Thursday 31 May 2012

Office Laughter

Dwight
 Two different characters from The Office US (again, I know) laughing. The second one, of Stanley, I tried to caricature him slightly, but in the process of trying to get it looking right missed the mark and only made his eyes a tad bigger than in reality. Still happy with the expression, just not the style I was aiming for.
Stanley

Sansa Stark

Sansa Stark from Game of Thrones. She had a really complex emotion that was a challenge to capture, and I didn't quite get there but I think it would need more tone to really get the essence of it. Referenced image is below...

Mother Gothell

Facial expressions of Mother Gothell from Disney's "Tangled", from an expression sheet found on the web. Not so happy with these, except for the middle left one. Still need a lot of practice with eye placement, especially with tilted heads.

"Not A Bad Day"

This is a really sweet scene in The Office US, and I wanted to capture that understated contentment Jim has.


(you'll notice I tend to have done a lot of drawings from The Office; I keep finding interesting expressions and can't help myself!!)

Aladdin & Ariel

Aladdin
Wanted to practice drawing Disney characters to get a good sense of how they're constructed, and also because they capture great expressions without a whole lot of detail. Found some expressions sheets online of Aladdin and Ariel and copied them as best I could. Some I'm happy with, most I'm not. Still good practice.

Ariel

"I Just Can't Wait To Be King"

ONE MORE self-portrait and I'm done with them for a while. I did this on the eve of my 21st birthday; an old photo from when I was a kid that I thought captured the excitement of it almost being my birthday.

Wednesday 30 May 2012

"Pam"



Another couple of referenced portraits, of Pam from "The Office" US. The image above is the second one I did, which I was quite happy with (even her face on the left is a little too wide).

The drawing to the left is my first attempt at drawing her, using a different image that had a much more complex expression (she looks happy and excited but very meekly) so without much shading it was very difficult to capture. Also I'd messed up her facial proportions quite a bit so she doesn't look right at all. Thought it was still worth posting to show progress.



"Poehleroid"



Portrait of Amy Poehler in costume. Another minimal-shading portrait. Really happy with this one too.

Reference image is below.

"Snarl"


On to sketchbook 2... Yet another self-portrait (I promise I'm not completely narcissistic - just drawing what I know!) that I'm very happy with. Taken from a reference photo.


I wanted to experiment with strong facial expressions with very minimal shading, so I can try and get closer to a more cartoony style while maintaining clear emotion in the face.

Sunday 27 May 2012

"Die Another Day"

Die Another Day
Another self-portrait. This was also taken from a dance image. I think it could be a lot more dynamic with more exaggeration, rather than being a very literal illustration of the original image.

Monster

Some of my earlier sketches from recent drawing; poses from reference images that I thought had interesting movement to them.
Bad Kids


I'm theatre

11 Second Club - July 2011 entry

Since I do claim to be an animator I thought I'd post some animation work I've done. This is my entry to the 11 Second Club for the July competition last year (which is actually a scarily long time ago now... )
This piece came 7th out almost 200 entries so I was pretty chuffed! I tweaked the staging of it slightly after judging, and the original can be found here.

Saturday 26 May 2012

2 sketchbooks down!

The most exciting image of sketchbooks you've ever seen, probably.
I've officially filled up two sketchbooks since I started back at drawing regularly, which is 240 pages of sketching in 43 days. I'll get around to posting more of what's in them soon.


The next sketchbooks I've got are almost double the page count, and I'm also hoping to start doing some original drawings again as well, rather than just the referenced stuff I've been doing so far.


It's not the most significant achievement in the world, but it's something I can measure so hooray for progress!!

"Trapped"


Since I started getting back into drawing, I've been doing a whole lot of figure drawing using the 30 Second Drawing tool at posemaniacs.com, which I've found really useful. Starting out I did mostly 60 second drawings, and over time have been getting more comfortable with faster ones.


But this isn't one of those figure drawings; I've also been doing one or two portraits using reference photos for each figure drawing session I do.


This particular drawing is the first of a few self-portraits I've done so far. The original image is taken from a video of a dance rehearsal for a contemporary piece I performed called Trapped. Did I mention I'm a dancer?

Welcome!!

Cartoon me, circa 2010
First post!


I'm Dave, and welcome to my new art blog. I'm an animator from the wonderful land of Oz, the one without the wizard in an Emerald City.


After an unnecessarily long hiatus from doing my own personal artwork, especially drawing, I've recently given myself a forceful kick to get back into doing what I love.


I'm still trying to oil my rusty drawing joints but I'm going to post as much as I can, even if some of is (knowingly) not that great. I've managed to get into a pretty consistent routine of drawing in the last month or so, and am already noticing a major improvement - so looking forward to how much more progress is yet to come!


I'd love any constructive criticism you can muster up; the more feedback the better! Hope you enjoy my work! :)