Pencil Lines

Hello, all! I come bearing more sketches! Yes, I know it’s been a while, and there’s really not much to this post… just haven’t been doing very much drawing lately. But I’ll share what I do have, at least that’s something!

Right, first we have a random sketch page (there are a couple of these in this post!):

I’ve been trying to work on my cartoony stuff, especially cartoony representations of myself and my friends. I’ve been reading a lot of webcomics and watching a lot of really awesome cartoony artists and the want to be able to do that kind of cartoony stuff for myself is overwhelming! So here I tried a couple versions of “me” (both none too great), one of another friend of mine, d7,  and then a couple random sketches (bleeechh). Oh, and the stereotypical French Guy (or Zombie Mime, as Dennis likes to call him). I like him a lot.

While waiting for a class to start I pulled out my sketchbook and my brush pen and sketched out a phoenix-looking bird-thing. I think it’s kinda pretty. Wings are all screwed up though, haha; I think I have the feathers on backwards.

Then I went to the Mission Folk Music Festival. We go every year, and every time I bring my sketchbook with me hoping to find interesting people and things to sketch. Past years have been nice and prolific on that front, but this year was a little… dry. Anyway, here’s what I came up with.

#1: Ancient Maple Tree:

Right next to the audience area by the main stage in Heritage Park is a beautiful old Maple Tree. While sitting around during performances, I decided to do some sketching of it. Didn’t do it any kind of justice, but I don’t mind the sketch, either. =) Done with my brush pen; quick, and expressive.

#2: Terrifying Baby Sketches:

I did some sketches of my friends’ son. Trust me, he isn’t this scary in real life. Actually, he’s really goddamn adorable. But anyway… yeah. Kids are hard to draw.

#3: Ziggy!!

On the second day of the festival a huge thunder storm came through and shut the whole thing down. Rather than weather it out in our tent, we went and stayed at the parent’s place of one of my friends. They had an absolutely adorable old wire-haired jack russell terrier named Ziggy. I did a couple sketches of her, but I left my favourite there to give to the parents when they got back, and didn’t take a picture of it. Here’s the second one I did. She was so much fun to sketch; so scruffy. =)

#6: *sigh* More Hitler…

Trust me. Despite how it may seem, I do not have a secret fondness for Hitler. I loathe him just as much as the next well-adjusted (that is: sane) and well-educated person. Yet I seem to be drawing him a lot lately. Why? Because my friends keep suggesting to me humourous situations in which to make fun of him when I ask for drawing prompts. Here’s another one. When I asked for prompts, someone suggested “a horse!” and someone else suggested “a fish!” And then they put those together and said: “A horse and a fish having tea!” And then a third friend came up and said “…with Hitler!” *sigh* So, here you go. I wasn’t going to share this because it sucks ass and it’s not going anywhere, but ah well…

I can’t draw fish. =(

So that was the extent of what I drew the three days I was at the Folk Fest. Here’s what I drew afterwards:

I was thinking more about that want to draw cartoony stuff, and was also thinking a lot about my sweetie, so I sat down and doodled this out. It actually made me feel a little nervous, because I’ve never really drawn anything lovey-dovey before, and wasn’t sure if I was being inappropriate. So I waited until I could show it to Dennis before I scanned it. I forgot I left it open on my bed though, so when Dennis came over he saw it and immediately exclaimed “Oh my god, I love it!” So… yay!

There’s a lot wrong with it; I drew it late at night when I was exhausted but too hot to sleep (freaking heat wave!), so there are lines that go everywhere, stupid mistakes, really sloppy inking… but ah well. It’s cute. And that’s all that matters.

Right, one more thing I wanted to show off. My doodle pages at the back of my Latin American Studies notebook:

All right! So… we’ve got some Wilmer the Anteater, robots, bratty kids, mermaids, copious amounts of ugly people… these have been slowly filling my book for the past three months or so, hehe.

When I showed these to Dennis he turned to me and said: “You know, you’re really good at drawing ugly people.” Looking these over I think he’s right, haha. Ugly people are just so much fun; you can play around with weird shapes and facial features, cover them up with wrinkles, jowls, big noses, knobbly bones, bald heads, big ears… it’s so much fun, and so much more expressive than trying to make everything conform to some crazy standard of beauty where the fewer the lines the more “beautiful” it is. That’s boring to me.

So… yeah. That’s all I’ve got right now. I have plans to go have a shower and then retreat to a cafe round-abouts to surf the webs and sketch, so that should be fun. A better way of spending the day than sitting at home surfing the webs and being boring… hehe. Have a good long weekend, my fellow British Columbians!

Right. I have really been neglecting this place, and for that I apologize. I actually have been sketching a lot more the last few weeks than I have the last few months, so I have a lot to share! I haven’t shared it yet because my scanner was buried under a bunch of stuff and I was too lazy to excavate it. Forgive me!

All right, let’s get started. #1 on our list: Crazy Star Trek fanart and other randomness!

All right! Shake it, Riker! *cough* I think some explanations are in order… my friends and I have been watching a lot of Star Trek: TNG lately. And I mean a lot. And obviously one of my friends found the links to the Jandrew Edits… and now I have a couple more life-long scars. Anyway! That’s where the disapproving Klingon comes from. And the scary “dancing” Riker. Yup. I swear. The rest? I have no clue. Hey, let’s have a close-up of the Klingon dude!

There, that’s better. This guy was drawn from memory; Here’s a picture of the actual disapproving Klingon.*shiver*

Okay, moving on! #2, more Star Trek crap:

That there is a portrait of Captain Heather of the U.S.S. Enterprise. She’s probably staring critically at young Ensign Crusher right now and thinking: “I’m gonna kill that kid. I’m gonna kill him.” Ah, adolescent fan-fiction… We also have a pygmy jerboa, and a beet being chased by a potato peeler, suggested by Dennis. I love Dennis.

#3! A couple girls.

I’ve been inspired by some awesome cartoony artists such as Kt Shy and feeling woefully incompetent at the whole fashionable cartoony women thing.  Not getting too far, but hey, practice.

# 4! Cartoony Portraits!

Dennis is such a unique looking person. So here I am attempting to make him look less unique through cartoons. A few different attempts, still not there; man, I wish I had awesome rad cartoon skillz. Like Aido. *sigh* There are also attempts at cartooning myself, but again, need practice.

Right! Next, #5 and #6, are Matrix-y!

Right! So, a looooong time ago I drew myself as a Matrix character. After showing this to Dennis recently we began talking about what he might look like if he existed in the Matrix; and then I visited friends and it’s spread to them too. Here we have Dennis and d7; both of which are unfinished. I’m more satisfied with Dennis’ than d7’s; I’ll probably redo his at some point. Either way, you other guys need to send me ideas for your Matrix versions; I’m looking at you, Darthmaus and Dabrota! Oh, and can you brainstorm Ben’s too? I’ll have to ask some other friends as well…

Right. Now, here’s where it gets good! #7: Six-headed Giraffe Hydra!!

This is another Dennis-ism. While hanging out with friends (and after drawing the Matrix!d7) I asked for some silly suggestions for a drawing and Dennis suggested a “six-headed hydra giraffe.” Here we go. I love silly suggestions.

Talking about silly; are you ready for this? Here we go! The pièce de résistance! #8: Hitler. On rollerskates. Being chased by a rhinoceros.

I freaking love you, Dennis. You guys have no idea how much fun I had drawing this. I think the proudest moment of my life was finishing this sketch.

Right. That was so liberating. Now I’m going to bugger off and go play some Sims 3; or watch some Star Trek: TNG. Or draw som’more. Hot damn, I love my life.

Well… maybe not “back”. I should, um, be very frightened if the 30’s were back, actually.

Was sitting around with Dennis, was thinking about some of the things John K. have said in his blog posts, and suddenly got this urge to sketch one of those old-timey, spaghetti-legged characters with the pac-man pupils.

And, I dunno, an anteater seemed like the obvious choice. Isn’t it?

So here are some sketches.

This was the initial character sketch, where I just drew everything down using broad shapes and trying to keep things simple. But I’m sure John K. would say that there isn’t enough construction; he’s just a bunch of lines floating in space, there’s no meat behind him. Ah well, I’m still learnin’ here!

Asking Dennis what I should draw him doing next, Dennis replied an action pose, throwing something. So, next sketch:

I can already tell there’re a lot of things about him I have to work out, but it was fun to try and figure out how his body would work from a different perspective. Maybe I should try a turn-around and see how well I can reproduce him from other angles?

Then I figured, where’s an anteater without their long tongues?

Now this one looks the least like the original character, but I think it has the most construction. Ah well, practice… I should have drawn his tongue straight for the most part and flipping back and forth only at the end; maybe I’ll do that the next time I draw him. =)

Anyway, it was a fun learning experience. I liked him so much I brought him into Painter, inked him up using the scratchboard tool, than dragged him over to Photoshop CS to “colour” him up:

I used only the basic web colours for his shades; only six different shades of grey, including black and white. I figured that would simplify it and give me the best tonal range. Maybe not… I’m not as satisfied with the tones, but I’m not as certain what is wrong with them so I can fix them. Added a couple paper textures from mayang.com to finish the old-timey look.

It was only after I finished this up, saved it, and uploaded it to DeviantART that I realized I forgot his ears. D’oh! Ah well, that’s something to remember for next time.

There’s something I really like about the weight of him; he’s big and bulky, yet he has that adorably droopy nose and long arms that makes it look like he’s almost melting. I love that. I’ll have to try some more oldie cartoon characters, this was a lot of fun to do!

If you were to make an old-timey, 1930’s style cartoon character, what would you do? I’d love to see anything anyone else comes up with. =D

I have a couple random sketches for you.

I was playing around with shapes and trying to make some interesting stereotypical characters from them. They were very small; these guys are only a couple inches high. I really have to do more fooling around with shape and style. I love the results. =)

A nice looking character I sketched one day, then inked. She has the tentative name of “Candice”. I really like this style, putting the emphasis on the nose and the large eyes. I used it once before on a quick character I named “Donny”. The only problem is that I’m not exactly sure how it would work in other views; so far the profile view is the only one I’ve got to work. I did a few sketches in different orientations, but they didn’t work out so well.

I did a quick sketch of the Candice character in a full-body shot, to play around with clothes. Instead, it turned into playing around with body proportions and blue and purple pencil. I also drew another profile shot of a generic head in that same big-nose style to use as a template and just to cement it in my head a little more. I need to draw more cartoony stuff, it’s a lot of fun. =) You can also see in the bottom right-hand corner a picture of a flan, from one of those Final Fantasy games, as the dessert it’s named from.

And last but not least:

A lady I spotted from the window of a bus the other day. I’d like to sketch her again and do her better justice, she had such a wonderful smile. I was planning on working on this sketch a little more than inking it experimentally to see how it turns out. Maybe I’ll still do that!

That’s it for now… just a bunch of sketches from the past couple of months.

In non-art news, I was accepted to college for this Summer, so I’m hoping that hanging around on campus and doing a lot of random sketching like I used to will mean I’ll have more to submit and on a more regular basis. Let’s hope so anyway! I’m so darn excited about it. =)

When I was about ten, we moved onto a farm in the middle of nowhere (which happened to be the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived) and suddenly we were forced to make due with one single channel via antenna. That channel? CBC. We came from a home with full cable to a house with only CBC.

Needless to say we watched a lot of “The Red Green Show”, “Royal Canadian Air Farce”, “This Hour Has 22 Minutes”, the morning children’s cartoons, reruns of “Star Trek: The Next Generation”… oh, and “Just For Laughs”.

That was my favourite. The Just For Laughs Comedy Festival in Montreal… we saw so many episodes it wasn’t even funny. Anyway, a few times we were lucky enough to catch the episode that had Jeff Dunham as a performer, and he was one of our absolute favourites. After watching his show my sister and I would go around claiming everything was “on a steek!”

Anyway, I found this excellent website, MoviesFoundOnline.com (They have “The Plague Dogs” on there!!!), and along with numerous other awesome movies, they had both of Jeff Dunham’s videos which I watched the other day and laughed my ass off.

I also brought out my sketchbook and drew a couple pictures of the puppets.

I always thought his puppets were some of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen, but after looking at them from an artistic point of view they’re oddly charming. They’re wonderful caricatures, representations of stereotypes, and like I said in my last post I love that sort of thing. Bubba J. reminded me a lot of that old Howdy Doody puppet that used to terrify me. But I loved the shape of his nose and his teeth, and just had to give him a quick sketch.

Of course, Peanut had to follow. And then Jose Jalapeno on a Steek. I’m still wanting to sit down and draw a picture of Walter, hehe!

My drawings are always too safe. I never “stretch” things or exaggerate things enough. Which is why drawing these sorts of things are so much fun; it forces me to think outside of my comfort zone and draw crazy and whacky things. I still need a lot of work, but I thought I’d share anyway. =)

Next!

I’m also a huge sucker for animated movies. My sister and I both are absolutely obsessed with Disney, and pretty much any animated movie released in the late 80’s or 90’s we’ve probably seen and obsessed over. Anyway, we were also huge fans of The Chipmunks, and the movie “The Chipmunk Adventure”.

I still watch it a lot to this day; it’s one of my feel good movies. I rediscovered it on DVD a couple of years ago and I’m so glad I did! Every time I watch it I have to make a sketch or two of one of the characters, and watching it tonight was no exception.

I actually paused the movie and drew the frame as I saw it, just for practice, so I lay no claim to the pose or anything awesome like that. It’s just a reproduction. Already I know of a lot of things wrong with it, especially looking at the original frame. It was more exaggerated, and I messed up the proportions somewhat… but it was still a tonne of fun to do.

Here’s an old sketch I made of Jeanette (My favourite ‘munk!) about a year ago:

That time was drawing with just the moving movie in front of me, without a direct reference like I did tonight. You can see my own style come through a lot more in this one. And it’s not so much on model either.

Anyway, they’re a hell of a lot of fun, and the songs are so catchy, even so many years later. Here’s the cult favourite from the film, if you’re curious (also, it’s just plain awesome):

I’m not sure I have much else to say, except yay, second art post!! Woo! Sorry I’m so slow… this is seriously the only things I’ve drawn since my last post. Yeah, I’m that slow with this stuff. But that’s what I’m trying to work at, so… go me?