Monday, January 31, 2011

Sunday Sketches -- 30 January 2011

Yesterday was Sunday, so we did some sketches!

Although I so enjoyed doing figure studies the last couple weeks, I felt like doing some original characters.  It's fun to throw down a bunch of characters, and to try to make them look interesting and individual.
Then, since I seem to feel like drawing Rapunzel characters at pretty much any and every opportunity these days, I did a few of those.  I'll post some fanart-type drawings sometime soon, but I wanted to show some OCs this time.

J also did some original characters this week:
I pretty much picked up where I left off last Sunday with my own peeps.  Later on I drew a couple of Harry Potter characters and actually did some bodies.  I mention this because I have been stuck on the bust drawings for, well, a long time now.  Maybe next week I'll shake things up a little more and draw past the neckline.  Nothing like drawing figures to keep me humble!

Milestones

This morning I'm just sending a quick message to let everyone know we've reached 500 visits since we launched our art blog.  It's a smallish milestone, but it's a milestone nonetheless!  Thanks to everyone who visits and comments and follows, and be sure to come back often!  If we're listed in your reader, take time to visit the actual blog to check out updates to our template and formatting.
Thanks again, everyone!  Check back this evening for some Sunday Sketches.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Legolas 1/27

Another week, another bout of Legolas work. I spent several hours on it this week so I made good progress, technically.
I say technically because what I did doesn't look as good as I would like it to. His hand is only half done, mainly because I haven't decided on including the bow or not, which changes what I do with his fingers. So that looks unfinished and weird. And when I was working on his shirt I felt a little overwhelmed with the amount of fabric and where all the folds had to go and intercept and squish and squash. The last few peeps I've drawn, I realize now, didn't really involve a lot of detailed clothing (like this). So I think I'm just out of practice. Anyway, I also decided I need a new bit of sandpaper because, for the life of me, I could not get a nice long point on my lead, which also made things frustrating. Urgh.

Anyway. This weekend I am going to get some new sandpaper, and I always have the option of going back and changing and fixing things. So it's not over yet. I press forward!

**Okay, after looking at my things I realize that hello, I have done a lot of messy fabric recently. Like this and this and this. What the heck, Legolas? Why can't you be more like Sweeney?

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Sunday Sketches -- 23 January 2011

Time for more Sunday Sketches!  Today, like I said last week, I did some gesture studies of the male figure.  I felt especially inspired after going to a former BYU animation teacher's excellent figure drawing exhibit on campus this week (It runs until 29 January!  Go!)--it brought back a lot of great memories of spending long hours with a huge newsprint pad, a piece of Conté crayon and a live model.  As I did these drawings, it kind of surprised me as I went along to find that some of the poses and sketches seemed a little more detailed and less simple than those in the female study, but it makes sense that they would look and feel different from each other since the male and female forms really are so different in shape and gesture.
I really enjoyed doing this little series, and I think I'll have to make figure studies a more regular practice.

J did some drawings this week as well, and I will turn the time over to her to explain.

Yes, so, I did some stuff this week.  I started off the day with a couple of ugly things, which was really frustrating.  So I decided to start over again and draw some clothes, like I used to do in my note margins in school.  I had some success with those so I moved on to some heads, as usual.  They're all my own peeps, from something I like to call "Long Story."  And...that is all I will say about them, except that I am pleased.  Also I will say that I wish drawing clothes would make them real.  Dang.
A bientot!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Legolas 1/20

Okay, this was not my finest week, Legolas-production-wise. In fact, all that I did I did this very night, in about 45 minutes. Yikes, too fast. I wasn't really feeling it so I didn't try to draw any longer than the minimum I had set for myself. But still, progress is progress and he's coming along faster than he has in the last six months. Here he is:
And just to make things interesting, here is my set up at the moment.
I just sit on the floor. Maybe one day I'll have an easel. Anyway, the lighting is not great, but since I'm not home during the day for the natural light, I make do with the lamp.

And here are the tools of my trade.
I have a really hard time throwing away bits of pencil leads that are really too short to work with. In fact, I have never thrown any away. Hah! Take that!

Here's to another week! Hopefully this is the week Legolas gets a hand and some more torso.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Sunday Sketches -- 16 January 2011

It's time for more Sunday Sketches!  J didn't really have anything to show this week, but she'll be back next time.

This Sunday I decided it was time to stay away from drawings of characters from books or movies, and turned instead to some classic figure study, which I haven't done for a while.  It's usually preferable to draw the figure from life, from a live model if one is available, but since there wasn't one handy, for these I tried to work with interesting gestures and poses from memory.

It's nice to post some more original artwork.  Next week I think I'll do some studies on the male figure.  It's so different from the female in shape and posture, so the contrast should be interesting.  We'll see how that works out.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Legolas 1/13

Accountability works! It's been kind of a busy week, due to apartment hunting, but I still fit in about 3-4 hours. He's coming along! This week's picture also features a lovely orange-ish glow. One thing I really miss about being a college student is the access to a nice scanner. One day, Epson, one day.

So, this week I did the last patch on the top, and started the belt (okay, it's not a belt but it is like belt). Tonight I did his arm band (okay, they aren't arm bands, but they are like arm bands), and finally worked out his hand. I haven't really decided how far down to draw him. My original plan was to stop at the line of the the bow string, but I'm not sure now. I'll probably just continue with what I have and then decide when it comes to it. I don't really want his body to just run off the page though so...we'll see. Here's to progress!

Tangled, Via Photoshop

At the risk of posting another fanart-type drawing, I'm going to opt for some Photoshop work this time.

While I'm pretty sure it would be better to use some of my own art to improve my digital colorization skills, a while ago I heard of people using coloring book pages to use as a quick jumping-off point for practice.  Having seen and loved Disney's Tangled, I thought I would look up some Rapunzel graphics to practice on.  (Can I just say here how much I love seeing these characters officially in the classic hand-drawn style?)  Those who know me know how much I was hoping Disney would make an animated film of Rapunzel, and how much more I wanted to have a part in its production.  As it is, I'll have to settle to participate as an entertained viewer, but that doesn't mean I can't do some Rapunzel art of my own (and decidedly better than the concept artwork I did in 9th grade).

So, here are my fairly finished pieces:
Rapunzel!  The glowing effect seemed kind of primitive for some reason during the process, but I like how it makes her hair look like it's glowing.
Flynn!  I kind of hurried through this one, especially the background, but I like how it turned out anyway, it's kind of cool in contrast to the warmth of the Rapunzel piece.
In a way, it's kind of like a really graduated form of using coloring books.  And, if you go outside of the lines, you can just control-Z it away!

I do have some Rapunzel drawings that I actually sketched myself, and soon I'll post some of those, and I promise that I do have some original characters and sketches on the way as well.

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Sunday Sketches -- 9 January 2011

And now, we present our first edition of what we call Sunday Sketches, a continuing series of drawings to be posted weekly.  In school I had teachers who recommended we keep our sketchbooks with us at all times, including (especially?) during church.  Some people think this would be a distraction from listening to speakers and lessons, but drawing actually helps you focus on what you're listening to (and there are plenty of free live models handy).  So, we usually bring our sketchbooks with us, and we hope to post samples of what we work on each week.  Sometimes they relate to things we've done or movies we've watched that week, and sometimes they're just character or figure studies.

D's Sunday sketches:

I have lately introduced J to Daria, a TV show that my sister and I enjoyed for many years.  This collage started as a drawing of a couple of the main characters and then I decided to draw them in my own style.  It was fun to see them in a different way, and I like how they turned out. 

J's Sunday sketches:

Today I was despairing over the fact that lately I seem to draw everyone exactly the same--what can I say, I like the safe option.  But safe is not progress!  And since D is so helpful, he suggested I try drawing people and exaggerating a particular feature and push it as much as I could.  So he gave me the task of noses, which was really fun and a lot more successful than I was anticipating.  After that he told me to try drawing people with ovals as the basis for their head shapes, as you can see at the bottom (poor lemon-headed boy...).  The rest were ones I just did at the end.  Doesn't the fellow at the bottom look rich?

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Resolution! aka Legolas

Cast your mind back to the end of 2001. Do you remember a big, glorious movie that came out then? No, not that one--I mean Lord of the Rings. Long story short, I loved it (LOVED IT). Shortly thereafter I got myself a lovely calendar and started drawing everyone in it. I started here:
Despite the fact that that drawing was perfection, I drew that same picture again, about 3 years later. By that point I'd spent a year in the illustration program and basically relearned how to draw. Fast forward another few years to my first year of graduate school and I drew it again--or at least I started it.

Last January I started drawing it again. Why? No, not because I needed a reason to study Orlando Bloom's face for 30 hours. Basically I was hit hard with some first-year-of-college nostalgia, when I used to play the Fellowship soundtrack and draw. So I started again, and I made some great progress. Then I got a job and have only spent a handful of hours on it since.

But! I have a list of art goals for this year, and at the top is to finish poor dear Legolas. It's been so long since I started it I'm a little tempted to start it all over again, but since I'll probably draw it again in, oh, three or four years I'm not going to worry about that.

Here is Legolas today.
I'll take a picture* of him every week and post his progress, even if there's been none (accountability!). When he's done, I'll post all four of them so you can see how he's changed over the years. Then maybe I can finally take another whack at Aragorn.

*When it's all done I'll do a proper scan, but for just updates this is a lot easier.