Cartoon Me Project - Progress

So among the other projects I am working on, I am also working on a project I am calling "Cartoon Me".
Essentially this project is designed to help me practice working towards a cartoon likeness of people. The reason I want to practice this is because I would like to start drawing a web comic. Before I do I want to sharpen my skills when it comes to breaking down the face into basic shapes while still being recognizable.

I promised to show progress, and while there hasn't been much lately, here is where it stands thus far. This will be a long running project, I assure you. heh.

Thanks for looking. Be sure to check back for more progress on this project. =D

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Works In Progress

I kind of feel as though that title could be describing me directly, however, with that being said I have some things I have been working on to share with you.

The first is an illustration for the Morning Star challenge over at Character Forge. As you know, I tend to do these little challenges just on my own, in my own time, while exploring various techniques and styles that I have been reading about and trying out for the first time. While I was working on this piece, which i still am, I was looking over a tutorial for digital marker rendering.. sort of... and was led to a whole slew of amazing photoshop brushes which I then promptly began exploring in this piece. Right now the textures are all over the place and I plan to clean them up and make them more cohesive, but after working on it for a long time, I needed to step away. Hopefully I will actually finish this one.

The next one I am working on is in the same theme, however I am working from a tutorial that instructs the artist to use a traditional black and white under painting and then glaze the colour on top. This is a technique that I have practiced with acrylic paint many times but not with digital paint. I decided to give it a try and have been screen capturing as I go. 

I worked on this for many consecutive hours before hunger called and I decided to walk away from it. I am hoping that a fresh set of eyes will help me come back to it, ready to tackle the background and more of the light and shadows, which I am struggling with a little. I am at odds with myself between dramatic and subtle. Wanting to do one, but being lead to do the other. I'm also starting to lose some of the shape definition in the facial features so I need to get back to my original contour drawing. I almost don't want to show the last one, but hey, all in the name of learning right?

In any event, very unfinished, but you can have a peek. 

The last WIP that I am going to show you is a drawing from a photo I took last time I was in Toronto. I originally wanted to make it very 'inky' but as i usually do, I got distracted with colour and shapes and got away from the linework I wanted to portray. When I come back to this one, I will  create a new layer and just work with the ink lines a little, leaving the colour until after I have achieved the loose freehand pen look that I like to do in my physical sketchbook.

Thanks for looking and be sure to check back for the finished illustrations. 

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Character & Environment Exercise

As I stated in my last post, one of the places I like to go for inspiration is CGHUB. There are a ton of past drawing challenges that are perfect for flexing my creative muscles. I simply look at the challenge and attempt to work it through on my own even though I am sure I would benefit greatly from participating in current challenges, my confidence in my skills has yet to allow for such.

The following character and environment exercise was one found in the character forge section of the forums.

In this exercise I took one of the drawing challenges and followed along, but omitted a few of the specs so that I may turn around the work more quickly, creating more of an exercise than a long term study.  

The original project was to create a Kikiot who lives in the salt flats of the planet Alfmar.

The specs that I left out included long mouthparts and obviously glaring markings on the skin/fur. Instead I created a stout but large nose to help aid in the creatures amazing sense of smell. I also included a rich scale like skin.

The Kikiottea is possibly a subspecies of the Kikiot or perhaps just the pre evolved state. I'm not really sure as I hadn't given that part much though, I wanted to ensure that I followed much of the project specs but still kept it flexible since I was not participating in the cghub challenge directly. 

Once again, Thanks for looking! =)

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More Character Studies

That's right, I've been trying to develop my skills at creating characters. One of the places I like to go for inspiration is CGHUB. There are a ton of past drawing challenges that are perfect for flexing my creative muscles. I simply look at the challenge and attempt to work it through on my own even though I am sure I would benefit greatly from participating in current challenges, my confidence in my skills has yet to allow for such.
The following character study was one found in the character forge section entitled Jungle Giant. Now my 'Jungle Giant' should probably have been titled "Woodland Giant" as it developed into a character that is more likely to be found in a sherwood forest or other woodland area that contains less of the moisture, waterways, and exotic life that I would normally associate with a jungle. I picture this creatures cohabitators to be more along the lines of elves, wood nymphs, and strange birds.

I have named the creature the Diruo Gigas who is essentially a sleeping giant. The creature awakens every few thousand years or so and unwillingly causes mass destruction to the world that has developed upon its array of landscape type surface. Vegetation and plant life all develop on exposed areas of the creature who lays dormant until relocation becomes necessary. 

AnyWHO...

Thanks for looking. 

=) 

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IF - Sink

obvious and simple this time. 

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More World Challenge

Following up to my previous post 'World Challenge', I have finally found some time to post some of the environmental concepts I drew for that challenge. I've continued to work on this project and will share the rest (probably after the holidays) which includes some character designs.

I am still learning a great number of new techniques and I am discovering that my largest obstacle was that I haven't kept all of my reference materials over the years. Time to start a new personal reference library.

In any event, some of my environment sketches for the planet Anchiale:

As always, thanks for looking. =) 

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World Challenge

I've started a study of environmental concept art (practice for my portfolio). This is the first image of the study and my first ever planetary study.  Wow.
I can see where I need to improve but overall I am happy with the techniques I learned. I'm sure next time it will look even more polished.

I should have some environment sketches to share within the next couple of days. =)

As always, thanks for looking.

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Techniques, confidence, and baby steps.

Yesterday I started 3 illustrations and took them to about 60 percent completion. This act came after a specific incident that left me feeling very un-confident about my abilities as an artist and my abilities to obtain work as such. In true 'me' fashion I decided that the perfect cure of feeling insecure about my abilities was to take some time to sharpen my skills. Well by the time midnight came around I was feeling very frustrated at my inability to take any one illustration to completion, with the mish mash of various techniques I was attempting to toy around with and just over all in what I had been doing.
A good night's sleep later and I had the determination to bring one of them to completion. This one a little more of a character sketch than an illustration (as there is no environment and the picture isn't really telling a story) but I am happy I, at least, completed it.

In this technique I played around with the idea of blending with a soft brush and instead of working with sharp jagged edges. I created an overpainting to build upon a line drawing. I've tried variations on this technique in the past but I think this one is closer to the direction I will continue to go.

In any event, i would love any comments about improving upon this technique or how to apply it to environments on a grand scale.

As always, thanks for looking!

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PS exercise

Contrary to last night's colour blocking exercise in Flash this one was a similar exercise in photoshop.

I always want the strokes to blend more smoothly with the pressure pen than I can make them and I suspect a better brush might help. I'm not really sure what 'kind' of brush would make it better.

In any event, this started out as what should have been an easy exercise but  I got really hung up with the crinkly nose. Ah well.. learning is learning.

As always, thanks for looking!

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Late Night Exercises.

While faced with a large amount time that can be neither fully productive or completely unproductive, I've taken to running myself through a variety of drawing/painting exercises all using digital media.

I'm not going to lie.... after working traditionally for so many years... making the transition to digital hasn't been as easy as I first thought. I still have a long way to go before I am able to replicate what I once enjoyed making with traditional art supplies... however ... it has also given me the opportunity to play around with techniques and styles all over again. Much  like I did nearly ten years ago after graduating from college.

I now find myself wondering about style, technique, concept, meaning, intent, and audience. It's a strange thing really.

Alas, I ramble.

Here is a drawing I did last night (late - like 3:30am late) and the reason i chose to do this colour blocking exercise is because I remember it not taking a lot of real focus in painting class... just a keen eye on reference material, and also it seems like it would give me the chance to really push around what traditional 'flash' brushes are capable of.

I'm fully aware that I changed the angle of her right eye. When I first started I had intended to skew a lot the features but as I layered the colour that eye kept trying to revert back to normal. 

I sure do wish I had more reference material to work with though. It might be time to start a file again. 

As always, Thanks for looking. 

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IF- Scary

Inspired by a scene from 12 Monkeys... I cringed the entire time I sketched this one out.

Thanks for looking!

=D

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UnEarthed Characters.

So due to a large battle with sleep deprivation (and the recent rambling of my flash-pro BF)  I got to wondering if I still knew my way around an action script. Turns out a lot of the basics have come flooding back. i even gave a character of mine the ability to blink! woohoo. (but more on that later).

Upon revisiting today  I came across one of my many unused web-comic characters. So I gave her some sloppy colour and thought I would share.

I may have to do more with this character in the future. She was a lot of fun to create back in the days when I related to her pessimistic, condescending, loathing attitude towards most people. 

And I found a whole sketchbook of other characters who I find interesting to varying degrees. Some of them may show up here again in the future. 

heh. 

ANYWAY...

Thanks for looking. 

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Work in Progress!

Eeeek! I almost never show work in progress because there is such a high probability that one of two things will happen:

1. it will change drastically
2. it will end up in the discard pile.


However I think i have an idea of where I want to take this one so I figured it was worth the risk.

I am working in vectors and using some brushes I have never used before.

As you can tell I've only started to block in colour, and light and shadow. And composition. I still want to make her left hand (the one that is missing) somehow be holding the frame. Perhaps this means I need to work on making the border "more alive" without being overtaking. 

I'm fairly certain this will be the approximate colour pallet. I'd like to work in a semi-analogous and I have yet to add my ink lines. The dark grey lines seen above were my original sketch lines. 

So yes... a work in progress with lots more to go. I don't really want to show it at this stage BUT i always find benefit from the WIPs of others so... y'know. 

Sleep deprived self now signing off. 

Thanks for looking!

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Vector Sketching!

Nothing original about this one. I've been vector sketching all night and while watching Origin: Spirits of the Past I drew this vector sketch of Toola as she appeared in one scene. 

I was fooling around with what would be considered "marker brushes" in Illustrator and I quite like them for quick studies. I'll have to give it a bit more practice to see if i can effectively emulate my traditional marker work. 

Thanks for looking.

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Tattoo Concept

So a friend of mine wants a tattoo that pays homage to his job AND his fav game Gears of War.
I did about 3 concept sketches for him to take to his tattoo artist and this is the one that might come to fruition.

I'm no tattoo artist so this is just a concept. =)

Thanks for looking, don't forget to comment. =) 

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Happy, Happy!

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Day #4 Favorite Place

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Influence - IF

or rather under the  (click image twice for details)

(click image twice for details)

Thanks for looking!

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Consult

A quick little drawing while I indulge in some crime dramas this evening.
I've sat through many consultations. The stuffiest are not always the most informative.

Click image to see full view.

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Imperfect - IF

A life well lived will be full of imperfection.

Click image to see full view.

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