Published on March 23, 2011
in All.
So, the free internet connection I was using earlier managed to eat the first post that I was so lovingly crafting. The one I had written was in part about making mistakes, so the fact that I managed to lose the whole thing before posting it makes my angry pants even tighter and more bitter. Chew on the angry pants and taste their bitter fibers!
… Moving right along.
I have come to the conclusion that it’s good to think about characters before attempting to draw them. Der, right? This was something I already knew, but when I was attempting to design a character the other day, I seemed to forget the thinking step and went right into drawing.
Now, I do remain a proponent of aimless doodling, don’t get me wrong, but when you’re drawing something for a purpose or attempting to design something, it pays to give it a little thought first.
I had come up with a couple of pages worth of rough doodles that I wasn’t happy with when I suddenly thought “Hang on…”
So, I sat down and thought for a while, jotted down some typically hasty and illegible notes, then proceeded to draw with a plan. Much better.
Here’s a bunch of concept/character sketches, in order of progression.
Obviously I’m testing out a range of characters and ideas here, so it all gets a bit jumbled, but it did feel better once I had more of a plan. Next up: Less of the bleeding obvious…
Published on March 14, 2011
in All.
Here are some drawings of ladies. This one in particular being Vivianne Van Kitty from last month’s Dr Sketchy’s. This was a rather eclectic session for me, not in style, but medium. Basically I tried a bit of whatever I had on hand on the day, so starting from pencil, moved to colour pencil, to ballpoint pen, to brush pen. This bunch were done in the session:
Often I’ll take some of rougher pencil ones and use them for inking practice at home, and this time was no exception, so here are the fancier ones I spent more time on. They’re a bit more refined and don’t have the loose spontaneity of the in-session ones, but it’s all good practice.
And while I’m at it, here’s some more recent stuff. I was doing a lot of portraits of people over on Whitechapel, from this fantastic thread where people post photos of themselves for you to draw. It’s going great guns this year. Here’s a couple of my humble offerings.
And now something I just did for fun, for a friend.
In other news, Os Mutantes were phenomenal on Friday night. I cannot recommend their music enough and they were such wonderful, energetic, enthusiastic performers. Joyous all round.
Speaking of energy, I’ve always like Sam & Dave’s music, but I had no idea they were such amazing performers. Dudes could put on a show, click through for ‘Hold on I’m coming’ 1966. Legends.
Published on March 9, 2011
in All.
I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted here and there’s a lot to catch up on. I’ll post an art dump of recent work soon, but until then, here’s a quick round-up.
For the past few months, I’ve been kind of drifting aimlessly, doing bits and bobs, drawing a lot, writing fiction, etc. While at the time I was saying it was preparation for my uni course, it felt more like an excuse for taking a bit of a break and having fun with art and things. Now that I’ve actually started my Masters of Animation & Interactive Media (AIM), it feels like it really was all leading up to this. Vagrancy justified.
Since I’m resuming posting here on a weekly (or more) basis, I’ll try to keep things varied and exciting. I’ve got a build-up of art, stories and notes that I’ll delve into, plus whatever new things the course throws at me or pops into my head.
I’ll start with my first completed assignment. The brief was essentially to do 200 Drawings, in a sequence, completed within a week. Since I love drawing, I went traditional; pencil on paper, then filmed the results frame by frame. I’ll post a photo of the stack of drawings soon.
Here be the film:
200 drawings from Sebastian Fowler on Vimeo.
I had wanted to do a soundtrack, but didn’t think I’d have time, so once I’d completed the drawings and made them into a film, I realised I still had time to record some silly noises and whack them on. Which I did. All sound effects by me, recorded on my laptop. Classy, I know.
This exercise taught me a lot, and not just about animation. Producing that number of drawings in such an intense, condensed period seemed to have an effect on my drawing too. It forces you to think differently about how you approach certain things, it teaches you how to pare back and draw faster, more efficiently. You can probably see the point where I realise that I’m spending way too much time on detailed, polished drawings and start to simplify. Sure, it’s a bit rough, but the journey was fun and I’ve learned a lot.
Next up: drawings & ladies. Some new Dr Sketchy’s sketches, plus other random art.
