butchering

So (as anyone can see) I'm not Picasso or Goya. But..I'm going to learn from them, and in the process (to some) butcher their work. What that means is..I'll be doing master copies for a while and hopefully will improve. These are small so they're not really meant to zoom into, but they are meant to figure out brush strokes, value, texture, etc. I saw someone had a blog (yes, I'm a concept-blog-stalker) where they did 100 heads. That's actually an interesting exercise I may be doing...but for now...let the butchering begin!!!! (aren't you scared?)

X is

So I finally am showing a few of my wall-struggling-ness (eloquent, I know). After doing these a few hundred times a few things came to mind. One of the things my character prof stressed was that your character should follow the centre line. I was thinking about this especially for this glue-gun guy (fondly referred to as Harry). It brought back memories for me of doing plans and elevations for lighting design, and when we were tech-ing cameras one of the first things I learned (esp for the mechanical ones) was one of the fastest ways to spot damage would be a sense of asymmetry. By seeing one screw out of a set of six holes, usually you could deduct that someone had lost a screw or bolt it had fallen out, etc. I was reading some drawing book the other day by some famous person I should remember the name of but can't (o pity) and I remember he was saying something about drawing the torso first. If you didn't, (and I didn't a few times) the torso would be great and all but the head would usually not match up to the centre line of the torso. I thought about that a lot for the nozzle of the glue gun, because apparently the same thing happened to me (hmm..the glue gun has a head!? Is it a she or he?) I guess that's why I named it "Harry" because that can be short for either Harry or Harriet so it would be androgynous *end rant* Oh, these were done in regular Paper mate blue pen I found around the office (a treasure since people steal such things)

block block Y Y

Today I drew for 9.5 hours straight (yes, even while eating) and painted for 3.5 hours. Seeing some improvement (although slow) in the drawing near the end of the day but now painting is killing me. I absolutely have to get better or I'm going to start designing my peanut stall logo. (hey entrepreneurship!) My prof was saying that when you are starting, you hit walls a lot. And walls equal frustration but you have to keep going. Ditto on that, except I won't be posting any of that 'wall stuff'. Started a painting in Corel and finished in PS but it is 'gnarly' I feel worse because I used to be able to paint traditionally and in PS sometimes I feel like I can't paint at all. Starting to do Master copies during my break to hopefully improve the painting skills, and keep up the drawing during the day.

will post..must post soon...

seriously. I have a great excuse though. A glue gun and a measuring tape have been kicking my BUTT all week! I keep drawing them and drawing them...mechanical pencil, sharpie pen, regular boil-point pen and it all sucks. Depressing. I've literally drawn about two hundred pages worth of them this week and nothing....I'm going to cry now. On top of that my two AMAZING classes finished this weekend. Sigh. Will prob start doing some master studies (painting) along with drawing. Oh yeah..and getting my butt kicked (thanks for reminding me glue gun...the measuring tape is to measure exactly how MUCH I'm going to get it kicked :(....

corel sketch studies

more sketching 7/25

don't judge me

by my first creature design thingy (not sketched..in PS). This one begs on the subway with its child-creature appendage. I'm not sure if it smells or not. lol. Since the ref was from shrimp...yeah..maybe.

more sketches

from the design assignment for my Form Design language class. Taken from my initial chicken scratch and refined a bit more. Made a few changes. I may do one more pass and then try to paint up, but that will probably be after the class is completed, on my own time.

more practice

study of something I don't quite remember

I was kind of bad today and didn't draw. Kinda. But I did paint while listening to the Magic Flute. I really love that opera. So much. And Pippin ended up in there too. And that song from The Full Monty "you walk with me". Awesome song. Anyways, yeah..painting...round brush. Working on getting better.

film study

from movie !n the M00d for L0ve. Beautifully shot movie :)

gold!@

We had to redesign a character and while this is not my favourite I thought it would be fun to portray Goldielox as a very bold, rebellious type (actually inspired by D. Ross).

some sketches

For my Form language class. Basically my story was that these police that ride in these vehicles (in the future) use these creatures (that are able to sense humans) to identify and get rid of the homeless people when they encroach upon the territory of the well-to-do. The creatures are actually tortured by the police and are bizarre, but they are really kind and humane and crave human interaction and human touch. So essentially the police let them go, they go looking for humans and when they are about to make contact with a human, they pull the plug and arrest the homeless person. I used the verb "excavate" (excavate oil, a tooth, bones, etc) and the noun water (what water is; properties of it; eg. reflective, smoky, suspends things, houses, foamy) etc to design the vehicle the police use, the creatures and the characters. These are just sketches so please bear with me :)

another study

a study

tape gun

more dynamic sketching. This was definitely challenging for me. Lots of planes and some circles in between. My prof was saying that it's good to struggle and hit walls because it's the way you get better. He was saying if you don't hit walls every couple of months (especially if you're starting out and not pro yet) it means you aren't trying hard enough. Sounds good to me.