Looper sketch

I went to watch this movie last night, really enjoyed it and drew a quick sketch.

Storyboard Warmup Sketch

Raiders of the Lost Ark Studies

I've been re-watching Robb Pratt's storyboard lecture series, and follow to his example I have been sketching small thumbnail studies from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

It's great to see how Spielberg moves the camera from one great composition and stops at another, staging, motivating cuts and camera moves.

Scribbles

Life drawing and gesture drawings.

22 Tips on Story

 These are 22 story basics storyboard artist Emma Coats has picked up from her time working at Pixar.

Emma's Blog Story Shots

#1: You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

#2: You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be v. different.

#3: Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.

#4: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

#5: Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

#6: What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

#7: Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

#8: Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.

#9: When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

#10: Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.

#11: Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.

#12: Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

#13: Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.

#14: Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.

#15: If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

#16: What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.

#17: No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on - it’ll come back around to be useful later.

#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.

#19: Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

#20: Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?

#21: You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?

#22: What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

Space Monkey

Quick scribbles of a monkey astronaut. Work has begun on my 8 page comic. More to come soon!!

Spiderman Sketch

Quick composition sketch of Spiderman.

Warm Up Sketches

Bakery Woman

Quick sketch for my girlfriend, congratulations on the job.

Aang, The Last Airbender t-shirt design

I'm currently doing a few small color compositions for a Avatar, the Last Airbender piece. While taking a break I stumbled upon a website that runs tshirt design competitions.

 I thought I would see what my colour thumbnail looks on a tshirt. With some work I think it could be a cool little design.

Will Smith Caricature

It was extremely hot today, even Hellboy agreed. Sketched from memory.

Avatar - The Last Airbender

Thanks to my brother I have recently become hooked on Avatar The Last Airbender. To make myself feel like I'm doing something productive while I work my way through the DVD's I have been sketching Aang.

Avengers Assemble - Hulk Sketch

Caricatures

Here a couple of examples of caricatures I completed recently. Commissions are available on request if you are interested in a unique gift for your best friend, siblings or even your nan.

Contact me for further details.

Life Drawing

One resource I can recommend that really helped improve my life drawings and sketches in general is the book Force by Mike Mattesi.



Mike is great at explaining how concepts such as weight, balance and straight vs curve all relate to each other.

Fenrir Greyback

I'm currently listening to the Harry Potter soundtrack and drawing various DeathEaters. This is a rough sketch of the werewolf Fenrir Greyback.

Sunday Sketches

A couple of scribbles from today.

Character Sketch

In a change to the planned schedule I wanted to post this pair onto the blog. I like them, especially the guy on the right. In my mind they are Pinky and the Brain mixed with Bert and Ernie.

Mr Gold Character Design

Here is a character design I sketched out for Mr Gold, from Once Upon a Time. The next post will be a inked version of this design, so stay tuned.

Caricatures

Mr Gold - Once Upon a Time

Here is a rough design for Robert Carlyle as Mr Gold. I'm working on a few fan art sketches which I'll hopefully be putting up for sale on the blog, so stay tuned. Remember the words of Rumpelstiltskin, "Everything comes at a price"

More to come soon!

Lee Vincent -Pulled Apart by Horses Caricature

I have decided to sell this one off original caricature of Lee Vincent from the band Pulled Apart by Horses. Price includes P&P


A3 11X16",Ink. £15 If you want it

Ratcatcher

Meet the Ratcatcher.

I don't believe it!

An attempt at caricaturing Gaius from BBC's Merlin.

Gesture Action Sketches

After reading Rad Sechrist's post on building up a vocabulary of action poses, I decided to take his advice and capture some quick gesture sketches from video reference.

A few examples below.



Story artists Alex Woo & Louis Gonzales are currently working on a gesture book based around their Schoolism classes. Alex has posted a few pages from the first chapter on his blog here.

Over at the excellent blog Invisible Ink , Brian McDonald referenced a conversation he had with Glen Keane.

"Glen told me that his mentor, Ollie Johnston, would say to him that every line in a drawing only exists in relationship to every other line in the drawing."

After reading Rad, and Alex's blog posts this makes sense to me now. Using it consistently in my work is another task to conquer.

"Use line and shape to tell a story" Walt Stanchfield, Drawn to Life

Colour Sketch

Park Sketch

Jack Black Rough Sketch

A big shout out to Tom Richmond at The MAD Blog, as he has a set of excellent tutorials on caricaturing. Some of the notes I took are scribbled to the left hand side of drawing of Mr Black. I did this drawing to start drilling these principles into my brain, and help with capturing the likeness of the person.

The tutorials can be found here.

Day in the Park

Indian kid sketch

To add a bit of depth and shading, I have started using cool grey prismacolor(colour) makers. I think the results look much cleaner than pencil.

On a separate note over at Purge Theory, Ben Cadwell has posted some notes on storyboarding he received from Dreamworks. They contain great reminders for the basics such as depth, staging, grouping characters and perspective.

Thursday Sketch

Sinister Old Lady

Daily Sketch

Monday Sketch

Vulcan?

Friday Sketch

Working on shape, silhouette, and thick and thin lines. As always critiques welcome.

Sketch of the Day

Sharpie markers are fun to use.

Late Night Sketch

...Yeah I know. That ear is really high up on his head!

Gesture Shapes

I tried this exercise after seeing it posted on Alex Woo's blog.

Using a fat brush I blocked in the shapes of the pose, as seen in the middle drawing. I added the lines in much later from memory.

I'm not sure my lines added after actually helped reinforce the gesture or just muddled it up.

Warm up sketch - Celtic Warrior

A new scribble.....

...while I should be working on my portfolio. Storyboards coming soon.

The journey begins...

Welcome to the new blog. Lets start as I mean to go on and throw up a sketch.