"Doc Wizard" Development

Rough Pencils to Rough Digitals in Ninety Minutes!

Back in January I talked developing an original character. 

Since then I’ve been working on a few ideas.    

Here we have a rough for an illustration focused on a young wizard battling monsters and masked miscreants in a mid century metropolis.

I was inspired by a number of things I enjoy; A young magician establishing themselves in a modern city comes from Kiki's Delivery Service. The pulp hero in the big city with a flare for the fantastic is taken from cartoons like Batman The Animated Series and The Legend of Korra with the big monster being battled by super psudeo-science is borrowed from Lee and Kirby's run on the Fantastic Four. I also want to give a shout out to Michael May's Adventureblog for his recent King Kong posts that helped fuel the fire.

Still working out were I can go with this and how I might be able to involve mechanical men, femme fatales and other colorful characters!

Party Progress, Portraits and Other Pictures

I'm a little late with this week's post. I finished rendering for the figures in my long-gestating "Party of Two" project and was debating whether to hold off showing it off until next week when I would (ideally) have the whole thing finished. I decided that given how much time I devoted to the project this week alone, I may as well try and get a bit of feedback before jumping into the home stretch. 

Some of the bigger changes since last time include making the sky all black and replacing the tree with a street light to try  put more focus on the couple and make the space they're in seem more tranquil. 

Continuing my trend of drawing portraits from "talking head" interviews, here are two giants of science fiction television, Patrick Stewart and Rod Serling. 

Just for fun, I skimmed though the "Misc" folder in my inspiration files, drawing rough thumbnails of whatever struck me as the most interesting. I think this could make for an interesting exercise in brainstorming ideas if I were looking though a collection of pictures that had a consistent subject or artist.

Now I want to hear from you. What do you think of the things I share in these posts? What do you like the most and what would you like to see more?

Faces and Fine Art for Friday

Greetings Friends! Its the last Friday in April and we're finally starting to get those April showers I've heard so much about. Theres been plenty of precipitation, but it was always snow up until now. 

I'm still working at sketching celebrity portraits using video interviews but it can be difficult to find footage doesn't cut away to the interviewer every 30 seconds. Fortunately I was able to draw at least one familiar face this week.

My name is Bond, James Bond. And it always will be. 

I've also been doing gesture drawings of fine art models to refine my anatomy skills.

Party Progress

I've taken full advantage of my new 11x14 sketchbook to figure out the pose particulars for the background dancers.

The most comments I've received have been about the couple and how they're posed. I figured it might be important to put some attention on developing the focal point of whole story. (click to enlarge)

Heres a screen shot of my latest update. The sky is now longer dark and the shelter tree is on the other side of the street. 

Now I want to hear from you. What do you think of the couple's pose? Which sketches do you like the best?

See you next week, hopefully with some May flowers. 

Sketchbook Sharing: Talking Heads (Plus Party Progress!)

Something I've noticed in getting back into daily sketching is that I tend to get caught up in the little details very easily.

It was while watching an interview with Martin Scorsese on TV that I hit on the idea of digging up interviews with people I admire. When the focus is just on a face, moving just casually, I can create a more impressionistic portrait than I can from looking at a photo. It also means I have to pick out which details are important very quickly.

Curiously I noticed that when I draw a face the first thing I render is the eyebrows and nose. No idea why.

Martin Scorsese

Alfred Hitchcock

Orson Welles

Last week asked for feedback on ideas for a new illustration. The responses you provided nothing short of incredible. They were so articulate and encouraging that I was riding high on those replies for the rest of the week.

Based on your comments I've created a more refined scale drawing with more defined character placement, perspective and light-shadow contrast. 

In this upcoming week I plan to practice drawing the figures and experiment with various poses to decide what looks best.

Now I'd like to hear from you. Like I said, I love reading your comments.

Any fellow artists have some quick-drawing tips? Are there some particular people or characters you'd like to see me draw? 

Project Progress: Party of Two

Greetings Patient Viewers!

You may have noticed that I dropped off the map for a while, only popping in every so often with editorial posts about design in film and television. The truth is over the past few months I've been involved with a project for Nickelodeon Studios, working on character art for an upcoming "Spongebob Squarepants" product. Thats probably as much as I can say before the official release. Trust me, once I get the A-OK to talk about it, you will all know. 

Now that I don't have my nose to that particular grindstone, I'm trying to get my sea legs back doing daily sketching and weekly blogging. 

Meanwhile, heres some color sketches for a new illustration I'm developing. Its the story of two shy people finding each other slowly getting to know each other away from the crowd. 

Now I'd like to hear from you. Which sketch do you think is the best? What would you like to see me draw for my future sketchbook shares? 

Party of Two - Process and Progress

Its been a while since I've posted any finished work, so I thought I'd provide an update on what I've been doing lately.

With my last piece, I tried to streamline my process, but drawing directly over my pencils in Photoshop to save steps on inking, scanning and adjusting the appearance of said inks. Also, I got a new desktop computer to replace my dying laptop so I figured it might be high time to look into using my computer as something other than an oversized clipboard for my reference photos.

Using Photoshop, I started sketching roughs, were I could add or subtract details, scale elements up or down, and get a general idea of what I was after before I "get started" and better visualize what I was after.

Heres an idea I've had in the back of my head for a while, loosely based on an experience from my own life. Set just outside an apartment building were a loud party is taking place. In contrast we see young couple sitting on the front steps, shooting the chilly evening breeze and getting to know each other better.

Sketching in Photoshop also gave me the advantage of being able to plot out  a grid for perspective. However, a problem that I came across was measuring out a set of steps that our couple could comfortably sit on. Along the same lines I had trouble figuring out the proper proportions of these kids to the rest of the building. I'm working my way though the tutorials for Google SketchUp to help me out with the architectural consistency. 

For some fun on your way out, here is my "inspiration collage" featuring a number of illustrations that I looked at for subject and staging.

Mural Progress

After catching up on the sleep I lost finishing Kayla's dance card, I was able to commit most of my Saturday to painting the American History Mural that I mentioned previously.

My dad was also around to take some pictures of my progress and give a sense of scale to this project.