Character Designs and Sketch Pages

Not even halfway through the season yet. Anyhow, making the effort every day to step away from storyboarding and doing some kind of illustration, design, or color work. Even if it sits in a folder for the better part of a year.

Athena's Owl and Hydra, plus preview

...reduxed and finally completed after only, what, several months of sitting on the backburner.

Given that there are 13 more of these as sequential panels (see below), not to mention several more that were stand alone illos, it goes to show: Haste makes waste when you're trying to sprint a marathon with a full pack. 

That is to say, quality control suffers when more is added to your plate at any one time.

Also, being awake when you're drawing tends to help.

Kaiju Redux

Goes without saying, another retake on an older piece from... I don't even remember anymore. Originally did these as an ode to Mr. Tom Perkins' art book. (Scroll down to about the 9th selection.)

(One of several digital drawovers on the original Colerase sketches.)

Hallowet

Halloween ended up being rained out this year around these parts. Though a massive letdown for kids, hooligans, and hipsters alike, suited me just fine - the more atmosphere any day, the better. Anyhow, threw a quick color pass over this just to see if the tones were working out alright. That, and the fact that I don't have an actual color scheme for these characters and didn't want to bother with it.

(The initial tone pass. Had to adjust the overall opacity and lighten the tone slightly once the color was laid down. It pays to keep any tone layers (as well as color, linework, etc.) in their own separate Folders in Photoshop. Simplifies the task of making universal adjustments when needed.)

Color and Tone Studies

(Am finding whenever I do color pieces, any sort of dreams I have afterwards are way more involved and detailed, almost to the point of exhaustion whenever I wake up. Was it Picasso or Van Gogh that was said to have suffered from epilepsy, which in turn is speculated to have contributed to their unusual color palettes and shape choices. If that's an accurate portrayal, I can see the merit in the concept. And how disturbingly prescient Zamyatin was in We.)

Some color and tone studies from these past few weeks. First one's from a story that's been rattling around for awhile; second and third are more Halloween themed that I'll probably color over the next few weeks. Am sure I'll spot mistakes in the meantime, but I partially blame the Hitachino Nest for uninhibiting enough me to post these.

("...uninhibiting enough me..." No occifer, I'm not drunk.)

~ The Kaiju Connection... ~

Quick series of sketches from awhile ago. Had the thought of a back-alley setting, something like The Karate Kid - in fact, it is that back alley, complete with the trashed Hutch in the background. Add to that a weird Guyver-type main character that's apparently run into a bunch of drunk Japanese kids, not quite bosozoku but probably a step up from the hardcore punk kids circa 1990's.

(Once again, I based several of the characters on folks from one of the links above.)

The other thought, besides the fact that I had no idea where this was going, was to have a kaiju that can transform in and out of the shadows, from several story tall monster into a smaller human form - probably without being able to control it, oddly enough. Which in this case, the human form would be Gene Hackman. Or more accurately, Popeye Doyle from The French Connection... which coincidentally is yet another film that has nothing to do with CG or television animation.

(Doyle laughs at everything, from film genres to masked characters that have tendrils for an arm. Ignore the drop in quality on the margins of the page, or the attempt at writing in the middle of the pic.)

Didn't really like this last one, partly because it doesn't resemble Doyle all that much. But I liked the lighting and the pose. And the Hutch he's leaning on.

...Speaking of which, I thought I'd share a bit of the music that helped inspire these. A long out-of-print 3 song mini-disc from a Japanese band called Scarecrow Carried Brain. Their only release so far as I can tell. I even think my Guyver character above is on the mic for the entire album:

 (Click here. Is a safe download from Dropbox I can assure you; ripped straight from the original CD.)

Stuff's amazing, insofar as it confused the hell out of me the first time I heard it. Opening track had me thinking, "Huh, they're playing next to a RxR crossing" before realizing that the drummer is effectively playing a constant drumroll off both the snare and ride as the main beat. Second song has King Ghidorah sound effects coming out of the guitar, while the third song's what I call Spaghetti Westerncore.

Yosh.

~ UNUSABLE!... ~ (updated)

(Under-rendered 2nd pass. Ran out of steam once I got to Hoichi's - the dragon's - head, hence the lop-sidedness. Literally fell out of the chair drawing it.

Also... adjusted the design on the dragon's body to match a little more with the Ben Shahn face.)

Have found that if ever asked if you have a list of favorite anything, be it movies, artists, whatever, it's usually less to learn what you like and more how quickly you can be pegged into a definable niche. Not that what you watch, read, or listen to is the end-all be-all of what you do - or would want to do - artistically, but that's usually the sort of binary, product-placement approach that the entertainment industry favors. Given this, it's probably safer and easier to rattle off some boilerplate choices during an interview: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and that really artsy film where the end is the beginning and the whole story goes in, like, reverse... or, wait, maybe it has something to do with cars... Well, it's slow and has a European director, so it's deep.

  (Several passes on Hoichi's head, before I finally slumped in my chair and did the squish-headed version above.)

Not that these are bad films, but just the same as what you like is not the end-all be-all of what you do, neither are these films everything that would be considered film or story. And neither are your choices for that matter, which sort of underlies the whole point of why "What you like" is, well, what you like to whatever degree, without necessarily being the Ten Commandments template that influences everything you would want to do later on.

 (Over-rendered first pass. Travis' face turned out better on this one I thought. Hoichi's a bit too literal, while not resembling the actor all that much.)

And let's face it, 9 times out of ten, one is asked to be competent, not to trailblaze. Which again only emphasizes the whole point of looking at one's actual past work rather than hounding on a Top 5 that coincides with AFI's list to whatever degree...

...UNYUSABURU!!!!

Sketches

...on post-it notes. Which gives me a legitimate reason for the scans turning out yellow this time around.

...Have Photoshop back on my computer again, so I might get around to doing a clean-up and color pass on a sketch or two here. Once the ambient temperature outside drops below, say, 100 degrees.

Kaiju Ode to Tom Perkins IV

...As well as to QPop Gallery - went there a few weeks ago and got the hankering to draw the above. Will eventually clean up the bottom framed image and color it so as to keep pace with the namesake of this post.

Anyhow, Mr Perkins has an artbook. Reasonably priced and full of polished work (as well as developmental sketches). Highly recommend picking it up if you enjoy unusual creature designs and the occasional Cyrillic comicbook title.

Random Character Design pages

 Still trying to cut down on the construction lines.

Included Nix from Band of Brothers as a graphic motif in the upper lefthand corner, complete with Vat 69 seal (a dog licking a wheat sheaf apparently). The amazonae on the right is running mid stride on an upshot, which would explain the leg being as truncated as it is (foreshortened). I think technically it's correct, even though it looks awkward in the final render - thus the battle and balance between "correct" and "appealing shape" continues.

Manticorius

 Larger 2nd pass on one of the previous sketches. Manticore in the background's probably taking up too much of the negative space.

Side scroller development sketches

Naked amazons and Spetsnaz mechs. More to follow.

~ Ex Post Facto... ~

...Since anything I post has to necessarily come well after I've drawn it. One of the many great mysteries of the time/space continuum.

 

Another mystery is why I'm having such a difficult time hitting female facial proportions and placement on the first pass.  

Actually, no mystery. Besides forcing myself to draw larger more often, I think a good part of it would be to simply not worry about constructing the individual features, the rendering therein, and just simplifying the shapes, drawing everything with a quick, decisive line; any construction lines, feature placement, or expressions especially. Should probably be the same approach as to doing mech design: Quick outer frame sketch first to establish dynamic shapes, then going in with whatever detail afterwards. Otherwise, it'll more than likely look too contained and indecisive once one starts fussing with rendering out where specific features go rather than how balanced the overall thing looks from a quick glance.

Pencil gives the leeway to not have to be married to the first line - which is its grace as well as its curse. Cintiq's much the same way with the Ctrl+Z undo and eraser being literally one click away (with the added disadvantage of feeling like a blunt China Marker on ice). Colerase have done a good job breaking me out of the habit of erasing, although I haven't completely kicked the jones to do so.

I think Shiyoon, Gennady, and Claire Wendling have the right idea:  Forget erasing, just restart. Redraw the hell out of it, over and over, until you've not only loosened up with your drawing in general, but also are able to hone in on what shapes, perspective, and composition looks best after having hashed the same thing out several dozen times over. This helps with technical proficiency, as well as breaking one out of their shape/design/posing comfort zone.

~ More Cthulhu Tank Crew pages... ~

Inked page I promised last time; plus an additional page done after the last post.

..............

Sketches of some Vampire Supremacists. They regard the original Nosferatu as a kind of political demagogue, promising a program of shed blood for every working family. (In their eyes, the equivalent to what the fascists and socialists were offering in terms of "Bread and a fair wage for everyone"):

...............

The Slumberhexe. I'm not sure if she induces sleep, or is merely a functionary of a greater entity that induces sleep. Perhaps she monitors what we know as REM sleep via some kind of vague telepathic/empathic feeling as she floats through villages; or, she might induce sleep walking in select persons for whatever unknown reason. Or maybe she's just like most any other homeless ghost, unaware of where she is or what she's doing - maybe she's the somnambulist. (And if you don't have a dictionary on hand, that'll learn you.)

~ More Moleskine... ~

Older pieces from the sketchbook, from a few months ago.