Davey Jones' Locker, I Swear

Okay, these are the last "Widow Ching" Chinese pirate drawings, I swear! The project wrapped today (well, maybe), and these are my final drawings. Hope you enjoy :-). I guess you can pretty much see how the whole project, start to finish, went, with ideations for ships, to little composition and color keys, and the finals. There's always a lot of research and thumbnails involved in just one of these drawings, but John Clapp is right: it makes your stuff so much better than if you did not put all that time into researching. So enjoy these final bits of piratey goodness! --L

A Little Trickle...

I know I haven't posted anything in awhile, and you're probably pretty sick of that "Sketch of the Week," but I've been hard at work on the 30-second short film "RODEO," which doesn't afford me much time to draw aside from it. I have been working on "The Widow Ching-Pirate" for quite some time, and the final drawings are due this coming week. I'm excited about them and will post when they're finished. Also on the Widow Ching, here are some more color keys. I'm feeling much more confident with Photoshop painting now, and I can see that the more one does it, the better one gets--true of everything, of course, but I'm amazed at how quickly one acheives that greater skill. Also, a page of figure drawings, just for your viewing pleasure. Ciao!

Color Key #2

Here is another photoshop painting for the same project, "Marcovaldo." I keep having to tell myself that these are just color studies, just little color keys, and it's about color, not rendering out a gorgeous piece. I tried to do that with the first painting, and I failed...but I do like the color in that little experiment. This re-realization that these drawings are just color studies has allowed me more freedom to really just bust out with a big, soft brush, and make bolder strokes. I like this sketch much better...hopefully the next will improve as much as this did from the first. --L

A Photoshop Painting, Sortof

I'm not sure what I think of this little color study I did in Photoshop. The subject matter is from a short story called "Marcovaldo," and I chose to illustrate a moment when several working-class folks gather the mushrooms that are growing in the patch of grass by their tram stop. (They put the mushrooms in their umbrellas--cool visual possibilities.) As for the drawing itself, I don't like it, but I'll post it up here for you to critique. I think I will do this again, when I have time. I'm not sure if it's my drawing skills or my technique in Photoshop (er, both!)...I had a bit of fun doing it, though, so if nothing else it can go in the "experience" file! --L

More Piratey Goodness

Here are some more Chinese pirate junk ideations, just some sketches I doodled up this afternoon. I'm having entirely too much fun with this. Hope you enjoy! --L

Piratey Goodness!

Aaargh! The project in Visual Development right now is to create the world (and character) of the Widow Ching, a lady pirate in 19th century China. I'm having entirely too much fun with the chinese pirate ships, "junks," and here are a couple more-developed sketches. I've done pages and pages of ideations, but not as many as I need! I realize what a challenge it is dealing with ships--all that rigging is crazy. I have just some of the rigging on these drawings. It's complicated! I'm having a hard time getting out of my Western mindset and trying to figure out how these Chinese junks sailed: the sails look backwards to me and there don't appear to be any booms. It really is all about research and thumbnails on this project, but I couldn't ask for better subject matter! Arrrgh...enjoy the piratey goodness!

Phun With Photoshop

Yo. So now I have everything set up and working...nice printer, new Wacom...and I finally got a spare couple of hours to do some Photoshop explorations. So here they are.

I've been itchin' to do some Renaissance-style sleeve drawings, on toned paper. The drawings of Holbein and Leonardo are mesmerizing, and combined with my hobby/obsession with historical costuming, I had to do it. So I put on four layers of clothes--shirt, partlet w/sleeves, velvet jacket, and overcoat (for the puffy part)--and sat in front of a mirror. I did these in 3 tones as well, since I wanted to stay in the drawing/sketching mindset. I often find that once I get into Photoshop, I seem to forget everything about drawing, and instead try to make some beautiful work of art. I think the more I work in this medium, the more natural it will become, and the more like drawing and painting. Thus starts my Photoshop odyssey :-). --L

This Week's Sketches

Hi All! It's been a pretty crazy week, with all kinds of character designs, layouts, and storyboards due, so I've been working mostly on those. Never you fear, though, faithful readers! I did not forget you! Here are some "fun-with-toned-paper" sketches. I acquired a set of sepia-colored pens in various nib widths (and one a brush), and also a pen with white ink, and so I have been playing with these new tools and having a pretty good time of it. So here we have (surprise!) more horses, inspired by a night of watching "Hidalgo" and getting great reference for my 30-second film "Rodeo." And just to show I've been drawing something besides horses, here's a 10 minute figure drawing from Monday's session.

And that's it for now :-) Thanks for the awesome comment, Socks, and the rest of y'all "work hard, do good work, and never give up!" --L

Hooray!

Hi! I'm back and have all kinds of stuff to post. In my unintentional sojourn from computer-life, I had all kinds of time to draw, so that I did, and will now post ad nasuem. I'd also like to give a shout-out to a couple new readers, Eric and John R! Anyone else wandering onto this here blog, it's great to have you too, and I hope you enjoy. So now...ART:

It's been raining here for quite some time, and I was trapped inside, drawing mostly my hands and face. Every once in awhile I go on a self-portrait kick...good practice for head drawing. I suppose my own hands could be something of a self-portrait.

I got my new "Earthbound" sketchbooks in the mail, and so I have been loving the toned paper and ability to use white. It makes a difference! Hence the hands, and this self-portrait. I always try to put a bit of a story in my portraits, self or otherwise. For this one I was thinking primarily of Hans Holbein, but it came out a little stiffer than I wanted. Still good practice, however.

Another self-portrait a la Alphonse Mucha. I finally, after a year, got a copy of "Alphonse Mucha: The Spirit of Art Nouveau," and so I have been delighting in that. This drawing did not start out as a mucha drawing, but I had him in mind when I did it...and it went from there.

The times I did get out this week, I was on a quest for a summer job working at a stable. While the stable thing is likely not going to happen, I was around horses for two afternoons, and took the opportunity to get some gestures. I haven't drawn horses from life in some time, and it's always somewhat refreshing to do so, because I realize how heavily I rely on what I know, versus what I see. Here's a page o' horses for y'all.

For some other news, I got my new Wacom Intuous 3 6x8 tablet in the mail, and now that I have my computer back on-line, I get to dive into the crazy world of photoshop painting, about which I am much excited. I will have photoshop painting to post soon!

That's all for now, folks (really!). I leave you with a lil' watercolor landscape.