Can't Stop Drawing

Sneak Peek

2012-03-02T21:42:00.002-08:00

Toronto ComiCON is just seven days away. Who's excited?

Here's another preview of what I'll have at my table.

Taking flight

2012-02-25T16:30:00.000-08:00

A while back, on what was practically a dare from a friend, I applied for a table in artist's alley at the Toronto ComiCON.

And then, to my utter astonishment, I actually got in.

So, March 10-11 I'll be at table A51, with some prints and some artwork, and doing some sketches.

I figured that I would do up a special print for it, and throw in some local flavour.

Here's hint 1, my location photo reference.

And here's hint #2, my initial construction lines.

So, if you're from Toronto and really, really nerdy you probably know where I'm going with this.

Other than that, here's a couple of other things I've got on hand.

So, here's me. Taking a deep breath and taking the plunge. Wish me luck.

Putting 'em up

2012-02-11T15:55:00.000-08:00

So, there was some friendly smack talk over at Outcast Studios discussion boards, and now I've gotten myself signed up for Battle Artist on deviantArt. I guess I'm just a sucker for punishment because I'm out of my weight class going up against pretty much anyone else on the roster. But it's fun, and there's no particular shame in being 0 for 2.

The topic of the last battle was Ben 10, and we had a week to work on it.

The first thing I did was rent a DVD so I could learn what Ben 10 is. I'd heard of it, of course, because I haven't been living under a rock, but I'd never seen it. Incidentally, I will never get that theme song unstuck from my head now. I started out by filling out a couple of sketchbook pages while watching the show and getting an idea of the character.

While I was doing that, I also started working out what my own drawing was going to be about.

I set up the composition on a simple, one-point perspective with the convergence point between Ben and his giant robot opponent, so that the piece is about the tension and the fight about to take place. Then I did a little design work on the giant robot arm itself so that I had a reference for it. These were done on a wee, 3x5 sketchpad during intermission at a concert. Because I like drawing, but I also like Beethoven.

I was happy enough with this sketch that I developed it a little more than I would usually do for a thumbnail sketch. And because the perspective is pretty straightforward, I skipped right to building a grid and rough construction on full-size comic board instead of making an intermediate construction and blowing it up on a copier. I forgot to scan that stage, though.

I added enough detail in the background to give a sense of location and what had happened up to this point in Ben's day, and checked that the composition still had energy to it. It still goes in a spiral, coming in down the robot arm, going up the black stripe on Ben's shirt, and then back down the pipes leading down the corridor, and even though the robot is closer to us and on the left hand side of the page, Ben is dominant, so it does what I intended.

I only sort of know what I'm doing with inking, but I managed to get some fairly clean lines down for this one, especially by my own standards. Looks like that inking class I'm taking at Toronto Cartoonists Workshop is already paying off, halfway through.

And then, because I still had a day or so before the submission deadline, I decided to try doing some colours. I let the background be fairly dark and desaturated, so that Ben would stand out more.

So there you have it. That's how I throw down at an art fight.

I still lost, of course.

But my real opponent isn't whoever the randomizer stacks me against, my real opponent is myself. And I'm making some pretty good drawings, and they're getting better all the time.

Back to the Basics

2012-01-22T08:34:00.000-08:00

I got a copy of Figure Drawing for all it's Worth by Andrew Loomis for Christmas, which is awesome. So, naturally I'll be working through that for the next little while.

I've spent some time over the past few years in learning to draw, so some of the material in the book is stuff I've covered before. And sometimes in learning a skill, you'll find that you're revisiting stuff you'd already learned.

The important thing in that case is to keep paying attention. Don't take anything for granted. There's the temptation to skim over "blah blah blah, I already know this stuff" but if you focus, and bring your more developed sensibility to the "beginner" material, you never know what new insights you can find.

There's no lesson that you can't still make new discoveries from, if you approach it with an open mind.

Stop SOPA

2012-01-18T05:24:00.000-08:00

2011 - the year in sketches

2011-12-31T12:57:00.000-08:00

Well here we are at the end of the year. It's been quite a ride. I've done a sketch every day, which have ranged from atrocious to pretty good.

The full year's sketches - even the bad ones - are posted on deviantArt in my Daily Sketches gallery.

And for those of you who really want to check out my personal hall of shame, there's the Blooper Reel gallery. Because I'm secure enough to laugh at my own mistakes.

Here are my favourites by month, and a little bit about why I like them.

January

Immortus - I llike how the hands turned out.

February

Static - Dwayne McDuffie tribute sketch

March

Dr. Seuss - World Literacy Day sketch

April

Sarah Jane Smith - Elisabeth Sladen tribute sketch

May

Daredevil - I just like the energy of it

June

Concrete - Liked the mood of it. I was also satisfied with the texture.

July

Man-Thing - This one's all about the textures.

August

Nightwing - I like the energy, and had enough fun with it to come back later and drop in a bit of colour.

September

Black Panther - I picked a really hard pose, and like the way it turned out.

October

Giant Monster - another one that is all about the textures

November

Black Cat - Swishy hair and relatively correct proportions

December

Samwise Gamgee

This is not only my favourite from December, but also my favourite for the whole year. Everything just clicked for me that day.

That's it for 2011. Happy New Year, everyone, and hope 2012 treats you well.

Learning by example

2011-12-10T21:42:00.000-08:00

As an artist, sometimes it's OK to copy someone else's work.

WHAAAT?!?

No, seriously.

Let me explain.

Copying is part of the learning process.

All artists are, at some level, still art students. And everyone can learn something from someone.

Copying saves you repeating mistakes, or reinventing the wheel.

Anything you're struggling with, someone out there has already solved the problem.

When you're stuck on something and can't figure out why your drawings aren't working, or even if there is just something you want to improve, find examples of how it has been done well, and copy them. I wanted to improve my figure work, and the use of hatch lines to indicate dimensionality and light direction. So I copied this drawing by Jacopo Chimenti.

A few points about copying as learning:

1. Credit your source.
Even if it's just notes in your sketchbook and you never intend to show it to anyone else, make a note of where you found the original, in case you want to refer back to it later. But absolutely, remember that you're not making your own art, you're studying someone else's to learn how to apply a technique or solve a visual problem. Because that is where the line is between copying and plagarism, and they are not (as far as I'm concerned) the same thing.

2. Analyse and understand what it is you're copying.

Break a good composition or narrative down to its elemental parts to figure out why it works, and how you can use that information to make your own work better. Make notes. Pay attention. Don't just be a human photocopier.

If I am a good visual storyteller (which, no false modesty, I know I am) it is because I have studied good visual storytellers. I have studied the best that I found, and and applied the principles I learned to my own work.

3. What the analysis means to you, is what it means.

I know that I have had people analyse my writing or art and interpret it in ways I never intended, or even imagined it could be interpreted. And yes, when you're analyzing someone else's artwork you might be putting words in their mouth. For the purposes of this learning experience, don't worry about whether you're "right" or "wrong" compared with the original creator's intent. Don't let that hang you up, because it's what you learned, not what they said, that you'll be bringing to your own art. You'll be using the things you learned to make your own statement, and you'll have a whole new set of tools to do it.

And that's when it moves from copying to creating.

It's a date!

2011-11-28T17:26:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update...

Grawlix Anthology #3, in which my story "Undone" appears, is launching at the November 29, 2011 session of the Toronto Comic Jam at Sonic at 60 Cecil St at College & Spadina.

https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=183797985045539

If you missed my earlier posts about working on the story, I did one on character development one on set design and page layout and just a quick one with preview art and the wrong launch date. Oh yeah. Also, the wrong edition number.

But now it's real, it's official, and Grawlix #3 will be live and in person.

Doing things the hard way

2011-11-19T09:53:00.000-08:00

Like I mentioned in my blog post a few weeks ago, if you want to get better at something, repetition is important. But if you really want to get better, what you're repeating and how you're repeating it is even more important. If you want to get better, you can't just repeat easy stuff that you're good at and call it a day.

I moved TO this spot from an easier one.

Making a leap

I've been doing things that are hard or that I'm not very good at, in order to get better at them.

When I'm at a life-drawing session, I move to a spot where I'm looking at the model from a difficult angle. And I don't worry about what people will think of my drawings; I'm making studies, not art.

When I do my daily sketches, I try to find ways to challenge myself. At least once in a while, I try to draw a pose that involves a drawing problem that I'm still working on solving. And when I can't figure out why a drawing doesn't work (like this one of Lara Croft) I ask for someone to show me how I should have drawn it.

Twisting AND foreshortening. Yikes.

Learning from my mistakes
It's hard and it's scary and it's a little frustrating. I've ended up making a lot of not-very-successful drawings. But I've also learned a lot about what doesn't work. And along the way, I'm starting to learn what does.

Take risks
So, if you want to get better, sometimes you have to risk making drawings that really, really do not work. Go ahead and make mistakes. Make great, big mistakes. Make lots of them. Make bad, awkward, clumsy drawings, and figure out how to make them better. Be patient with yourself and with the lines that land on the page.

Never, never quit.
Keep it up, and the things you're bad at will start to turn into things you're good at.

the red bits are where I corrected myself.

Starting to get the hang of it

A quickie for SpeakEasy 2011

2011-10-31T18:30:00.000-07:00

Want to see what I've been up to lately, and check out some original artwork?

Come on out to SpeakEasy's Comic Book Art Show on November 3. I'll be on hand to have a chat and answer any questions about comics or art or life in general (accuracy of the answers not guaranteed.)

The Toronto Comic Jam will also be there with the latest edition of Grawlix, which includes the story that I've mentioned here in earlier blog posts.

http://www.speakeasyto.com/

Sticking to it

2011-10-29T12:13:00.000-07:00

It's been almost a year since I started doing the Daily Sketch Challenge over at Outcast Studios and about half that since I started "Rockie's All-Request Weekends" for my friends on Facebook to recommend weekend sketch topics. I've been at it nearly every day. (I missed one day while I was on vacation.)

There have been a few people who have told me that my dedication is admirable.

Mostly, my dedication is just well-developed. It's been hitting the gym. Hard.

Reach for the stars

Being dedicated is a choice.

Dedication, like anything else, is a skill that can be developed.

Your brain is physically affected by choices you make. Over time, neural patterns are reinforced. Every time you choose to stick to something, even if it's hard (maybe especially if it's hard) you're exercising your persistence patterns. Every time you let yourself slack off or quit, you're exercising your slacker patterns.

It's a choice, every day, but every day it's easier to make the same choice as the day before.

The 20-minute workout

Make a choice to be dedicated to improving your craft. Make this choice over again every day. Choose to make an investment in your muse, and in your own improvement. (You're already doing this, whether you're aware of it or not. Every day, you're either choosing to do your thing or to not do your thing.)
Make a commitment. If you're a set scheudule person or not, make it the same time every day, and don't let anything steal that time away. I'm not a set schedule person myself, so it's not the same time every day for me, but there is always at least 15-30 minutes somewhere between the time I wake up and the time I go to sleep that "I'm an artist right now" takes over.
Make yourself accountable. Even if it's just posting on Facebook or Twitter "I'm doing this new thing every day". When I started doing the daily sketches but before I was consistent with it, I did have friends call me on missing a day. If that's what it takes for you, then that's what you need to do.

Developing a routine

The more often you repeat steps 1 and 2, the stronger your tendency will be to continue doing it. Eventually, you'll get to the point were step 3 isn't needed much, because you start to be accountable to yourself and your muse, and that's enough.

Sure, there are days when I'm tired, or I have a headache, or I have to do the laundry. I just tell my tiredness, or headache, or laundry that it will have to wait a half hour until I'm done practicing. Because I've got a consecutive days of sketching streak going.

Seeing the results

And, of course, persistence pays off. Drawing #1 is a sketch from November 2010, and drawing #2 is one from August 2011.

Then

Now

Keeping myself occupied

2011-10-16T09:28:00.000-07:00

I've decided to get some practice on the whole writing, drawing, and meeting deadlines thing by starting a webcomic. We'll see how well that works out for me. I picked a bad time to start, given that my day job tends to eat most of my life at this time of year, and I have a day-job-related study group that is eating the rest of my life right now.

I've had the basic concept and premise kicking around the back of my head for a couple of years now. And now that I have some drawing skills developed, I guess I can start working on it.

So far, I've done some concept sketches for the characters. I'm still trying to figure out how to break down the story, and whether I'm going to do strips or pages. I'm leaning toward strips though, since it's for the web and with a strip I can deal with it panel by panel. I'll also want to set it up so it'll work as well on a netbook or smartphone.

A lot to think about for my first solo project, but I gotta start somewhere.

Anna Schoenberg, super genius

"Names are a human conceit. I know who I am" River Goddess

Anna's friend, Peter. They met when she was a kid genius in college.

He also used to babysit and walk her to the library, because Anna was smart enough to be an undergraduate, but too young to cross the street by herself.

Preview art

2011-09-18T09:44:00.000-07:00

A while back, I did a post about the story I was working on for Grawlix issue 2. It's all done now, and scheduled to launch Oct 23 at Canzine

In the meantime, here's a little preview.

Using photo reference

2011-09-11T07:36:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I use photo reference when I work. I didn't for a long time, because using photo reference made my stuff look flat and lifeless. More like a chalk outline, really.

This week in particular, I've been using photo reference for my warmup sketches, to get some practice at using photo reference without losing vitality in the artwork.

I find the main thing about using photo reference and making it work is to not actually copy the photo. I use the photo to help figure out a pose, but I do the drawing as if there were a live model in front of me.

1. I do a light loose drawing of the line of action and the main body shapes. I'll spend maybe five minutes on this stage of the drawing. On this copy, I've highlighted the first line in yellow, this was to get the main direction of the pose. I indicated the center line for upper and lower body, and made a construction line to help get the position of the forward and back knees in the right spots.

2. Once the main shapes are blocked in, I spend some time refining the figure.This is where I start to show things like gender and a few expression lines. I also start to hint at the hair and the costume, but I don't go into detail at this point. I don't look at the details, or the edges of the photo image, just at the main thrust of the pose, and the positive and negative space involved.

Finally, I refine the drawing with the details. How much time I spend on that depends on what the drawing is. If I was planning to do a more polished piece of work, the same principles apply, I'd just be slower and more deliberate in my linework, and I'd add some information about shading and light direction. Because this one was just intended to be a warmup sketch and not a major masterpiece, I did as much as I could in fifteen minutes and put down the brush after that.

So there you have it. How to use photo reference without it looking like a chalk outline.

I've linked here to the original photo reference I used. Just a heads-up, there's a little nudity in it. I thought about doing a PG-13 edit to use here, but the original photographer is very anti-censorship so out of respect to him, if you want to see it you'll have to see it all.

You CAN get there from here

2011-08-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

Hands up if you’ve ever heard this one: “You’re either born with artistic talent, or you’re not. It can't be taught.” Or the oh-so-encouraging followup "and you weren't born with it, so just give up now."

Yeah. Me too.

And they're wrong. It's not magic. Drawing can be taught, and learned.

I've had a lot of very kind comments lately about how much my drawing has improved over the last year and a bit. And you know why I've improved? I've learned.

That's right. I am LEARNING to DRAW.

I wasn't "born with it," so I guess they were right about that. I just didn't let that stop me. I went to school, and kept at it until I found someone who didn't buy into the whole "drawing can't be taught" nonsense.

I've had some lovely and well-intentioned comments from friends about how talented I am. Truth is, talent has nothing to do with it, other than the talent to be too stubborn to quit. Once in a while, someone says they wish they could draw like me. Tell you what, kids, I didn't get this way by wishing. Like the cliche says, it's 2% inspiration, and 98% perspiration.

You want to draw like me? Here's how.

Find a good school, with faculty whose work you respect. Pay attention to the instructors. When they point out an area where you maybe need to pay a little extra attention or put in a little extra work, don't get offended and pitch a fit. Put in the extra work. If they point out an area where you need to un-learn some bad old habits that are keeping your drawings from being as good as they could be, don't take it as a personal insult. Listen to them, and apply what they say to your next drawing.

I try to reinforce the new good stuff I've learned, and watch out for the old mistakes and bad habits. If a sketch doesn't turn out, I study what might have gone wrong with it, and draw corrections on it so I can do better next time. If I couldn't figure out what went wrong with it, I ask for help or advice or a critique from someone who I can trust to give honest and contstructive feedback. If a sketch does turn out, I don't take it as a sign that I can let my guard down.

Most of all, I park my butt in a chair and practice every day.

It's not magic, and it's not talent. It's work. At the end of the day, ANYONE can learn to draw at least as well as I do, if they want it enough to put in the hours.

So there you have it: If you wish you could draw, pick up a pencil, and just start drawing. And don't stop.

A new way of seeing the world

2011-08-07T13:10:00.000-07:00

The other week, I took some vacation time from my day job at the bank to go to the Toronto School of Art for a three-day, full time intensive. This turned out to be a really, really good choice. Exhausting, but good. The workshop was Structural Bodies taught by Thomas Hendry, and it had the specific focus of giving depth and dimensionality to drawings.

Which is handy, since the lack of dimension has been consistently one of the biggest flaws in my drawings.

The first day, we had a model who wore black and white stripes pretty much from head to toe. Leggings, leotard, even stockings on her arms. This was super helpful. Instead of having to imagine the direction a cross-contour line would take, it was right there in, well, black and white. Seeing it, for the first time, I understood how to use cross-contours to indicate direction. I had managed this before in my drawings, but only inconsistently and by fluke. Now I know how to do it intentionally. So, if you're having a hard time figuring out which way to put a curved line, try wrapping some string around a drawing dummy, and posing it. I know that's what I'll be doing the next time I get stumped.

Having finally gotten a grasp on how lines convey direction, I worked really methodically for the rest of the intensive. Because this was a new technique for me, the process was more important than the end product. Slow, repetitive and intentional practice is the best way to reinforce something you're just learning to do. Worry about the process, not the performance. It's like practicing scales on the piano. Study them mechanically so that you can use what you learned to support something more expressive later on. But you need to have the technique down before you can use it.

Part of my approach was to actually draw the eye line on each piece, rather than assuming I'd remember or know where I meant for it to be. This helped when I was trying to figure out if something was coming toward me or moving away. So I did a quick study of the main masses of the body, and then went back in and refined where there were smaller masses and forms of the individual muscle groups.

After spending a couple of days doing this, I got what was, for me, the real "eureka" moment: I was able to see the planes of the figure. This was huge. I'd attempted planar studies before, but was never able to figure out what I was looking at, or how to express it on paper. All of a sudden, I could see the block shapes and round shapes. I'd read Bridgman, of course, but had never understood what he was talking about. And then, I did. It was like a Matrix switch got flipped somewhere in my head, and I could see the edges of planes, and the block shapes. It's a little trippy, because I see them all the time now, little fractal lines on everything I look at. It's a pretty big shift in perception, and I'm still figuring out how to process it.

So, if you're anything like me, and you find the anatomy and figure drawing and life drawing reference books confusing and intimidating, don't let it stop you. Copy the drawings from the book by rote until you understand them. While you're doing that, draw from life every chance you get. And at least once in a while, don't be afraid to make a mechanical, methodical study instead of a work of art.

You never know what it can lead to.

Work in Progress

2011-07-23T11:33:00.000-07:00

I'm making a bit of headway on my Grawlix #2 story. Which is good, what with the finished pages being due in about ten days' time.

I had originally planned to use photo reference of a real restaurant in Toronto for the location on page 2, but after taking the pictures I realized that the restaurant layout would screw up my storytelling, so I went with an imaginary restaurant that has small, round tables and I just made a script margin scribble so I could make sure that the characters stayed in the right seating arrangement and that the right background shows up depending on which way the camera is facing.

I found some photo reference for the kind of office environment that Jacob and Simon would be working in. I figured if they're at an inbound tech support call center, then they wouldn't need very big cubicles. And since the cubicle does have a bit of a hero shot on page 2, I wanted to know what it looks like. It's a shallow one, where the dividers are only as deep as the desks.

The page thumbnails are all done, and they seem to read OK to me. I like that so far a couple of people who have seen them picked up right away on the very structured grid giving the reader a sense of security and something to grab onto while the events in the story go from bad to worse.

The little circles in the notes are for word bubbles, and the numbers inside the circles are how many words they are, so how big the word bubble will need to be. Roughly.

Thumbnails, minus the ending

The page constructions for the first two pages have turned out OK, and I've got them transferred to comic art board. So, I've got most of my planning done and it seems to be working out OK for me so far.

Page constructions for pages 1-2

Now I just need to draw. A lot.

Yeah. That just happened.

2011-07-22T05:25:00.000-07:00

I wouldn't blame you for thinking that these credits are some kind of fangirl fantasy. But it's not. They're real, and they're in print.

Check out Ty Templeton's blog for more preview art and other awesomeness.

If you're in Toronto, and it's still before evening, you can come to the Toronto Cartoonists Workshop studio and check it out in person.

TORONTO CARTOONISTS WORKSHOP
587A College Street (Upstairs unit, College and Clinton)

If not, you can watch the Holmes Inc Comic site for how to order a copy in print or online.

My next project

2011-07-19T19:34:00.000-07:00

The Toronto Comic Jam is doing another issue of Grawlix, and I'm doing a story for it.

I've got some basic character sketches down, not so detailed as my character reference for Holmes Inc, but this project has a much faster turnaround so I'm doing the best I can in the time I have. At least I have something I can pin up for continuity.

I used a brushpen on these. When I finish my pages for the book I'll probably use markers, what with my not having refined enough motor skills to use the brush. Yet. And it'll be a challenge enough trying to get the concept of inking down without having a tool I can't fully control.

I'm actually writing the story this issue, which is a new adventure for me. Sure, I've written stuff before. There's all these blog entries, of course, and I've written some short stories, but this is my first comic script. Fortunately for me, I got some help from Holmes Incorporated writer Dino Caruso (you can check out his tutorial on short fiction on the Holmes Incorporated site.)

The subject matter of the story that I'm telling is a bit personal and uncomfortable (to the characters, not to me and hopefully not to the reader) so I'm keeping the pages on a tightly composed grid structure so there's something to provide a safety net. I'll be shooting it basically like a documentary, with predominantly mid- to close- shots to keep it intimate and personal.

I'm trying to keep all three characters sympathetic, just three people in a bad situation but nobody is "the villain" because it's an everyday story with ordinary people. Again, we'll see if that plays out. Obviously, anyone reading the story would relate to one character more than the others, and have a favourite by the end, but I've tried to give all three of them a reason why you'd like them and a reason why you wouldn't. After that, it's your call as to who is the most to blame for what happens.
At least that's the idea. We'll see if it plays out.

One thing about being the artist as well as the writer, I am putting less detail into my script than I probably would if I was handing it over for someone else to draw, because I already have the picture in my mind I don't have to write it down in the script. So my script is pretty sketchy, but I know what I mean by it.

And being the writer as well as the artist, if when I start drawing I decide to go another direction, I have the freedom to just run with the change because I know the writer won't object. (Or if she does, may need some professional help. But that's another topic for another day.)

So, there you have it. My next project, my next challenge. Now all I have to do is meet the deadline.

Almost there

2011-07-17T17:42:00.000-07:00

After months of collaboration, and learning, and abject panic, Holmes Incorporated issue #2 is set to launch on Friday, July 22.

Working on this project has been terrifying and rewarding at the same time, and I can't wait to see the finished product.

If you happen to be in Toronto, please feel free to come by the school/studio space and say hi!

http://cartoonistsworkshop.wordpress.com/2011/06/29/weve-moved-open-house-and-holmes-inc-2-launch-party-on-july-22/

If not, you can check out the Holmes Inc Comic site or follow Holmes Incorporated on Twitter http://twitter.com/#!/holmes_inc for announcements about getting the book online.

The evolution of a page

2011-06-22T13:55:00.000-07:00

Nothing to see here... but over at the Holmes Inc comic page, there is a tutorial and preview art by ME!...

Visit the Holmes Inc Comic site to check it out

Watch for Holmes Inc Issue #2, coming July 22.

Kaboom!

2011-06-21T18:56:00.000-07:00

More promo art for Holmes Inc, inspired by Safe, the final story of Issue 2, coming your way in just a few weeks.

Also, check out today's tutorial on the Holmes Inc Comic site, by Aaron Feldman, the writer of Safe.

http://holmesinccomic.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/back-off-get-your-own-sand-box/

Why is she not running away from the fire? Because she's just that badass.
http://www.theweathernetwork.com/news/storm_watch_stories3&stormfile=wildfires_rage_across_southe_200611?ref=ccbox_weather_category2

Grace under pressure

2011-06-13T21:36:00.000-07:00

I'm done with my pages for Holmes Inc. issue #2! (Technically I've been done for a while, but I needed time to collect my thoughts) I can't wait to see all the finished art next week. Every single one of the contributors to this book is absolutely brilliant, and I couldn't be prouder or happier to be a part of it.

I think I managed to not screw it up.

As I mentioned in my last post, they've given me one of the anchor stories to draw. Having seen the quality of the other art coming in, I found myself a bit intimidated by that.

And by "a bit," I mean "scared speechless."

I think, more than any other artist/writer assignment on the book, Ty and assistant editor Rob Pincombe took a pretty big leap of faith when they gave me that kind of responsibility. The other guys on the art team have proven they can deliver the goods. I wasn't so sure I had it in me. And not in an "insecure artist fishing for compliments" way, but in a deep and genuine "I hope I don't screw this up" way.

Right about then, the other shoe of awesome dropped. Part safety net, and part exponential Holy Frikkity Froo.

Ty said he wanted to ink my pages this issue, "if that was okay."

Wait. What?

Yeah. That happened.

Our editor, teacher, mentor, and all-around guru Ty Templeton is inking my pages. After about fifteen minutes or so, once I had regained the power of human speech, I agreed that yeah, that would be very okay. I would just have to come up with the best art I'd ever done in my life. I couldn't just bring my A-game. It was time to find a whole new level of A-game that I didn't even know I had.

Under pressure

(No, not this one)

It's both a motivating and destructive force. So, you may ask, what do you do when you're completely out of your depth? How do you channel the pressure so that it will motivate you, not crush you?

My answer to that was to jump right in and start drawing like mayhem.

The cure for insecurity about drawing? More drawing!

I started easy, just doing a turnaround for a character that was introduced in issue 1. He was already canon, so there was no design work to do. It was just a matter of copying an existing design, and drawing it from different angles. No sweat, right? That went okay, and he's recognizably the same guy that we met in Night Clubbing. So, whew. So far, so good. Starting to get my stride.

After that, I did some preliminary character concept sketches for the new characters I'd be working with.

Once the version was picked, these were basically okay, and only needed a few tweaks before they got the thumbs-up, and I did the character turnarounds as posted last month.

The main villain needed a few go-arounds. The first sketch I brought was universally deemed "too handsome". I didn't think to scan it before I started erasing the handsome bits and adding the weaselly bits, so you'll have to take my word for that.

The second go-around was better. But, in keeping with my needing to do the best art I'd ever done, it needed to be cranked up a few notches.

I got the following notes from Ty based on this draft:

Jerk

I find his overall appearance a little less "visual" that works for this story. Can we unique him up a bit? This is comics, and we can't rely on the actor to be charismatic, we have to dress him with a little more costume the sell his character. Don't go cliche, but go unique character, not face in the crowd.

So, based on that, I came up with this revision, which was approved for the book:

Villain

- Streaky hair that is shoulder length, slicked back but loose and wavy at the back, although this may be a little more badger than weasel (a little bit inspired by a dude I saw on his celphone outside the bank office today, only his wasn't streaked)
- Megalodon shark tooth (3" or 3.5" tooth) necklace
- circle/oval scar on his arm that we'll later realize is from where a kid bit him one time. Possibly missing the end of his left pinky for the same reason.
- pinky ring on his right hand (I'm open to suggestions of what it would be, or whether it's too much. If it's OK to give him a whole dinosaur thing, his pinky ring and knife handle could be dinosaur bone.)
I also made him slightly bow-legged and made his ears a little more rounded and a little more prominent, so he would look even more like a weasel.

The actual pages had similar proposals and feedback, and pushing me to do better than I thought I ever could. I'll be doing a writeup on that process soon. Keep an eye on the Holmes Inc site, where the other creators will also be sharing insights into their creative process, and there is preview art a-plenty.

So. Again. What do you do when you're out of your depth?

Step one is stop and breathe. If you're given a challenge, there's probably a good reason for it, and you're probably better equipped for it than you know. So relax.

Step two is do your research. Make sure you know everything you need to know about the environment so that you can include the right details to make it concrete. For the story I worked on, I reviewed a lot of photos so that I could create an environment that had enough specific detail to feel like a real place. After I set up my panels and decided pose and camera angle, I found or took photo reference for a couple of the trickier poses.

Step three is listen to your editor, and ask for help if you get stuck. Sometimes, it doesn't matter how you turn the page, a pose just isn't working for you. When it happens, ask for help, and then listen to the advice you get. Walk away from the panel for a bit, and when you come back to it, look at it with fresh eyes. Take the pose yourself so you know how it feels, and then use that to inform your drawing.

Step four is go out there do the very best you can do. You just might surprise yourself.

The new coolest thing I've ever done

2011-05-13T23:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry I didn't post last month, folks. I was too busy drawing to write about what I was drawing.

The exciting news is that Issue #2 of Holmes Incorporated is underway under the watchful eye of our editor and mentor, Ty Templeton. I've been working on location and character designs, and about a zillion iterations of layouts for the seven-page story I'll be drawing. For a seven-page story, I had a design pack about a mile deep. About half of it is stuff that might (very likely would) come back in future issues now that it's been introduced into the continuity for the series, so I wanted to make sure my design pack was clean enough for posterity.

Mission control, Holmes-style

Jack Watson, the badass grandson of Dr. Watson

I'm wearing a Panama suit and army boots. FTW.

Elizabeth Watson, age 9

Issue #1 was good, and well-received (check it out here if you missed it) and it was a ton of fun to work on. Let me tell you, though, issue #2 is set to kick the ass of issue #1 around the block and back again.

As fellow artist Gibson Quarter says on his blog "it's like the best parts of issue #1 are now taking steriods!! Yep, it's that strong.

Someone messed with Texas

Case in point... me. I've been working out, so to speak. Artistically, I mean. Taking classes at the Toronto Cartoonists Workshop and filling up sketchbooks with practice drawings. And it's paid off; I draw about a zillion times better than I did at this time last year. So much so that when Ty was setting up the writer/artist teams and the running order for the book, he gave me one of the showcase spots. Tell you what, I did NOT see that coming. Fellow contributor Aaron Feldman has written this fantastic, strong and juicy script full of action and drama, involving the fantastic, strong and sexy field leader of the Holmes Inc team, and they're letting me (ME .... mind you .... little, old me) draw it.

Yup. Better than this.

I'm batting cleanup. So, you know, no pressure or anything. All I have to do now is come up with seven of the best pages of artwork I've ever drawn in my life. And that includes my drawing of the Silver Surfer, which I think turned out pretty well.

The thing is, I think I'm actually doing it. I'm actually drawing the best pages I've ever done. I've finished four pages so far, and presented three of them at our class / team meeting the other day. When I put my art out on the table, there was kind of a stunned silence in the room, and one very soft "Holy s***"

I didn't even know I had it in me. When I first got the assignment, I cracked just a little bit under the pressure and had to remind myself a bunch of times that it's the stuff I've done for fun that got me this spot in the lineup, so I should just relax and have fun drawing these pages too.

So I draw a page and then stare at it in disbelief that it could have come off my pencil. I'm batting cleanup, and I really did knock one out of the park, even if I say so myself.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go and draw three more of the best pages of art I've ever done in my life.

Curiouser, and curiouser.

P.S. (There's one more pretty squee-tastic news item coming, which I will share later when I know it's OK. Suffice to say, the reaction of Aaron and myself can best summarized by this YouTube video.)

A quickie for the Toronto Comic Arts Festival

2011-05-07T08:55:00.000-07:00

Hey, friends. Sorry I didn't post last month. I was too busy drawing to write about what I was drawing! Details on that coming soon to a blog near you.

As for today, this weekend is the Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Tons of fabulous events and exhibitors, and general good times for all. Check out their site for full details.

One fun little piece of trivia is that I actually do have some artwork there.

Nothing fancy, but as an occasional participant in the Toronto Comic Jam I had a chance to contribute to their 2011 anthology. The topic was "TTC" and the premise was that each contributor would pick a subway station and create a story about it.

I picked Dundas because it's close to where I work and therefore very familiar to me. And being more of a pictures person than a words person, I teamed up with a co-worker from my day job (Sandra Herve for those of you keeping score) to write the script. We teamed up a bit on the basic plot, because I wanted to give a bit of direction to the type of story I was going to draw. We ended up with quite a nice, happy, and positive story. It was a fun little side project. Here's a preview of page 1.

So, hey, if you find yourself in the neighbourhood of the Toronto Reference Library this weekend, check out the TCAF. And if you find yourself checking out the TCAF, check out the Toronto Comic Jam table.

Good, fun times, right?

My not-so-secret origin

2011-03-20T13:35:00.000-07:00

I threw down a challenge to my fellow artists over at Outcast Studios to draw their own origin story as an artist. And I figured that having thrown down the challenge, it's only fair that I draw mine as well.

I've been drawing ever since I can remember. But there was really one specific event that got me started taking it seriously: The day I saw Sleeping Beauty. The main elements I wanted to include were the drive-in theatre, the family's old camper van (which probably wasn't the car we were in, but it is the car I remember) the wicked-fairy-to-dragon transformation that started it all, and little me realizing that what I was looking at was drawings. I started doing some photo reference searching for locations and stuff, and started roughing out some thumbnails of how I might show that.

practice sketch

The challenge starts with how to draw something from film, a pretty horizontal format, onto a comic page, a pretty vertical format. But it wasn't one frame that inspired me, it was a sequence. A sequence with a long ground-to-air pan. So by combining elements of the whole scene, I ended up with a tall and narrow image. (thumbnail 3, and practice sketch)

Of course, this meant that the top and bottom rows of narrative from my original thumbnails wouldn't work. But it also gave me a fantastic reverse-N narrative flow to take advantage of.

the layout I liked

The next challenge is in how to force a western eye that is used to reading left-to-right to follow my up-and-down storyline. So I came up with the idea of using a filmstrip panel border for my opening and closing panel strips to connect them so strongly that there could be no mistake of where to look next. It also gave me a way to cement the real-life moments to the movie moments thematically.

This did leave me with the issue of real estate on the page. But again, the reverse-N helps me out, if I just tilt my big strong vertical of the transformation scene so that it picks up at the bottom end of the first film strip and carries the eye to the top end of the next one. And shifting the horizon line on the page underlines my shift in mental horizon that happened during the scene, so I get to pull in the whole artsy symbolic thing. Lookit me, I'm fancy and sophisticated! Using all symbols and metaphors and stuff.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the way the page turned out.

And before you ask, yes. Yes, I really did used to wear my hair in banana curls. I was a cute little kid and it was adorable. So there.

Viewer discretion advised

2011-02-18T19:45:00.000-08:00

My day job kind of ate my life in January, but I'm back to the drawing board now. And for my first trick, young eyes should not see this. Heck, my eyes shouldn't see this, I'm such a gentle and sensitive soul .... ar2qe;lkj

Sorry, fell off my chair laughing just then.

Anyhoo, Outcast Studios continues to keep me supplied with reasons to keep my pencils moving. I found this thing where members can post a request for a free commission, as long as they agree to draw a free commission for the next person who posts. I've never done a commission before so I figured this would be a good way to get started. At least the person's getting what they paid for, right?

Then I got tagged to do a fight between Deadpool and Punisher. I kinda know Deadpool, but I had to Google Punisher. And having done so, my initial reaction was, "wow. gun show." My secondary reaction was "this is way out of my range, what with me not being able to draw guns or fights." Technically, I could have vetoed and asked for a different subject, since the artist does have "I can't draw that" veto power. But no, I decided to challenge myself and actually draw something that's kinda too hard for me, and maybe make a portfolio piece from it. I gave it some thought and talked to some friends, and tried to figure out what a fight between these guys would look like.

Punisher, he's a guns and explosives guy all the way. Deadpool does guns, but he does swords too. But who brings a sword to a gunfight?

Light bulb.

Who brings a sword to a gunfight? That guy.

Play it like this scene. Only different. Because if you shoot Deadpool and walk away, it's not going to turn out so well for you. Never get in a death match with a dude who doesn't die, right?

Fourth time's the charm

Having decided that, it all came down to how to tell the story. I knew the basic beats I was going to cover, and started doing some thumbnails to figure out the page flow, panel breakdowns and stuff like that. I knew I wanted to start with the standoff, have a walk-away with Deadpool getting up in the background framed by the Punisher's arm/smoking gun silhouette, and end with the ninja leap.

Thumbnail 1 was based on the idea that the standoff is basically a 16:9 aspect ratio movie shot, and the leap would be basically a vertical panel. But having sketched it out, it seemed a bit clunky, and I felt like there needed to be a little more time between exit wound and ninja leap.

Thumbnail 2 got the story beats and timing working OK for me, but I couldn't really feel the panel-to-panel handoffs.

Thumbnail 3 was back to the horizontal vs vertical thing but it really didn't flow. Also, the middle action took up way too much space on the page.

Thumbnail 4 was just right.

I talked to some friends, showed them the thumbnails, and asked... "Last panel... Head on, or head off?" The votes were pretty much unanimous for "head off."

Not sure what that says about the people I hang out with, but it did give me yet another new challenge. My natural style tends to be cartoony, and further to the fluffy bunnies side of the spectrum than the blood and guts side. And the general consensus on this left it very much to the blood and guts side of the drawing spectrum.

Having settled on the basic page structure, and the ending, I did a rough layout drawing to a bigger scale so I could see a little better what I was doing. I also fixed the narrative glitch that I found in the thumbnail panels 3-5, where Punisher had basically already exited stage left before Deadpool caught up with him.

Then my day job ate my life.

The good thing about the Outcasts is that they're all pretty gracious about the whole "I have to do my paid work and school work before I can do the free stuff." Even so, I feel pretty bad about how long this one took to finish. Oh well. In delivery times as well as in quality of the finished work, you get what you pay for.

For panel 1 of the final product, I basically lightboxed the film still from Raiders, so I could make sure everyone was standing on the same ground. Then I replaced the sword guy's pose with my own gesture from the original thumbnail, and I gave Punisher muscles a little more in keeping with his character, and a gun that would make the kind of spectacular exit wound I was going to draw in panel two.

Panels 3-5 went as planned, then I had the big challenge.

Decapitation.

I Googled some surgery sites to find out what a cross-section of a neck looks like, and dropped that in there, so that the arterial spray was coming from the right part of the severed neck. Even though it's not super clear from my rendering. The body is supposed to be falling forward and the head flying backward/to the side with the followthrough of ths swing, but again, my ability to render (or lack thereof) has left it a bit flat and ambiguous.

And finally, because I couldn't let it end that way for poor old Frank, I came up with an alternate ending that makes the decapitation OK.

So, there we are then. Not bad for a first go, overall, and now I guess that's me, open for requests. If you don't mind a bit of a wait.

I'm back

2010-12-29T20:57:00.000-08:00

Okay, yeah. I didn't post the other week. This is mostly because I hated every single mark I put down on paper for a couple of weeks running. There was a final assignment for my class up in there, too. Loved the class. Hated my last drawing. I showed it to my teacher, but only because I had to. I tried to weasel out of showing it in the class. But it's over and done with now.

Here's the thing. Sometimes drawing goes like that. When it does, you just have to plow through it, make a bunch of crappy, stiff, awkward drawings and throw them in the fire. If you've done a lot of drawing, you know what I mean. If you're just getting started, then just know when it does happen to you (and it will), it's not the end of the world, and it's not worth pitching a fit over. It's just the drawing equivalent of "no pain, no gain." And it's probably not as bad as you think.

I find it usually happens to me when I'm trying to process new information, and with the classes I was taking there was a whole lot of new information to process. Yeah, it happens often enough that I've detected a pattern. It just takes a while for the hands to catch up with the brains, especially if the hands have been used to doing things their own way for a while. The good news is that if you keep persistent then the motor skills do catch up. And by the way, don't throw anything in the fire right away, because if you set them aside for a month or so and then look again, you just might see your learning curve.

Practice sketches

So, of course, right after this I jumped into the arena for artist Battle Royal over at Outcast Studios. I knew that I'd never make it out of the first round, but that wasn't really the point.

I had picked She-Hulk as my character for the fight, and with the luck of the draw got thrown up against Lobo. With that being the case, I figured it would be a hand-to-hand combat situation. I checked out some photo reference for martial arts and MMA and started doing some quick gestures on 9x12 sketch paper. I found a pretty good photo of a throw, but once I'd gestured it out, even though the mannequin matched the photo, it felt like my lady's pose was a little too scared. It looked like she was defending against a leap, rather than following through on a throw. So I thought about baseball, and came up with a pose I was happy with.

Fixing the poses

Once I had the main characters' poses figured out, I settled on a camera angle that I thought would work. I figured that since Lobo is pretty bad news in the DC universe, if he showed up in the Marvel universe, it wouldn't be a girl fight. A guy that has killed off his whole planet would pretty likely get all of the Avengers involved.

The official tournament rules specifically stated that any Avenger could call in the whole assembly. As previously mentioned, I knew I would only have one shot at this, so I figured I'd go crazy with it, and do just that, and throw down with as much of the core team as I could recognizably fit in there.

Fixing the narrative

While I was roughing out, I realized that I had the storytelling backwards, so I dropped the drawing on a lightbox and did a quick trace job to reverse the layout so that She-Hulk would have the dominant spot. Even though she's farther back, and therefore smaller, she's on the left hand side of the page, which gets her noticed first by most people who follow the Western alphabet.

I plotted out the perspective grid with careful math and geometry and stuff, with the convergence point just under She-Hulk's knee, and arranged all the other page elements so that they were either moving toward her, or looking at her, or in Lobo's case, moving away from her. But she's still the center of gravity here, and the story of the page is all about her.

Once I finally got all of that sorted out, I went to full-scale 11x17 comic art board.

Right about there was where I decided to play to my naturally cartoony drawing style. Then it got silly. Here come all the Avengers, all geared up for a big battle, and it turns out to be nothing. Squirrel Girl came out a little more sinister than I intended, but it's all in good fun.

So, yeah. Turns out, it's a girl fight.

Bringin' it

Of course I did not win the art battle. But I drew something I don't hate, and that's worth something.

Get ready... get set... DRAW!

2010-12-05T23:01:00.000-08:00

I came across Outcast Studios and the Daily Sketch Challenge this week in deviantArt, and figured I would give it a go. The idea is that the moderator selects a character, posts some reference, and then the members of the group draw that character and post their art within 36 hours. The intention is to spend 15-30 minutes on the drawing. I tended to go over the time limit, but based on some of the other drawings on the board, I might not be the only one. Or maybe the other people are all just crazy-fast and awesome.

Monday's challenge was Firestar.

I went way over on this by the time I was done inking it, although the initial pencil work probably fell more or less within the 30 minutes. I was pretty happy with the way it turned out, especially the fire effects. And she's more or less in proportion. I didn't use any reference for this, other than to double-check the costume once I'd roughed out the pose.

Tuesday's challenge was The Monarch. He's a villain from The Venture Brothers, which I've heard of but have never seen. I guess this is more or less what the character looks like, though. Again, I went longer than the 1/2 hour by the time I'd inked it up, but the rough drawing was done in about 15-20 minutes.

Wednesday was Hwoarang, a character from Tekken. Again, this was not a character that I was familiar with before he came up as the challenge topic. I'll likely revisit this one when I have more time. There are a lot of neat details on his costume to play around with, so I'd like to do up a nice, clean drawing and fully render it up with colours and all.

I used a photo reference from a Tae Kwon Do competition to get the pose for this, but only drew a quick rough stick figure from the photo to get the pose and angle down, then I made up the actual figure, then I checked the character reference to get the costume right. So I'd say this is about 80% from my imagination, and 20% checking reference material.

Thursday's challenge was "The Coon",
in which Cartman plays South Park's answer to Rorschach and other assorted costumed heroes. I at least knew South Park, and Cartman, although I hadn't seen this episode until I googled it so I would know what was going on. Other than spending the extra half-hour on 'reference' this one totally fell within the time... mostly because I didn't try to ink it.

Friday's challenge was Dexter's Lab. But I was busy on Friday so I didn't get to it until Saturday morning. This one was finished within the half hour, which was a good thing, because I barely made the deadline as it was. If I had taken any longer on the drawing I wouldn't have made it in.

This character, I know. I watched the cartoon when it was on, and have been kind of a fan of Genndy Tartakovsky in general, so this one was relatively easy for me.

I knew right away that I wanted to do a robot-suit version of him, mostly to challenge myself because I'm kind of bad at drawing tech, but also just because robots are cool.

The pose here is a little bit inspired by a Lego mecha although they look nothing alike. The robot is from one of the bits that the show used to bump to commercial.

I'd encourage any other artist to get in on this group, either in deviantArt or on the Outcast Studios forum. The daily sketch challenge group is nice and supportive, so it's a very safe place to get used to showing your stuff. Having something like this has been great in getting me to pick up the pencil and try something new, every day. And that's really the important part, if you want to be any good at drawing.

Pick up your pencil.

Draw.

Every day.

What the what?

2010-11-27T18:47:00.000-08:00

I dare you to draw me!

I like to go to proper classical life drawing sessions, but sometimes it's fun to just kick back and do something different. Being in Toronto, I'm lucky enough to have some options available to me. One of them is the Toronto branch of Dr. Sketchy's. The poses are short, the models are burlesque dancers and the like, so there are fun costumes to work with, there are contests during the session and there's always a fun playlist to work to. Also, it's at a pub so you can have a pint or a cocktail and chat with your friends between poses.

For one reason or another, I hadn't been able to go for a long time, so it was fun to get back to it the the other week. The model was Mena Von Fleisch, expectant with twins, and she was fantastic. I did some drawings that turned out okay, and generally just had a great time.

Her first costume included a very angry-looking skull and giant skeleton hands and feet.

Speaking of contests, here are my contest entries from the night.

The first one was a one-minute pose that I tinkered with between poses and between sets, and I submitted it at the end of the night as my "best of the night" entry.

The other one was a five-minute pose, with an additional three minutes to come up with our best incorporation of a monster. I was just happy that the monster was recognizable enough that I didn't have to explain who it is supposed to be. And it got some applause from the crowd, which was nice.

After I got home from the session, I uploaded these drawings to the Facebook group page for Dr Sketchy's Toronto. The model liked them, and tagged herself, which was also nice.

A few days later when I tried to connect to Facebook I had about eight warning alerts that I had violated the terms of service for Facebook by uploading offensive material. Both drawings were deleted by the Facebook admins. As near as I can figure, the perceived nudity is what set someone off and got the drawings reported. (For the record, the model's costume included sequined pasties, so technically there is no nudity here.)

tutu = not scary

Keela Watts, the model at the following session, was generally less threatening to those with easily offended eyeballs. Her costumes covered the more alarming body parts, at least.

The model was great, had a fantastic and charming energy, and the session was a lot of fun.

Here's the really interesting bit. I've been doing life drawing for a while (like, years) and have uploaded my work to my Facebook photo gallery before this with never a batted eyelash. For example, these drawings here, with actually nude models had been up for a year and a half.

I've taken them off my Facebook life drawing gallery now, so they just live here on my blog or over on my deviantArt gallery.

Personally, I don't get it. The human form is marvelous and complex, and I don't get how creating something that shows that would never be perceived as threatening or offensive. But there are a lot of things about the world that I don't get. But I guess that's what makes me so darned controversial. Imagine that! Little old me. I guess now I'm a real artist.

That went longer than planned, but better than expected

2010-11-14T08:48:00.000-08:00

Yeah. That's better.

Before

I finally finished my three-page narrative assignment for the expressive anatomy class. Only two weeks late. Too much going on at my day job and in my real life. Also, I came down with another dang flu bug. (Really, immune system? Really?)

Page one was actually done on time, although I decided later that the decision to have Sally's hand outside the panel border and her cape inside it was a dumb one. The drawing doesn't make sense, so I tweaked it since then. She's more legitimately flying into the story now.

Don't try this at home.

We had some time in class to work on the rest of the pages. Unfortunately, page 2 didn't turn out as well. Even while I was working on it, I realized I had totally misplaced the video store, which is only the most important element on the page, when I was plotting my layout. It ended up way too far to the left hand side, almost into the bleed, and it was too far in the distance and therefore too small. Also, one of the narrative elements I planned for the panel was to put a hipster taking a video of the Godzilla attack with their iPhone because that's the kind of thing a West Queen West hipster would do when faced with a Godzilla attack. But the only spot I had for it in the composition blocked the already obscured and too-small video store. So between that and the stuff in panels 1-3 that didn't thrill me, I had to redo most of the page. I worked out the frustration over this by drawing a hooker on fire and a naked guy running in the other direction with his junk flopping around* because I knew I would be scrapping the page anyway, and because hey, let's face it, this is Parkdale**.
(*junk not actually drawn to a level of detail that is easily identifed, but I'm sure you can use your imagination. **not quite Parkdale, which starts a few blocks to the west.)

The new page 2.
Now with 100%
less hookers on fire

In the end, I went back to my friendly local independent video store, and took some more photo reference so I could put it more into the spotlight, and also give the last frame some better context and a bigger reaction, based on feedback I got from the instructor on the first draft. I shot it from a low angle, because the idea of the boy mirroring Godzilla's pose in panel 3 with his own triumphant pose in panel 4 made me smile. And while I was doing the extreme page 2 makeover, I fixed the wonky perspective on the backgrounds in panels 1-3. And I gave Sally a better science station. And I threw in a CP-24 news helicopter because it seemed like a good idea. And it's hard to tell from this, but I tossed in a DNA ladder on the bulletin board.

The fact that Godzilla seems to be squishing my other school here is completely unintentional. It's just collateral damage based on where the video store is.

And, here's page 3. There aren't draft versions of this, because I mostly just worked in non-photo blue and did a lot of erasing. I'm more or less happy with how it turned out, but I'm going to lose all the heavy black up top behind panels two and three. I was torn for a while between having the fight take place at the CNE grounds vs. Ontario Place. I picked the more useless of the two to take the hit. So yes, this one was squished on purpose. If anyone from Ontario Place sees this, I can only assume you'd side with me on this one.

The biggest challenge was actually the damn boat. I guess I should add the jibline to it. I kind of forgot to draw that part. But what I like about this is that Godzilla is flying out of the last panel of the last page, which gives a nice overall bookend symmetry to Sally flying into the first panel of the first page.

Even considering the mistakes I made along the way, I'm surprised these pages turned out as well as they did. Maybe I'm starting to get the hang of this whole drawing thing.

What I'm learning at school

2010-10-22T19:58:00.000-07:00

Well, I've realized one thing this week: class on Wednesdays and Thursdays does not make mid-week blogging very easy. I will probably move my blogging day to the weekend during the rest of the term. We'll see how it goes, part of it has been my previously-mentioned volunteering at TIFF and subsequent battle with the Flu of Doom. And now, of course, fiscal year-end at my day job is kind of eating my life. But I still have been drawing, in spite of all that, even if pretty much all of my drawing lately has been school-related.

Here's something I finished this week, we had an assignment on facial expressions the other week, which I did rough blue lines at the time and then this past week I inked it. I was experimenting with different tools and techniques rather than going for a consistent style through the pages. I meant to trace a head and then use a lightbox to keep the head sizes consistent at least, but I forgot to do it, so the original is a bit wonky. This version has been edited a little in Photoshop. I'm happy with both characters' acting, anyway, which was the point of the exercise. There's no need to guess what either of them is feeling in any frame, I don't think.

This one here is an in-class exercise we did the other week on expressing emotion. The emotion was sadness. Sure this comes out more angsty than sad, but it gets the idea across. I drew a quick pencil sketch at class, then inked over it and cleaned it up a bit when I got home. This is 100% made up, no photo reference or model or anything like that, although I did take the pose a couple of times myself and then drew how it felt. So of course, the light source is also invented. I kind of like how it turned out.

For the next (and final) week of this class, there's a three-page story to draw. So, chances are next week's post will be about the final versions of what's showing in these rough layouts. Sneak preview, much?

That's all I've got for now. It's time to make with the drawings.

Hello, ladies

2010-10-13T19:00:00.000-07:00

Well, between TIFF and the epic flu I got after TIFF, and the two drawing classes I'm taknig at Toronto Cartoonists Workshop, my blogging schedule got pretty messed up. Hopefully I can get back on track now.

Most of my drawing lately has been course-related, class exercises and stuff. (We won't mention either of the 24-hour comic attempts, which resulted both times in way more sleeping than producing.)

But I have been working on some character designs for some female characters. It started with the cowboy story. I still didn't have a visual on the female lead in that one, and was having a hard time getting to the script without knowing what the character looks like. All I had was that I knew she was a scientist/inventor and smarter than the rest of the characters put together, and the cowboy is still in love with her.

When I was trying to come up with a concept, other than the above, I thought to myself, "OK, I have my hero, I have my sidekick, now all I need is my steampunk vixen."

Light bulb.

Steampunk vixen?

Yes, please! That needs to be its own series.That is absolutely something that needs to exist in the world.

And you know what's better than a steampunk vixen? Naturally, three Steampunk Vixens! A pirate, a courtesan, and an engineer. It's like Charlie's Angels meets Jules Verne. And I can't wait to draw it. I'm plotting out some of the character background/origin story points for issue 1. Now all I need is some help from smarter people than me to write the rest of it, especially the engineering science-y stuff.

This won't be my first project though. I want to have some practice before I tackle it.

Speaking of which, OK I will mention the failed 24-hour comic attempts. I'll still do the story because it's kinda fun. At least I think it is. I just won't do it in 24 hours, that's pretty much a given at this point. It'll be good practice at drawing, even though the whole deadline thing didn't work out so well for me. I don't have any visuals on it yet, but I do have an outline and am partway through a page breakdown. (Yeah. two tries at it and I only got an outline and partway through a page breakdown. I had the flu, OK? I thought I was better the week after but I really wasn't.)

I'm also going to do the cowboy story. I did finally get a visual on the female lead. I know the perspective is all wonky in the lab equipment in this sketch, and the verticals aren't quite vertical. I'll do up some proper drawings of her, and a character sheet for her.

In the meantime, this is a rare instance of me making a drawing and liking it right away. I usually hate anything I make until at least the day after I make it. I've actually had to make a rule with myself that I can't throw anything away the day I make it, or I'd never keep anything.

This one, though? This one was a keeper from the minute I set down the pencil. Hello, Trixie. Nice to see you.

Mulligan!

2010-10-09T17:26:00.000-07:00

OK, my participation in the official 24 hour comics day was a flu-induced train wreck. Now I am flu-free and full of caffeine, and ready to make another go of it. Will I succeed? only time will tell...

What I have so far, my list of "audience suggestions" from the fabulous Infinite Improbability Drive widget at the H2G2 Wiki site:

Non-geographic numbers http://ezinearticles.com/?Benefits-of-Non-Geographic-Numbers&id=4906154
Magnetism http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A767162
...Tractor Pulls http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A281594
Organic Food http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A575679
The Berlin Airlift http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A638976
Eddie Irvine, Formula One driver http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A307405
Sauna Whisk (Finnish skin care / exfoliation) http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A902558
Blairgowrie, Perthshire, Scotland, UK (farming village famous for raspberry growing) http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1149293
Malaysian Teapot Worship - The Ayah Pin Cult http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A38083476
the Higgs boson (Particle Physics - a hypothetical particle, yet to be detected, which explains why other particles have mass) http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A851429
William Dampier - Pirate, Explorer and Naturalist http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A15883374

and the resulting story thread so far:

There is a rivalry between Farmer Brown and Old MacDonald.
Old Mac has one of every kind of animal. One, very virile male of every animal, and a successful stud service. Old Mac is an animal pimp. He also has a kid at CERN, who has managed to detect and harness the
elusive Higgs boson. Because of ...this, they have pimped up their ride (tractor) and can control its mass, which makes it nigh-on invincible at the tractor pulls.
Farmer Brown, he has a dog. Of course. He also has a boutique organic produce farm. And he has a secret weapon...

I will continue to incorporate as much of the original suggestion list as I can, and post the results to my DeviantART gallery at http://rockie-squirrel.deviantart.com/

The fine art of scribbling

2010-09-17T08:00:00.000-07:00

It's called gesture drawing, and I never really thought about it as being anything remarkable. I thought of them as warmups, just something to do before going to work on the "real" drawings. I generally didn't even bother to bring them home, I just pitched them in the recycle bin at the school. Then, two things happened. (1) Earlier this summer, I was at a group show where folks had framed their gesture drawings, put price tags on them, and hung them in a gallery; and (2) I found out that there are students - full-time art students in their final year at Sheridan, so people who know their stuff - who list gesture drawings as one of the most frustrating and difficult things to do. At this point, I'm thinking to myself, "Dang, I gotta start keeping some of that stuff."

So I'm learning to respect the fine art of scribbling. And in the drawing department, there are a couple of things I think I'm pretty good at, and gesture drawing is one of them. Not that I have any special talent, this is a skill that anyone can develop if they practice at it, and put down a few hundreds of these.

When I'm doing a gesture drawing, I start with a few seconds of observation, to get a feel for the pose, about what it would feel like to be in that pose, where the tension is, where the weight is, and where the energy is. I do all this on a gut-level, not any kind of thinking or analysis... when the pose is only a minute or two long there's not really any time for that.

Once I am ready to draw, I spent a few seconds exploring the page and the pose, moving my arm over the paper although I might not start making marks right away. First I check how much room I have on the page, and where the edges of the page are compared to where the farthest out points of the pose are. Then I start with a light mark that will be the frame for the drawing. For the drawings on this post, I've highlighted the first mark I made on each page. Usually it's a swish of a line, the "line of action" as they say. As you can tell, this doesn't really correspond to the spine or to the centre of the figure. It's closest to being a description of the angles of the dominant masses of the figure. If the drawing was an essay, this first line would be the premise. It defines what the page is about.

Once the first line is down, I start putting in lines that support the premise, describing the major masses, starting with the biggest ones and moving out from there.

A gesture drawing is about the tension and energy of the pose. It's not about getting a likeness of the model, it's about getting the attitude they're showing. When you're doing gestures of a good model, then any one of them could be the starting point for a story.

At least, that's the way I approach it. I'm not saying that there's a particularly right or wrong way to do it, just that this is how I do it, and it has worked out pretty well for me so far. See it, Feel it, Draw it. In that order - and that is the important bit.

Ta-Daaaa! It's a contest entry!

2010-09-09T23:05:00.000-07:00

original pencils - rough and dirty!

Here's the final submission from my blog post last month about the Captain Canuck 35th anniversary art contst. I knew going into this that I wanted to do an old-school homage rather than a reinvention. As mentioned in my earlier post, I wanted something with drama, and picked as the theme of my entry what is probably the most dramatic and tragic moment in the character's history. This also meant that I already knew a bunch of the elements that needed to show up, i.e. a hit from behind; some hostages, some nuclear threat, and somewhere in the panel the gun that is going to show up again and be used later in the story. I put the camera angle way off kilter to really pump up how much the ground has just been yanked out from under Captain Canuck, what with his own partner being the mole he'd been looking for.

I also knew that I wanted to draw this as an interior page, not a cover. So that influenced the positioning of the elements on the page. I knew that as an additional homage to the 1970s origins, I'd letter by hand, so the sound effect and dialogue balloons were part of the composition from the beginning.

Originally I had Blue Fox monologuing a bit, but in the end I felt that took away too much from the dramatic tension of the moment, and it really wasn't needed. But in my head, on the previous page is the "bwah-ha-ha, little did you know..." villain speech, and the "bwah-ha-ha, I've got you where I want you now, and here's my evil plan" speech is on the next page.

I thought about going back in and cleaning up my pencil work a bit, but since I was doing my own inks here I figured I'd just jump right to it and do the cleaning and inking at the same time.

I inked this in a combination of Micron Pigma pens (size 03, 05 and 1) a Staedtler Lumocolor (which I usually only use for drawing on film or animation cels, but it was handy and the right thickness), and my trusty Pentel pocket penbrush. My pocket penbrush is one of my favourite things I have. It's part cartridge pen, part paintbrush, and all awesome. It's actually a bristle brush, not just a marker shaped like a brush, and it's refillable.

As this is an homage to a 70's event, I decided to keep the tech advanced but consistent with the era, so I used the murky brown walls and the green screens for the computer displays. I kept the backgrounds dark, similar in values, and slightly desaturated so that the main characters would really pop. I also added a touch more light and dark contrast for the elements that were important to the plot, ie the hostages, the big bad button, and the gun. Finally, I kept the colours for the two main characters fairly pure. I'm okay with the way it turned out. It's not great, and of course I don't expect to win any prizes for this, unless they end up having a "thanks for participating" prize. But in the end, I produced something that I'm not embarassed that it's going to be put in front of Richard Comely. So I'll chalk that up in the "win" column.

In the meantime, I'm registered for anatomy and pencilling classes with the Toronto Cartoonists Workshop. I figure I'm about one course away from not sucking at drawing. Which is pretty good progress.

Hands down, the coolest thing I have done to date, part 2

2010-09-01T20:54:00.000-07:00

Shortly after Holmes Incorporated was announced as the subject for Toronto Cartoonists Workshop Fit to Print project, and after the character bible was provided to the participants, I was at the opera and the patron one row ahead of me and a few seats over bore a striking resemblance to what I saw in my mind when I read the description for one of the characters.

During the intermissions, I jotted down a few more quick sketches. Not the dude with the guitar, although he'll likely turn up at some point in future work. The other dude.

Not the mousy dude.

The other dude.

Yeah, that's right. I drew him three times and he didn't notice me, because I'm that fast. I love the character of the mousy dude, and I will definitely use him for something else. But this time around, I wanted the smiling, moustachio-ed, aquiline-nosed other dude as a model for the elder statesman at Holmes Incorporated. Technically, the opera patron had a beard as well as a moustache, and that is in the quick life sketches, but I dropped it at the character designing stage.

Based on these visual notes from my sketchbook, I worked up a more finished drawing to present at our weekly artists' meeting. This is Col-Erase light blue, touched up with Col-Erase blue and regular H pencil on regular photocopy paper. It was close enough to what Ty Templeton, our teacher, editor and the creator of the characters, had in mind for the character that I got to do the final designs.

The final character turnaround was based on my proposal and incorporated some elements that Rob Pincombe, one of the other contributors to Holmes Inc #1 (and the assistant editor of Holmes Inc #2), had initally proposed for "Old Edgar" (this character's father) but ended up fitting better with Sherlock II.

When I went to draw the head turnarounds, I wanted to do the full 360-degree rotation. On this copy, you can see the tickmarks between the drawings that I used to line up the major landmarks to make sure that the head size and feature placement stayed consistent. I started with the 3/4 view facing left, the lower left-hand side drawing. This was on 9x12 drawing paper. Then I cut the paper lengthwise in two strips and taped it together so I had one long strip, so it would be easier to line up the drawings for the back of the head.

Once I had the face figured out, I did a full-figure turnaround as well. This is also on 9x12 drawing paper.

I did the same thing on this set with the tickmarks and lines to make sure I was drawing the same dude at each stage of the rotation, but they didn't show on the scan because I made the lines in non-photo blue.

Handsome devil, isn't he?

He's all stylish and stuff what with being the public face of the agency, and the character who most closely physically resembles the master detective, even though he doesn't have the mystery-solving skill set so much. And you can tell not all of his days in action are behind him! He's fighting trim, and has a bit of muscle under that Armani suit.

I'm completely tickled that the first image I had in mind ended up making it into the project. And hey, Other Dude, I hope you don't mind that you're now a comic book character in a continuing series.

Hands down, the coolest thing I have done to date

2010-08-25T18:06:00.000-07:00

This past spring, I had the opportunity to work with a group of students from Toronto Cartoonists Workshop, led by Ty Templeton, and through TCW's "Fit to Print" course, on a comic book that will be released at FanExpo this weekend. I'm still completely gobsmacked by the whole thing. I've never been to a Con before, so I'm not sure what to expect. I've got an equal amount of thrilled and terrified going on, salted with liberal amounts of "Wait .... what?"

The book is Holmes Incorporated, and you can read more about it here. It's two days until preview copies come out, and there will be a formal release party on September 24. Check here for information on how to get a copy of your very own.

I got to do the drawings for one of the stories.

Here's how I decided what to put on the first two pages (you can see the final inked and lettered pages here - scroll down to "Spring Loaded."

The first thing I did when I got the script was to write down some notes and decide which panel I wanted to emphasize on each page. Based on that decision, the other panels would all point to it, but would still have an overall forward narrative flow. For page one, the key panel was the one where the decision was made to send Trey on the undercover mission, so other than the primary panel 1 to panel 4 story flow, I did a secondary page composition with elements that would draw attention to panel 3, where the decision is made.

On page two the key panel was the one where the important clues were discovered, so the page composition draws attention to panel 3. But as you can see, I had some trouble otherwise with the panel composition, and there's a lot of weird dead space that doesn't make sense.

The artists had weekly meetings to present our work in progress for Ty's review and feedback. My pages, in addition to the aforementioned weird dead space, which also happened even worse on a later page, I hadn't left enough room for dialogue, or made enough variation in the camera angle or distance. So I had another go.

I showed some more of the room in panel 1, added a character who I forgot had a line in panel 2, and moved Trey to the left hand side of the panel to give a lead to the next page, and also to give her room to break out of the panel. She's so excited she can't contain herself, so the panel borders shouldn't contain her either. On page 2, so I decided to remove the medium shot with the clues popped up, and just draw two panels showing the clues themselves, with the character's comments in voice-over bubbles.

Then, based on more feedback that panel 1 should go back to the foreground/midground/background that my original thumbnails had, I made some final tweaks to the layout when I switched to doing the final pencils. On page 2, I wanted to do fix the dead space problem, which also gave me a chance to add in a quick little establishing shot to show that we were in a new setting, showing the surveillance truck parked outside the campus before cutting to the truck interior and Trey getting ready for her mission. Panel one of the final pencilled page wasn't called for in the script, but I think it supports the story well. I also remembered the frame rule where cameos should be round, and switched up Trey's literal cameo in panel 3 of page 2. I forgot to draw panel 3 as a view-through the spy glasses which I had in my original thumbnail and layout, but it works anyway.

That's kind of all I have for now. My mind is still a little blown.

Getting to know you

2010-08-18T21:23:00.000-07:00

Preliminary character concept sketches

I'm working on getting a feel for the characters in my story so that when I get to actually writing I'll know who they are a bit.

So now, for starters, knowing how a guy carries himself, and how he dresses, goes a certain distance to knowing what kind of a person he might be. I'll refine the designs as I develop the characters further, and I've drawn both of the main charcters too short here, but again it's a start.

The younger cowboy here has a casual, but prepared for a fight stance. So we can assume he's a bit brash. He's got a lasso but no gun so he's either Canadian or has recently spent time in Canada. (it's the latter.) He's generally clean, but in need of a shave and a haircut. I drew him that way because he's been on the run for a while.

The bartender doesn't count for much, because he's just a piece of the set. But if you look closely you can see where I drew his whole figure, behind the bar, to check my proportions and where the floor would go. I generally do that with my drawings anyway - include the bits that are behind other bits when I'm doing my initial sketches. Doing this helps me give a three-dimensional feel to the drawings.

The older guy, taciturn, grumpy, kinda stiff (stiff cause of old injuries, not cause of him being stuffy). I'll make sure he keeps the guarded body language and the big, old-guy ears when I do the design tweaks that this guy will need before I start drawing the pages.

I started a rough drawing of the lady in the book, but it turned out looking too much like Elektra so I scrapped it. I definitely have to get that stuff locked down soon, though.

I'm kind of working on the story outline and character designs at the same time here, because each one informs the other.

So, that's where we are this week. It's time to do a bit of writing so I'll have stuff to draw, and at the same time to do a bit of drawing so I'll know what to write down.

The story continues...

2010-08-11T21:40:00.000-07:00

Thumbnails and notes for Curse of the WereOtters #1

When I'm working on my own stuff, as opposed to drawing something that someone else wrote, I tend to come up with bits of everything at once, so putting down some quick thumbnail sketches helps me focus, and figure out the story beats. At this stage, I'll make notes about what the scribbly lines are supposed to be, and jot down dialogue ideas if I think of some. I don't spend a lot of time on these, and don't worry about how messy the sketches are. At the thumbnail stage, I'm only looking at the story pace, what the beats are, and how much of the page each story beat will take up. It's a rough draft, with some rough draft notes. And having had a look at it, now I've realized that I'd like to move the two-page spread back a couple more pages and let the bar scene play out a little, and give the otters more time to get from the river to the town.

I figure I'll keep the nice, slow mosey pace going so that when the were-otters turn up the slam into action is more deliberate and more exciting. The story beats on page 3 will be spread out across the two new pages.

Moving on to the rough layouts, where I start putting some thought into panel and page composition, and camera angles. Page 2 here is pretty much the way I'm going to draw it.

Page 3, panels 1 and 2 won't change much. The rest of the page will be completely different. I'll add in some more info and character stuff on the rest of the page. So far, one of my favourite dialogue lines I've come up with will go on the last panel of page 2 and the first panel of page 3. It's my favourite because it gives all the back story you need to know in three sentences.

Chet: I never stole them horses.
Hank: The whole rest of the county was down to the chapel, Chet. Trixie will never forgive you.

Bim, bam, boom, and on with the current story. As soon as I get the rest of the plot points figured out.

There's a contest for this?

2010-08-04T20:06:00.000-07:00

Here’s the thing. Someone out there on the interwebs saw my sketch of Captain Canuck that I did for Canada Day and has invited me to compete in their Captain Canuck art contest.

Kinda cool, right?

Of course, I’m not going to compete using the drawing they saw. It's just a silly little sketch I did for a lark because it was the most Canadian thing I could think of doing with my spare time on July 1. Fun, but not the kind of thing you'd enter in a contest. (It’s posted on my gallery page if you want to see it. It’s really, really Canadian, eh?)

Blue Fox ambushes Captain Canuck

For my competition piece, I wanted to go with something action-y and dramatic, so I’ll be drawing the moment when Captain Canuck realizes that his partner, Blue Fox, is a double-agent for the communists. (Hey, it’s from the 1970s. A lot of villains were communists.) I’ve got the rough layout done on 9x12 paper, and am pretty happy with the basic poses.

This week I'll be drawing the same layout onto full scale paper and planning the composition and environment around the poses. I’ll use the other elements on the page to direct focus to the captain’s face, and hopefully will be able to draw an appropriate sense of betrayal and drama in his expression. We’ll see how it goes.

Check out the contest at DeviantArt. It’s open to entries until August 15.

Deleted scenes and out-takes

2010-07-27T17:19:00.000-07:00

Okay, here's a bit of what went through my mind when I was planning the page that I posted last week. The class assignment was based on the old joke "a horse walks into a bar, and the bartender says "why the long face?"

The assignment was to draft up a page thumbnail with the basic storyline "A (character) walks into (an environment) and says (a line) to (a second character)". And because after hearing the horse joke, it was the next thing that came to mind, I decided to do a cowboy story where a cowboy walks into a saloon and says something like "you gotta lotta nerve coming back into this town."

I'm old school, so my default page breakdown is six panels per page, three rows and two columns. I start with that basic breakdown, and decide which panel is the most important and which is the biggest (not always the same thing) and start sliding the panel borders around. At the thumbnail stage, I'm just thinking about how much volume on the page each panel will take up, and how much volume in the panel each character will take up. I throw down a pose, but because my thumbnail sketches are only about 2 inches by 1.5 inches for the whole page, I let the character pose take up all the volume their action, including dialogue bubbles, will take in the final layout. (I don't know if this is right or wrong, but for now it works for me.)

1. Started out with the first story beat and realized I'd rather keep all of the panels until the first close-up in widescreen format, to give it more of a Western movie feel.

2. I made the establishing shot bigger to provide more information about the setting. The instructor suggested I try using an over-the-shoulder shot. I gave that a go, and roughed in the story beats up until the character delivers the line.

3. I decided to keep the establishing shot long and narrow, and the main character small in the panel to emphasize his isolation from the town and its folk, and I flipped the eyeline in the last panel to give the reader an exit from this page to the next. The instructor suggested I move the last three panels to page two because the pace felt a little rushed trying to get it all done in one page, and really the point of page one is the dramatic tension of the main character riding into town and entering the saloon.

4. Revised to include just up to the point where the cowboy walks into the saloon. Except that for narrative flow, the last panel should be flipped so the cowboy is walking into the panel on the left-hand side, so he enters the same way we'd read it, and the dramatic tension on the right hand side causes a pause in the forward momentum.

Now, because the first spoken line has been moved to page 2, and I was OK with the basic narrative flow in the thumbnail, I went ahead and went straight to full 11x17 format without doing the 5x8 layout sketch I would do for plotting dialogue bubbles and camera angles. This resulted in a godawful eggregious layout error. - there is a railing running exactly through the horizontal centre of the page. It's basically the visual equivalent of clotheslining the reader. Yeah, go ahead and look. I would apologize in advance for what you're about to see, but I warned you.

So, lesson learned. Check your layouts early and often. Righty-o.

The other narrative tweak was that I decided that the information in panel 2 is not as important as the information in panel 4, so I switched out which was the big full-bleed panel and which would be kept in the inside margins of the page.

And I still haven't made a decision on the final renders, but I'm leaning towards more stylized than realistic. There's a big monsterfest coming up, and my style, and the nature of the story itself where the characters are aware of the fact that they are in a comic book, leans more toward cartoon violence than actual gore.

What I Did On Summer Vacation

2010-07-21T18:13:00.000-07:00

It may seem weird, but I took vacation time to go to school full-time. In particular, to attend the summer session of Graphic Storytelling and Digital Rendering workshops offered at Max the Mutt Animation School.

Of course, at the same time I was doing this, I was also taking a couple of night classes through Toronto Cartoonists Workshop so I had my hands full. Full of pencils.

Awesome fun times. Sometimes frustrating and a little hand-cramp-inducing, but awesome fun times nonetheless.

For the record, if you ever have the chance to spend sixteen straight days doing nothing but what you love best, TAKE IT. For all of its intensity, this was the most restful vacation I've ever had.

At this point, I've got the kernel of a fun story to tell.

So far, I haven't decided how I'm going to do the final renders, but here's the initial version. I haven't decided whether or not I like it the way it is, and I might redo this in regular pencil, instead of using grease pencil and going in with pen for the details (as shown).

I'm going to think about it, and get back to you on that.

Coming up next week - the creative process behind the page.

It's almost magic

2010-07-07T22:15:00.000-07:00

Okay, so here's some stuff.

I was going through some old life drawings and found a kind of fun gesture drawing. It's dramatic, it has some flair, and I said to myself "hey, that looks like a pose Zatanna would take." So, I worked it up as a rough sketch, which turned out okay.

Once I had some decent line art, I put it on the lightbox and traced it onto some watercolour paper to do a rendering in ink wash.

Again, turned out okay. The wash did a couple of things I didn't expect, but that's what Photoshop is for, right?

Some stuff from life drawing

2010-06-30T23:29:00.000-07:00

OK, here's a couple of things I drew at the now sadly defunct sessions at Rouge Concept Gallery. A one-minute gesture drawing and an 18-minute drawing, sort of a contour drawing but mostly just throwing some lines on a page. Both of them are from March 2009.

Okay, already

2010-06-26T06:10:00.000-07:00

People keep telling me I need a blog. So, fine. Here's a blog. If I draw something I don't hate, I'll throw it on here. Maybe I'll even put up the odd thing I do hate, just so you out on the interwebs can see my creative process. I dunno. I'm kind of making this up as I go along. For starters, here's a couple of old drawings done in black and white conte on grey Canson paper.

So, fine. I have a blog. You happy now? Great.