Ellie Evolution

My one ever evolving project is Ellie on Planet X - kind of an internet comic/children's book thingy in the works. It's been an epic in the making, with its natal beginnings over ten years ago, still waiting to see the light of day. Ellie's character didn't even show up in the story until late in the brain storming process and has gone through many changes along the way. Partly because my style over the years has improved, but also because I can't make a decision on how I just want to do the art for the story. But the idea behind refining her character design has always been to simplify Ellie and come up with a formula to draw her the same every time.

Originally Ellie was going to be a little girl in a space suit, but for the practicality of the plot line it made more sense to make her a robot girl instead. The above drawing was the very first sketch I did of her. She already had antenna on her head to represent pony tails and a solar panel skirt. I went from drawing to 3D models, back to drawing, then to vector illustrations for simplicity (which only made it more complicated), then back to drawing, all the while trying to make her design more and more simple.










I found that having a permanent smile made it difficult to show different emotions on her face - having to cover it up with an arm or a shadow - so I dropped it. And I continued the simplification process by limiting the colors too.





I'll spend hours drawing Ellie over and over again just to work out problems I have with posing her or the kind of emotions I'm trying to portray.

And just when I thought I had it figured out I started at it again. I don't know if I like where it's going, but I thought I'd simplify her head some more and make it easier and quicker to draw. If ever the story makes it to the light of day I guess I'll have to choose.

Boooooooo!

That's "Booooooooo!" as in "Sit down! Get outta here!" Not "Booooooooo!" as in "Scared ya, didn't I?"

Last night was a special Halloween Dr. Sketchy. Our models were Christopher from Causing a Scene, along with a woman who was not his grandmother (she was slated to appear but bowed out do to a cold). The two donned some elaborate costumes and spilled some blood to bring us a rollicking good sketch-fest. The dj kicked butt too.

I brought along my mini watercolor set to try out and picked up a Moleskine pad to paint in, but I gotta tell ya, I just wasn't feeling it. The secret to any success that I have in putting out a decent Dr. Sketchy sketch is time and the ability to work and re-work and fix and fudge whatever drawing I'm working on. I'm just not really proficient in drawing an anatomically correct figure by staring at the model and putting what I see down on paper. My thirty second and one minute quick sketches hardly represent what I see going on before me and I greatly admire (and envy) those people who can do it. I dream of being able to draw just a few quick lines that capture the movement and proportions of the model. And if I could do it with a brush pen where the results mimic the look of Japanese ink brush drawings, the better. I just don't know how. I had the minimal amount of figure illustration classes in college, and that was twenty years ago. In all that intervening time I've never pursued that information. Well, I guess it's time to do something about that. Especially after the crap I produced last night.

Now, in retrospect, my drawings aren't all that horrible. There are some good things going on in some of them. The colors are nice. But as a whole, I failed miserably due to the unforgiving nature of rushing to get ink onto the paper and coloring it in. The figure is the most important aspect of the drawing. Even if it's a cartoon. And it would help if I really knew how to use an ink brush properly too. So I'll try it again next time but I'll have to do some homework beforehand.

Real painting with real paint!

It doesn't happen much, but very rarely I put down my electronical painting devices and pull out real live paints and brushes and make something original that can actually hang on a wall. Sure, the anatomy is all wrong but who cares? Well, I do but...whatever. Anyway, here ya go:

Various Offerings from the Sketchbook

Zoo Review Redux

Another trip to the zoo, another chance to try my luck at capturing animal likenesses with my watercolors and brush pen.

War is graphic

Here's another Metro Times illustration, this time for a review for Spike Lee's latest, Miracle at St. Anna. You can read the review here, or pick up a copy tomorrow at a newsstand near you.

The subtlety of yellow.

Another illustration for the telephone sales presentation I'm working on.

I'm posting this just after I finished reading a blog article by animation industry designer Hans Bacher. Animation art has been a big influence on me and background art is a somewhat overlooked component. In this article Bacher talks about the subtlety of traditional Disney animation backgrounds - specifically the use of the color green in Bambi - in comparison to how brightly backgrounds are painted today. Nothing subtle about my use of color as I somehow feel the need to hit the viewer over the head with it. Perhaps a closer study is required.

Funily (??!) enough, Bacher also states that "artists from southern, lighter and sunnier countries use more colorful color combinations than the ones from northern, cooler countries." Maybe I just haven't realized that I live in Michigan yet.

Beware.

My entry for a yearly Halloween poster contest.

Chicks and geese and ducks better scurry...

Yesterday afternoon brought an adventure to the Michigan State Fair. Azucena and myself had it in mind to sketch us some livestock. Sort of Dr. Sketchy without the costume changes, although the models tend to move around a bit more. But where Dr. Sketchy usually offers the opportunity to have a pint of beer with my drawing, nothing...and I mean nothing...beats the bottomless glass of chocolate milk at the cow pavilion.

Before reaching the fairgrounds we stopped at the art supply store. I wanted to get some kind of water colors to work with. I found a really cool little kit about the size of a deck of cards. It came with a neat little brush that had a water reservoir in it, so I didn't need to carry a little cup of water or anything. It's made by Koi Watercolors. I really like little compact things like that. I'll be using that at the next Dr. Sketchy.

The brush pen I use (thanks to Rob Ullman) is somewhat similar in that it has a reservoir for the ink and doesn't require that you dip it in a bottle every few strokes. Pentel makes it. The ink is almost kind of waterproof. Here are the results: