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...