i focused on it this week.

Gesture of Face - 30 min

Large Faces - 1 hr
Structure Study - 15 min
Heads - 1 hr

week 14 - Female figure from structure study

2009-02-18T21:14:00.000-08:00

This week is the same as last week except this time with female nudes. The process goes like this: First, in photoshop, on a separate layer, draw the structure of the model Next, draw the structureThen, scan the drawing of the structure. Place the drawing over the original and fix any errors.Remove the layers from the model, then draw contours of the model over the structure in a different color. Finally ink the drawing. Cartoon Gesture - 30 min
Female figure from structure study - approx 2 1/2 hours

week 13 - Male figure from structure study

2009-02-05T22:57:00.000-08:00

This week I did structure studies, as in previous weeks. However this week I expanded them into inked figures. I will go into more details of the process next week. These are nudes, some of them have been "tastefully Censored", so stop staring at my hog.
Cartoon Gesture - 30 min Male figure from structure study - Approx 2 1/2 hour

Painting for Ryan

2009-02-01T09:37:00.000-08:00

I was talking to my friend Ryan the other night, and he was saying he likes this painting. I did this in 2006, it is acrylic on canvas. It is constructed mathematically by using the Fibonacci sequence, and the shapes and spirals that can be created with it. The center of the sunflower is 34 spirals. I took a picture of just the spirals before finishing the painting.

Weeks 11 and 12 - Hands

2009-01-29T22:37:00.000-08:00

I spent two weeks on hands because, besides the face, they are the most expressive part of the body. The first week was a more realistic five fingered hand (the thumb is a finger!) the second week the more cartoony four fingered hand.

Cartoon Gesture - 30 min Copying - 1 hour Structure Study - 15 minOriginals - 1 hour

Week 10 - The Human Head

2009-01-21T22:39:00.000-08:00

This week is also based on the Famous Artists Cartoonist Course. I used the same schedule as last week.
Cartoon Gesture - 30 min
Copying and Inking - 1 hour
Structure Study - 15 minOriginals - 1 hour

Weeks 8 and 9 - The Famous Astist Cartoon Course

2009-01-15T19:59:00.000-08:00

I have been working toward developing the skills to produce finished quality illustration. I am currently focusing on linework. Specifically, inking cartoons with a 0 brush and an inkwell. I've tried different pens, fiber tip markers and brush markers, but I've found the brush to be my favorite tool for inking. It produces the most fluid line and gives smooth control over line thickness and weight.
I've been doing exercises based on The Famous Artists Cartoon Course. I'm taking it back to basics with my subjects for inking practice. Week 1 was the basic cartoon head. week 2 was the basic cartoon body. The schedule for these exercises was the same for both weeks. The schedule is for 15 hours a week divided into 5, 3 hour sessions.
Cartoon Gesture - Quick Drawings of still framed animation.
Copying and Inking - Copying works from masters such as Preston Blair and Rube Goldberg. Taking into account the principles explained in The Famous Artists Cartoon Course
Week1
Week 2 Structure Study - Breaking down a figure into the shapes that make it up Originals - I apply the principles I am focusing on to create originals similar to what I am studying.
Week1 Week2

Week 7 - Perspective 4 - Objects in Space

2008-12-10T15:06:00.000-08:00

In this weeks exercise, I used a grid to define the space, objects exist in. For the gesture drawings and the drawings from photographs, I used the grid formed by the titles in my kitchen. In the plans, I plotted a grid on the ground plan. The reason I studied perspective in the first place was, I had trouble getting objects in correct relation to each other and the background. This weeks exercise, in combination with previous perspective, has increased my understanding of space artistically (if that makes any sense).Objects in Space Gesture:
Objects in Space from Photo:Objects in Space from Plans:I am done with perspective drawing. At least for a while. I feel like my new understanding of space will show itself in future drawings. I also understand how to set up a scene better. Perspective drawing was like taking bad medicine. It sucked at the time but I am a better artist for doing. Using a ruler and plotting out points goes completely against my natural flowing method of observation and drawing. The idea is when I am drawing in my natural flowing style, I will render objects in the right relation to each other, more easily since I know how to plot exactly where they are. I am moving on to Pen and Ink. I will be off of my regular schedule while I play with my new pens for at least a week .

Week 6 - Perspective 3 - objects in perpective

2008-12-02T22:11:00.000-08:00

The focus of this weeks exercises were drawing objects in perspective, including the human form. I placed an object in an imaginary cube, then drawing the cube in perspective. Using this cube, and perspective drawing techniques, it is possible to 'plot out' the features of an object. I still rely on observation and imagination to draw the object in three dimensions, the cube helps to understand how the object occupies space. This technique can also be used to draw an object in three dimensions from two dimensional plans.
Objects in space gesture - This exercise is very similar to the Gesture of space exercise. The focus to these drawings was to quickly render objects in correct relation to each other. I created many mini-still lifes designed to highlight the space between the objects.
Objects in perspective from photo - In this exercise, I used Photoshop to enclose the object in an imaginary cube. I then drew the cube in perspective, and used it as a reference to draw the object. These exercises were based off of those in The Complete Guide to Perspective by John Raynes.Structure study
Objects in perspective from plans - In this exercise, I drew a cube around the plan of the object. Then, I rendered the cube with perspective drawing technique, and used the cube, and the plan, as references to render the object.

Week 5 - Perspective 2 - Interiors

2008-11-21T11:39:00.000-08:00

Week 5 is identical to week 4, except I studied interior space instead of exterior space. The concepts are the same, but the application is slightly different. Also this week, a few days I did not have time to get out and do gesture of space so I did cartoon gesture instead.I love cartoon gesture

Week 4 - Perspective 1 - Exteriors in the city

2008-11-13T14:52:00.000-08:00

The next phase of my studies will focus on incorporating perspective theory into my drawing ability. At first, I tried to just jump into perspective exercises and figure it out as I went. The result was small success followed by frustrating failure. I decided the best route would be to take one step back for two steps forward. I stopped following my study schedule, hence no posts, and read up on perspective theory. I read Perspective: From Basic to Creative by Robert W. Gill. This book is written for architecture and engineering students, not artists. It teaches how to make accurate three dimensional perspective drawings from two dimensional plans. It was much more indepth into the theory than any perspective drawing book I read for artists. It was dry and boring, but I read the entire thing. Now I know more about theoretical perspective than I ever expect to need. As I was reading I see how theoretical perspective could be very useful for scene planning and storyboarding. I wish I had known this stuff back when I did storyboards for independent films. Anyways, I had the knowledge of perspective, The next step was to develope exercises to weld it with my other drawing skills.
Gesture of Space - I did gesture of space in previous schedules as a lead in to perspective study. This time around I loosely used perspective theory in the drawings. They still don't look like anything though
Perspective Drawing from Photo - In these studies I took digital photographs of exteriors around the city. Then, in photoshop, I drew the horizon line, ground line, vanishing points, and parrells. Using this as a reference I drew the cityscape in perspective.
Perspective from Plans - Here I applied theoretical perspective to create a perspective drawing from a 2 dimensional plan. However, I did not adhere strictly to the theory. I used the plan more as a reference than as an exact plan. I also made a small change to the structural study. Now I also include a little of the ground the model is on.

Week 3 - Emphasis on Detail

2008-10-14T18:46:00.000-07:00

The focus of this week is pretty self explanatory. The Idea was to get a more finished look to my studies, and really get in there and get all the details.

Detail Studies
This last one was the two-hour detail study. I blocked out the color and form in the first hour. In the second hour, I went back over and added details and a smooth finish. I only got through the top half in the second hour. Maybe I will finish this sometime in my free time, but for now it shows my process.

Sustained Study - I practiced details further on this still life, While not completely ignoring other techniques I had learned. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to include the background, which is only the table the still life is resting on.This is the last schedule I will devote to this method of digital painting in photoshop, at least for a while. The purpose was to learn to effectively use color to realistically represent images, and to become proficient in digital painting. I feel like I have accomplished this. I enjoyed doing these studies. Photoshop is a very powerful tool for learning digital painting technique and color in general. The eyedropper tool allowed me to analyse the colors in the reference photo. Layers allowed me to use a seperate layer for initial sketches, and contour drawings, then put a layer for the final painting over it. The photoshop brush allows me to select a different size, hardness, and opacy of the paint I'm using instantly. Also the paint is permanently 'wet' and never changes color when it dries, which constantly confused and frustrated me with cheep acryllics.

Gesture - Some of my gesture drawings from the past couple weeks. I love Tex Avery cartoons.

Week 2 - More Complex Digital Painting

2008-10-07T21:44:00.000-07:00

The focus of this weeks schedule was to expand on the digital painting techniques from last week, by choosing more complex subjects. I chose a more complex still life (too complex) and a self portrait.I struggled with this still life. I was unable to capture all the detail in the flowers. I think they would have looked better simplified anyway.

Gesture of Space - In this exercise I walk around the city, attempting to capture whole street scenes in gesture. The object is not to represent them realistically, but to place all the elements in the right place in relation to each other. After wards, the drawing doesn't look like anything

Week 1 - Further study of color

2008-09-28T12:54:00.000-07:00

I am continuing where The Natural Way to Draw left off. I am using the schedules and exercises from the book as a template, and adding my own exercises. I am trying to stay in the same vein as The Natural Way to Draw, by focusing exercises on isolating one particular skill. Also I am taking out stacks of art technique books from the Philadelphia Free Library and using these as inspiration for exercises. I will post my lesson plans, as I do them to keep track of my progress.Two Color Gesture - This is the same exercise as the 5 minute black and white gesture. Except now I use two analogous colors instead of black and white. Its good for getting used to the way colors mix in Photoshop. Its a color warm-up Cartoon Gesture - These are quick copies from still-framing classic cartoons. I start by quickly drawing the basic forms, then I go back over and quickly draw the contour lines. Gesturing human figures really helped to ingrain human proportions and movement. I am hoping this does the same for cartoon characters. This week I used Looney Tunes.

Alwyn Crawshaw's Exercises - I got these from the book Alwyn Crawshaw's Oil Painting Course. These are simple exercises designed to teach mixing oil paint. I found the useful in learning to 'mix' Photoshop paint. They were also nice lessons in technique of laying down the colors.Under Painting - In this exercise, I experimented with under-painting technique and using layers in Photoshop. I did a quick rendering of the model in two colors and then used a thin layers of photoshop paint over it to change the colors.Structure Studies - This quick exercises is to break down a figure into simple shapes. First I break down the figure into basic shapes by drawing the shapes over the figure on another layer. Then I draw the shapes in my sketch book. I beleive this exercise will help me in drawing realistic figure quickly, without a model for reference.Sustained Study - Still Life - This is the same as the sustained study in The Natural Way to Draw except using a still life instead of a model. I chose this still life to gain more experience in using color.Overall I am very happy with my progress this week. I have increased my understanding and ability to paint in full color in photoshop. That was the goal of this weeks exercises, and that is what they did.

The Natural Way to Draw

2008-09-17T20:10:00.001-07:00

For the past seven months I followed the 15 hour a week lesson plan from The Natural Way to Draw. It has, with no exaggeration, changed my life. In this post I will attempt a summary of how this book improved my drawing ability. The basic idea behind the Natural Way to Draw is to break drawing down into simple acts of observation, and capturing that observation on paper. The exercises isolate these fundamentals and drill them in until they become second nature. Then later exercises "weld" these fundamentals into one cohesive drawing method. As you continue the exercises these fundamentals become natural, and you do them without even thinking about it.
Here is a sample of my drawing skill before The Natural Way to Draw.

It begins with contour and gesture drawing. The blind contour exercise forces you not to take your eyes off the model and draw with minimal looking at the paper. You move your eyes across the contour as if you were running your finger along it. The Natural Way to draw often mentions "touching" every part of your subject with your eyes.

Gesture drawing exercises are in every session throughout the course. I preferred moving subjects to still objects. I enjoyed going to busy parts of the city for people-watching and gesture drawing. When I didn't have time I would substitute TV, YouTube, or objects. In gesture drawing, you don't think, you just draw. I believe the amount of gesture drawing in this book is part of what makes the other techniques learned in the book second nature

Cross contour is another great exercise in the beginning of the book. It helps train your eye to move across form.

Next is weight. In the first weight exercise you start by drawing the inside 'core' of the objects and draw your way out to the surface. In the next exercise you draw the surface of the object over the weight, making the parts that are further away from your eye darker. This is an exercise in modeling in lithographers crayon.

Next is modeling in pen and ink. This combines cross contour and modeling. I used a Bic ball point pen, and it was excellent. This is the point where I started to notice improvement in my drawing.

Next is modeling in watercolor. These water color exercises use 3 colors to make a simple gradation. You model with different tones instead of by applying more or less pressure.

Two weeks of drapery study are in the middle. Here, drapery hung from a wall is rendered in three parts, White being the top of a fold, medium gray being the sides of the fold, dark grey being the area flat against the wall. Drapery is also studied in gesture and contour studies.

About half way through the book, gesture, contour, and modelling are "welded" into one drawing composed of three drawings, the sustained study. First is an extended gesture of the model, next is a contour drawing is drawn on tracing paper over the gesture, a modelled drawing is drawn on tracing paper over the contour. This basic prossess is repeated in the rest of the book with clothed and nude models. Later the sustained study is further built up by first adding light and shade to the modeling (as opposed to parts that are further away rendered darker). Then it is done in black and white conte crayon, black and white oil, and finally full color.

Anatomy drawing exercises are also common later in the book. I posted some of these earlier. In these exercises, bones and muscles are drawn on tracing paper over earlier drawings.

The final exercises in the book are supposed to be done in oil. I replaced oil with photoshop, because I will be continuing in digital mediums and not oil. Gesture drawings became five minute black and white studies in gesture style.
This is just a brief summary to give you the basic idea of the book, and what helped me the most. Obviously there is a lot more in the book, more than I can fit in a post. So go check it out for yourselves. I swear I am not being paid for this by the publisher.
After doing the $100,000 Drawing Course and Before starting the Natural Way to Draw, I had no structure to my study and I could tell I was not improving. Not only did the Natural Way to Draw tighten my skills, but it gave me a working plan to continue my study. I plan to continue using the 15 hour a week schedule with some of the same exercises and some knew ones.

Female Anatomy

2008-08-26T13:16:00.001-07:00

This time I took a different approach to my anatomy studies. For one I used a female subject. But more importantly, instead of just trying to map out where the muscles were, as I did in the previous studies, I tried to render the bones and muscles more realistically. Also I used finer pointed pencils and two colors. Red for muscles blue for bones. It makes the final drawing much easier to 'read'. I wish I had the idea for the previous anatomy studies.

Register Paper masterpeices

2008-08-17T22:41:00.000-07:00

A note of caution before scrolling down. Some of these cartoons are explicit, restaurant workers have twisted minds so remember to tip your bartender.
Here is a couple weeks worth of bartending downtime. Drawings to entertain myself and the waitstaff during slow nights.

A man came in with a penis-head haircut. I drew this diagram to explain to the waitress what a penis-head haircut is. This was a textbook case. He had the sides of his head shaved and everything. Worst part about this monstrosity is that he had his son's hair styled in the same way.
This was debbed "The Olympic Testicle" By the waiter. Not what I was going for. I don't even know what the things I draw are supposed to be.

Don't zoom in on this one.

Looney Moon strikes again!

2008-08-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

Aint' I a stinker
(it used to say free pool)

Muscles - Back view

2008-08-10T21:16:00.000-07:00

The human body is a complex, elegantly designed, beautiful machine. I still don't completely understand it and I probably never will. But, exercises like this get me closer.

Comics for Citypaper

2008-08-06T22:43:00.000-07:00

Citypaper is running a comic issue, calling for submissions. Here are my submissions in color and greyscale. As you can tell I really need to work on my photoshop skills.

Muscles

2008-08-06T22:39:00.001-07:00

Here is the continuation of the bones exercise. This time I draw out the skeleton on tracing paper over the figure drawing, Then I draw the muscles over the bones. Most muscles are easier to draw because they can are closer to the skin. However the muscular system is extremely complex making it quite tricky, especially the forearms and lower legs.

Dem Bones/ My 100th post

2008-07-31T18:01:00.000-07:00

I've been doing an exercise from The Natural Way to Draw that I think is really cool. You take a figure drawing that you have already done and lay tracing paper over it. Then using an anatomy book draw the skeleton inside the figure. Its also a good way to check your proportions of the figure as it points out mistakes you may not have otherwise seen. Next step is to attach the muscles.

This just in

2008-06-19T21:24:00.000-07:00

I'm not dead

2008-05-21T22:17:00.000-07:00

Oh No! more live caricature

2008-03-27T20:50:00.001-07:00

Its almost springtime. People are out and about, and so am I; Drawing Them!

Been Drawing

2008-03-18T22:13:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting much but I have been drawing.

Live Caricature

2008-03-01T15:58:00.000-08:00

I finally got a chance to go out and try new caricature technique on some real people. Here are the results.

More Myspace Caricatures.

2008-02-24T21:35:00.000-08:00

I read through Tom Richmond's Caricature Lessons. I found them very enlightening. I think it will change the way I approach caricature. I tried some of his principles on some unwitting subjects from myspace. The top drawing is a quick mapping of the face with normal proportions.

I can't wait to try these new techniques on some live subjects.

Myspace Caricature

2008-02-12T21:36:00.000-08:00

Here are some faces I got from MySpace. First realistic, then caricature. I definitely need to work on drawing hair.

Still Life

2008-02-11T21:51:00.001-08:00

I've been workin on some other stuff lately, so I don't have much to post. Here is a still life I drew tonight. It was not drawn from the photo below, just sitting at the table drawing in the sketchbook.

Realistic Drawing

2008-02-01T22:35:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a break from studying cartoons to focus on realistic drawing. Here are some recent examples.
Perspective Exercise - View from my back yard.
Perspective Exercise - Dining Room.
Self Portrait - The first time my handsome mug has graced this blog
I am a little embarrassed about putting this one up. Not because of the rendering, but the ridiculous expression on my face. I really wasn't going for the brimming psychopath look.

$100,000 Drawing Course - FINAL!

2008-01-27T21:28:00.000-08:00

In June is started working on the John K's $100,000 Drawing Course. My goal was too tune-up my skills by copying every model sheet in the course. About 7 months here are the results. To keep this post from being ridiculously long I will only show the model sheets, with my drawings overlaid. The entire course can be seen here.
Lessons 1, 2, and 3 - Head Construction / Proportion check your work
The first Lesson was by far the hardest. When you look through Preston Blair's Cartoon Animation, These Concepts seem very simple. You don't realize how difficult it is until you compare your drawings to the originals in Photoshop and see all your errors. Adjusting to a new way of drawing takes time. After this first lesson it gets easier. These first three pages took me longer than all the model sheets in lesson 10. I did many of these drawings during my brief stint as a Concierge. I had twelve hour shifts with about two hours of work, so I had plenty of time to draw. I learned two things. 1) Drawing for ten hours straight is tough, 2) When the owner of the building comes in and sees you drawing cartoons he fires your ass. I would not get a chance to check these drawings while I was working. Basically I just drew as many as I could and hoped some of them would be accurate.

Lesson - 4 - Full Body

These Model sheets represent an important change in my method, at this point. Now I am drawing at home. I can now check my work as I go. I would first draw the construction of the character, check it and correct mistakes. Then draw the details, check it and correct mistakes. This allowed me to de-construct the drawings as I learned them. I began learning much faster, and producing more accurate copies.
Lesson 5 - Line of Action
Lesson 6 - Advanced Head Construction- Katie Rice

Lesson 7 - When generic is a good thing

Lesson 8 - Proportion and Contrast.
As the I copied more model sheets, I began to rely less and less on checking and correcting. Eventually I would draw the construction and detail then if it was close, I would check and correct once.

Lesson 9 - Hands
Lesson 10 - Substance and Style
I omitted some model sheets and added some others. Hey, its a free course

I would recommend this course to any aspiring cartoonist. It has seriously improved my cartooning ability. Its like night and day. It has also taught me a new way to learn to draw. Now I really feel like I have the basics of construction down.

$100,000 Drawing Course - Lesson 10 - Ren and Stimpy

2008-01-26T10:29:00.000-08:00

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive: Meta: The $100,000 Animation Drawing Course- Lesson 10
I decided to close out the $100,000 drawing course with a tribute to it's genius creator, John K. I copied some of his Model Sheets from Ren and Stimpy. These are my last model sheets for the $100,000 drawing course. It took me about 7 months and improved my drawing skills vastly. But that is for another post. Here are the drawings.

$100,000 Drawing Course - Lesson 10 - The Reluctant Dragon

2008-01-24T10:42:00.000-08:00

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive: Meta: The $100,000 Animation Drawing Course- Lesson 10
Now this model Sheet was difficult. It was not deceptively difficult like the Terry-toon model sheet. I knew from the get go this was gonna be hard to draw correctly. For one the guy has all five fingers. Whats up with that? However the construction is well defined, which helps a lot, but there a lot of details that can be distracting. Some of these drawings took me many attempts to get right, probably because I was distracted by all the details. This is certainly the hardest model sheet yet.

$100,000 Drawing Course - Lesson 10 - The Coo Coo Bird

2008-01-20T17:12:00.000-08:00

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive: Meta: The $100,000 Animation Drawing Course- Lesson 10
This was another deceptively difficult model sheet to draw. On many of the drawings I could not recognize the construction. I got through it by tuning out that it was a cartoon bird and just focusing on copying the lines and shapes as best I could.

$100,000 Drawing Course - Lesson 10 - Mighty Mouse

2008-01-17T20:47:00.000-08:00

ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive: Meta: The $100,000 Animation Drawing Course- Lesson 10
Mighty Mouse was a lot tougher than I anticipated, but I got through it.