Doodles

Those damn hobbitses and their trinkets...

Boom

Just messing with Flipbook. Nothing much, but it kept me busy for a while. I'm in the middle of one of my oh-so-frequent creative blocks. Probably due to the fact that I can't scan any animation, which is a bummer. Anyway, keep on truckin'.

Shooting Stars

  Driving home last night, listening to good, old school metal, when Over the Mountain by Ozzy came on. I got the idea to recreate a scene that came to my mind after hearing a line of lyrics. "I told them I had ridden shooting stars, and said I'd show them how."

   It made me think of a time when humans were awestruck by the night sky, and lived by spreading elaborate stories. I imagined an ancient story teller, who traveled from village to village sharing stories of his grand adventures, and becoming revered by all of the tribes he visited. 

   When I got home I immediately started drawing.

Planning phase

Line Pass

1st Shading Pass

2nd Shading Pass

3rd - 5th Shading Pass, plus painted stars with acrylic on a toothpick.

Caption, and distorted color courtesy of MS Paint. I need Photoshop.

  I had a lot of fun doing this, and it was a challenge. Shading is one of my mortal enemies, and this thing is full of it. I don't plan on it being the only project of its kind. I like the idea of taking one line from a song, and seeing what I can make of it. I'm off to listen to more metal, and see what comes to mind.

Any Given Sunday

   Ok, this past weekend Emmalee and I went up to Rock Springs, Wyoming to spend some time with her college friends. We had a great time. On Sundays, they generally enjoy doing absolutely nothing, which almost drove me crazy. In order to avoid losing sanity due to inaction, I had a lot of doodling to do. Here are the fruits of that fateful day.

The one thing we did on sunday was run to a media store for kicks. Surprisingly, the store carries tons of comics, both new and back issues. I picked up a few Daredevil issues I've missed, and the Marvel craving hit me like a brick. Daredevil is one badass man, and has always been my favorite hero of all time. Gotta love 'im.

This was the last doodle of the day, hinting that my sanity had indeed declined throughout the day...

Meh.

   Well, not much has happened lately. I found a newer scanner hidden in my house that is compatible with my computer, but I'm not too happy with it. The software isn't user friendly, especially for animation. I can't figure out how to save settings so it will apply the same changes to each image I scan. It's a real hassle and I miss my old scanner. At any rate, here are some recent drawings.

Wolves and a rat.

Doodles from the mall.

Gandalf and Gimli.

Gestures

I did a bit of gesture drawing today (using Pixelovely), and had a good time. Mostly 30sec to 1min drawings. I still can't get the exaggeration and caricature that I'm striving for, which frustrates me. Most of them turn out looking so plain. But I'm practicing.

Again, pardon the poor photography. 

I like the upper left pose here. The idea comes across with such simple lines.

Spent a little more time on this guy, about 4 minutes. I'm pretty happy with it.

And I'll throw a little animation test on here. Just practicing a jump, and overlap/follow-through with a nifty ponytail.

Sweatin' to the Oldies

  Happy New Year, everyone. I heard someone say that what you do on the first day of the new year is an example for what the rest of your year will be like. Luckily for me, I had work off, and spent most of the day drawing and reading my books on animation. So the year's lookin' pretty good so far!

  I've been reading through the Walt Stanchfield book "Drawn to Life" again, and man does that light a fire. It makes me crave drawing all the time, which is probably the best craving I could ask for!

  On a less enthusiastic note, I made a poor discovery today. My new, awesome, beautiful computer isn't compatible with my old, outdated scanner. Which means no more scanning drawings until I can afford a new one. Which also means no more animating on paper until I can afford a new one. Smell the depression in the air? I do. But hey, that just means more sketching, and more tiny animation tests in Flipbook. We'll make it through this.

  Anyway, how about some drawings? As per the aforementioned scanner situation, my trusty digital camera was asked to step up to the plate, so pardon the poor lighting, crooked composition, etc.

  I've been drawing a lot of old people lately.

In honor of my love for big, manly beards. And my reluctant lack thereof. Someday, oh hairy glory, I will have thee, someday...