Horse you too

 

So....you came here expecting something new, grand, creative and awesome from me and all I give you is...some stylized horse? Now before you go shaking your head at me, let me show you the journey I had to take to arrive at this single stylized horse. You think just cause someone calls themselves an artist means they can draw everything from their imagination in a matter of minutes? Well then, you're very funny. Next time you even think of a "that's it?" please refer back to this post.

Let's begin!

 

Page 1. Can I draw a horse body from my imagination? No. So let's try referencing some photos. Okay...too difficult, no idea where that muscle and bone goes....So let's grab those fancy artbooks of mine!

Realizing that drawing the skull taught me absolutely nothing I went for option number two...break shit down into shapes and lines and whatnot. Slowly heads begin to look like horses. Also references a wee bit of Disney for a few of these.

 

Let's start with the body! I've never been a big equestrian, so besides the fact that their anatomy is pretty imperative for drawing a LOT of other animals, I picked a horse I actually like, which is called the Przewalski's Horse, native to Mongolia but found elsewhere as well. They were fat. That's why I picked them. Duh.  

 

Shaky anatomy here and pretty stiff I know...

 

Potential progress? Loosened up on the semi-realistic horse and started focusing more on the flow and rhythm of the bod. Also like my cartooney horse head on the far left. 

 

Action! Half of these are form videos, the other half from my head! Whee.

 

More video/imagination horseys. Did I mention how I'm not all keen on them? 

 

Uber stylized ones now, totally from my head! Really like the one on the right. 

 

And last but no least,  my cartooney version of a Przewalki's Horse.

Ahhh....now I want a bath. Too horsed out. What have we learned from this? Drawing two animals in your sketchbook and calling it a day is not really taking time to learn how to draw something. I used to think that till I started doing these animal studies...

And I also apologize for the lack of creativity in these last few posts...still getting all this portfolio stuff together, and have not a lot of free time to work on my personal projects. : ( But! One of these portfolio requirements from Gobelins is quite cool (their new 2013 twist) I'm gonna keep it on the DL until I can put together a MASSIVE post to keep you guys happy. 

Now off to améliorer some of that français...

Tootles.

Animalsies, David Attenborough and really old Art!

 

So I finally decided it was time. To draw those things I've been avoiding drawing. You know. The stuff you don't see every day. So I dutifully went to the zoo sat down on my comfy couch with a bunch of Planet Earth and Life DVDs. Is that cheating? Honestly, I don't particularly care as I wasn't exactly tracing over the giant TV screen. (I also discovered how to use the TV....took a while) 

Did the whole gesture/build forms over top thing. At first I wanted to shoot myself cause I had no idea what I was doing. You see, it's been...many years since I've diligently drawn animals? And by animals I mean copy colorful photos from my animal encyclopedias when I was 10. Below are some of my masterpieces I found....are you ready?

Like, I mean are you really ready?

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You might need a blindfold for this.

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And a bottle of something strong.

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Behold!

 Now you know the funny thing is...you think you get better as you grow up and draw right? I suppose....unless somewhere along you journey you stumble upon the wonderful world of...dun dun dun: Digimon. And anime. And then your art looks exactly the same for the next...8 years. Voila work from when I was 12......

I'm serious about that something strong now

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some 50% Chinese rice wine might do the trick

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And now that you're gingerly holding your pint glass

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Behold what I call regression!

 

Yup. I know. You just grouped me into "that" group of people.

So as you can now understand...it's been a while. And considering what I managed to draw over the last few days, I'm pretty darn happy with how it all came out. Unfortunately as soon as I turned on the telly and heard his charming voice the drawing bit was totally over... I want David Attenborough to narrate my life. Just saying. 

So after failing miserably to drawing animals in HD I did the next dumbo thing and searched for low rez videos of animals I was working on....so a lot of my sketches ended up being interpretations of pap smeared handy cams from youtube. Talk about brilliance?

Anywho, since I already exposed you to my wonderful beginnings of art, here are a few of my actually awesome pieces from when I was around 9 and 10. 

Aren't they actually better than all that other work I showed you above?? 

These were from the period I diligently went to an art studio in Ukraine after elementary school twice a week. I totally thought I would be the next Leonardo. Hah. Hah. Hah. But I had a fantastic teacher whom I remember and am very thankful for to this day. Sadly I can't find many links to his beautiful work...but here is one piece! My artistic ambitions would not be where they are now that's for sure.

Well....an update on portfolio status: 12 pages done!! And that would be after having milked all my work up till now...yikes. All fresh new stuff from this point onwards!