character research

For the "Kley Project" I have started to look into illustrations and films with giants in. One thing I found is that a lot of giant are portrayed as old men e.g the BFG. When people think of giants they generally think of a wrinkled male. So I have started to look at drawing old men.

So far I have developed a woodland environment that at the moment I am going to put a old man giant inside of . Tho these drawings are quite realistic I am going to develop them to be more illustrative.

Personal drawing project

I am drawing as much as possible at the moment over christmas. Last night I drew this with a fine liner. Next time I draw a face I really need to plan the length of the nose compared to the face as well as the size of the eye. I concentrated to much on the shading and flow of skin than proportion. I might spend more time on this drawing with more layers to make it darker.

On a side note I drew this on stuck down pattern cutting paper. I really like the effect plus it makes a good mid tone.

Cubey Cartoon take

First exploration drawing for the "kley" sketchbook brief

So far I have been mainly drawing from primary sources. As it is winter there are a lot of bare trees and twigs. I love their eerie shapes and they remind me of Heinrich Kley's strange style. I want to include them in my concept drawings.

More anatomy studies

First storyboard draft for project

Experimenting with a graphic tablet.

Recently I have started to use a graphic tablet. I am very used to traditional mediums so thought I could do with some experiments to see how I can exploit its use. So far I've used it for simple quick drawing so I thought I should try out more artistic uses.

My all time favorite artist is Francis Bacon. He has a very fluid style that I thought could only really be used in paint.

So...I've already tried his style out in acrylic paint using layer upon layers upon layers and it came out pretty cool.

Now I tried a quick 30min portrait in the same style a colour palett on a graphics tablet.

At the moment I don't think using a graphics tablet has as many range of techniques and freedom as paint but I probably just need a hell of a lot more practise. So from now on I will be using the tablet more and more.

Storyboarding practise

So I hired a wacom tablet out today and went to town on it. It was harder then I thought it would be to draw with but fun! I did I quick storyboard for Derek's script not spending to much time on detailed drawing. He had also given us a map of the room/set that we had to keep to within our storyboard. Here are the first 7 shots.

Morpheous Rig

Here are a few poses I created with the Morpheous rig. I have never done this before so it took time to understand all the fidelly bits and bobs. I need to spend more time doing some more... anytime spent on maya is good progress time.

Motivation

Recently I have been really thinking about aesthetics in animated film. Design in animation  at this point in time, is something I really am more inclined towards. After re-watching Sylvian Chomet's film Les Triplettes Of Belleville last night I have become even more motivated to draw every day, look into colour and people watch more. The way that characters in this film have such strong personalities but with hardly any dialogue just proves how important character design and people watching is.

After my drawing tutorial I was told that my drawing was good but I needed more, I needed to fill my sketchbook and fill another one. And of course people watch. 

Quick anatomy studies

mainly based on Da Vinci's anatomy sketches.

Walk cycle and straight walk test.

I based the walk cycle test on a model walk and the straight walk on a "normal" walk. It still needs some work but so far i'm pretty happy.

Stretch and squash

These are my first tries at a bounching ball with stretch and squash. One is a football and the other a bowling ball. I worked out timings with small thumbnail sketeches.

Next time I will put a sized reference picture of the ball on the bottom layer so that I keep the right size all the way through.

Drawing

The task was people watching. Looking at their body language, how they interact but with animals for heads.

Life drawing 2

This was one brilliant session that even included a flood. I have come to the conclusion that I really need to work on getting the simple information on to paper a lot quicker as I seem to find the 2 min and less poses really hard. Practise is what I will be doing. Oh and looking more at the spine to get the nice curves of the body.

Bit of analogue shooting.

Tho i'm doing a digital course I'm a big fan of film. BIG fan. I like how you have to understand the concepts of light, shutter speed, aperture and framing a shot. I think taking a pictures with an analogue camera (mainly a 120 format) has made me appreciate framing (due to film prices being ridiculous, even on ebay). Here are some photos around and about falmouth since moving here: