PCW Mentor 2 – Flour Sack

Following Krishna Sadasivam’s Mentor Experiment, assig. 2 “Understanding the Torso with the Help of a Flour Sack”, I’m taking it on as time permits. This is why I’m taking on the persona of a sloppy art student, late with work, and drawing on the fly. While learning concepts, you’ll see lots of rough stuff. Its not an excuse, its an attitude. LOL

So there were 6 poses to use a flour-sack as the base shape for a torso. Here are some preliminary flour sack sketches, to get acquainted. Mom and kid on the right.

I didn’t follow the original assignment order. For some, I drew various versions, and all are available for a quick peek, if you’re in a hurry, in a slideshow at the end of this post. I included them for perspective.

Kick – I drew 3 kicking poses with the flour sack. Here’s the one I liked. The silhouette kind of works, though it may be confused for someone dancing. Then again, kicking can be part dancing. The action line did the work, in my opinion.

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Punch – I wasn’t too happy with this one, having concentrated on a front punch pose without thinking about the silhouette. That front punch pose can be seen in the slideshow at the bottom of this post. The line of action works ok here, but my proportions, and stance could use some work.

Bending over to pick up something - This pose works with both, line of action and silhouette. The flour sack worked in terms of bending over. The skirt does not obscure the silhouette. The thing over the mouth is supposed to be a hand.

Lifting Barbells – I like this one. You can see the flour sack twist, it has volume, and the silhouette works for me. I would have worked on this one more, but I drew fast on purpose.

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Running scared – Cartoon-like, sort of a classic, now that I look at it. The flour sack worked, and the silhouette didn’t suffer much, in terms of being identified.

Twist – Not too happy about this one. Hurrying worked against me. The twist itself is hard to figure out, even in the non-silhouette image. Maybe extending the right arm would have work better.

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And there you have it. Had lots of fun, drawing rough and fast, and learning from it. Speed highlights errors. Prepping this post took longer than drawing. I’d probably get a D, if not an F, from Krishna. LOL It gave me perspective while learning from a great pro. Hope you liked it. Thanks for dropping by, and have a great art time!

PS – Please look at the slideshow of all the images I wanted to post here. I uploaded even more images than show above, including additional work. WordPress goes only so far before it starts getting difficult to layout, etc.

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PCW Mentor – # 1 – Attitude Poses

Krishna Sadasivam, of PC Weenies started a great mentoring experiment, where two lucky artists will get the benefit of his tutelage on cartooning for 10 weeks. Not only that! Anyone can follow along and take advantage of the lessons. Already in week 2, I’m lagging trying to follow, but follow I will. This is a great opportunity to hit on some good principles of cartooning. One can never stop learning. Thanks Krishna!

Assignment 1 was to draw a heavy-set male figure in three different poses: angry, tired, and happy. You can see the post, and what the two selected “mentorees” have contributed right here and here My attempt at following has already taught me a good lesson, as you’ll see below.

My poses were done quickly and without much adornment, trying to emulate a classroom setting, with not much time to work.

Angry – My angry heavy-set guy is ok on the right. Krishna’s suggestion of using an action line helped, though I didn’t exaggerate it enough. Another suggestion  was to use a silhouette to see how effective the pose was. My pose doesn’t convey “angry” well enough, save for that upheld fist, and he might as well be looking at the fist. Facial expression does work on the left, but at a glance, and without detail, the message is lost.

Tired – You can tell the guy is tired on the left, and I believe the detail of the head may convey that, hair hanging, etc. On the right, it kind of says “tired” but it could be confused with someone pushing a wall, or someone who is depressed (can’t really see the hanging arm).

Happy – My happy guy is obviously happy, on the right, and pegged down by that silly grin. The pose itself works because the grin is there, but when it comes to the silhouette on the right, he might as well be someone falling to his death, or one of those chalk marks from a crime scene! LOL!!

Take-away – Of the three, the most successful was “tired guy”, though he looks kind of sick. Maybe I exaggerated a bit too much. All in all, this experiment showed me the value of a silhouette. Excellent tool to measure how effectively your message comes through. I’m very guilty of depending on details to convey what I want the audience to see. Let’s face it. Folks do look at images in a flash of a second, when the true message should be registered. If you want your message to come through, use the silhouette as a tool to see how effective you are. Of course, this depends on what you want to say, and how you want to say it.

Another good take-away from this lesson was the “line of action”. Let the action of what your sketching guide the rest of your creation, and you won’t go wrong.

I’m really enjoying this experiment in learning that Krishna has provided, and I plan to follow along for all 10 weeks. As for the next one, I can’t wait to play with the “flour sack” LOL – check it out here.

Thanks for dropping by, and remember to have a great art time.

Ghost of Christmas Future

Hi folks! Been some time since about tools here, but I got a few “COPIC” markers and thought it worth it. Please pardon any pagination/image issues as well. I’m getting used to the changes in using WordPress.

This piece here was drawn for the Tuesday Sketch topic “Scrooge and The Christmas Carol”. The Ghost of Christmas Future doesn’t like to be bothered while on holiday. Click on it for a better view. Anyway, on to the process and tools.

I started this with a quick pencil sketch, then laid some lines down with a Pentel Stylo. Neat and inexpensive pen that lets you draw fine lines, and slightly thicker ones, with its weird little triangular looking tip. Not bad for quick pen fun too.

After some noodling about, I took one of the 4 COPIC markers from the Cool Gray series that I got for Xmas. I’m loving the way it just slaps on the ink. And I only used the brush point (a surprise, because I thought that fine point was a rigid tip). These marker pens also have a chisel tip, very good for filling in values. You can see a bit of the brush action on the darker gray in this image.

Here a little close-up (click on the image). You can see the mixed values using the COPIC, a PITT brush pen with a lighter shade of gray, and more fine lines done with the Pentel Stylo. As well, I used a carbon pencil (the kind you strip off the cover from in a spiral manner) for the foreground/background, just to fill in. I smudged it with cheap paper towel to get rid of the hard lines.

On the left, a close-up of the supposedly future city. After all, the ghost is on holiday, in his own time. I don’t know why, but I like the roughness of close-ups a lot. And the suggested lines as well. Nothing like a the raw look of a pen and tones on paper. I know it’s not “elevated” art work, but the hint of it is something I always liked.

Well, that should do for now. Hope you liked the piece, and the little process that goes with it. As well, I hope it displays well on different screens. I have no idea how this “new” WordPress web interface will handle my old layout know-how, but we’ll see. One thing for sure. I’m getting more COPIC markers. I hope you are having a great holiday season, thank you for dropping by, and wish you an excellent art time.

30 Character Challenge 2011 Slideshow

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Here we have a slideshow for the 30 Character Challenge 2011. This is the second time I participate, but the first time I actually register as a participant. The point was to create a character daily and post it in the site. A lot of participants were able to do them in time. I missed the deadline by 2 characters. Here is my collection. (you can also click on the slideshow above to control the rate at which the characters are displayed. It was an excellent experience. As I fell behind, creating batches of characters was educational, as to what one can accomplish, and also a discovery of sorts. I came up with some ways to minimize production time, and explored my own process of creation at varying pacing, and with different media. For example, I started with pencil and ink, and great detail, but at some point, I had to try using my iPod’s tiny screen with a stylus. Later I would try borrow an iPad to do the same. Time dictated my method, so to speak. I was able to indulge in digital art to some level, exploring lines, brushes, and colors, as I went along. Now I feel a bit more capable when its time to create something on the run.

I hope you like the slideshow. You can see my final post, with thumbnails, and links to each creation, to be viewed at your own pace, by clicking here.

This was a heck of an experiment for me. Hope you like them. Thanks for dropping by, and don’t forget to have a great art time!