Sketches - Week 5

This week marked the last episode of Dollhouse on Fox. Another Joss Whedon show which I enjoyed. I think putting it on Friday night was probably a problem. Most people have better things to do then watch TV on Friday nights... Anyway here's a sketch of "Echo" to mark the occasion.

I watched Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs tonight and enjoyed it. That's what this one is from...

From Preston Blair's book on animation, some different emotions of dogs:

Some cat and mouse stuff, just for fun...

Some rabbit emotions with no references or anything. These were done before I went back to Preston Blair's book for the dogs above.

Guy impales another guy... Guess I was in one of those moods. :)
Sad girl and sad kitty in the corner of the page...

That's it for now...

Sketches - Week 4

Another week, another set of sketches. I had a New Year resolution of 1 sketch book page per night, but unfortunately it was broke on Thursday night when I worked all night. I did two pictures the next night to make up for it, but it's somehow not right. Oh well...

Here's a girl holding the pole on the train.

Left 4 Dead 2 means I felt like drawing a zombie looking for brains!

Done the same day, this was some sort of undead lady...

I didn't know what to draw, so I picked out a random DVD and drew from the cover. The DVD was Planet Terror (Grindhouse).
I decided to draw a guy in pen. I wanted him to be a typical sci-fi/fantasy stock type character. He was just for the sake of drawing, he had no purpose or specialness to him.

A Halo calendar from last year inspired this. The middle-top guy with the details was the first, the rest was just messing with a pencil with no context.

I picked up the New Adventures of Mighty Mouse DVD a week or so ago, so ... Yeah, I could use more work on drawing Mighty Mouse. The DVDs themselves were pretty fun for the most part. Some of the animation is pretty sloppy or reuses old animation over again, but I guess that's what comes with a budget.

January - Week 3 Sketches

Girl with a celtic type symbol to the side.
Sheamus from WWE. The bottom-left was from a photo, the rest were attempts to cartoon him up. I like the bottom-right one and the top-right one.

After Sheamus it was on to one of my favourites... Mick Foley. The top left is based on a photo, the rest are cartoons. Oh, and we couldn't forget the many faces of Mr Socko. I like most of these; I think maybe Foley is just kind of a cartoon in real life.

Some plays on elephants. The orangish one was from a photo and the rest were for fun. Girl with a hat in the middle...

Some hooved animals. Don't remember what this was, but the top-middle one laying down was from the photo and the rest are cartoons based off it.

Classic-me... A dragon and an octopus...

Classic cartoon type cat along with a bird. I didn't know what to draw, so I drew these...

Ugly bug... The picture didn't capture the lines well, so I had to do some "enhancement" to it. It made the edges dark and the middle is still too light... Oh well...

Some tilted buildings. I was playing with the ideas of perspective that you see in some scary movies. Just an experiment.

The pinkish was done with my left hand and the greenish was done with my right hand. I used both hands at the same time. It's interesting to see how the right side is more confident lines and the left side are kind of edgy... It gives this guy an interesting look... A little unbalanced, a little crazy...

January - Week 2 of the Year Sketches...

Here are some sketches for this week of the year. I decided this year to try and do at least a page everyday in my sketchbook. So far, so good. I'm not sure if I'll be able to keep it up when I do some more animation; we'll see... I won't post every single thing here, but most of what I'm doing.

First up some cats from some photos quickly sketched out followed by White Stripes cats.
The upper left was based on a photo from Force Character Design from Life Drawing. The others were loosely based on the first. In the 2nd I tried to make her more cute by giving her a smile (she has a gun hidden behind her skirt), the 3rd is her shooting someone climbing up something, the 4th she's backing down from someone and the in 5th she's a bit cuter/chubbier. There's a gun like she might use with a black widdow on it.

The near center is based on a photo from Force Character Design from Life Drawing. I don't particularly like how any of them turned out. The one in the upper right is easily my favourite.

The viking holding the sword on the upper left is based on a photo from Force Character Design from Life Drawing. I like the three on the bottom of the page best.

Once more based off a photo in Force Character Design from Life Drawing is the center woman. The others take her in different poses and ideas.

Some random drawings of things. The girl isn't too bad and the beholder is OK, but the flash has faded him out some. I also like the overweight lion. I was just thinking how beholders have kind of caught on as a fantasy monster. Of course nowhere near the level of dragons or the like, but they're getting there...

On a night when I didn't know what to draw, I drew this fat guy on the couch (no reference). I'm playing with making his face fater at the top of the page, but he looks like he's just blowing up his cheeks. On TV they said something about Kitchiner, ON and I thought about what a place with kitchen in it would be like, with utencils running around.

Some pseudo-cute girls. I like the one towards the center best, but they're all OK.

The central figure was from a photo online. The others are changes based on the original, playing wiht what I can stretch and change.

Drawn based off some photos. This one was kind of quick and needs work on the structure of the face in general. Not bad, though...

Finally, based on a photo from Force Character Design from Life Drawing. I wish the photos in that book were a bit bigger for me. :( Anyway, the one in the upper left with the full body was based on the photo and the ohters I just made up with the pirate idea and the basics from that one.

That's all for this week... Hopefully another set next week...

January Starts (and sketches)

Happy New Year to anyone out there in cyberspace...

I'm hoping this will be a good year for me. I have a few things I'd like to improve in my life.

Looking back on last year, one thing that I'll take away positively from it was my animation work. I really had a lot of fun with making these little birthday cards for friends and family in 2D. I didn't post about each here and some are a little inside so people might not get them... Still, if you're interested head over and take a look on my site:
http://animation.darkroar.com/

Anyway, since I've been off I've had time for more sketches than usual so I'll post some today.

This is from a book I'm going through right now (Force - Character Design from Life Drawing by Michael D. Mattesi). I actually have only read the first two chapters, but inbetween I skipped to some of the photos to do my own drawings and see what happens while trying to keep some of the first two chapters in mind...

This woman was hard to get something I liked with. The middle was the first I tried using large and smaller shapes and subdividing. The smaller one on the left was next and finally the one I coloured. Later I drew a random devil head and started drawing him out and then decided to give a simillar body.

I had trouble making the girl pretty as I wanted her to be. The one on the left was the first one and looks most like the photo. The 2nd one on the right has a larger head/more hair and I gave her a little cleavage (it was just a girl in the picture). The 3rd one at the bottom also has some cleavage.

Another sketch based on a photo in the book. I wanted this one to be really happy drinking. That was the feeling I got from the photo.

The final one based on the book (and the first I tried). This was a guy posed as a cowboy. He was actually heavier than I drew him.

Attempts at an anti-birthday villian. I was just kind of messing around wiht this one...

The right side is a weird guy (for no reason). On the left I was thinking about some walking animations and how the force and weight could effect them in interesting ways.

This is lots of random junk... A viking, an eye on an eye stalk, some weird monsters, an ugly girl...

This is kind of a weird drawing of myself without reference. I purposely deformed the perportions...

A dog getting in trouble by a bug... I drew the dog's eyes first and they looked kind of like he was being scolded and that's how everything else came... Actually he wasn't even a dog at first, he was just two eyes and I had no idea what he was going to be.

A crusader-type knight. I wanted to draw a big sword, but then I drew a big guy so the sword doesn't look especially big. I felt like drawing a knight type character, so that's where he came from.

The girl in this one has kind of a flat face. She kind of looks like someone I know, but I drew her from no reference or set idea. In the back are the backs of some cat heads, the back of a cat, a skull, a devil and a toy monster...