Rough of last Mickey (for now)

And so, the week and a half of a thousand Mickeys comes to a close (for now).

I think this is some of my best! I love drawing!

This weekend: trees!

Yucky-Headed Mickey

I think it's some sort of law of the universe that one hand always has to present a problem... haha. Anyway, I wanted to try for something a little looser, with more emphasis on asymmetry.
So I made a different sort of error: the head's lopsided. REALLY lopsided. I wanted it to be asymmetrical, not melting. If I were to do this over again, I'd pull in the viewer's right side of the face, wrapping it much more tightly into perspective (the ear would go with it). I'd also try to make it clearer that the hand on the right is supposed to be coming forward in space (you'd be able to see in the sleeve more, etc).

Also, I think I'd round out the right foot on the bottom, more. It needs to be more volumous.

These are coming out a lot more easily and I'm really happy with that. As you might have noticed, I'm sort of trying to use different elements from both the Little Whirlwind Mickey and the Mickey Mouse Club opening Mickeys. Been having a lot of fun and it's exciting to think of these as a little more of my own than the straight-up referenced studies (I feel less silly showing them to people who ask at school).

Improvement

Finally, the finish doesn't feel like a complete downgrade.

However, the arms really don't make a lot of sense and the eyes are up too high on his skull. I don't think there's enough sense of weight on his foot to the right, even if he is tiptoeing. Also, the sock cloth on the end of the toe to the left doesn't look like it's totally logical. It should be pointed more downward, at an angle.

I got the idea to draw this from Jory. Both he and I love the old cartoon trope of bedtime getup, cap and candle included. He draws it on top of a lot of my doodles when we have a class together, so of course he put one of the bazillion Mickeys I've drawn this past week. So, I decided to draw one, myself.

A dapper chap

I didn't have the model sheet for reference in the finish, and it shows in where it's less confident (I'm looking at you, pants). You can see where I changed some stuff in the red; before the arm felt too long and sort of awkward, so I brought it in, but the hand wasn't as good. I just gotta keep reminding myself this is a learning process...

Meh, it's a start

It drives me nuts when I, while trying to finish a picture, notice problems... then when I look at the finish I notice that I like the original more. The eyes don't work right in space, either.

It Happens in the Best Bathrooms

Here are some more off-the-sheet Mickeys...


Note: He's holding something. At least, that's how I read it. I have no idea what it is, but I'm pretty sure it's not his hand in the original, so I didn't draw it as if it was. He's carrying some sort of bundle, I think.






I'm noticing that my biggest issues are...

• Toning down contrasts (as always; good example-- the bottom-most drawing's hands. Notice that both of the fists needed to be tighter and angled more in opposition to each other than I drew them).
• Enlarging the cranium. It throws off everything else and makes it hard later to place features. I struggled a lot with the face in the second image posted, and when I overlayed it and realize the problem, I felt like slapping myself).
  
• When I am not being EXTREMELY careful about it, and sometimes when I am, I make Mickey's muzzle way too large. I think I'm going to do some quick facial studies tonight, but other than that I feel pretty comfortable with Mickey. Gonna do my own poses quite soon.

More

The one on the right I had the hardest time on, today. I couldn't make heads or tails of the way his face worked, and my results are less than stunning because of it.

In this one I was trying to push the line of action further again. The more experimental studies usually end up far yuckier than the conservative ones, but I think that's just part of growth. When I have more time I'll overlay and self-crit, but right now I am up past my bedtime.

Mickeymickeymickey

Getting better and faster as I get used to these (they're off the same sheets I posted yesterday). They're really fun, I think I wanna try to draw all of them. Will probably draw more tonight, but right now I'm off to lunch.

Trying to loosen up / more Mickeys

Warning: this post is loaded with yucky drawings! Sadly, this is only a chunk of what I've done trying to figure out these very appealing Mickey drawings.

Early on I was trying to do a lot of quick ones in a little time, to loosen up and get used to it... Not stunning results but it helped to get going. Not really worth critting the early ones, though.


As time progressed I started to slow up a little and investigate more and more carefully.


Here's one a few drawings in, but still not good yet. I toned down the contrasts a lot and misread some perspective. Also, I noticed I have a natural habit of drawing HUGE HEADS that I need to be more conscientious about.


Here, I'm starting to get more warmed up. It feels more cohesive than the other drawings but still has a lot of toning down. Also, I REALLY messed up the perspective on those hands.

Cranium placement quite off. Hat not solid enough.




Getting better. The angle on the legs/feet was softened, though. There were other problems... I tried to exaggerate the angles (it's most noticeable on the top half of his body), but I don't think I did it very successfully. The arm is practically straight horizontal. The hand should be more solid.



This one was the most recent one I did. I feel like I'm getting the hang of doing these more quickly and loosely, but I still have a looong way to go. I hope to keep drawing Mickeys all weekend and maybe getting some of my own poses in this week. Wish me luck!

P.S. the overlay was sort of hard to see on this one, so here are my marks removed from it:



P.S. I like regular pencils a lot and it is a lot easier to do quickly and smoothly. I'm gonna buy some softer ones soon.

Finished Mickey

I really like this picture of Mickey. John's posted a few on his blog that are obviously from the same source, and they're all so fantastically cute. I am interested in figuring out this cute trickery and stealing it for my own questionable purposes.


I don't think I did too bad of a job! I checked my errors just the right amount of times, drew LARGE, drew with a regular pencil, had a really clear b/w print of the reference.

Of course, there are still some errors... the cane is at a slightly wrong angle, the viewer's left leg is too thin, there are some small accuracy issues with the hands, and I stretched the bow tie a bit. I didn't push the mouth shape far enough-- it just needs to be "more." More back, slightly wider open, etc.

There are some wrinkle inaccuracies in the main curtain shape, and I only noticed this upon scanning but I ACCIDENTALLY MADE EVERY CURTAIN FOLD VEER TOO FAR TO THE RIGHT. I am such a shmuck. I have no idea how that happened.

Also, pianos, particularly when they are submerged in darkness, are really hard to draw. I misinterpreted some angles again, there, but I was surprised how much easier the shapes were to handle with some good ol' hierarchy.

Maybe one day I'll learn to see angles correctly. Haha.

More Mickey

I got some more work done on Mickey between classes today! It was actually pretty quick, I didn't realize how much I had gotten done last night by placing everything so carefully. For the most part, not too many errors.

Of course, there are always SOME issues. The stool needs to be scooted up, I accidentally made Mickey's jacket too long, there are problems on both hands, and Mickey's eye needs to come out in space a bit more.

I thought earlier that the hat was probably off, but I couldn't see how. I now see that it was the piano that was placed somewhat improperly.

More to come today.

Edit: I feel like I'm cheating if I make too many posts in a day, so I'll just post this here:


EDIT/Important note because it's driving me crazy: The cheek is really messed up. I think I accidentally darkened the wrong line, or something. Ugh, either way, it is not right.

This was really... hard. Haha. I completely broke the perspective lines on the floor. They looked fine in my initial sketch, but I somehow messed up the angles during clean up... big-time. Urgh. I should have re-drawn the lines all the way through the TV when cleaning it up.


I find something about the overlay really jarring. I'm surprised how decently the puppets turned out, actually. I was really afraid of Beany, but he doesn't look too awful aside from some confusion in the mouth area; I don't think I made a good decision by representing his upper lip with that harsh line. Also, I think I misread Cecil's cranium alignment, because his eye didn't go where it was supposed to. It should probably tilt more to the viewer's right. Obviously the top of the TV isn't tight or correct on the right side, yuck.

I struggled a lot with this one. So many straight lines. Makes my head spin to do this sorta thing, which I guess made me set my mind out to do it. If I do enough it'll be less scary (and bad), is the hope.

Mickey WIP

I'm gonna try to start beginnings of studies at night when I'm at home and I can check things, and then finishing them throughout the day, on the go. Anyway, this is probably stage 2, I did the background rough first and then did some tests to place the character right.

This one has some errors.


The hands, feet, jaw, ears, and cane needed some adjusting. I made some quick marks on my paper, and now I'm way past ready for sleep. I've got to get up at 8 tomorrow, but it's darn hard to get to sleep when I'm ready to draw.