Monday, December 24, 2007
Friday, December 21, 2007
bunny trails
today I was doodling on a telephone note pad, just idly exploring graphic shapes, and as ideas emerged, I expanded to a larger drawing, and a complete character design eventually resulted. this is that story. All names have been changed to protect the innocent.
While watching Woody Woodpecker cartoons, I had a little spark of an ideas in my brain, and grabbing the nearest scrap of paper, I began to scribble.
I started with a couple loose drawings of a wolf biting a large bone, then, wondering what the body would look like, I drew a pair of legs on another paper, and from there, sort of "bunny trailed" along, scrapping the wolf, and re-building the drawing, first with the legs, then a pair of crossed arms, and finally a head.
On a larger paper, I traced the separate elements to make a rough estimation of the whole. Seeing the overall effect of these graphic elements, which had been designed for their shapes rather than based on anatomy or even traditional cartoon construction, I then set about figuring out how to construct that graphic shape with actual anatomical features in a more solidly constructed fashion. once this was accomplished to my satisfaction, I traced over this cartoony skeleton the details of fur, eyes, etc.
My initial sketch was a definite improvement but this was not satisfactory. The body was pretty much how I wanted it, but I didn't like the way the hands and head looked, so, having scanned this draft, I used photoshop to push the shapes around, moving the neck back to where it would look like it joined the body more naturally, and tilted the head so it better flowed along the line of action of the rest of the body.
This I recreated on a second piece of paper with my pencils, then scanned again so I could blow it up, as the fingers still troubled me due to the small size of the drawing.
printing out a larger copy of this third draft, I traced over again, and replaced the fingers until they were acceptable. then i inked and colored the final draft. 
Whaddya think of the final product? I think it has potential...
While watching Woody Woodpecker cartoons, I had a little spark of an ideas in my brain, and grabbing the nearest scrap of paper, I began to scribble.
I started with a couple loose drawings of a wolf biting a large bone, then, wondering what the body would look like, I drew a pair of legs on another paper, and from there, sort of "bunny trailed" along, scrapping the wolf, and re-building the drawing, first with the legs, then a pair of crossed arms, and finally a head.
On a larger paper, I traced the separate elements to make a rough estimation of the whole. Seeing the overall effect of these graphic elements, which had been designed for their shapes rather than based on anatomy or even traditional cartoon construction, I then set about figuring out how to construct that graphic shape with actual anatomical features in a more solidly constructed fashion. once this was accomplished to my satisfaction, I traced over this cartoony skeleton the details of fur, eyes, etc.
My initial sketch was a definite improvement but this was not satisfactory. The body was pretty much how I wanted it, but I didn't like the way the hands and head looked, so, having scanned this draft, I used photoshop to push the shapes around, moving the neck back to where it would look like it joined the body more naturally, and tilted the head so it better flowed along the line of action of the rest of the body.
This I recreated on a second piece of paper with my pencils, then scanned again so I could blow it up, as the fingers still troubled me due to the small size of the drawing.
printing out a larger copy of this third draft, I traced over again, and replaced the fingers until they were acceptable. then i inked and colored the final draft. 
Whaddya think of the final product? I think it has potential...
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
gross layout- stretching my long-dormant painting muscles
perhaps i was overconfident, or just feeling brave, but last week i attempted to reach beyond myself and grasp at the stars... or at least a couple distant planets known as Milt Gross and Art Lozzi.
The original art, courtesy of Milt Gross:
My first attempt at this combination of a Milt Gross drawing with a HB bg painting style was
rather rough:
I lost the original forms- all the shapes turned to mush after a couple layers of paint were slathered on too hastily, and the brushwork left much to be desired. But it gave me a general idea what colors i wanted to use, and i used this as a reference on my second go-around. This time i selectively added textures to the painting. the long brush strokes are a bit shaky since the painting is only on a standard-sized paper, but overall, the results were more satisfactory.
after I finished, I retraced the characters in pencil and placed them on top with colors to see if they read properly against the painting. judge the results for yourselves.
interestingly, the composition of the drawing changed dramatically without the speech bubbles crowded in the upper left quadrant of the picture.
well, If I get to feeling REALLY audacious, I might have to record dialogue and animate this as a short scene!
The original art, courtesy of Milt Gross:
My first attempt at this combination of a Milt Gross drawing with a HB bg painting style wasrather rough:
I lost the original forms- all the shapes turned to mush after a couple layers of paint were slathered on too hastily, and the brushwork left much to be desired. But it gave me a general idea what colors i wanted to use, and i used this as a reference on my second go-around. This time i selectively added textures to the painting. the long brush strokes are a bit shaky since the painting is only on a standard-sized paper, but overall, the results were more satisfactory.
after I finished, I retraced the characters in pencil and placed them on top with colors to see if they read properly against the painting. judge the results for yourselves.
interestingly, the composition of the drawing changed dramatically without the speech bubbles crowded in the upper left quadrant of the picture.
well, If I get to feeling REALLY audacious, I might have to record dialogue and animate this as a short scene!
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