The Sultanate of Oman

This post goes out to my good friends Andre and Sarah, currently scuba diving off the coast of Oman...

So there was a sweet book sale at the library yesterday. A stack of books 1 foot high--US$1. Among the booty I collected, Medieval II: Total War for PC; a companion book and companion record to a slide series on Greece (no slides though...). Bonus: the record is narrated by Vincent Price. I also picked up this random book on Oman, circa 1970. Since I was bored, I decided to do some sketches from it:

It was fun and interesting to draw different types of people I've never really studied before.

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Also, random Havelock drawing:


I've been using a Micron 05 pen a lot lately, mainly because my favored Micron 03 pen is pretty much used up. However, I wasn't getting the types of results I wanted in my inking. The tip is just a little too big.

For this drawing, I decided to try something new. I used my favorite pen of all time to do the clean-up--a Zebra F-301. It's actually a ballpoint pen, but I've been using it to sketch with for about a year now, so I have good control with it. It's what I used to do the sketches above.

Anyway, I like the results. I've never been a fan of the super-clean, super-tight inked drawing. The sketchiness I get with the Zebra as opposed to the Micron is more my style.




Also, I'm playing around with color:



Personally, the first one is my favorite, but I was hoping for some opinions.
I added some shading to the last one.

Wandering About and I'm a Mango

Been picking up a bit of freelancing as of late to make sure that ends meet to a certain extent, drawing for people I know over this globe for a reasonable price (I hope) for US$5 per quick sketch while at the same time practicing some style variants.

The styles utilized here are more along the lines of a cross between American Comics and the 2010 evolution of Japanese shonen manga style (or at least that was what I was trying to achieve).

Still working on things at present (Up to 100 client drawings if allowed), but here're several that I've been working at.

The one unpredictable thing about taking up this challenge, is that you never really know what the different clients will ask (though I have stated my own restrictions down), and it makes it all the more fun.

Some of them won't ask for the usual bipedal human type anatomy, and you do get some challenge if you're trying to deal with Quadrupeds, Insect type creatures, or maybe even Tripeds in motion!

Men with hats.

I cannot say I was the most productive this week but I did do this couple of doodles in my ongoing study of film noir:

The man to the left is supposed to be Humphrey Bogart from the movie Casablanca (not film noir but still a man in a hat and trench-coat) . Until I did this I didn't realize how goofy-looking he was.

The other is Jigen from anything Lupin the Third. I basically drew him because the Bogart pose reminded me of his character design.

Don't You Hate It When This Happens

So I sketched this a while back and I've been meaning to do something more with it. I like her and how she's so square and kinda tubby.



I've also been dying to get some animation done for the blog and I thought she should be simple enough to do something with in such a short amount of time. Well we all know how our perception of how much time we think we have differs from how much time we actually have but I managed to come up with something rough. I started out trying to animate her directly on the computer but I wasn't too happy with the brush strokes. The one thing that I love about the initial sketch were the blatant pencil lines so I did some keys on paper!

I animated the other character on the computer because when I compared the hand-drawn to the roughs on the computer I ended up liking the pose on the computer better. I should have had that image open while drawing on paper but I'll do that next time.

Ghost Hunting and River Swimming

Nother page from my sketchbook. I've been into drawing ghost lately, which kinda of goes hand in hand with me rekindling my interest in ghost-hunting (went last night). Also, I did a little gag comic of my friend/room-mate and myself swimming in the Connecticut River in Northampton, MA earlier this week after a rain storm. The river is already kiiiinda icky to swim in, but there was alot of debris (mostly seaweed or sticks) floating downstream, but Ryan (mentioned companion) joked about how there are cliche cartoon garbage in the water such as tires, banana peels, shoes, and half eaten food floating around us. So I drew it. Enjoy-



-Bryan-

I told you to go before we left Greenland!

I love vikings. Not so much the real historically accurate vikings, but the violent, conquering, helmets with horns type vikings. So, here are some viking sketches. Oh, and a dragon.

A Long Cool Woman...

So, as you can imagine, stocking groceries all night, every night can get a tad repetitive. It also doesn't help that they play the same music every single night either--music my co-worker describes as "crappy B-music from the 70's." That's a pretty accurate assessment. As such, one of our favorite pastimes is to complain bitterly about every single song that comes on. This usually goes on for 8 straight hours.

However--every once in a while, a song will come on that doesn't make us want to stick our heads into the baler. One such song is this:



Possibly my favorite song of all time--The Hollies' Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress.

It's the story of an FBI agent infiltrating a speakeasy back in the days of prohibition. Just when he's about to call in the "DA man" (District Attorney) to bust the place, a long, cool woman in a black dress takes the stage...

The magic of this song is that no one is exactly sure what the true lyrics are, which leaves room for a bit of artistic interpretation.
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My idea is a film noir style short film, with the main character using the adapted lyrics in a classic dramatic voice-over.

It's got all the elements of a great noir crime drama--

Guns...G-men...beautiful, dangerous women...

What more do you want?

But don't worry...I'm leaving plenty of room for some great gags only the medium of animation can pull off.
*Think Tex Avery's immortal wolf in Red Hot Riding Hood.

Below are some early designs for the three characters mentioned in the song specifically--the woman, the narrator, and Charlie:

...and here are some sketches exploring character and inking styles:

<--This is the original sketch I did in November of last year.

I think he adapted well to this story.

Right now all I have is the character designs and some really rough storyboards. I'll be working all night to nail down the final designs and storyline, as well as doing plenty of homework. For example this Samurai Jack episode
(I suggest muting beforehand...it was the best video I could find).





...and these books:

Boot to the Head

Hoping I'm in time for this one.

Doing a series of thematic fighting poses involving the use of legs.

Readying for a round house kick on this one. A bit of play with the foreshortening.

The one on the upper right show Zeph going for a hammer drop kick. The one on the bottom is a high rising kick, but apparently, I didn't plan this one out too well when it came to the legs -_-;

Just playing with dynamics at random, I came up with the pose there on the top of this image. Physically painful to try and emulate in real life, but hey, i think that's what drawings are for! =D

The 2nd drawing in this image is supposed to depict a strong forward kick. I've been on the recieving end of such a kick when sparring with a friend of mine learned in the arts of Muay Thai, and if left me short of breath for a few minutes at least! o.o

Finally getting back into practice again. Feels good to be able to draw again after dabbling with 3D too much.

2D drawings are always better.

Welp, that's it for this week from me.

I think I'll come up with another theme for next week, just not sure of what yet however.

Backgounds are apparently the bane of my existence...

Like I said in the header, backgrounds are the bane of my existence.  Well somewhat true.  But when it comes to completing a single image it is a huge problem for me.  Even with all this planning (something that I do rarely with my sketches I am afraid) it comes down to colouring and everything else that comes with completing it.

Mr. John Allison is great at backgrounds and also a great inspiration to me.  His webcomic and posters have great backgrounds.

So this is the piece I am working on (unfinished obviously) and I am not sure if it will ever get done for more reasons than one.  Right now, it appears to be too big for my favourite Sketchbook Pro to handle.  Too big and too many layers.  But I will see what happens with it.

Bonus image:

The gift I gave Christina and Michael for their wedding.

Short Film

Here are thumbnails for a short film I’m working on. I think Steve will consider this in the “artsy nonsensical” category. It’s still in the early stages and these quick sketches are how I’m trying to get as much imagery out as possible. These don’t necessarily make sense nor will they actually be used in the final film but it’s a form of “free writing”.

Like I said it’s still in the beginning stages and I don’t have a clear idea of where it is going as of yet. I do know that the piece will center around alcoholism and I want to have a really rough style. I want to show some paint textures but as I’m doing these other ideas are coming to my head and that might change. I’d like to keep it under a minute. I think that will be a good challenge to be able to tell a “story” in such a short time.

Cryptids and Charlie Brown

Thank goodness for this blog because I'm starting to draw again, and boy have I been missing out! I'm trying to get decent at sketching in ink. I'm pretty sloppy with it, but practice makes perfect. I decided to draw some local legends and cryptids that are from the areas that some of the people on this blog are from. I did five so far for Craig, Katrina, Todd, Steve, and myself. Since I'm not too well read on Asian cryptids, I'll research and draw one for Zeph!

I've also been pretty into Charles Schulz lately. His sketching technique is incredibly charming, so I'm currently trying to unlock his secrets by drawing charlie brown as much as possible.



-Bryan-

Martin is a rock star

So here's another sketch I did in Flash. I'm still not comfortable working completely digital, I still prefer pencil and paper, but I'm trying to branch out. A couple of weeks ago, I went to see a friend's band play, and I wanted to try something that captures the energy of the show. If you are curious about the band, check out Bridges Out on Facebook.

Gossip Girls

I'm the complete opposite of Todd.

I think girls are so fun to draw!

All those curves and that female attitude.

They're sooo different than men.

As a child, I went to an all boys school and everyone would draw cars that hovered with crazy lights etc. I on the other hand would draw Cinderella (I knew something was different). Though I don't draw Cinderella so much anymore, I still definitely enjoy drawing the ladies! I guess some things never change.

Here's an illustration of the Louis Vuitton Fall Winter 2010 show.

I hate women...

They're just so frustrating.

All those curves and that female attitude.

They're sooo different than men.

I have such a hard time trying to draw them.

What? What did you think I meant?

Anyway...this is Mérian, one of the main characters in my story. I literally spent my entire day off trying to come up with an appealing design. I'll spare you the horror of the early attempts.


In this drawing, she is in her "adventure attire." I still have to design some fancy clothes for her to wear at the beginning of the story, but that will take some time. I'm not so great at fashion design. I'll leave that stuff to Derek --> http://www.derekcardigan.blogspot.com

Also, in the interest of stepping it up a notch, I'll now include some sweet action poses of the four main characters in my story:



Again...I'll admit to using Star Wars for inspiration. However, one of these poses I came up with all by m'self. Can you guess which one? I bet you can't.

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You know what? I'll even throw in some sketches while I'm at it, just for fun:

So there you have it...

That's all I got.

For now.

So BRING IT!!

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p.s. I hope y'all like the new header. That's the idea I had from the beginning.

Something a wee bit different

Quite a while back while in Vanarts, I managed to nail for a character's design that has somewhat eluded me for years.With what I learnt in Vanarts, a character sheet was in order to 'put things in order', so to say...

So voila, this was what I came up with!

Somewhere later down the road, we were taught about the importance about how understanding characters that we create in real space would give us understanding on how to much more believably convince the eyes of viewers when it comes to possible proportion, expression and poseability, just to name a few.

Hence, we were advised to embark on a project to build a Marquette (sp?) of the character we had in mind, so naturally, I picked the character I've been working on for years once again.

What we had here was a WIP of how it went.

Since the Marquette wasn'y very big and the pose that was in mind had relatively decent ground contact, I could afford to use wires that aren't very thick.

Innards of the skeletal frame are then filled with Aluminium foil to assist with the process of baking and give a more solid 'skin' structure to the Marquette.

And finally, the Marquette prior to baking.

I was pretty pleased with how things turned out here. Definitely am interested in working more with this medium in the future :)