Quickdraw painting practice

More painting practice... more errors, but I think only because it's more complicated than the MLA. It was based off of an HB storyboard picture, but I really strayed from the source because I was also looking at another painting of Quickdraw for color reference. Woops.

My Little Ass painting practice

I've never considered myself much of a painter, but I'd really like to learn... so here's a My Little Ass doodle originally drawn by John, copied, and then painted for practice (not traced, so there are inconsistencies, many of which were way increased by the fact that paint sort of tells you "you are making this change, like it or not" if you're inexperienced with it)... I'd compare it to the original, but... John K Stuff appears to be private? Shock and intrigue!

Also, now the purple ass has a freckle, because I spilled a bit on her ear.

Also also, I'm sorry for inactivity. Regular school has been bogging me down something awful.

Kaspar and bee

Trying to preserve shapes better... Evening some stuff out and softening angles, though.

I said to myself "Kaspar is perturbed about the bee's presence" and I think it changed his facial expression, subtlely. Perhaps I misinterpreted it?

More Kaspar practice

Tried to fix some things... There are still some issues. I have A.D.D. when it comes to talking on the internet lately. Gonna do another Kaspar tonight that I will probably post this weekend.

More Kaspar studying

I notice that I flattened the bottom shape a bit, woops.

No, still not right. There are some pretty big problems, here, particularly with the arm/hand being too big. Throws the whole thing right off. Oh well, gonna call this one a wash and just keep makin' more. I find it facilitates learning better to acknowledge and analyze my mistakes more than it does to repair them (in terms of raw practice).


Looks like I leaned him forward a bit. The claws don't look very good. Looks as if I enlarged his facial features.

Couldn't find my blues, so these are a little "rougher" than usual. I'm not sold on some of the details, they seem shakey.

More of what I'm sure will be many Kaspar drawings. These are just quickish studies of some John doodles. They aren't very good but I feel like it's sort of easier to learn from them.

It really gets to the meat and potatoes with what I'm perceiving wrong. On the left one, I stretched out Kaspar's body vertically, a bit. I took away some of the thrust to the right. I stretched out the legs. I evened out and toned down the faces on both, and on the left I inflated his muzzle. To the right, I lost some mass on his back and pushed his face down.

Going to be working on this stuff all night this evening.

Humble beginnings of Kaspar stuff

Man! This has been a year of a lot of artistic firsts for me.
While firsts are exciting, they're frustrating. It's like walking on new legs; awkward, scary, embarrassing.
(These first two are just warm-up doodles, based on John's drawings.)


This is a doodle John did. I like it a lot, so I picked it to flesh out. It was harder than I expected, but very fun.



But also weird. I want to constantly ask questions about the drawing and its intentions. What was meant? What can I push further? So I kept this pretty rough until I have some of those questions answered.

I'm guessing that as time goes on and I get more experience working like this, I'll need less feedback. But for now... ack! Am I doin' this right?

I feel like some things changed.

• The hand looks misplaced
• The legs look strange... I didn't want to tone them down, but they don't feel right, either
• Elbow bends in a different place
• Eyes don't wrap well enough
• Unsure about mouth area construction
• I don't feel totally sure of Kaspar's construction in general. I'm doing a bunch of practice drawings to start understanding it better...
  

Man, what a weird drawing of Bugs!

I will likely talk about this stuff tomorrow. Now that these are done, gonna move on to trying to make solid drawings out of John's quick doodles of Kaspar.

Another magician

Shrunk spaces, ruined some angling... Man, John's right, spaces are very easy to shrink. I will try to be more conscientious about this as I continue these studies.



The next half of this post, I need to emphasize that
I DID NOT DRAW THE FOLLOWING IMAGES! I am just practicing inking with a brush! Basically tracing!

I am only uploading these so I can keep track of my progress.

So I've always had sort of a weakness for inking. I mean real, physical inking. I can do digital stuff just fine because I feel pretty good about understanding the rules for it, but I have somewhat of a shakey hand. When I draw I kind of press hard, so using a brush sort runs counter to what I'm comfortable with.

But real, brush-and-pen ink has always been so beautiful and special and organic to me. And I want to get good at handling real, more delicate mediums. I figure, well, why not now, and why not just use rote practice until I feel confident? It's almost 100% technical skill that I have trouble with, so just inking really good drawings should be a step in the right direction. I've done probably about 20 of these print-out studies in the last couple of days and I'm finally seeing some very meager beginnings of getting comfortable with the stuff. I'm just using a brush pen for now, for training wheels.


As a note, isn't this Ed Benedict drawing of Ricochet one of the most beautiful drawings you've ever seen??

I'm sorry, Mr. Benedict, for sullying such a nice drawing. I'm still so shakey. The hands don't describe their forms at all, and the feet are also very jittery. Lots of mistakes, but almost all of them are out of complete inexperience with this stuff.

Another beautiful Benedict drawing

Me trying to ink again. I screwed up the tail pretty badly. This is really hard, but I think it'll be worth it once I get better.

I think I may have done Snagglepuss before Ricochet, if it matters. Anyway, so, this is the first time I've ink-practiced that I haven't been TOTALLY humiliated to show (I started intentionally practicing yesterday). Hopefully there will be more, and there will be visible improvement as I get more familiar with using a brush to make lines.

3 day's break and I get rusty!

Problems...

• The center line on the cranium off (too far to the left)
• Mallet too wide on near end
• Trunk of body too small, not solid enough
• The hat and carrot are off, but I did not notice this at the time (woops)

tried to fix them for the next step.



Man, I can't let myself go so long without rigorous practice. Stiff and yucky. I'm off to do another that will be better.

Asking for real world advice, basically

I thought I'd confess publicly that the reality of graduating college this May is slowly creeping up on me, and I'm a little concerned. I figure it'd be a good idea to move out to southern California if I expect to get a job making cartoons (in any form), but southern California is too expensive to just scoot on over and hope for the best. However, if I wait more than 6 months to move out, I will have to move out while paying for student loans.

...Does anyone know about how, exactly, to go about this? Really I just want a job that will pay my bills, give me some sort of experience with a studio, and allow me to learn and grow as a cartoonist. Unfortunately, I can't really see that happening with anyone but John (perhaps I've become a purist already). So, basically, I guess I'd be trying to pay my bills, get experience, and going home and studying (similar to how I'm doing now, only I'm taking classes and working as a barista instead of just having a real job).

Anyway, I'm free from school in May, free from my lease in August (I'd be ok breaking it if there was some extremely grand opportunity). I have to start paying off my loans in November.

I suppose I should be building a portfolio, but that cuts into my cartoon studies. Maybe I could spend some time after graduating building a portfolio? Would any place care about my studies? Ach.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that even if I had a portfolio prepared, I don't know of any cartoon studios that are making anything I actually like!

I guess I'm just posting out loud, but I thought I'd ask if anyone had any sort of advice on getting my career started.

A tree

No relationship to the faint rough of another tree behind it.

The details above the root don't wrap tightly and look awkward.

Anthony's dad again again

Edit, big problem: I made the inside of his mouth all wrong. It should be pushed far back. It makes no sense as it is and I'm a little embarrassed that slipped by.

More problems, but this one turned out clearer and more successfully than the last. I wanted to make sure the facial structure made sense.

Stimpy's eyes look off. Some of the details pinch too hard, are too big. I shrunk Anthony's dad's cranium.

I think I'm gonna go back to trees for a while, but I think these exercises were helpful. I wish I could improve faster!

Anthony's dad again

Notice that I changed how far back the smile stretched in the finish. Why did I do that? I'm a yutz.


Ren doesn't hold together very well. I accidentally made the folds of skin underneath the pectoral muscle way too dark and big and attention-grabbing.

Not my best. These are tough, but I figure the more I do, the easier drawing will be (whether or not I can immediately perceive it).

More Anthony's dad

This one was more complicated, but less successful.


Clumsy beginnings... as the picture progressed I kept skootching Ren and Stimpy themselves closer (as they are supposed to be) but I did not skootch them enough, ultimately.


Finish is a bit too thick and dark... this one is actually drawn smaller than the other Anthony's dad study I did, which was a mistake because it's obviously a bigger picture...


Angles, angles, angles!!

because he was DEAD

First rough... scanned for problems, fixed some issues.
Got a rough that felt good, solid, somewhat accurate.
Added details, solidified lines.

Finish

• Left arm should be thicker and more manly
  
• Right hand should be smaller (namely the palm-shape less elongated)
  
• Details should wrap tighter on gut
• Pec muscle should be larger
• I made his chin too big, which stretched out his face; I compensated some cranium details to match. woops.
• Long story short, watch proportions.