Boy You Got Swagga

 

I know I promised life drawing but....it's been incredibly gloomy and cloudy this weekend and my photo-taking skills combined with a dark apartment equal nothing pleasant. Tomorrow is meant to be sunny so I'll try to post some more. (Isn't all this activity just exciting??) 

But I'm not going to leave you empty handed now, am I? So I drew you this curious old man I saw on my bus ride a few days ago. He definitely had some swagga. Especially his Beleiber shoes. (yes I just made a reference to that boy)

Now back to work and listening to some shiny new tunes! Good week to everyone!

Récherches: Arbres/Trees

 Pastel on sketchbook....scanned these as soon as I finished them as I realized how bad of an idea it was to draw with something so messy in a sketchbook you bring everywhere...

Back in...7th grade or so, a friend went homw to Korea and brought me back a bunch of cutesy stationery. (think sharpener with cutesy bunny ears and unicorns vomiting rainbows...) Obviously you don't ever actually use souvenirs...so I took a bunch of erasers and made stencils with woodcarving tools I have. Then I used some nearly dry acrylic paint to make a few of these! The color choices are a bit boring but..

Pastel on actual pastel paper. So nice to have a medium tones bg to work with.

Watercolor on paper. Referenced a few old russian art books I had for color mixing and such. Gotta admit...russian how to books (on anything) are sooooo much better.

Chinese Ink stick ground into powder and calligraphy brush. Had no idea I owned a kit...

Bilingual tree studies! Now you know 4 useless words in french. : ) You can thank me later.

 

And my usual favorite...putting in colors that don't really belong and trying to make it work. Watercolor.

 It's ironic how now that it's actually cold and snowing and generally unpleasant, all I want to do is go outside and adventure. BUT. Of course, portfolio comes first...one more month! As much fun as it can be, and as much learning as I'm getting done, I'm really keen to get back to my own projects with actual...you know, meaning and humor in them! But still, I'm not one to get bored easily, so I decided since I was going to spend a few days drawing trees, I'm gonna spend a few days EXPERIMENTING!!  And what does that mean exactly? Elementary: gather any and all old art supplies from good old highschool days (where you blew 50 bucks on wood carving and sculpting tools you never used....that kind of crap) and see what happens. So....these are all pretty varied. I'm still trying to settle on a style for my current animation pitch..but that's next.   

Also coming this weekend: new lifedrawing! It's been a while, so don't expect too much. 

Hello There....Ladies.

 

 

 

His name is Edouard. 

He loves his exercise.

And his ladies.

Who don't love him back.

 

I hope it creeps you out looking at him just as

much as it creepedme out

drawing him..

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.

The Chef

 

What's this? Character design?? MMMM...kind of. Sort of. Not really. Something I prefer to call....recycling? I'm starting to get a little bit panicky regarding the drawing exam in April. Not so much the concept of it, which is 3.5 hours dedicated to character and action work and the other 3.5 to story boarding. I'm more of freaking out about the quantity that's expected. Cause I know it's pretty big. And contrary to what I try and make you believe on this blog....I'm a pretty slooooooow drawer. I have a horrible tendency to jump into details and then realize I screwed up the main drawing after spending a good amount of time on it.

So I wanted to kind of do.....a mini exam? Yup. Read: Major Dork. I grabbed a bunch of printed paper, turned off all my tunes, took away any distractions and basically sat down at my table with a pencil and a sharpener and a clock. I WAS going to do the full 3.5 hours. But I got.....ahem...hungry. So I managed to do...12 drawings in 2 hours? Hm....I have no idea what that means for the exam, but I was expecting much worse. And I'm kind of content with how most of these turned out.

So first of all, I picked an old character I designed 2 years ago:

 

I wasn't completely happy with how this original design looked, but

considering I have obsessively been drawing bears lately...I applied

some newfound knowledge!

 

First did a few quick sketches of his new visage.

 

Then a quick guide to his body.

 

These first two sketches felt a bit weak, I wasn't

all that comfy with his design yet.

 

But these ones, and the one at the top of this post

I'm pretty darn happy with. 

I felt I got a decent range of actions and

angles in the time I had.

In other news, did you see those nice new banner links on the left??? One is for the art challange

which I haven't given up on, I'm just kind of jumping all over the place with it right now and doing

small bits and pieces for the portfolio.

The second one is of my comic "Septembuary", which I started back in China and am occasionally adding new strips. You should check it out. : )

And soooooooon....you shall see a portfolio link! Like...this week even. Or next.

Dunno. I'm pretty pleased with where it's at right now, but there is still

sooooo much more work to do.

Thanks for taking a look and I hope you guys have an awesome week! 

Dull but Fun...?

Colorful?? Oo ya. I think everyone who follows my blog understands my obsession with colorful things. Plus I have two coffee tins worth of pencil crayons to use up over the next two months....or so is my plan.

This week was mostly spent on reading and reading and testing out composition rules. Sounds boring I know. But in a very geeky way I really got into it. Trying to "lead the eye" of the viewer and realizing that it's not that easy, especially with complex layouts, made for quite a fun challenge. And I've only started....

I'm actually pretty content with most of the little thumbnails I drew while practicing, and basically I would think of a word and create a scene that focused on that object. Yeah I know...half those words would be "mountain" or "house". I'm just a bundle of creative energy aren't I?

The piece I picked to render I did on a whim, and when I first placed the main colors in marker, it was an epic fail, everything looked flat and had the same exact tones. I wanted to cry a bit cause it takes time to make a nice outlined drawing and then screw it over with crappy color you know. Plus, no CTRL+DEL button in life sadly.... But I sat down nonetheless and did a few color combination and relations to see if I could fix it...and voila! I got my warm colors near the focal point of the scene, a nice balance of primary colors and all that jazz. Or so I'm going to convince myself. I should try to color different scenes at different times of the day next...hmm.

My other adventure of the week took me to a really quiet cafe in downtown Toronto called the 168 Tea Shop on Queen St. If you're a fan of bubble tea, comfy couches, Chinese ballads, a giant second floor window from which to observe life, and warm rays of sunshine then I highly recommend this place. Also it's really affordable for Toronto prices! But I spent a few hours there working on straight pen drawings of the building across the street. Do I like them? No, not at all. I majorly screwed up the perspective in the first one, which makes it look all warped...and the second one was just..more of a speed drawing than anything else. But I think this can only mean one thing: I need to spend more time in cafés drawing from life. Or else it's an excuse to drink even more coffee...

 

And lastly, working with layout and design, I figured I'd draw me some houses. And of course

they are Chinese houses. I have amazing references from the photos I took, especially the little houses in the villages I visited. The top house is basically what most villages on the western coast are rebuilding themselves to look like...ugly things I know. The little ones below are more modest and old school. And damn those curved roofs....you try drawing one without making it look all messed up! 

Also, next week I'm gonna have half my portfolio up online! I was kind of hoping to not post it until it's all done, but the back up universities I'm applying to request an online portfolio...soooo...yet another blog. Are you excited? Cause I just about want to throw up right now thinking about it. But hey, I'm actually going to have a semi-professional portfolio put together. Can't hurt regardless of the outcome right? I hope everyone working on portfolios right now is seeing progress too and I wish you guys the best of luck!

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!