Sketchbook

It's been a full month since leaving Georgia to find a start up here in the North. A full month where I did not have a sketchbook on hand for drawing different objects. Until now:

Trying to get better at drawing females, I never seem to get it right off the bat. Anyhoo, I also got Character Animation Crash Course by Eric Goldberg, the amazing animator that overlooked famous Disney characters (Genie from Aladdin, Phil from Hercules). I'm going to push my understanding of animation while I'm up here, and learn what's it like to be an animator. I'm more of a cartoonist than anything, but I'm gonna take the chance to become an animator. :)

Sketchin' at Starbucks

Did some sketching at Starbucks after I got off of work this morning. Feels so great to get back into drawing and sketching on paper. :)

A Little Exercise for the Morning

I decided to do an exercise this morning, looking at something and seeing what I could do a little different. The panel on the left is a panel from Jeph Jacques' webcomic Questionable Content. It's a favorite of mine, his characters are wonderful together, and the dialogue is unique. I am always amazed how he constructs the dialogue from the beginning to the end of each page, like a conductor for a symphony (except the orchestra is assembled in Photoshop). :)

What have noticed from his style though is whenever he has the character in a side view, you don't really see the neck form the back of the character's skull (head). The neck just goes straight into the jawbone area. It makes the back of the head feel squished, at least to me. He did do draw the back of the head for Marten's girlfriend Dora, but for Marten it is not visible at all. Jeph has been doing this for a good while, and I thought it would be interesting to see what it's like with the neck line forming the back of the skull.

While attempting this exercise, I wanted to draw in Jeph's style, to hopefully make my observation more solid. For me it feels more fleshed out and full.

Now, I am not trying to bash Jeph's work, he does great stuff with Photoshop and his craftsmanship of characters. I felt that there could be something more added to his structure. It's a try for sure.

Hope you enjoy this exercise I did. :)

Gotta Do What I Can...

...to stay afloat in my creativity, my passion, my desire, and most importantly, my drive. Drew this while I was half awake at work this morning.

Go get em Pikachu!

Tim Burton's Barrel

Felt very inspired to draw Barrel from Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. I remember when it first came out back in the early 90's, being the first fully stop-motion movie ever made. So innovating and wonderful to watch, and it still is! :)

Just felt so good the moment it bust out of the lead and onto paper. All while listening to KoRn's version of Kidnap the Sandy Claws. Definitely look to try and color this for sure. :) I'll see what will come next. Enjoy!

Swinging for the Fences (Sketch)

Something I drew last night (late) before I decided to go to bed. It's been an ongoing thought that I finally put on paper. Took a while. Anyways, still have more ways to go before I'll take to a more finalized illustration.

For now, it's a sketch. Any thoughts, suggestions, advice is most appreciated. Thanks!

Road to Redemption 1

It's been a long summer doing my internship, taking time to think of the past year, and prepare my mind for the future. With a lot that has happened to me personally, it felt like I was in limbo as a person and as an artist...I was just lost. Well, I recently found myself back to reality, with a renewed focus for what I want to do in life...and my desires to get better at.

This is my Road to Redemption as a draftsman, the sole ability that helps me do what I do best: Illustrate and create cartoon characters.

I know I have a long road ahead of me of valleys and mountains. That's fine with me, I will do what I can to get better in anatomy and in drawing. That's what I do, and I cannot put this away anymore.

I hope you enjoy this journey as I will. See you next week!

Sketches on Thelonious

Some sketches I'm thinking of for the CD project in Pop Culture class. I'm still trying to get used to the whole abstract thing idea....as well as trying to incorporate some other elements to it to make it interesting for this day and age. Any thoughts or suggestions are appreciated. :)

So Tres...Why So Serious?

I'm doing my best to get back into drawing, even with all the projects I have to do for class. Drawing has always been a passion of mine, and I don't want to forget to pay the respects of those who inspire me to draw. So while most of my projects won't incorporate drawing necessarily, I am still gonna draw to keep my chops up.

I did these sketches while I started work at 4am in the morning (yes, I work from 4am to 8am on Saturday mornings):



I was reading a couple of articles on the recent Oscar nominations, and how it was interesting that they would nominate Avatar...but they wouldn't nominate the Dark Knight as Best Picture. Seeing they both burst out in the billions. Anyway, as I continued to read, I saw a picture link for Heath (not Hancock) Ledger's the Joker...and I thought it would be awesome to do a spin on him. :) I think he turned out pretty good, while practicing positive and negative shapes.


This one is actually a sketch of Johnny Depp, believe it or not. I just thought the hairstyle was something interesting to try. I need to get out of my comfort zone of just creating a solid block for the hair...and start playing around with the hair lines inside the shape....make it more defined, and more play as well.

I hope you guys like these sketches! :) I had fun working on these, learning, pushin, and just going for my spin, not an exact copy of the photo.