Star Wars

My favourite galaxy couple from one of my all time favourite films.

I also had Han Solo's gun - way back in the 80's. Made sound effects too. Awesome

I did this is illustration way back in 2015.

Will hope to post up soon some more Star Wars stuff.

Thanks for visiting.

Research to layout drawing process

Research

For any type of research, I have a basic methodology.
To note, because I already have a style in mind, which fall's into the 'Classic Golden Age of cartoons', this now helps to eliminate the thousands of options otherwise available once you go to Google Image search.

So with that established, I was looking for a Lion character. I found Tex Avery's 'Slap Happy Lion' to fit just the look I was after.

The above image shows the 'sample' Golden Age cartoon character and my quick study (top right).

Forms and Silhouettes

All I am interested in doing is observing the forms and silhouette of the character. I observe that the Tex Avery Lion has little eyes, big nose, big muzzle, big hair and small ears. All these varying shapes help to inform my decisions of things like proportions and negative spaces. And ultimately, the cartoon's appeal. 

Appeal

And this appeal is something I am learning more and more about as time goes by.
I have found that if you also do a google search for a clip art cartoon, say in this example, a lion - this will show very clearly the difference between a generic bland type cartoon (clip art) and the more exaggerated - lively type that I believe is present in Tex Avery's Lion. 
Appeal is everything. 

Don't be a slave to reference material

The Tex Avery Lion reference is only used for a 'quick' study. And I mean like 4-5 minutes at most. This timeframe trains me to see forms, silhouettes, negative spaces between forms, etc. And its these observations which then get translated quickly again into my own research sketch. This sketching element is very important as it takes what I observe (essentially thoughts) and brings them into action (now through my pencil). And as I draw, I build up a rolodex of forms/shapes that I can now use for my own drawing.

So in closing, it ultimately removes my needing to religiously follow the reference material. And as a result, it allows me to discover eventually my own style of art. 

Get that expression sorted

For my Lion's sad expression, I referenced John Kricfalusi's 'Cigarettes the Cat'. Again I did a quick study using all the above methods.

Here I made some notes as to what happens to the facial forms when you are sad.

I also made a sad face myself (physically), and observed what my muscles were doing. I could feel my bottom lip coming up. I could also feel my bottom and top lips coming together and squishing outwards. Doing this also adds to that rolodex of information that I mentioned earlier. Which informs my decision making for my own Lion drawing, coming up next.

Layout drawing - Sad Lion

Armed with A4 sheets of photocopy paper and a red/blue pencil, I start to draw.

As per Preston Blair's lessons, I started with the cranium. See here for the lesson I am talking about.
Because of the above research methodology, I am now ready to focus on my character. With the eyes and mouth of the character, I can start to explore and push the forms/shapes with confidence. Having done the ground work in research, I can now really push and exaggerate the forms to what I think is an appealing character.
What follows are my results.

The x2 sketches were stitched together and then cleaned up with on-going additional changes in Clip Studio Paint, for the blue lined finished layout drawing.

Now I am ready to ink up the layout drawing.

One more example of a layout drawing - Panda character

For this character, his pose was excitement.
Having done a previous drawing of the Panda been angry, I was able to reference from this to keep on model going forward.
You will notice I did a one-off facial expression test which I later rejected as I felt it lacked the 'appeal' I was after.
I also did up a very quick full body model to understand the overall silhouette of the character. The head size is way off - way to small.
Reference gathering for this Panda was more arbitrary, with me simply googling Panda animation. However I kept the researching to only 5 or so minutes.

I will post up these Panda illustrations soon.

Preston Blair Top hat gentleman practice

Next construction of head practice.
My image at left and Preston's at right.

Below image is Preston's in orange and my attempt in blue. Sorry that it's a bit hard to see.
What errors that strike me most in my attempt are the face is longer than Prestons and the negative spaces between forms are to wide. Not in all cases, but more than enough.

For Preston's image I have put in red lines which denote (guide lines) and the blue lines are for the negative spaces (or gaps between forms). By doing these two measurements I could more closely see where I had gone wrong in copying Preston's work.

For now I can see that my negative spaces are out. And I think this is related to the fact that my face shape is vertically to long - which then pushes all the other elements out.

**Noticeable areas of error - my ears are too small which then makes the hair too long. Also the negative space between my eyes are too far apart - even though the placement of the eyes are fairly close.
Well - that's that for now. More to come soon.

Sad Lion Cartoon

Sad Lion Cartoon

This image is a continuation from this image posted here.
I am hoping to continue in this style and create some more characters, soon.

Words that - Disney books

Words that - Disney books

To find inspiration/ beautiful draftsmanship

Often when I am starting an illustration/character design - one of the first places I will go for inspiration is here, with these books.
Besides the fun and energy contained within each of these books is the draftsmanship of the drawings/illustrations, which is just next level. Something for which I aspire too as an artist everyday.

I was fortunate enough to have these books as a child and as a result have very fond memories of the pictures. Even today, I can still remember certain images which have been etched into my mind. Goofy spiralling down a ski slope, Donald Duck losing his mojo at the kitchen sink. Great stuff.

These next set of images I found online (original's), found here comicartfans.

Happy Lion Cartoon

Happy Lion Cartoon

Inked in Artrage and also added some flat colors using the roller brush (nice textures). Then I added some last minute little details in Photoshop.

Above image inspired by Tex Avery's 'Slap Happy Lion', 1947. Classic cartoon funny.

Also inspired by the 1976's 'Words that do things' Disney book, for children. The images are really fantastic and I love the rendering too.
To see more on these Disney books, click on this link Words that - Disney books from another post I have done.

Will post up soon a tutorial for using Artrage.

Hellboy baby cartoon

Hellboy baby

Inked up in Clip Studio Paint then rendered out in Photoshop.

I have been using Hi-Fi color for comics, a great resource for learning how to paint in a comic style.

For the Hi-Fi book, I used this one found here

Definitely recommend this book. You can still purchase as an online version. Just follow the above link.

The basic idea behind rendering in the above style is to paint with light. To do this you use the mode 'screen' - which essentially adds light to the base color.

Here's a close up screenshot of Hellboy baby which shows the base color (which is generally a de-saturated mid tone) and the accompanying screen color (saturated orange). 

With the color (orange) selected, you then use a brush with mode set to 'screen'. Then you start applying the brush to build up areas and give the piece that illuminated feel.
The actual brush is 'soft' with a slight texture.

**USE OF OVERLAY in layers

As I completed each body form, in this particular example - the face, I made a copy of the face and changed the layer mode to 'Overlay'. See below for example

I felt by doing this, it made the image pop more. We'll, I hope it did.

I definitely recommend if you are interested in learning more about this technique for rendering, to get the book. It has heaps and heaps of tutorials. I mean heaps.