Project Firelight

Quite frankly I'm disappointed in those last 2 posts.  Ignore them.

Here's what we're gonna do.  I really enjoy the pictures from this blog: Daniel Arriaga.  This guy works for Disney and he really knows his stuff.

I like all his pictures but I love the lighting to this one:

 I'll be honest with you, though, not too crazy about the rabbit and the owl.  I'm sure I could learn to love these characters if I got familiar with them... but I don't see that happening soon.

So I got to thinking: I love the contrast and the lighting to this picture; I'd like to see it done with other characters.  But who... who would be a better casting choice?

And then it occurred to me... it's so obvious.  Why, none other than Hokey Wolf and his lil' buddy Ding-a-ling, of course:

Right? Right??!! I mean, riiiiiiiighhhhhtttt!!!!???? Hokey and Ding-a-ling oughta be nice and comfortable around that fire cooking marshmallows.


Well, OK, at least that's what I think.

So here's the game plan:

1. We draw and paint the background, including the fire.
2. We draw, paint and insert the 2 characters.
3. We then shade and highlight to capture the mood of a fire in the dark woods.

This is a mood exercise, people.  We're after that dark, spooky, but fun vibe of camping out in the woods and enjoying a fire and one another's company.  The fun keeps the strange sounds at bay.  Don't even think about bears, or mountain lions, or wolves.... wait a minute!
Stay tuned for Phase 1.

Simplicity: Drawing a Kitty Cat

In looking over some of the very excellent animators' blogs I continue to be impressed at the essence of simplicity in design.  I'll try imitating that simplicity.

For instance, to draw a cat start with a very simple shape, like so:

Add a blocky kind of head with big ears...

Fill in the eyes, mouth, nose, whiskers...

...and add a little tail.  One kitty!

Here's a side view.  Start with very simple shapes:

Choose your colors and color it in.  Add some shading... actually, I'm not sure what I'm doing with this...

I guess if you slap out hundreds of these simple little drawings it becomes a way of life.

Simplicity

Well, it's been about a month and a half.  I got real busy at work.  I had a bad cold.  I had several things I had to take care of.

But mostly, I lost my direction and I'm only now picking back up the thread.

Something I notice about most the great cartoonists' blogs... none of them are afraid of simplicity.  Quite the reverse, they thrive on it.  So I thought: here's a good way to back into learning.  Learn to simplify.

Now, this is the type of "squiggle" I used to do back in high school (many, many, many years ago).  I never thought too much of them because they were "easy" and "quick."  Quite the opposite - or so I thought - of what "real" cartooning ought to be.

I used to do thousands of these "squiggles" when I was a kid. 

But what many of the great cartoonists seem to do is to take very simple ideas like this one and run with it.  Imagine, you can color it in:

... you can really tweak the colors:

...you can shade it if you're so inclined and give it a 3-D effect:

OK, maybe I overdid it on the shading...

... slap on a background and viola!... not a half bad lil' cartoon.

This whole exercise took maybe half an hour... and that was mostly fiddling around with the colors.

Any bean or kidney shape can be a swell cartoon character.  Although it feels like a return to bad habits... well, what can I say.  Maybe somewhere it says cartooning should be quick and fun.

I am inexperienced enough to admit: I have absolutely no clue.  Just draw.  Don't fixate.  Draw!

Well, I guess it's back to my squiggles.  By the tens, the hundreds... the thousands.

Moral of story, don't be afraid to simplify.

Yet another...

I call it "Self Portrait of the Artist... with a beer."  Mmm-hmmm.

...And Another

I used to go for larger bikes than a 350.  I had a CX500... a great little Honda... that I rode all around Southern California.  Then I graduated to a Gold Wing.  But I always missed that 500.  It was a wonderful bike.

Anyway, my girlfriend's nephew had this CB350.  I used it to pass my driving exam for my motorcycle license.  It was such a fun little bike. 

The nice thing about this art project is I knew exactly what it would look like before drawing one line.  That felt good.

Still out to lunch...

... but here's one that I sorta like:

Some tropical foliage.  Kinda sorta.  Enjoy.

SketchBook Pro with a little finishing in Photoshop CS6.

Out to Lunch...

... for maybe the rest of the year as I venture out into my personal "voyage of discovery" (hyark... barf... urrp...) learning my elements as I draw them.

Everyone's gotta go through it.  I just wish I had done this 50 years ago.  I'm not so proud of everything that I've drawn these past weeks but I'll post a couple that don't embarrass me too badly.

All hand drawn... no ruler tools or anything like that.  Not so great... but everything was done in SketchBook Pro.  I didn't use Photoshop for anything.  Great little exercise in shading.  Decent.  Still learning...

Folks at the SketchBook Pro Facebook page seem to like this one.  Crazy... because I was convinced it was coming out so horribly.

Right now I'm working on a painting of some tropical foliage.  It's coming along.  Nothin' special.

Voyage of discovery.  Yeah.  But slowly things are starting to "take."  Give it time.

To be continued.  At some point.  Anyway...