oaf heads overlay

sorry, I've been really busy and didn't get as much practice as I wanted to this week. but boy have i been drawing though. here are my oaf head overlays. Sure enough as I was drawing them, I'd make the negative head space too small every time, I finally got it on the last one I did though. Also I still run into trouble getting the proper distance between two characters. I know I should be using the negative space to figure it out, but sometimes it's sooo hard to see, it reminds me of one of those 3D posters.

Case of the Missing Hare 2 + Kaspar

this is a more accurate copy and it was my first try!
Like John said, is very hard stuff to do, so many details, soft angles, etc.

-The head is bigger and in another angle.
- The hand is bigger
- Bugs and the whole tree has to be more big.


Here I tried to do a Kaspar's drawing
Now I realize that I even out the sizes and I destroyed a little the contrasts in the original doodle of John

I'm gonna try it again

chao!

Anthony's Dad by Becky

I finally drew Anthony's Dad. I was pretty intimidated at first since I don't draw people much, especially people with any anatomy. I used my new brush pen for this, I still want to practice my inking more with it.

Anthony's Dad 1





I was surprised at how easy it was to break him down into shapes, I thought that it was going to be impossible. After I did it though I noticed how a lot of lines wrapped around his form and how the details really worked. For example, after I broke him down into shapes I had put an oval for his abdomen and noticed that the outline of the oval matched up with those two curved lines. His fingers together form one shape, so I drew a rectangle for them and then broke down each finger.

There is almost a seam going down his center that follows the shapes of his body. I noticed that his head isn't completely separate from his body like most cartoon characters, the chin line doesn't close and it forms part of his neck. His hair is the same way, it isn't just on his head, it goes onto his neck as well.


I drew his head too big and too far to the left, his right arm is way too foreshortened and his chest isn't far up enough.

Anthony's Dad 2




His finger is in perspective so it is larger at the tip. There are no straight lines on him, even the vertical lines on the left arm aren't perfectly straight. There aren't too many wrinkles, they are only put in places where they would be most prominent such as his elbow and around the knee.


I didn't draw the left hand large enough, the left leg is too far right and he should be hunched over a bit more.

Anthony's Dad 3



The veins on his neck aren't staight, they form around the contours of his neck. Lines that aren't needed are left out. His trapezius muscle is made up of three small lines that curve around his body, most would have put a horizontal line underneath them. Because those three lines indicate the shape of the muscle without the typical horizontal line and it show the strain and anger in the subject.


I drew his neck too far down and made his stomach too fat. His hand should be down a bit lower as well.

Anthony's Dad 4



That arm vein is so frightening.


I made the line of action too up and down, it should instead be more angled and his neck should be more stretched out. For once I drew a head too small! And his hand should be more to the right.

The Case of the Missing Hare: Construction

1st Level: BIG forms

First I made the line of action and then the larger shapes:
- The head
- Body
- Arms
- Hat
- Mallet
- Carrot
I think my line of action is wrong. The original line of action is pointing up and mine is down.
It's a simple composition but totally understandable: This guy is waiting for the rabbit to come out and hit him with the mallet.
The main objects are:
- magic hat
- guy
- mallet
The three objects are evenly spaced but nothing interferes between them, so the three are totally clear and readable.

2nd Level: Secondary forms

Then I divided the big forms in sub forms, like the turban, divided in the sub forms that contain each of the strips that do the cap.
The mallet was difficult to do, it's not like most of the mallets that we see in other cartoons, this have rings in it.
I tried to put the features in the face trying to equal the negative space around them.

3rd Level: Details

Then I added the details like:
- Pupils
- Wrinkles
- button
- the strips in the turbant
- etc..

The Mallet is horrible, I've made them in a wrong angles and from there everything else stayed badly.

Check

- Again, my line of action is wrong
- the guy in my drawing is too on top of the hat.
- The mallet is awfully BAD!
- The curve of his body is from the other side. Up, not down.

space behind face

One thing I notice lots of artists do, is they leave out negative spaces within objects


especially the space behind the face - between the eyes and the back of the cranium.

These Jones characters are really well constructed and have a great use of space VS filled areas.

Copy these and always keep in mind the use of space around filled areas in your own drawings.

Just a BG that I did the other day

I've been very busy this week, but I'll keep on practising.
This is a BG that I did the other day.


Whta do you think?

making poses designed together

Trees!

On my last post John suggested that I talk more about what I learned as I was studying each drawing, so I went into more detail with this post.



The bark textures on this one curve around the form, they aren't evenly spaced just like how a real tree is. Textures are not just going vertically on the trees, they are also going horizontally. There's a lot of negative space and the BG makes up the majority of the picture rather than just the characters. The tree itself is made up of organic shapes, not perfect circles, more like melted distorted tires stacked up on each other. It was pretty hard to break down the tree to its most basic form since the shapes were very unique. Also I have never seen anyone stylize leaves into a star-burst before, its very clever and fits well with the comics aesthetic.

What I learned from the inking, I realized that thicker lines tend to be around the silhouette of an object, and thinner make up the details and inside of an object. Also the lines got thicker as they got closer to the viewer, like what the roots are doing here.




The bottom of the tree and ground is too low. And the characters are in the wrong places. I could have gotten the inks to be a bit sharper and crisp especially with regards ot the characters, I also need to do a lot more thick and thin lines rather than just medium lines.



And for the final drawing I chose to do a Pogo tree. I also decided to ink it, which turned out to be a lot more difficult than expected but it did teach me a lot about inking.



I love the composition. It is divided into two, the first part contains the logo and the second part contains the characters. Everything is expertly placed to help keep focus on the actions. The clouds lead your eye from the logo to the characters. Even blades of grass point towards important areas. I love how the lilly pads aren't placed perfectly, they overlap and each one is at a different angle, but together they form a line pointing to Albert


The inking was quite difficult but fun to do. It was tough trying to get those thin lines right and do all of the hatching. I noticed that with the hatching it doesn't completely cover the trees, the white space gives it a nice break and indicates the lighting. The hatching also follows the form of the trees. And there are good black (dark) placements, the artist never puts dark against dark, he puts it against white so it doesn't lead to any confusion and helps certain things pop, you notice the tree before the grass for example.


I drew the characters too small, the grass on the right and the log are too low. I drew the left side of the tree too high and the right side too low. Also the grassy island on the right is too small and the grass in general is pretty bad, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how the grass was hatched.

More Anthony's dad overlays

See, I had tried to draw some of Anthony's dad after doing the first set of copies, but then I realized that there was no way I was gonna be able to pull that off. So I got my ren and stimpy DVD and took a bunch more screenshots to practice on until I get it.


I'm starting to get an understanding of keeping some details really small so that there's contrast and it looks funnier that way. I realized that if I get lazy I start to even things out.

Also, why is that scene so funny? I kept laughing at the acting. What is it about some mad overreactive dad that is so hilarious to me?

Anthony's dad (cross-post)

First rough... scanned for problems, fixed some issues (mostly significant angle and proportions, such as his shoulder)
Got a rough that felt good and 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.

Gonna do another soon, it's kind of exciting to know I can draw muscles.

Edit: Did another one. (click for stages if you want)