Saturday, March 27, 2010
box forms sigh
im not one to get hung up when i cant learn a new art thing, it actually sometimes drives me to try harder, but man. when vilpuu says you had to be able to visualize and tumble a box in space he aint kiddin. i moved onto the 3rd lesson which is breaking the form into boxes to help clarify the volume in space a bit more, finding "corners" on the body and bleh. these are my first few attempts butttt im gonna try to rest my brain a bit more before i get too frustrated
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Livestream Drawings
last night i did a livestream for my friends on how to do studies from photographs and draw people from your imagination. it was a really fun and great EXPERIENCE! i ended up talking for 4 whole hours lmao i tried to explain gesture and volumes and such
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
flowza
some of the rhythms, ive learned not just to draw the arm- but how even the leg is flowing into the arm, how the arm flows into the neck which flows into the head. i draw the big shape then from there the second biggest flow shape, then just smaller and smaller keeping everything connected
these gestures actually take me some time to do (5-10 minutes maybe??) but im learning not to rush things if im still learning
united states of tara
i'm absolutely hooked on this show, but one thing i love about it is the TITLE SEQUENCE! it's like a pop-up book with each of her personalities and a good song too. today i found a website that interviews the director:
i found it searching "Tara storyboard". site with lots of interviews w/ people who make title sequences for tv shows. it's probably such a small part of the show you never thought to think about, but for a lot of series their title is iconic. take in mind law and order.
it's funny the things you never even thought of being relative to the art you like and stuff is actually very much so...
i found it searching "Tara storyboard". site with lots of interviews w/ people who make title sequences for tv shows. it's probably such a small part of the show you never thought to think about, but for a lot of series their title is iconic. take in mind law and order.
it's funny the things you never even thought of being relative to the art you like and stuff is actually very much so...
Monday, March 22, 2010
more pan gestures
Sunday, March 21, 2010
peter pan and skirts
i do not understand peter pans construction for the life of me. blast the men with skirts that plague disney!! not exactly plague, but it makes tracing them harder... shang, peter pan, robin hood fox, the prince from sleeping beauty, all have man skirts....
Saturday, March 20, 2010
figuring out from photos
i wasnt happy with my last study, because with volumentric studies they sorta look like michelin tube men and it's hard to learn anatomy from that. plus, gesturing/volumizing that folded leg was giving me a lot of trouble
I THINK sometimes a photo wont really provide enough information to do a proper study from (not to blame the photo) but it's really difficult for me to figure out the under-structure of stuff when it's being overlapped or foreshortened :( i reckon i need to brush up on some leg/pelvis anatomy. its funny how doing the disney studies which are just "cartoons" brought into light anatomy issues i have that i never noticed doing regular figure draws...
I THINK sometimes a photo wont really provide enough information to do a proper study from (not to blame the photo) but it's really difficult for me to figure out the under-structure of stuff when it's being overlapped or foreshortened :( i reckon i need to brush up on some leg/pelvis anatomy. its funny how doing the disney studies which are just "cartoons" brought into light anatomy issues i have that i never noticed doing regular figure draws...
Friday, March 19, 2010
Photo studies
this was kinda hastily put together but this is how i do vilppu style spherical studies. i get my stock photos from tumblr or in this case a DA stock account
More mulan
i'm still sort of awkwardly fumbling to find the legs and pelvis but the more i do it the better i get at noticing "signs" for how stuff is connecting
Gigantic Link List
WARNING HUGE ICEBERG POST DEAD AHEAD
I flip flop a lot between studying animation and studying concept art, but no matter what my interest is the same core art principles apply. throughout the past couple of years ive come across some really great websites that have helped me tremendously in how i see art and the tools i have now. here is a collection of links, some just tutorials and some peoples sketchbooks. sorry for the huge post!!
Rad's How To
i found rad's site recently, my friend was browsing around and linked me it knowing ive had a growing interest in storyboarding. i just about died when i saw all the things he covers in his blog. its really a precious amount of info and tips, stuff you wouldnt think to look for or put in a drawing but he clearly draws it out and explains. his drawings have that same sort of life i see in my walt stanchfield book. he does studies from disney movies as a warm up, which has become one of my new favorite things. he's also helped me personally as you've seen in a few recent posts which is such a big thing for me. it gave me a real boost in my eagerness to learn. his personal sketchbook is here great character designs and pretty girls to boot!!
Anticz
site with some really helpful tutorials, in particular his one about constructing the head and about how values work. he uses the loomis method for heads. for values, he teaches how everything is made of the sphere, cylinder, cone, and cube. also core shadows and reflective shadows
Itch Studios
i found this site maybe 3 years ago and i keep revisting it, the art tutorial page shows a vast amount of info on color. he goes over how light works, speculars, and shows some cool tricks on manipulating gray tones to make a sort of illusion to the viewer
Fresh Designer
heres where i learned to love ball point pens. he's a concept artist, who's figure drawing is based on the reiley method. its something ive only read about, but it's not based on construction and more on finding points so im not sure if its that great for animators. regardless, he shows how to draw the figure accurately and uses a 2 value system to find the core shadow. he always has tutorials on his steps for creating concept art. its from him i learned to paint in grayscale first then go over with a color layer, which is invaluable
CCSear's Inking and Hatching thread @ CA
relative, ccsears also uses a lot of ballpoint pens. (can you see a theme here, i love pens) this is a more detailed thread on hatching and etc. but, what really makes him stand out, i read through pages and pages of his sketchbook. he worked years and years for a company that basically produces nuclear bombs, or something like that. there were days of his life where he'd have to sleep on park benches or in his car, but he always always had his sketchbook with him. whenever i feel like ive reached a dead end, i read his threads and it gives me a bit of a boost. this is his personal sketchbook
Biocreeps Sketchbook @ CA
biocreep! i remember looking at his life sketches and going how'd he draw people as cartoons so well?! hahah his lines have a lovely flow to them and his sketchbooks are very lively. i learned about sketchcrawl here too, tho im not fortunate to have any happening in connecticut :( he has a blogspot, too. ive actually spent some time copying his drawings just to figure out how he gets them so flowy...
Ten Minute Drawing
"no nonsense drawing tutorials" is the tag line. hes an animator, he does videos thatre 10 minutes long each and cover things like perspective and constructing a figure from simple volumes. his older stuff, if you dig around in his livestream/youtube account, is super good. he explains how you need a plan of action when you go to do a picture, you cant just sit down and go okay im gonna do this and this!! (of course there are exemptions to the case, but this is mostly for "beginner" artists who sorta have no clue what to do with a blank canvas) one neat tip i learned from him was to draw the parts of the figure that are making contact before you draw the arm. for example, if you draw a man sitting on a box, place his hands and butt on the box first then connect the rest of him. it makes it easier to figure out how joints work
Janaschi sketchbook on ca. /how does she make stuff look so real?/ is basically what goes through my mind when i flip through this thread.
darkeen is a concept artist i like. he does a lot of stuff for blizzard, i used to play world of warcraft so theres still a soft spot in my heart for the art that went into it. i use his brushpack a lot for whenever i do color studies
Lesean Thomas ive only discovered him recently, even though i watched the boondocks. he has fantastic storyboards and such a great style. i cant really say much because his art speaks for itself.
Sketch Beats now heres an artist for you. she goes to sheridan, i found her looking for storyboard examples and when i saw her iron man sketches welp!! i fell in love. http://sketchbeats.blogspot.com/search/label/storyboards here are a couple storyboards by her
Gunnmgally last but not least (as im forgetting a lot of people here and this list is reaching war and peace levels) is gunnmgally. ive been following her art for hrm.. about forever now. she has a very painterly style and her people look ethereal. she does comics too, her paneling and emotion is just superb. im running out of adjectives to describe these lovely peoples art, but again you just have to see it for yourself.
I flip flop a lot between studying animation and studying concept art, but no matter what my interest is the same core art principles apply. throughout the past couple of years ive come across some really great websites that have helped me tremendously in how i see art and the tools i have now. here is a collection of links, some just tutorials and some peoples sketchbooks. sorry for the huge post!!
Rad's How To
i found rad's site recently, my friend was browsing around and linked me it knowing ive had a growing interest in storyboarding. i just about died when i saw all the things he covers in his blog. its really a precious amount of info and tips, stuff you wouldnt think to look for or put in a drawing but he clearly draws it out and explains. his drawings have that same sort of life i see in my walt stanchfield book. he does studies from disney movies as a warm up, which has become one of my new favorite things. he's also helped me personally as you've seen in a few recent posts which is such a big thing for me. it gave me a real boost in my eagerness to learn. his personal sketchbook is here great character designs and pretty girls to boot!!
Anticz
site with some really helpful tutorials, in particular his one about constructing the head and about how values work. he uses the loomis method for heads. for values, he teaches how everything is made of the sphere, cylinder, cone, and cube. also core shadows and reflective shadows
Itch Studios
i found this site maybe 3 years ago and i keep revisting it, the art tutorial page shows a vast amount of info on color. he goes over how light works, speculars, and shows some cool tricks on manipulating gray tones to make a sort of illusion to the viewer
Fresh Designer
heres where i learned to love ball point pens. he's a concept artist, who's figure drawing is based on the reiley method. its something ive only read about, but it's not based on construction and more on finding points so im not sure if its that great for animators. regardless, he shows how to draw the figure accurately and uses a 2 value system to find the core shadow. he always has tutorials on his steps for creating concept art. its from him i learned to paint in grayscale first then go over with a color layer, which is invaluable
CCSear's Inking and Hatching thread @ CA
relative, ccsears also uses a lot of ballpoint pens. (can you see a theme here, i love pens) this is a more detailed thread on hatching and etc. but, what really makes him stand out, i read through pages and pages of his sketchbook. he worked years and years for a company that basically produces nuclear bombs, or something like that. there were days of his life where he'd have to sleep on park benches or in his car, but he always always had his sketchbook with him. whenever i feel like ive reached a dead end, i read his threads and it gives me a bit of a boost. this is his personal sketchbook
Biocreeps Sketchbook @ CA
biocreep! i remember looking at his life sketches and going how'd he draw people as cartoons so well?! hahah his lines have a lovely flow to them and his sketchbooks are very lively. i learned about sketchcrawl here too, tho im not fortunate to have any happening in connecticut :( he has a blogspot, too. ive actually spent some time copying his drawings just to figure out how he gets them so flowy...
Ten Minute Drawing
"no nonsense drawing tutorials" is the tag line. hes an animator, he does videos thatre 10 minutes long each and cover things like perspective and constructing a figure from simple volumes. his older stuff, if you dig around in his livestream/youtube account, is super good. he explains how you need a plan of action when you go to do a picture, you cant just sit down and go okay im gonna do this and this!! (of course there are exemptions to the case, but this is mostly for "beginner" artists who sorta have no clue what to do with a blank canvas) one neat tip i learned from him was to draw the parts of the figure that are making contact before you draw the arm. for example, if you draw a man sitting on a box, place his hands and butt on the box first then connect the rest of him. it makes it easier to figure out how joints work
Janaschi sketchbook on ca. /how does she make stuff look so real?/ is basically what goes through my mind when i flip through this thread.
darkeen is a concept artist i like. he does a lot of stuff for blizzard, i used to play world of warcraft so theres still a soft spot in my heart for the art that went into it. i use his brushpack a lot for whenever i do color studies
Lesean Thomas ive only discovered him recently, even though i watched the boondocks. he has fantastic storyboards and such a great style. i cant really say much because his art speaks for itself.
Sketch Beats now heres an artist for you. she goes to sheridan, i found her looking for storyboard examples and when i saw her iron man sketches welp!! i fell in love. http://sketchbeats.blogspot.com/search/label/storyboards here are a couple storyboards by her
Gunnmgally last but not least (as im forgetting a lot of people here and this list is reaching war and peace levels) is gunnmgally. ive been following her art for hrm.. about forever now. she has a very painterly style and her people look ethereal. she does comics too, her paneling and emotion is just superb. im running out of adjectives to describe these lovely peoples art, but again you just have to see it for yourself.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
le cubes
second try at moving a box through space. i color coded them, um... actually now that im actually posting them i forgot what the colors mean. i believe the magenta ones all follow the same one point, and if theyre any other color theyre on their own vanishing point. as for the green ones in the top left, the one on the right is one point and if was above your view, then the one on the left is if it shifted to the side.
now if i (the point of view-viewer) was actually looking up at the box over my head, i believe thats when 3 point perspective comes in. im trying to picture this all to get a better grasp of it. this is kind of a weird connection, but it reminds me of playing spiderman on the playstation when i picture it in my head. the way the buildings would turn as he flies through the air and stuff. it helps me visualize it better.
err... you get the idea
plaits
drawing this made me realize that for all my characters i dont really have a concrete design for each of them that makes it easier to draw over and over. pennys braids are really difficult and when i draw them free hand i sort of just chain Ys together. another problem i faced is anime-style hair creates a lot of weird tangents and its hard to figure out where it falls on the head. trying to shake off anime hair and eyes is like the last 10 pounds of a diet, it feels impossible!!
i remember looking at someones blog and seeing how they draw hair, and they follow the contours of the head? if i find it, i'll link it. but for now, besides drawing cubes and studies and stuff, i think this weekend ill sit down and compose a reference sheet for rachael and penny, to solve the problem of not drawing them the same way twice.
More on boxes
Since my last post Rad emailed me with some tips on how to use perspective to correctly move a box through space. He said "If you have a point perspective, you can't change the front plane. If you change the front plane, you have to shift the point over for that box." which basically means in order to shift your view to the other side of the box in space, you have to move the vanishing point and make it 2 point perspective.
it took me a while to understand exactly what was meant by this, i had to really think and visualize the boxes moving around the grid. but when i drew it out it became more clear to me
so by moving the vanishing point and "turning" the box, you see its edge. this applies to boxes and if youre staring straight on i believe. if your 2nd vanishing point lies within the frame, it distorts the image. in fox-orian's tutorial he explains this as a wider field of vision- the farther back the "camera" is, the closer the points become in the frame, which then make everything all skewed looking. Rad explained it here:
it took me a while to understand exactly what was meant by this, i had to really think and visualize the boxes moving around the grid. but when i drew it out it became more clear to me
so by moving the vanishing point and "turning" the box, you see its edge. this applies to boxes and if youre staring straight on i believe. if your 2nd vanishing point lies within the frame, it distorts the image. in fox-orian's tutorial he explains this as a wider field of vision- the farther back the "camera" is, the closer the points become in the frame, which then make everything all skewed looking. Rad explained it here:
10 minute drawing techniques on Perspective
Another cool dude that i've learned a lot from, he does these 10 minute videos on youtube teaching stuff like perspective and figure drawing. One interesting thing that he pointed out was cylinders dont really extend forever into space, theres a point where it sort of straightens and creates a really subtle fish-eye effect. Try it out- hold a pringles can at arms length and sort of tip it around. I noticed this when i was sitting in the car yesterday watching cars pass by me on a seemingly horizontally straight street, when they got on my level of view it sort of bended. I also noticed that theres no possible way everything follows this one imaginary vanishing point, buildings were facing every which way and... well im doing a lot of typing and not drawing. Here's one of perspective tutorials i was talking about:
Boxes
so here i was raring and ready to go onto the 3rd chapter of vilpuu, cubic forms, after being on spherical forms since hrm... late november.... and it hit me. i cant draw cubes free hand. :( i dont know how to "tumble" them through space, i have a toy block on my desk to help me but besides that. all is not lost tho!! Fox-Orian on deviant art has an amazing tutorial on perspective. (he also goes into basic composition "rules" too. overall his gallery is extremely inspiring and helpful.)
The tut covers the 3 different points. Of course a tutorial isnt the same as sitting down and really digesting a book on perspective, but it's a good refresher. i spent a week a while ago doing a crash course on one point and 2 point and today im actually trying to apply it.
some of these arent completely accurate, what i did was either draw a parallel square, then find its one point and orthogonal through that (i hope to god im using that word right), or draw a parallel line and make up 2 vanishing points and create a box using 2 point perspective. as far as 3 point goes ill tackle that later in the afternoon, but for now i think ill just keep drawing boxes to figure out how they work in space
The tut covers the 3 different points. Of course a tutorial isnt the same as sitting down and really digesting a book on perspective, but it's a good refresher. i spent a week a while ago doing a crash course on one point and 2 point and today im actually trying to apply it.
some of these arent completely accurate, what i did was either draw a parallel square, then find its one point and orthogonal through that (i hope to god im using that word right), or draw a parallel line and make up 2 vanishing points and create a box using 2 point perspective. as far as 3 point goes ill tackle that later in the afternoon, but for now i think ill just keep drawing boxes to figure out how they work in space
Drawing the pelvis
In doing my disney studies, I was struggling a lot trying to figure out exactly where the legs were connecting to. after about 20 pages of sketches i said okay!! that's it!! i need help!!
the way the body is overlapping, i dont know where the torso ends and the pelvis begins. i emailed Rad- the person who got me into studying disney frame by frame and asked what he does. he gave me a redline and it just clicked
to use the belt and look for that corner, i never thought about that. i always used the clothes to find the cross contours for the volumes, so this little trick was right up my alley. another thing he mentioned was to slow down a bit and really find where the cylinders were going- thats something else i find myself doing a lot, i get into a sketch frenzy and get frustrated if i dont lay down the line right after a 3 second attempt at a circle lmao
here is one of my late night attempts, before i went to bed (i had spent a few hours since getting the reply back just trying to draw pelvises but it was getting late...) even better, Rad made this post: Simple Cartoon Pelvis SO i better get cracking and start drawing. his technique reminds me of something funny my friend said when he was on a livestream drawing, he said think of it as "3-D underwear" sounds silly, but it helps!!
the way the body is overlapping, i dont know where the torso ends and the pelvis begins. i emailed Rad- the person who got me into studying disney frame by frame and asked what he does. he gave me a redline and it just clicked
to use the belt and look for that corner, i never thought about that. i always used the clothes to find the cross contours for the volumes, so this little trick was right up my alley. another thing he mentioned was to slow down a bit and really find where the cylinders were going- thats something else i find myself doing a lot, i get into a sketch frenzy and get frustrated if i dont lay down the line right after a 3 second attempt at a circle lmao
here is one of my late night attempts, before i went to bed (i had spent a few hours since getting the reply back just trying to draw pelvises but it was getting late...) even better, Rad made this post: Simple Cartoon Pelvis SO i better get cracking and start drawing. his technique reminds me of something funny my friend said when he was on a livestream drawing, he said think of it as "3-D underwear" sounds silly, but it helps!!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Pyrats
phenomenal
i hope one day to go to a proper art school and be able to create something like this
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
no exSPEARience
a friend drew a chick jumping in the air wielding a spear and a shield, i wanted to try the pose myself and found out that its a Lot Harder Than It Looks. lets hope i never have to animate spear chronicles 3008 or anything...
Torso Connections
made a tiny breakthrough todayish, when i began to understand how things connect and flow in the torso. i still struggle with the lower body area, but this torso thing might help. im running out of paper :(
brush woiks
quickie, i tried a different brushwork and i like it. mixing how to do disney style gestures with a more painterly way of describing forms makes for weird results...
moneyfall.jpg
just an illustration for the day. theyre 100 dollar bills, or something. i do this sort of thing too but with fistfuls of pennies
Monday, March 15, 2010
yaaawn
revamp from an older pic that i did, actually i had a very clear way of drawing this in mind and i didnt do it at all :( i blame being tired. so to bed i go!!!
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Some paintings
while i'm at it, i'd like to share just some recent digipaints i did over the past couple of months just to show that i can do one thing decently haha (i really like painting....)
composition study
face study
penny
concept art of a copter gator
penny again
composition study
face study
penny
concept art of a copter gator
penny again
face study
this has been on my drive for a while, a study i did of a face, trying to keep in mind forms and core shadows. sadly, i got tired of fixing proportions so she will remain grayscale and bald for the rest of her life
rock and roulette
trying to be more conscious of my linework in studies. actually, this wasnt done using anything vilppu at all- tried to think more animation studenty-ish. anyway. s.v.c is still hard. needs more chicken legs.
Chicken leg
ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING in mulan as the "chicken leg" shape. im trying to do studies from disney movies and struggling, because i'm not exactly sure what to look for and study!! when i do a photo study, i do the gesture, then cross contours, then forms- but disney seems to really really love shapes
also, the whole figure itself is one big straight vs curve shape. so what i'm doing now i guess is looking for the large s.v.c, then gesturing out, then looking for joint ends??? then shapes??? i have no clue
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Warm Ups
these are from a week or so ago, usually as a warm up i do a gesture study from a photo, then spherical-volumize it, then try to figure out the core shadow... quick practice, maybe 5-10 minutes each. sorry if theyre lewd looking, i got them from tumblr...
Tea sketch
lady drinking tea from imagination
gave up on the legs, but using a vilppu gesture method for the lines is fun
yay flowy transitions
gave up on the legs, but using a vilppu gesture method for the lines is fun
yay flowy transitions
Mulan Traces
Traced over some scenes in Mulan using Rad's construction and gesture method. It's a bit different than what I'm used to, so tracing will have to do for now
Starting out
i have a deviantart and i use tegakie, but im thinking maybe i should make something more formal to give my art more of a focus.
i'm currently studying vilppu, loomis heads, basic composition and perspective, and making forms "3-d" with core shadows etc. a lot of what i do is direct studies from photographs, and when i have free time i do character design. i base a lot (okay, all...) my characters off of pokemon, using the monster as a basis for how they'll look and act.
to start off, here's a bulbasaur chick i made recently.
i'm currently studying vilppu, loomis heads, basic composition and perspective, and making forms "3-d" with core shadows etc. a lot of what i do is direct studies from photographs, and when i have free time i do character design. i base a lot (okay, all...) my characters off of pokemon, using the monster as a basis for how they'll look and act.
to start off, here's a bulbasaur chick i made recently.
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