A 20 minute pose.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
New Wednesday Figure Drawings
I'm very pleased with this first figure. This is a 2 minute pose and everything a gesture drawing should be--just enough information to describe the figures basic anatomy and a clearly defined line of action.
A 20 minute pose.
A 20 minute pose.
Friday, May 07, 2010
New Wednesday Figure Drawings
These are two 20 minute poses. Again I've been choking on the long pose. I never quite know how to pace myself, and I tend not to spend enough time working out the proportions. With these I didn't worry so much about proportion: everyone was drawing these Henry Moore-esque drawings because of the pose of the model and the way she was shaped. It was a fun session.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
Taking Advice From Your Peers
Typically what I do when I finish an image is post it on Facebook. I have a wonderful peer group of illustrators and cartoonists on Facebook who often have things to say about the image. Some of these things are helpful, some less so, and it's important to discriminate between what will work for you and what won't. It's easy to get distracted by too much feedback and lose track of what's important to you, and with this image, after a number of conflicting opinions, I started to lose sight of what was working and what wasn't. So I gave it a couple of days. During this time I had a lot of conflicting emotions to go along with so many conflicting opinions: how dare someone say so-and-so, and are they right? At this point its easier and more appealing to go along with the people who say it's a great image and I shouldn't change a thing. So I stepped back and took what I reasonably could from the experience.
Some of the criticisms were subjective and more about the emotional content of the image, and there's not much I can do with these aside from starting from scratch and making a new image. I also didn't agree entirely with some of these assessments, and though in the end I could be wrong, all I can really do is go with my intuition.
One piece of advice I was able to take and reasonably act on was the length of her legs. In the panel where she is skating, and in the final panel, her legs were quite a bit shorter than they were in the panel where she's tying her shoes. So with the magic of photoshop, I was able to lengthen her legs. This is where it becomes valuable to keep everything on a different layer. I was able to stretch and distort the line art by itself, making the legs longer and the feet a little bigger to match the earlier image. Since the first foot in the skating image is foreshortened, I was able to keep it the same: a smaller foot and a foreshortened leg compared to the full profile leg and larger foot in the foreground. Before this both feet were the same size, but on the same plane, but now since one is in the further in the foreground this distortion makes sense. After this I was able to stretch the color as well, rather than to recolor it, fussing around with it until it fit.
Next I added a shadow under the image where she's tying her shoes. Before she looked like she was floating a little, and this served to ground her butt more firmly onto the ice.
Lastly, I lengthened the legs on the small figure making the snow angel. This one is probably the least "on model" but I feel it makes sense in the image, much smaller and a little more cartoony than the other figures.
So here's the finished (I hope) image, after all of these changes:
Some of the criticisms were subjective and more about the emotional content of the image, and there's not much I can do with these aside from starting from scratch and making a new image. I also didn't agree entirely with some of these assessments, and though in the end I could be wrong, all I can really do is go with my intuition.
One piece of advice I was able to take and reasonably act on was the length of her legs. In the panel where she is skating, and in the final panel, her legs were quite a bit shorter than they were in the panel where she's tying her shoes. So with the magic of photoshop, I was able to lengthen her legs. This is where it becomes valuable to keep everything on a different layer. I was able to stretch and distort the line art by itself, making the legs longer and the feet a little bigger to match the earlier image. Since the first foot in the skating image is foreshortened, I was able to keep it the same: a smaller foot and a foreshortened leg compared to the full profile leg and larger foot in the foreground. Before this both feet were the same size, but on the same plane, but now since one is in the further in the foreground this distortion makes sense. After this I was able to stretch the color as well, rather than to recolor it, fussing around with it until it fit.
Next I added a shadow under the image where she's tying her shoes. Before she looked like she was floating a little, and this served to ground her butt more firmly onto the ice.
Lastly, I lengthened the legs on the small figure making the snow angel. This one is probably the least "on model" but I feel it makes sense in the image, much smaller and a little more cartoony than the other figures.
So here's the finished (I hope) image, after all of these changes:
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Children's Book Mailer
After the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrator's conference the first thing I did was put together this follow-up mailer to send to editors and art directors. What I learned from Kristen Nobles from Candlewick was that one of the key things they look for in a mailer is character. The kinds of elaborate scenes I typically do are too busy. Though perfectly readable and effective at children's book size, these kinds of busy images are hard to read at the usual 5x7 mailer size. So I decided to keep it simple. I decided to do a mailer that would emphasize expression and body language. Another thing Kristen mentioned was that they like to see people interacting with animals. The point here isn't so much to come up with the most original concept, but to demonstrate that I have this skill.
The other thing I decided to do was a tri-fold mailer that was a sort of mini narrative. Because I have a background in comics, this kind of narrative came naturally to me. In picture books you want to distill in one image a key moment from the story, but the objective of the mailer is a little different. I need to attract the attention of the viewer quickly because publishing houses receive a large number of these mailers, and the mailer needs to be memorable. I thought that by keeping the pace of the action more immediate I could engage the viewer right away while giving them a sense that I can tell a story and that I can show the same character in different attitudes.
To be honest this isn't as carefully thought out as it sounds--my approach was mostly intuitive, but this is essentially where I was headed with the idea.
This will be the front image of the mailer where I'll have my e-mail address, website and other information:
This will be the interior, what you will see when you open it up. The final image will be a full-bleed, so this image has already been cropped to represent what it will look like with a trim:
Here are some early sketches of the character. Originally I had imagined the character as younger, but by making the character have longer arms and legs I could make her a lot more animated, so I aged her a little more. You can see here how on a younger character the features are smaller in proportion to the head.
When I started drawing more kid friendly material I didn't realize how much of a challenge drawing kids would be. When I did one of my first images featuring a kid, my interpretation of James and the Giant Peach, I ended up doing over 70 images of James before I came up with a James I was satisfied with. This time it took a lot fewer drawings, but I still had to go through a fair amount of sketches to get the character I wanted.
Here are just a few of the over 100 images I collected from the web to draw my final image. You can't have too much reference. It always helps to make your image more authentic. I try not to use any one pose from a photograph because I find that when I reinvent the character from multiple sources I avoid making the character look stiff. Drawing directly from photo reference without understanding what makes the figure tick, without being able to visualize the figure in the round, can make the figure look flat and static. Even when I do use just one photo for a figure as I sometimes do, it's important never to forget how to draw as you render it.
Of course this mainly applies to naturalistic poses. Mine are admittedly exaggerated and a little cartoony, but at their root they're based on observation. Some of my favorite illustrators, however, like Ben Shahn and Heinrich Drescher, draw figures that are more symbolic and expressionistic, a very different approach that I also admire and sometimes use in my comics work, like The Blue Kid.
Of course I have no idea if this is going to work. I'm new to this process, and this is how I've decided to approach it knowing the little that I know at this stage of the game. My plan is to follow up this mailer with two others of the same type in the next few months, with follow-up mailers afterward every three to four months.
In the past, when I did editorial, I thought it was adequate to send out one mailer a year, until the illustrator Frank Stockton straightened me out. He told me that at minimum, three to four months was as long as you should wait. Art directors need to know that you're serious and intend to follow through. Also, unlike in editorial, where postcards are adequate, some children's book publishers like to first see a small sampling of your work. To this end, I've had digitally printed a mini magazine that showcases my work which I intend to send as a precursor to my mailers. This is the beginning of what I hope will be an effective long-term strategy to catch the attention of art directors and editors and to let them know that I'm serious and reliable.
Over the months that follow, if you continue to follow my blog you'll see how successful this strategy turns out to be. I spent the last year establishing a new portfolio of kid friendly work, and this year I intend to actively promote it with the aim of cultivating a career in young adult and children's media.
Wish me luck.
The other thing I decided to do was a tri-fold mailer that was a sort of mini narrative. Because I have a background in comics, this kind of narrative came naturally to me. In picture books you want to distill in one image a key moment from the story, but the objective of the mailer is a little different. I need to attract the attention of the viewer quickly because publishing houses receive a large number of these mailers, and the mailer needs to be memorable. I thought that by keeping the pace of the action more immediate I could engage the viewer right away while giving them a sense that I can tell a story and that I can show the same character in different attitudes.
To be honest this isn't as carefully thought out as it sounds--my approach was mostly intuitive, but this is essentially where I was headed with the idea.
This will be the front image of the mailer where I'll have my e-mail address, website and other information:
This will be the interior, what you will see when you open it up. The final image will be a full-bleed, so this image has already been cropped to represent what it will look like with a trim:
Here are some early sketches of the character. Originally I had imagined the character as younger, but by making the character have longer arms and legs I could make her a lot more animated, so I aged her a little more. You can see here how on a younger character the features are smaller in proportion to the head.
When I started drawing more kid friendly material I didn't realize how much of a challenge drawing kids would be. When I did one of my first images featuring a kid, my interpretation of James and the Giant Peach, I ended up doing over 70 images of James before I came up with a James I was satisfied with. This time it took a lot fewer drawings, but I still had to go through a fair amount of sketches to get the character I wanted.
Here are just a few of the over 100 images I collected from the web to draw my final image. You can't have too much reference. It always helps to make your image more authentic. I try not to use any one pose from a photograph because I find that when I reinvent the character from multiple sources I avoid making the character look stiff. Drawing directly from photo reference without understanding what makes the figure tick, without being able to visualize the figure in the round, can make the figure look flat and static. Even when I do use just one photo for a figure as I sometimes do, it's important never to forget how to draw as you render it.
Of course this mainly applies to naturalistic poses. Mine are admittedly exaggerated and a little cartoony, but at their root they're based on observation. Some of my favorite illustrators, however, like Ben Shahn and Heinrich Drescher, draw figures that are more symbolic and expressionistic, a very different approach that I also admire and sometimes use in my comics work, like The Blue Kid.
Of course I have no idea if this is going to work. I'm new to this process, and this is how I've decided to approach it knowing the little that I know at this stage of the game. My plan is to follow up this mailer with two others of the same type in the next few months, with follow-up mailers afterward every three to four months.
In the past, when I did editorial, I thought it was adequate to send out one mailer a year, until the illustrator Frank Stockton straightened me out. He told me that at minimum, three to four months was as long as you should wait. Art directors need to know that you're serious and intend to follow through. Also, unlike in editorial, where postcards are adequate, some children's book publishers like to first see a small sampling of your work. To this end, I've had digitally printed a mini magazine that showcases my work which I intend to send as a precursor to my mailers. This is the beginning of what I hope will be an effective long-term strategy to catch the attention of art directors and editors and to let them know that I'm serious and reliable.
Over the months that follow, if you continue to follow my blog you'll see how successful this strategy turns out to be. I spent the last year establishing a new portfolio of kid friendly work, and this year I intend to actively promote it with the aim of cultivating a career in young adult and children's media.
Wish me luck.
Saturday, May 01, 2010
Monday, April 26, 2010
Best in Show at The SCBWI CA North/Central Spring Spirit Conference!
I recently attended the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators conference in Rocklin and received best in show. An art director from Candlewick, Kristen Nobles, and an editor from Lerner, Mary Rodgers, each selected three portfolios that they felt represented the best work of the artists in attendance, and I was the only artist on both lists!
Since I've spent more than a year preparing my portfolio with kid friendly material, though I've had excellent feedback from peers, I've had none from anyone directly involved in the Children's book industry, so it was gratifying to hear that I was on the right track, and I received some excellent advice for future submissions. It was a great show, with a number of excellent speakers and I feel fortunate to have attended. I learned a lot.
Since I've spent more than a year preparing my portfolio with kid friendly material, though I've had excellent feedback from peers, I've had none from anyone directly involved in the Children's book industry, so it was gratifying to hear that I was on the right track, and I received some excellent advice for future submissions. It was a great show, with a number of excellent speakers and I feel fortunate to have attended. I learned a lot.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Friday, April 09, 2010
More Wednesday Figure Drawings
Here are some more wednesday figure drawings. When I started the group it met the 2nd and 4th Wednesday of every month. Now we meet every wednesday, so hopefully this will help to improve my draftsmanship. These are all 20 minute poses.
Tuesday, April 06, 2010
Toomai of the Elephants 2nd Illustration
Edit: a different color option. This top image was added later as an experiment. I made the foreground stuff cooler to add depth.
Essentially, this is not a successful image. The figures get lost in these giant set pieces and props. But I learned something for the next time, and it's not a bad image, just not an effective illustration.
And one more tweak:
Yeah, I know, you can't tell what I did. But I know, at least. And it makes me feel better. basically I desaturated the background to push it back a little. Subtle, but I think, effective.
This has been a long time in coming, but here's the second of what will be three images from Rudyard Kipling's Toomai of the Elephants. In this picture Toomai imagines his elephant, Kali Nag, as a retired elephant, carrying a raja on his back and adorned with gold. I wanted to show the picture from a low vantage point to give the elephant an exalted look.
I tried to push the color in this one, using reflective color in the shadows of the buildings and elsewhere, for instance: the color of the sky reflecting into the shadow of the onion shaped tops of the towers. Also the blue of the sky reflects into the mountains, but since the mountains aren't a shiny surface the blue mixes with the yellow to become more of a green.
Another example of reflective color is in the elephant. If you look at the previous Toomai image you might notice that the same elephant is portrayed as a very dark green, picking up the green of the jungle. Here the elephant is more in a blue range. But this isn't only done for the purposes of naturalism--the blue in the elephant also helps to unify the picture with the other blues in the image.
Other unifying elements include the pinks and purples in the entrance with similar pastels in the buildings, and the fish pattern repeated in the pillar along with the elephant effigy.
To get the gold effect on the carriage and the textile pattern these had to be warm, saturated low-key yellows in contrast with everything else in the image. All the other yellows are less saturated or lower key.
Here's a detail.
The architecture was a particular challenge. I haven't drawn much architecture in the past but have recently been pushing myself to do more of it. You just can't avoid the fact of architecture for long if you want to portray believable locations.
I found this textile pattern and really liked it, so I made an attempt to duplicate it.
I made these fish and leaf images and repeated them to emulate the pattern.
It doesn't have the character of the original textile, but it was still pretty effective.
As before, I did all my line art separately and assemble it on the computer. This means I end up finishing figures and props that will eventually be cropped out of the picture. The advantage of this, I feel, is that the image becomes more of a complete space--there's more of a sense that things continue on beyond what you're seeing in the picture.
In this drawing of the elephant the elephant has a kind of anklet, but this didn't end up working, so I omitted it from the final image.
Some examples of the many reference pictures I collected. So far I've accumulated hundreds of pictures for these two images, for this and the first Toomai image posted earlier. Again I print them out in black and white to save ink.
Almost all the textures in my images are scanned organic textures and I have a small library of scanned textures to work from. I try to scan new textures for every image to add variety. This time I scanned some opaque paint textures, so this image includes acrylic, pastel, and watercolor textures.
Essentially, this is not a successful image. The figures get lost in these giant set pieces and props. But I learned something for the next time, and it's not a bad image, just not an effective illustration.
And one more tweak:
Yeah, I know, you can't tell what I did. But I know, at least. And it makes me feel better. basically I desaturated the background to push it back a little. Subtle, but I think, effective.
This has been a long time in coming, but here's the second of what will be three images from Rudyard Kipling's Toomai of the Elephants. In this picture Toomai imagines his elephant, Kali Nag, as a retired elephant, carrying a raja on his back and adorned with gold. I wanted to show the picture from a low vantage point to give the elephant an exalted look.
I tried to push the color in this one, using reflective color in the shadows of the buildings and elsewhere, for instance: the color of the sky reflecting into the shadow of the onion shaped tops of the towers. Also the blue of the sky reflects into the mountains, but since the mountains aren't a shiny surface the blue mixes with the yellow to become more of a green.
Another example of reflective color is in the elephant. If you look at the previous Toomai image you might notice that the same elephant is portrayed as a very dark green, picking up the green of the jungle. Here the elephant is more in a blue range. But this isn't only done for the purposes of naturalism--the blue in the elephant also helps to unify the picture with the other blues in the image.
Other unifying elements include the pinks and purples in the entrance with similar pastels in the buildings, and the fish pattern repeated in the pillar along with the elephant effigy.
To get the gold effect on the carriage and the textile pattern these had to be warm, saturated low-key yellows in contrast with everything else in the image. All the other yellows are less saturated or lower key.
Here's a detail.
The architecture was a particular challenge. I haven't drawn much architecture in the past but have recently been pushing myself to do more of it. You just can't avoid the fact of architecture for long if you want to portray believable locations.
I found this textile pattern and really liked it, so I made an attempt to duplicate it.
I made these fish and leaf images and repeated them to emulate the pattern.
It doesn't have the character of the original textile, but it was still pretty effective.
As before, I did all my line art separately and assemble it on the computer. This means I end up finishing figures and props that will eventually be cropped out of the picture. The advantage of this, I feel, is that the image becomes more of a complete space--there's more of a sense that things continue on beyond what you're seeing in the picture.
In this drawing of the elephant the elephant has a kind of anklet, but this didn't end up working, so I omitted it from the final image.
Some examples of the many reference pictures I collected. So far I've accumulated hundreds of pictures for these two images, for this and the first Toomai image posted earlier. Again I print them out in black and white to save ink.
Almost all the textures in my images are scanned organic textures and I have a small library of scanned textures to work from. I try to scan new textures for every image to add variety. This time I scanned some opaque paint textures, so this image includes acrylic, pastel, and watercolor textures.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Latest Wednesday Figure Drawings
I'm pretty happy with this one. Though there are some issues with proportion, the pose is nice and fluid. Often when I render a figure more fully it starts to stiffen up, but this one worked out nicely. I just need to work on my proportions before I jump right into rendering!
We had a great model this time, a very fit man who looked to be about in his 60s. He struck some really difficult poses.
This was a model from a few weeks ago. It wasn't one of my better drawing days but I at least got a couple of quick drawings that looked OK.
And two more of the previous model.
We had a great model this time, a very fit man who looked to be about in his 60s. He struck some really difficult poses.
This was a model from a few weeks ago. It wasn't one of my better drawing days but I at least got a couple of quick drawings that looked OK.
And two more of the previous model.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Wednesday Figure Drawings for February
Haven't posted in a while in part because I've been invested in a long-form writing project. More about that in the near future.
These are more wednesday figure drawings. Most of these are short 5 to 20 minute poses. I didn't do so well on the longer poses this month. The Wednesday figure drawing sessions are going to be every wednesday rather than every other wednesday so you'll be seeing more posts in the upcoming months. I've been promoted to official figure drawing administrator, which means I'm going to be doing the same things I've already been doing, but they're going to pay me for it. Not a lot, but something. I'm going to be doing more with the Pence in upcoming months which I'll also be talking about on my blog soon.
These are more wednesday figure drawings. Most of these are short 5 to 20 minute poses. I didn't do so well on the longer poses this month. The Wednesday figure drawing sessions are going to be every wednesday rather than every other wednesday so you'll be seeing more posts in the upcoming months. I've been promoted to official figure drawing administrator, which means I'm going to be doing the same things I've already been doing, but they're going to pay me for it. Not a lot, but something. I'm going to be doing more with the Pence in upcoming months which I'll also be talking about on my blog soon.
Friday, January 29, 2010
New Wednesday figure Drawing
I missed a meeting so it's been a while. I'm pretty happy with this one though.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Bizarro World Grand Opening!
I'm going to be appearing with a number of other local cartoonists at Bizarro World's new location for their grand opening on saturday the 23rd at 6:30 PM! Bizarro World is a comic shop owned and operated by Dan Urazandi and his son Xavier Urazandi. The new shop is a much larger, new and improved location. For those familiar with Davis landmarks it's located at 223 E Street, the former location of the long vacant Bogey's Books. Dan also sells LPs, games, sci-fi books and even has several old school stand-up video games. I also designed a new logo for the store which will soon be stenciled on the window as their new permanent signage! Here it is:
I've done logos before but never anything quite this prominently displayed. I've always loved Dan's store so I consider it an honor.
More info about Bizarro World and their grand opening here:
Bizarro World.
I've done logos before but never anything quite this prominently displayed. I've always loved Dan's store so I consider it an honor.
More info about Bizarro World and their grand opening here:
Bizarro World.
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
The Pence New Works
So I'm going to have two pieces in the new works show, the previously posted Frog and crow. Here's the Pence's site:
The Pence Gallery.
Though all mention of the show seems, at the moment, conspicuously absent. So I will not be in the Community Hang-Up mentioned on the site but the New Works show in the upstairs gallery. The reception is this friday.
Also: FREE BEER!
Free beer will be provided by Sudwerks.
The Pence Gallery.
Though all mention of the show seems, at the moment, conspicuously absent. So I will not be in the Community Hang-Up mentioned on the site but the New Works show in the upstairs gallery. The reception is this friday.
Also: FREE BEER!
Free beer will be provided by Sudwerks.
Indy Euphoria!
I'll have a table this weekend at Indy Euphoria at The Scottish Rite Center in Sacramento!
EDIT: As you can read in the comments, Jim Woodring won't be appearing, and he will be missed.
Here's a small sample of his work anyway:
To see more of Jim's work click:
here.
For more info about the convention click:
Here.
Saturday, January 02, 2010
More Drybrush Animals
So Eileen from the Pence was so happy with the bird I made her she gave me a few of her own very lovely ceramics pieces. She also asked me to make some drawings for the gift shop and two for a show that will be hung this weekend. I said how about a frog and a bird? And she said that sounds good, and that people like crows. What can I say? I do as I'm told. This is what I have so far. I decided on the first frog rather than the second for the show.
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