Monkeys

A little swinging fun.

Chuck Jones Study 2

I read an interesting article today that convinced me that style is irrelevant, a true artists voice is determined by natural means and should never be forced. It seems counter-intuitive seeing how so many "famous" illustrators have such distinctive styles and adhere strictly to them. The agencies that hire these people also are more concerned with how well an artist's work fits their art direction they're already set on, and the more distinct it is, the better.
The illustration for pay world aside, I do believe a solid foundation in theory is absolutely necessary. This brings me back to Chuck Jones and his mixing of hard edged forms with sweeping arches. His lines of motion plainly seen to develop the action of the pose with as few frames as possible. His characters have such a sense of weight and balance that we truly do feel like we're watching a world of toons.

Tinkerbell Sketch

A little something for my niece's birthday, started on mine. Today I'm 31, perfect age to start a new career in the art world.

Chuck Jones Study-1

Chuck Jones is my favorite animator to ever live. Yes, though it wasn't a very hard decision. This man was brilliant in his field. I'm trying to uncover some of his insight and glean what I can for my own pursuits. I'm especially interested in how vibrant and active his lines are, while denoting form through their curvature.

An old man reading

Back into the children's book world. I'm attempting to continue my nightly sketching while developing the world and characters for my children's book.

Fabric folds study

The draping, folding, criss-crossing of fabric is an interesting piece of art training and one of my favorite parts of character costume design. I need some more study time on twisting forms and how fabric stretches over joints and folds in pits.

Shiny Stuff

I need a lot of work when it comes to drawing realistic materials. And sooner or later I'm going to have to get good at creating them in color as well.

The Carpenter

Poor carpenter ...they've been eaten, every one. While I was drawing his face I had Next Generation playing in the background. As I finished his hair I suddenly realized I had drawn a stylized version of Jean-Luc Picard.

The walrus after the feast

A contented sleepy walrus lounging on the rocks after his feast of oysters. Guess who will the the subject of my sketching tomorrow... :)

The Mad Hatter

To continue with my Alice in Wonderland series I drew the mad hatter, with a little help from Monge.

White Rabbit

Down the rabbit hole I go. I think I'll do a series of character sketches from Alice in Wonderland. Its getting easier to come up with characters and their expressions lately.

Big ol lion

I love it when a quick sketch looks bad ass. I did use a reference model for the pose and anatomy drawings for his muscles. I'll have to try drawing cats again.

Facial expressions

Just some studies of faces tonight. I feel that cartoon faces are a great way to practice emotional expressions. Then I can try applying them to more detailed drawings of characters.

Eye studies - Anatomy

Just a few anatomical studies of the eye. I'm trying to get a feel for the sphere of the eye and how the eye lids flow over the surface.

The planes of the face

Tonight I studied how to create a face with shading planes. Its important for me to know the construction of the face and the assembly of shading planes in order to give more realistic shadowing to my characters.

Bird and pig

Just a few little cartoon characters as its Valentines day and I have other things to do...

An angry bird

This little fat bird is annoyed. I'll have to draw his annoyance next.

Battle Dwarf

This little guy I've been told is reminiscent of Gimli from Lord of The Rings. Wasn't my intention, but he looks pretty good overall for a sketch. I wish I had the time to finish more of my initial sketches.

DRAWing Hands

I saw a great tip on conceptart.org in which someone suggested that using the ASL (American Sign Language) hand positions for spelling out letters to inspire hand studies. I spelled out D.R.A.W.

Horse Studies

Some of my first serious art endeavours were following how to draw horse manuals. At an early age I became pretty good at drawing the beasties. I've always loved how powerful yet fluidly their muscles move and how easy it is to see the their volumes.

Stylized faces study

Every time I draw overly large features on human faces I remind myself how much further I have to go on my facial anatomy. As you can guess I'm not very pleased with tonight's sketches.

Eye Studies

Correct eye alignment and contour of eye lines is something that I have always had trouble with. I still need more work, but I believe studying how Disney and anime create expressive eyes with minimal lines will help me improve.

The Teddy Mender

Just a little sketch I again plan on finishing eventually. The scale of the two characters still needs work and of course shading and details.

English Storefront

I continue with my story for my first children's book with local. I want to set my story within an old English store in a small community.

The Heisman Elf

Superbowl Sunday has come and gone. It was a good game, and the party I threw was good, but I was much more interested in the food than sport. Though in tribute I decided to create a little guy in the Heisman trophy pose.

Deadpool

Marvel has always represented my favorite comic book stylings... on average. The in your face foreshortened forms their artists favor have such interesting contours. I'm interested in improving my skill at these foreshortened forms.

A wizard

So I keep on thinking up stories. So many that its hard to concentrate on which to work on. This is just a simple wizard sketch I did in a little over an hour. My idea involves a world in which magic was once the ruling force but was forgotten after a wizarding war. Centuries later technology has come and evolved well past our own. And the peoples of this new age start to rediscover their magic roots through archeology. Oh ya, you guessed it robots and wizards :)

Chain of Command

I'm building a little world of characters for my story. I've already come up with a small storyline for a first children's book. The two characters I've worked on here are a General cat and his Officer mouse. The mouse is reporting in with a scouting report.

Unicorn

A unicorn to be protected by last night's defending faerie. I used reference images of both Davinci's horses and "The last Unicorn" by Rankin and Bass. I seem to be developing a technique for drawing upon many sources to create an amalgamation of a sketch, of course with my own personal spin.