Pencil Lines

Agh, sorry it’s been a bit of a while since my last post. I suppose school/work has taken up more time than I thought it would!

I’ve been doing a few fun things here and there throughout the last couple of weeks. Been doing school stuff, which is fun, been doing some silly web-building/designing projects at home wherin I make a complete fool of myself and multiple others for the glory of another (you’ll hear about that shortly!), been helping a friend move, and watching numerous silly Disney shorts (mostly Donald Duck because he’s mah faaavee) on Youtube around also trying to keep up with my blogroll on Google Reader and devART to boot.

But really, it’s mostly school and working on the weekends that’s been taking up all of my time. I get, if I’m lucky, one day a week to myself that doesn’t involve either of the two, and usually I try to spend it socializing, which leaves little room for anything else!

But, I have been getting a couple little art-y things done, so I thought I’d share them. First, the ones that are a part of that website project I was hinting at…

So I was chatting a couple weeks ago with Losmios, aka. Mia and one silly comment lead to another until I was in the midst of coding up an ultra silly fan page for her (Beware!! That link is poison for the eyes!). I ended up working on it for about three or four days straight over my weekend until I was literally being kept awake at night due to crazy coding dreams. I decided to take a bit of a break from it, which I am still in just because I haven’t found the chance to get back to it. I hope everyone that wanted to contribute hasn’t grown bored of it too in my absence…

Anyway, other than doing the website and all the coding and everything I also wanted to contribute some Mia fan art, so I sketched up a couple of things. Here’s the first:

This intellectual piece of work was sketched directly in Photoshop CS and coloured in about an hour and a half. Because I’m all slow and out of practice with Photoshop stuff, hehe! Also, I was having issues with the pressure sensitivity on my tablet, which I still have to go and fix…

Anyway, yes, that was one of my oh-so awesome tributes to Mia. Here’s the second, which is in decidedly worse taste:

Oh joy. The quality is overwhelming me.

This one was done with markers and watercolour. Yes. and I deliberately tried to make it look bad, though I’m sure I could have done a worse job if I tried. I did too good a job of staying in the lines. It’s a hard habit to break!!

Yes. So those were done last week. Since then I haven’t done much by way of drawing, usually just the odd scribble here and there that I don’t like and don’t really want to share. =) But today the awe-inspiring Michael Sporn uploaded some original Bambi storyboards and model sheets and I just about died from happiness. I have previously attempted to draw Bambi on a few occasions in the past, but never have I had such beautiful references. So tonight I sat down and tried my hand at drawing baby Bambi.

These sketches are a mixture of direct reference to get the form figured out, and attempting my own poses. I’m sure you can tell which are which.

I could use more practice, and even now I’m feeling an urge to get back to it. I just wish I had more creativity in terms of poses to draw from! I’m seeing even now that the urge to make his legs shorter/more proportional in real world terms is great, I really have to fight that and stick to the proportions on the model sheet. Also, I tend to make him too stiff; I need to loosen up, though that’s been the trend in my artwork for a while. Always too stiff! Hehe!

Sketching Bambi is a delight, though. Not only is he outrageously cute, but he also has those beautiful, long, thin legs that I absolutely adore. The rhythm, angles and negative spaces made by thin and spindly legs has always been like crack to me, which I love to explore. Hmm, maybe I should get back to sketching. One page is hardly enough!

They were drawn with blue pencil, by the way, but I tinted them in Photoshop in order to make them more visible. I’ll have to experiment with drawing him in other media. Maybe a darker, softer lead might be fun to try… or even brush pen when I get a little more confidant!

Anyway, go explore Michael Sporn’s splog; he has tags for his stuff, here’s the one for his model sheets. They make me squee with joy! Oh, if only I could draw like the Disney animators of old…

Right, I’m off to sketch. =) Turrah!

Posting this really quick… my attempt at a picture to use as an avatar on The Totem Lands.

Took only a few minutes to sketch, to ink, and a few more to colour. I don’t know though, I think he’s cute. =)

While watching a couple episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation tonight, I got the urge to do some drawing. Here are the results! And don’t get too excited, there are only two, really…

Both of the following sketches were drawn with a mechanical pencil filled with F lead. I like F lead better than HB because it doesn’t stain the paper as much, it doesn’t smudge as easily, and it makes it much easier to block things out before going in and refining the lines, making things look much neater. At the same time, it’s not as hard a lead as H lead, which I find isn’t dark enough to produce a strong enough line, and I find it also imprints the paper making it hard to draw again over areas you erase. But Anyway, to the sketches.

Picard has the most wonderful face. I found myself staring at it more than actually watching the episode, so I decided to do something about it and sketch it out of my head. I wanted it to look like a cartoon-ish caricature rather than a portrait, so I tried to exaggerate some things, like his cheekbones, and his strong eyebrows intimidating his rather small eyes.

I do like it a lot. There’s something to be said for cartoony portraits, and I think this is one of my best yet. =) Still need to work on being more abstract and less rigid, but that will come…

Next, the counselor herself!

While watching the episode from season 3 entitled “The Price”, I saw Troi turn towards the screen after Ral first met her in her office and thought she looked absolutely gorgeous with her hair all tousled. So I paused it, saved a screenshot, and sketched it out. Of course, I took artistic license and made her look a little bit prettier (if that’s possible!) and a little bit more in my style, but I still think it looks a lot like her, and it’s not quite as cartoony as my sketch of  Picard. Sometimes drawing beautiful people can be fun, but damn is it hard to get their proportions and everything right when you have such smooth skin and faces like that. Her hair was a tonne of fun to draw.

When I was a little girl I always wished I’d grow up to be like her. I’m certainly not, though if I curled my hair and tousled it up I’m convinced I could get myself to look a little similar…

After sketching it I scanned it and put some colour on it in Photoshop CS:

That was also a tonne of fun. I don’t often colour things, but when I do and I’m able to just relax and finish it however I like I really enjoy myself. I’m especially happy with the way her hair turned out, but as Dennis reminded me, I could have spent a little bit more time on the communicator.

Right, that’s it for me. Any fellow trekkies out there say “Engage!”

My very good friend d7 suggested on my sketch suggestions post: “Cheesus, the god of cheese.” Here’s the result:

I know I said they were just going to be quick sketches, but really, this is what I was hoping for; getting an idea that would inspire me to do something fun. I really enjoyed this.

While talking with Dennis about it, the idea of Wallace playing the part of Cheesus popped into my head. It was perfect! What better person to play the god of cheese than the man that built a spaceship in his basement just so he could go to the moon for an afternoon to sample the local cheese? It was Dennis that came up with the idea of playing on the Sacred Heart imagery; he’s such a genius.

I used these pictures mainly for reference: Wallace and Gromit, the Sacred Heart, and Mary. This is the first time I’ve ever drawn Wallace or Gromit; I wonder why I’ve never done so before? They’re so much fun.

Oh, and those are supposed to be large circular wax-covered bricks of cheese floating behind their heads and serving as halos. I was going to put a Wensleydale label on them, but figured I was already pushing it enough as it is.

Here’s the original sketch:

Sketched it out on paper with pencil before scanning it. As you can see, originally Wallace had a beard/goatee to better match the Sacred Heart reference. In the end, though, I thought it took away from the fact of it being “Wallace” and not just a picture of Jesus in Nick Park’s Wallace and Gromit style. Wallace can wear a wig and pretend to have hair for once, and we’ll just forget about the beard for now, hehe…

I worked on the line art in Painter X, which was actually much more frustrating than I thought it would be. I think the problem was that I was working way too large; the original resolution on this is ridiculously huge for something so simple. Also, the simplicity of the picture meant a lot of long, straight, and circular lines that were very tough to draw smoothly in such a high resolution. Just ask Dennis how much I was ranting and grumbling all the way through it! I swear I must have drawn, undo-ed, and redrawn every line in this picture at least a dozen times. Not my best line art ever, but it serves its purpose! I’ve learned my lesson for next time.

I ended up colouring it in Photoshop CS, since Painter X is still kicking my ass in that respect. Used one of Photoshop’s default brushes for the whole thing, which is a brush I really love the texture of. I thought it would be great to give it a painterly texture. I’m really happy with the look of it.

The rays were done using the polygon lasso tool; I just selected a bunch of “ray” shapes, feathered them a bit, and then drew inside the selections with a lighter brush to give it the look I wanted. I also inverted it and used a darker brush “behind” the rays to deepen the contrast. I like the effect it gives, and it’s quick and easy. =)

Anyway… I’m really happy it’s done (now Dennis can stop bugging me about it). This is the first coloured thing I’ve done in a long time, and I’m really happy with it. Yay!

For those who don’t know, Wallace and Gromit are the intellectual property of Nick Park. He’s rad. And for those who don’t know Wallace and Gromit; what’s your problem?! Go watch the shorts now!!

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