Clothed Figure Drawing 2 Final

This is my final from Clothed Figure Drawing 2, where I introduced the T-Bone player's combo band. I was only supposed to draw 2 figures, but felt "adventurous". Then I felt really stupid and rushed. I'll have to tweak the tracing before any future use. The diaper fold in the back is going away, I'll say that much.

Watched my childhood fave Christmas movie last night, "Santa and the Three Bears". I totally forgot about the strange and cool graphic transitions at the beginning, and between scenes.

George Chung: The original "Machine-Gun Kicker"

Y'all could probably give a hoot about this, but it's MY blog, sooooooo...

In 2002, I learned of the sport circuit that indirectly influenced me to take martial arts. "NASKA": North American Sport Karate Association. I watched the competitors throughout my childhood and didn't even know it. They were wearing giant turtle suits, flipping around in Sub-Zero & Scorpion costumes and, of course, informing kids when it was "Morphin' Time". Their punches were sharp. Their kicks were flawless. And they trained the world champions of today.

This is Master George Chung. One of the guys who trained THEM! Watch for those "machine-gun sidekicks" and ASTONISHING wheel kicks! You may also notice some 1980's cheese sprinkled in there haha.

The Emo Kid and My "CFD-2" Midterm

So I'm stuck uploading crap from school because I intelligently disabled ALL my PC's USB drivers. ANYWAYS, here's some updates, some involving a brush pen.

Inspired by my Birthday weekend with my high school's Reunion Concert Band...

Clothed Figure Workshops with Bill Sanchez

Then my energy shot started wearing off...

Exploratory Sharpie Scribbles

Sharpie time. Also Ebony Pencil time.

Bonus Comic-Con photo!

Updates

Wow. Remind me never to say "coming soon" again... So the school year is just about ready to take off. 10 classes of horror to chip through, starting with an acting class. I figure after all the other times I've been dragged out of my comfort zone, what the heck is "Gestures and Emotions" possibly gonna do???

So, to quickly summarize how Comic-Con 2010' went, THIS is how it went.
Yyyyep. That's TOTALLY the original black ranger sharing my photo. Walter "Zack" Jones. Heck, since this happened on the last day, I pretty much forgot any good bullet points from earlier. Well in addition, I'll definitely have to make different portfolios for every studio I apply to. TV studios like realistic life drawings, while feature houses seem to like the more creatively driven stuff.

Until next time!

Gesture Drawings + Coming Soon

My yearly "gush" on how awesome Comic-Con was will come shortly. In the mean time, here's the 2 gesture pages I brought to the portfolio review (minus the old 2 minute figure page) . All 3 met a surprisingly positive response from the Disney recruiter. During my critique, it came up that more of this energy needs to make it's way into my storyboards. Can do!

Buy "Garfield: From The Trash Bin"!

I ran into this book while looking for another textbook, at Borders. If you see it there, flip through it! It's possibly the best Garfield book I've ever bought. Old-skool cartooning. If I were revamping the "Garfield & Friends" 2D cartoon for modern audiences (with Ray Romano as Garfield and Jon Cryer as Jon Arbuckle...I've thought about this...), I would first slide this over to the art director.

Jim Davis did 2 things here: He basically laid out most of the vis dev for my hypothetical design department, and reminded this reader who the master cartoonist was. This guy does more with a sharpie in a few seconds than I could render in an hour, pushed poses and all. Though his gags may have been too "much" for the newspapers, they would be perfect for TV animation. Tame, even. Click the image for the amazon site.

Copyright 2010 PAWS, Inc. All Rights Reserved

"Hostages" Character Design cleanups

Just the beginning of what I plan on dumping. These are characters created for my "Writing for Comics" class, but DRAWN for my character design class. The story has a superhero base with tons of Hitchcockian motifs from my Hitchcock class (all super-characters are named after birds/ leading lady has an "M" name). 6 Classes-101: find ways to smear 'em all together haha. The semester is closing, and I'll be dropping off the spoils when I can. enjoy.


Also, I was annoyed that I couldn't google up a turnaround "pie" for my assignment. So I scanned one in, and now it's up for all those desperate last-minute googlers. Use as needed.

Magic Markers

2 drawings I blasted out at the Savannah Jazz club in the Mission district. Used my new buddy, prismacolor markers.


Light gray markers (20-40 or 30-50) with bic ballpoint pens, used as a quick straight-forward way to learn a design style. Mostly silhouette-first. Inspired by Eric Scales, Florian Satzinger, and various teachers @ AAU. It's officially "on".





I hope I never have to draw a character like Pocahontas for a prolonged period of time. Ideal proportions *shudder*...
My 1st ever attampt at drawing the Bat. Copied from a freeze frame.

R.I.P. Imagi Studios...

I was informed a few days ago that Imagi Animation Studios, the force behind TMNT and Astro Boy, has shut down their US studio, and is pretty much dead in the water. They actually broke this news, officially, in January. This comes as highly disappointing for me, as I'm not the only one who saw great potential in what those guys were trying to achieve. That team really had heart, and it showed in the projects they chose to adapt. Anyway, they tried. Despite all their flaws, and despite all those who laughed at their setbacks, they tried something new and risky.

So anyways, now that the studio sank, we're seeing a lot of production materials come out of the woodwork, that were only heard of years back. At least I finally get to see the famous "Gatchaman sizzle-reel" Kevin Munroe directed back in 06'. Felix Ip mentioned that the designs were far from finished, and the main feature was the raw stylized action. Also in the works WAS a "T-28" feature, better known as "Gigantor" to American audiences. It's a cryin' shame...

Disney Inspire Days

What a weird dream. A flight down to Burbank, seminars, tours, a portfolio review and a flight back, followed by a disoriented blackout...

ANYWAYS, I got to see one of my idols in person, Mr. Bruce Smith, doing a demo of Dr. Facilier. He'll be supervising Piglet in the upcoming Winnie the Pooh movie. The mouse folks also showed us a TON of footage from "Tangled", formerly "Rapunzel". Also I saw vis dev artist, Lorelay Bove, whom I've been aware of since her CalArts years. Definitely a success story.

On to the portfolio review (Storyboard)...I don't think they liked a single thing about my portfolio... Resume, boards, life drawings, WAITWAIT! They DID like my honking-expensive and exhaustively designed presentation prints, though I've recently been informed I'd have gotten the same reaction had I encased my work in eggo waffles. Yeeeaaaahhhh... At least they were nice about it! I also designed a final "Splash!" page, but it has images that haven't quite been cleared for blogging yet. Not that it mattered.

Specifically, They said my work was more suited for television due to the tight pencil work, on-model drawing (I was "on-model"...?) and "generic" poses. That's not terrible news, as I would like nothing more than to succeed in TV boarding. The thing is all the TV artists I admire COULD work in features if they wanted, but CHOSE to be their toon-watching selves. I want to be in the same boat. Basically, for features I should hold off on that last clean-up pass. Aaaand use a dang mirror, for once. I'll post those as soon as I figure out how to post PDF's...

Also, I should practice copying compositions from live-action films on pause. I already study film, but will definitely admit I didn't think of that. Another critique was that, when choosing sequences, I should think in terms of different genres, rather than just different sequences. Great point. 'Just wish I had thought of it before shelling out the dough at Staples...I wonder if I can write this crap off on my taxes...

My figure drawing didn't raise many eyebrows either. I was told they lacked personality and exaggeration. I'm guessing they were looking more for this variety. Fair enough. Currently, I've just been trying to improve my general drawing skills, and wasn't giving much thought to "design". My character design class has me doing that though. Give me a few months! I'll have this thing up to speed, yet!

Character Turnarounds Under Fire

Ho-kay, so these aren't perfect, but I thought I should post them. Things have been hairy in these early weeks, but what the hey. I've just gotta do my thing.


My maquette design. I'm really asking for it this time haha. Needs a proper back view...


3-4 Animal Hybrid. Bat, lynx, eagle and gerbil.
Bill Clinton design.

Bill Clinton design revisions.
In-class design from live model. 4 minutes per angle.

Kimberly Hart

For this one, I tried out a new coloring method which utilizes photoshop's "Hue/Saturation" feature (here's the youtube link...). The system involves painting the whole thing in one color (like with gray markers), and swapping the colors out in the end. Not bad for a leap of faith!


And here's a peek at the clean pencils, brought to you by Prismacolor Pencils! "Prismacolor: melts in your mouth, not in your hands!"


UPDATE: I darkened the shade and added lens flare. That is how I am to be rolling. Perhaps I should also darken the rest of the bike's rear...