I figured some folks might want to actually see what I do, because I yap so much about doing it....
Here's some of my cccccccccccrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaappppp:
Some heads:
A old, old image of mine:
Ray Charles:
And a heroine to wrap it up for now...
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
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"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
Really great work, Ken - I especially liked your characiture (?) of Ray Charles. I've been looking forward to see some of your art. The heroine looks familiar; have I seen her before?
Thanks WH.
Nope the gal is outa my head--I have a name for her and all, but I'm keeping mum, for now. Reasons forthcoming at a later date. :rolleyes:
Here's some more, some designs that I "re-poed" due to non-payment. ( long story)
And a little "re-imagining" mental exercise done for fun.
Who is this? Think......."haunted astronaut"...
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
It's great to see some more pro stuff in this forum and it's always nice to be surprised. Didn't think you were into DC-and-Marvel-style super-hero illustrations so much.
I like the tree people. Nice blend of Tolkien, World of Warcraft-style designs and that demonic touch. A few years before Peter Jackson brought LotR into cinemas, I made some sketches of my favourite characters from it. I like to do that so I have something to look back to after the movie designs influenced my own mental image of certain characters and elements. Fangorn has always been one of my favourites. (As has Tom Bombadil but he isn't in the movie. Don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing because Jackson veered from the original material quite a bit sometimes.)
The tree guy............yeaaa......
That was a lil' job I was starting on the heels of a another job that was dying in the worst way a job can die.
I was teaching at a school where they weren't paying me, and they decided to try and get some freelance animation work in. I was there, we had some talented industry folks on hand--school's finances were in the cellar--why not get some freelance in to feed some of us, hey?
There was a hard-to-get-a-hold-of actor fellow that I GUESS was utterly infatuated with the Ents from LOTR--his idea, I was just the visualist.
So they started this thing with a superhero-kind of idea. It was to be an animated cartoon project--something fairly ambitious--the actor had some deep-ish pockets I guess. Then they enlisted one of our well-meaning instructors at the school to write the concept.
At first, it was about the tree man and a rather involved back-story--and that is what I started my designs on.
Then I find out from that fellow instructor that he's thrown that story out entirely and it "doesn't even really feature the tree-man anymore"--and its now some INCREDIBLY complex LOTR like drama. It was taken from a workable animated concept to something that could never have been animated in a million years, and work. Its not the fault of the instructor--he was writing what he knew, which was live-action, not animation. He had no animation experience whatsoever---it cannot be THAT hard, he thought, right?
How do you show throwing your hands up in disgust in cyber-space, huh?
The upshot is that I did about a dozen designs, was supposed to get a couple hundred smackers for the work, but..............the school went tits up, the school marketing guy handling the deal took off to golf for the summer and........well, I never got paid.
So I kept the work--"re-poed" it as it were--and I just drop it in my portfolio now and then.
The concept is............meh.........anyone looking at it goes " ENTS!!!!" so its got some underlying flaws right from the start.
Still for a week or so, it was fun to imagine off of........
Yep, to the comics stuff. I'm a BIG comics nut--as Graphiteman and some others here that know me can attest. 70's-80's Marvel is my favourite era, and I have a few ideas for stuff on my own.........
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
Eh, no need to be hard on yourself just because everyone thinks of ents - they're bound to, Tolkien's characters are classics. 'sides, Tolkien was no professional draftsman. There isn't really a lot one can do with tree characters that's totally original, is there? You get walking trees from Tolkien, talking trees who're basically upper bodies with faces and branches for arms in almost every fantasy cartoon, or just animated faces carved into trees.
That attached pic is how I saw Treebeard more than six years ago (heads too large and the design of the wooden texture much too uneven) - long before I got any definite animation training or the movies hit theatres.
Just wanted to say I think it's great that your doing a sketch thread, the more stuff on here from pro's gives us begginers a better idea of what kind of level we need to reach.
Great stuff!
great art man , bravo
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Here's some more samples--some old, some newer---a mix of different things:
A self-caricature:
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
Uh oh! You’ve blown it. There we n00bs were all in awe of you and now we see what a jovial person you are. ;)
Amazingly (to me) you have the girl’s boobs are in the natural area of the torso instead of suffocating her like so many others! I really like the creature she’s riding – please tell me it’s been/being animated.
LOL! The very prospect of animating that sends my brain into spasms of abject terror.
Has not been done to my knowledge, but if anyone wants to try knock yerselves out.
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
I can see how it would be animated but it would take a lot of time and construction to keep its continuity. 24 fps would kill a man though, but it sure would look awsome c:
William Wright, its you! the hero of KVATCH!
Classic stuff, the definition of "rock solid". So what's your take on all the current superhero artists' styles out there, guys like Capullo, Castellini, Rubinstein, and what DC and Marvel may have gained or lost through digital colouring processes?
On the artists: I think the new breed tend to have a diverse array of appealing styles, and the editorial ( especially at Marvel) is wise enough to let the artists be unique without holding people to a "house" look.
I do not like all the new styles, but I do gravitate towards those with solid draughtsmanship and an appealing look.
Joe Quesada has been heard to say that the "inmates are running the asylum", and I think it shows in the final product. Marvel, and DC to a degree, have never looked better.
On digital colouring: when its done well, the digital proceess bring tremendous mood/ambience to a book. When its done badly, its a murky mess. The real revolution has been in the ability to gradiate colours at a whim--something that has greatly improved all comics.
The special effects possible now cannot be beat, and really bring something to the stories--again, when done right. For example: adding a motion blur effect to the background behind the Flash (when he's in a strongly drawn running pose) can really heighten the impression of speed.
To me, that means deeper immersion into the story, and a better product.
I do not miss the old four-colour process at all, but if anything was lost it was the attributes of comics being strictly cartoons. The older method were simpler, and accordingly the books from all publishers tended to have a homogenized look about them back them.
The looks today are more illustrative, cinematic and definitely sophisticated, and I think because of that, they demand that pencilling and inking talent be that much more skilled. ( I'm actually wondering if it would be a worthwhile experiment to take an old pre-digital comic and re-colour it from scratch, with the aim of telling the story "today"-based off the style of the finished art. Obviously the colouring approach would be different, but I wonder if it would actually tell the story any better, or worse).
For the reader....its just a bounty of (usually) good-looking product to choose from.
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
I dunno about the re-colouring. The gold and silver age drawing styles are kind of linked to four colours in my mind. Not too long ago, Jeff Smith had Bone re-published in full colour and, well, let's just say that I like his work better in b/w.
I do like Castellini's detailed drawings and the meticulous, clear way in which they're inked, but boy, that man sure takes it over the top in the anatomy section. No matter whether they're in their everyday clothes or superhero suits, all his characters wear seems to be made out of spandex, heheh.
Here's an image I can show in steps.
Its not animation (or animatable), but its still worth sharing.
Its a bit of "spec" toy design for GIJOE ( I so love my toys!)--its just done for the fun of it.
This is the initial ruff:
This is the partial tight:
And this is the final tight, just before adding blacks and cross-hatching:
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
Maybe not 2D but it could be animated in 3D. That’s a tight design.
wow, amazing work.
do you have any comic pages that you could show off???
http://ben-reynolds.com
Animation and Design
Nothing new, but I have some sample pages on my desk right now that I'll be able to share once I finish them. Gimme a week....
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
Here's another self-caricature:
and something I'm working on...
and one I'm not 100% happy with ( do not like the leg proportions)..
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
nice nice nice. I like the last one, a tight drawing. Reminds me of the beautiful work in "How to draw characters the Marvel way". Which is a good thing
http://www.charactercube.com
http://www.kennethanderson.blogspot.com
My sketch thread
there's a lot of anatomical errors on your marvel super hero:
the characters left leg is too short, and looks shorter than the right leg, his hip also seems dislocated.
The left hand needs work, its looking a bit clumsy at the moment.
It looks like you've invented some muscle groups around the left shoulders.
The drawing is lacking a flow it seems like disparate parts slapped together at the moment. It looks like the head torso and upper arms are a seperate drawing from the lower legs.
I recommend a spot of life drawing to help with these problems or looking at body building sites can also be useful for drawing superheroes. ;)
websiteEzromation blog/doodlesDeranged Scratchings
You are right, the drawing is flawed. Its one of those "10,000 bad ones".
I've not drawn realistic figures for some time now, and have spent that last several years drawing cartoony stuff.
Good points for me to check myself by.
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
Are you kidding I love all of them! Wow its amazing what you can do! :D
I can't wait to be that good, however I mostly copy draw. I have been working on exercises in various books and hope to get better and better.
ezromation, I don't want to be rude and I can see a couple of those errors but art isnt suppossed to be perfect.
How come you called it crap? I absolutely loved everything i just saw. :D Why do you sigh about the work you did? I know it probably dissapointing that you didnt get to use the drawings you worked so hard on but you should be proud. Every idea that you had thought of/ drawn that wasnt used...you could use in your own animation or your own comic book strip right?I just don't get why your losing your passion... Im unemployed, have debts, poor, no car, no experience, can't afford college, no animation or adobe programs, don't have my own place and trying hard to get better at drawing. I WOULD DO ANYTHING to be where your at right now...(I assuming you have all (or some) of those things I don't have)... yet it seems like you sigh a lot about your work. Not trying to be rude about this, I just want to know why you seem not to be passionate about animating/drawing anymore?
Well, after doing this professionally for 27+ years now, and drawing 18 years before that.....I guess I sometimes see drawing as having peaks and valleys.
That is not to say I'm not still passionate about it , but that I'm much more measured about it. I see it in a practical sense, in that it's my livelihood first, and a passion second.
That comes from the nature of professional work itself........I may do a drawing, and I may have control of it for stage of the process, but my work is almost always part of a chain of people working on it. Sadly, not everyone else cares about the work as much, or is as competent as needed, and the end-result can look pretty bad sometimes.
That's reality, but its also a let-down and a frustrating disappointment too. Its happened to me many times, and well..............it hurts.
Can't control what someone else does, and I do grumble about it because it does take the fire out of the belly. I have felt jaded because of it.
I still do it though, and I do the truly impassioned work for myself. On the professional work, I still muster the juice to bring something too it. Its too fun not to, and the jobs call for something, so I constantly sneak little things in for my own amusement.
On mistakes in drawing, yeah I still make them--every artist does. There are days when I'm just too lazy to grab some anatomical reference and I just wing it from memory or imagination. I should know better, but......meh. I can always fix it. I've done worse drawings. And sometimes......better. ;)
And since this is a gallery thread; a recent self-caricature--
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
Here's some recent work: a three page comic-book story for a record album from the Saskatchewan rock band Ultimate Power Duo.
They sought regional artists to illustrate an anthology comic to accompany the album, each artist taking on a song or two or three and visualizing it any way they chose. This is the complete song for my assigned bit.
The synopsis is as follows:
The main character is a young man named Joe who becomes an inter-galactic hero. The song I illustrated picks up with:
"Joe has just finished two experiences that no other living human has ever experienced; meeting his counter-version of himself in an Anti-Universe, and entering and exiting the Universal Consciousness. Joe is pondering the relationship between the known and the unknown, weighing how ideas and beliefs often need to catch up to reality; the universe continues to work whether it is understood by its inhabitants of not. Joe is pondering the reality of multiple dimensions (3+1+6 times) and reworking that number as a plausible possibility (6+2+12 times). Awareness of his purpose is finally beginning as Joe follows the map of pulsars, as depicted on the Golden Record, to return to Earth and begin a new era of enlightenment."
The pages were done on 2-ply Bristol board, inked with Pigma Micron and Pentel Brush pens, and various markers. Scanned at fullsize and digital clean-ups, alterations/adjustments, and added effects and graphic elements added in Photoshop. Lettering and colouring also done in Photoshop.
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
And since I'm on a roll tonite, here's a panel from a beat board I did recently:
Not going to name the show, just yet, but the panels have been released on-line previously.
This job, unlike most I've done recently, was done in pencil and scanned, rather than done digitally via the Cintiq.
"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)
well im glad you still like to do it, do all your drawings come from your mind, without any books or references?
I try to draw without looking at anything but it looks bad lol. However, if I see a pose, I usually just build my characters from that. Is that a bad thing?? I can't seem to see thigs just from my "minds eye".
Everything I have drawn in the past was from building or just looking at a drawing and doing the BEST i can to draw it almost exactly alike. Even though I add or take away stuff from the original to make it more "mine" i feel like i'm not making any progress. :( I can't draw animals I or backgounds (ect) without a reference or book showing me step by step... I seem to only be able to build from people poses and most of them is manga/anime related.
absolutely amazing work....lovem all!
http://john-cartunemansdoodles.blogspot.com/