4 posts tagged “cartooning”
Little known fact. 99% of stores only carry clothing to fit gentlemen 6'4" and shorter. Well known fact. I hate clothes shopping. The 1% of stores that carry actual large sizes of clothes consist either of athletic stores full of sweatpants and tear-away pants, Big & Tall stores that cater to lumberjacks or those that prefer plaid and carpenter boots or specialty stores like the Men's Warehourse, Buckle and Banana Republic. Since I don't enjoy wearing pants that require a draw-string or shirts that double as picnic blankets, I'm forced to shop at the latter. While, I'm of course thankful that there are at least three stores that sell fashionable pants that fit, I'm known to have fits over the fact I'm required to pay premiums for said clothing unless I want to look like I'm eternally prepared for flood waters.
Keeping that in mind, I've become infamous for wearing jeans out in order to get my money out of them to such a point as to where they simply explode from exhaustion into a storm of denim confetti. Today, I realized with my new casual dress code where I work, my having only one pair of jeans was somewhat risky. What if I was to be left without pants due to an unforeseen event where my jean was damaged beyond repair? Wearing dress pants, when everyone else is wearing jeans, makes rumors spread you're actually going on an interview over lunch and I don't need that sort of gossip spreading simply because I break out my fine pleated-wear. In defeat, I went to the Buckle today and purchased three pairs of jeans, meaning I will not need to buy another pair until my 40th birthday if current records stay unbroken. Hallelujah, I've got extra pants that in total were more expensive than my television. There's some guy out there at Buckle HQ, dressed only in stonewash, making a denim statue in my likeness right now I'm positive.
In celebration, Nicole and I went to a local swanky restaurant we've walked by dozens of times and ate lamb and carrot cake as rich people do for on a daily basis and it was glorious. Other than dining out and pants shopping, I hit the pencil hard today, really working at my face-drawing and feel like I hit a milestone of sorts.
Activities
I really got inspired with how crazy-nice the weather was today and sat outside a while with my dog and practiced drawing faces. This has always been one of my weaker spots, aside from hands and posing (which I feel like I'll be a lot better at with all the practicing I've done with poses). I was pretty amazed that after a good deal of eraser used, I started to remember all the reading I had done in the past 3 weeks about how to make a face look convincing. Here's the first face I drew this morning, I was trying to draw a likeness of myself really, sort of eerie how it came out pretty close. My eyes are really that big:
Now, most of these were based on characters I've wanted to make in the past. I had a revelation tonight on an idea for my comic, one that I'll hold back sharing just yet until it's fleshed out better and I'm positive that it's a good idea when I'm a little more awake. As far as the characters, I wanted to practice different looks with different personalities based on their faces. As I worked on that, I wanted to start trying to remake a few of my old drawings to see what a new look would be like. The ninja is a retry at one I made a long time ago based on a character Lee and I thought up a few years back:
The others, I'm not sure, I'm thinking they might replace a few of the old sketches of characters if I decide to go that route still (based on my new idea, I might have a really cool hybrid concept of the old idea and a new one). To be honest, I'm feeling pretty excited as now it's more a matter of drawing out the ideas on paper to see how realistic it would be to draw what would be required for my new comic plan.
Either way, I feel like these face-drawings were a big leap in my abilities. They're definitely happening faster now and I can tell that a lot of what I've been reading is starting to apply itself. They're not perfect yet, or at least, not perfect in my mind but they're really getting close, especially the ninja face. I'm really happy with that one, as he was the last one I drew before scanning them in. Think that I might be on par to at least get some characters fleshed out tomorrow so that I'm ready to start practicing them in different poses, which is indeed the hardest part of all I've found.
Quick Facts
Weight: 246.50
Diet: Hot Cereal and chocolate chips, apple with caramel dip, banana, turkey&cranberry sandwich, broasted lamb, mash potatoes, carrots/broccoli/zucchini, 1 beer, 2 glasses of water, 2 glasses of OJ, 1 glass of milk.
Realized a fun option on this Vox thing today. If you've got books you'd like to talk about, say drawing books, you can start a collection of them on here and it links with Amazon so you can get some descriptions of them, related books, etc Pretty fun little tool considering we've got a good amount of books strewn about our little one bedroom apartment. As well, I spent a fair amount reading one of my drawing guides today, which provides one hell of a segue.
Activities
Today was a relaxing day for the most part. I hit up Target and picked up a good deal of groceries to last the gang here for hopefully, a few weeks. Aside from that, the day was a relaxing day for the most part.
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Read a lot on drawing Anatomy, namely, on how to give definition to characters instead of just using straight lines. For the most part, the comic I have in mind will be less on detail and more on expression but most of the books/guides I've read say that you can always work backwards and very rarely, after you create your own style, it's very hard to increase it's complexity. So, start out with the details and work backwards is my theory. Not any drawing done today but a lot of studying I like to think.
What amazes me is that amount of knowledge you need to have regarding the human body just to be able to create characters. So, in a way, I'm learning a lot about a myriad of different subjects. - As well as books, I've been finding Youtube to be a really good resource as well, as there's a good amount of video tutorials on the subject. Even better, tonight I found a series on Jim Lee (best known for his art on Batman) and Stan Lee (the man behind Spiderman) who give a tutorial. The one I took the most from was one showing Jim Lee effortlessly drawing a rough draft.
- As well as research, Nicole, Koda and I went running, again. I can't tell you how much I hate running, as I've tried to tell everyone from day 1. But, I will admit, it's getting easier with just going the last 3 or 4 times. Plus, I forgot how good you feel after you workout. Thank god for my girl or I'd have no running shoes at all.
Quick Facts
- Weight: 246.00
- Diet:
- Bacon, Hashbrowns, 3 glasses of OJ, 1 glass of water, 1 orange, 1 banana, 1 brownie, 1 cinnamon roll, handful of pistachios (god I love pistachios)
- Wow, we only at one full meal today. That's never good.
You'll notice I changed up my posting style again, removed the bottom Summary as I feel it's just implied and better made at the beginning. Crazy how fast weekends breeze by the older you get. For how much everyone looks forward to the 2 days of freedom they get each week, they're incredibly fleeting. There's times when I wish America would adopt some of the European ideals on work weeks and vacations. From what I've been told, which could just be legends, in some places in Europe, the work week is 4 days and their vacation is of mammoth proportions, epic if you will. However, as the theme has been all week, this weekend, while quick, was a good and well-spent weekend for me. Nicole, Becki, Pat and myself went to see Blades of Glory tonight, which, if any of you men have ever been forced to watch Figure Skating at gunpoint, is a welcome mockery of a sport that doesn't require much exaggeration.
Nicole made homemade cinnamon rolls, from scratch. If I was to guess what eating clouds sprinkled with gold and action movies tasted like, these Cinnamagic Rolls (like that? That's improv) were incredible. Every bite I took, a bunny was spared from having her colored-eggs stolen, Jelly beans escaped the sticky clutches of a candy-hungry child and a row of Peeps were left un-microwaved as a symbolic motion to remember the Resurrection of Christ. These Cinnamon Rolls have such powers, they are holy. Imbued with angelic powers so amazing, we rented a choir just so they could sing every time we took a bite of one. Am I getting my point across? I have tasted the heavens and they are rich in tooth-numbing goodness.
Activities
Drawing > Algebra. I hit the books hard today as far as reading my guidebooks on drawing and I feel like I hit a huge milestone in my abilities as I sat on my couch creating. I started out thinking of how I could take that next step so that I felt like I was testing my abilities and not just drawing 1,000 eyebrows in succession until able to draw them with my mind. Instead of filling out the wireframe pose I drew yesterday, I set out to practice creating different poses that I felt inspired by. Sitting down, I went to work trying to recreate a picture of a character I had in mind who was leaping backwards, pistol's firing to his sides in a sort of John Woo'esque action sequence.
I wanted to try and do something straight from my imagination and see how well I could replicate it as that has always been an issue for me and my old style of drawing helter-skelter like. Here's how it turned out. I don't mind admitting that I am incredibly proud of how it turned out as I feel like all the reading, practicing and studying of forms and such has paid off in a short amount of time.
After I had made a successful recreation of an image using only my mind's eye, I went back to my book and started recreating the lessons on wire-frame drawing. The image here is the first lesson, which is drawing a barbarian in mid-swing.
What it does is really teach/preach the use and devotion to using energy and strength in your lines as well as keeping a pose striking as with non-animated cartooning, you only get one pose to show what is happening and if it's flat, it looses its power and story-telling ability. Incredible amount of knowledge in this book I bought (Ben Caldwell's Fantasy Cartooning) which is my favorite drawing-book that I have in my collection. What I like is that his style is unique and as well, shows some really straight-to-the-point visuals on how to give your characters life without just remaking the same handful of poses over and over.
At any rate, I really am having fun drawing again, a feeling I've not had since I was really young doodling in Algebra class. Makes me feel good that all those times I got detention for sketching some character on my wooden desktop, locker or school-owned text-book weren't all in vein.
Quick Facts
- Weight: 247.00
- Damn you Cinnamagic Rolls and your voodoo. Damn you..and your icing that voids my dental coverage...and ... *munch munch* (emoting is bad ass)
- Diet: I totally failed on my eat better campaign and by failed, I took the wrong test, didn't even answer any questions and turned it in to the wrong teacher, at the wrong school, and wrote my name in a foreign language.
- 1,000 Cinnamagic Rolls, Pork Frittata, Hot Cereal, OJ, Coffee, Large Popcorn, Large Cherry Coke, can of Crisco and 3 raw sticks of butter.
- Gaming: Zero, I think I've mostly succeeded at breaking my habit this week as I've not once even been tempted to start up a game or my PS2. Idle hands is the saying right?
- TV: Hard to judge today as I was sketching whilst watching TV. So, I'd guess 3 hours of Background TV? I'm impressed as I usually hit up the Sunday new episodes of The Simpsons and The Family Guy. I was too busy watching people in spandex twirl around in the air while wearing ice-skates. ;)
There's just something about Friday's that make it really, really difficult to want to do anything but just relax and put the old brain on pause for a few hours. I remember when Friday's meant hitting the town and spending money on sordid things. However, the older you get, the less that sounds like a good time versus the comfort of your favorite chair. I mean, this has been quite the week. I've put off my age-old hobby for a month, entered into a world now ruled by this device and survived my first week at my new job. As far as my new job, I love it and not in that, I have a favorite flavor of ice cream love and enjoy it, its much more than that. I'd say, it's the I have a favorite flavor of ice cream that I love so much, I bought a license plate letting the world know my love for peanut butter and chocolate ice cream. Doubt my faith in the DOT and it's use of it's plates to express my love? Look on and regret your assumptions.
- Read a book, save a kitten. I stayed true to my previous day's charge and kept at this whole draw correctly fad. I tell you what, I've always been really critical of my drawing talents. I have a habit of making a head and face and then holding it up in the air as I gaze at it with a horrified curiosity and then curse it's creation. And that's just after I draw the face. There's a need for prescriptions most times when I've created past the neck. I guess I always had an itch in the back of my brain as to why despite the fact I can picture and imagine how I want my characters to look, they always look like they just emerged from wearing a full-body cast for a year, their body awkwardly reacting to it's new found freedom. All this time, it was actually because I wasn't actually taking the time to plot out my poses. I would just think myself talented enough to just wing it and well, aside from a few lucky instances, that's worked out phenomenally. There's a reason why every sketch I've posted on here that are flushed out, all are standing in one of two poses. Right-facing or flat-straight. While posing and plotting action lines, head lengths and perspective before you even think of the fleshing out is difficult, it's amazing how you can startseeing the difference before you even conceive an eyebrow or cheeky-grin.
I took the wireframe from yesterday and began to flesh it out with somemass. Now, incidentally, my female has undergone some gender changes and is now a skinny male. Why? I feel dirty drawing boobs mostly. No shame in admitting that right? Aside from that, it's my first take at this new procedure and so, despite it's rough look, I'm pretty pleased with myself. There's a little issue with where his hands...well...you'll see.
He's either wearing really tight boxers or is looking at his ass in the mirror.
- Weight: 245.50
- I ate very little today. This is something I do a lot actually, where I just simply forget to eat until I get home from work. I don't do it all the time but if my day becomes really busy, I'll simply forget to get lunch and since I rarely eat breakfast, there's days like today where I'll go almost a full 10 hours without eating much more than whatever free food I come across at the office. Not a good way at all to stay healthy as when I got home, I didn't at all feel like running or doing much more than getting food.
- Diet:
- 3 cups of water, 2 cupcakes, handful of jellybeans, 3 pancakes, hashbrowns and 3 glasses of OJ (evening breakfast rocks)
- TV: 3 hours. Not good.
- I watched a lot of TV tonight, and it was random TV. You know, the TV you watch when you're really not watching? I think I watched a bit of The Simpsons, half of a Law and Order episode, The Soup and maybe some news thrown in? All in all, it was more a combination of being somewhat exhausted from not eating anything until I got home and the release of a long week that made me quite comfy in my chair infront of my TV.
All in all, it was a better Friday than most. Didn't even wince as I spent the night away from my games. Mostly because I was in front of the TV instead but I'm working out a plan for that. I got some quality sketching time in on a night usually synonymous with doing nothing productive and did a lot of introspection as I was cooking pancakes and hash browns at 6pm. Need to make sure I'm not actually fasting during this Gamefast. I know me and a hungry me is all but useless come evening on an empty stomach. Hell, there's days if I don't get a breakfast that I at times I can barely coordinate a sentence without flailing my arms wildly while beating on furniture with a spatula, which Nicole can attest too. Looking forward to a really productive weekend. Rumor has it, we're going out to breakfast in the morning. Well, word has it I haven't exactly told Nicole my diabolical plans to do so. Riveting the plotting of a man in his late 20's, I know.
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