Battle Club Destiny: Characters 1

Here's one of the first character designs for Battle Club Destiny, the table top (board game) I've been working on.  His name is Gilbranth the Destroyer.  I'm debating on how much detail I will go with on final character concepts as far as color details go.  I think I will add some more subtle shading. 

Sketch Book 13: Rhonda Raver Pants

Here is a 20 minute direct drawing pose I drew with a 4B charcoal pencil on newsprint.  It's not a 100% direct drawn image, as some of the outside edge lines have been darkened to show character.  My control with charcoal pencils aren't very good compared to experienced artists in the area of direct drawing.  It's good practice, though I tend not to fancy the manner of drawing.  

Speaking of direct drawing I was watching the "making of" of one of Hayao Miyazaki's animations and it showed him penciling a character.  He just drew the character the way he wanted directly in one shot!  I was amazed to see his talent at animating, he has such skill and experience knowing what he wants to draw and how the character should move for the scene.  He is a true master.

Direct Drawing VS Under Drawing

So there are several drawing methods, and there are many arguments on which ones artists should use and which ones are better and ultimately which one is the best.  There have been big debates between painters from back to the time of the Renaissance movement whether to start in line or to first start painting with color.  Artists founded schools on both sides, and frankly both were successful.  Today, there are very similar arguments with illustration styles.  To use an under drawing or to directly draw from life with zero under drawing.  I'm going to discuss direct drawing.  For some of my classes, I'm required to use direct drawing, but for others I'm not.  So, I've a bit of experience in both under drawing and direct drawing.

Direct Drawing:  Direct drawing is the method of drawing from life directly as you see it.  It requires more time observing and less time drawing.  Sketching has no part in direct drawing as the ever time the pencil touches the paper it is going to be apart of the final composition.  There are many artists who have mastered this method of drawing, and their drawings are very clean.  It's a very good method to pick up if you want to spend more time getting the drawing complete and less time sketching and working out the illustration.  Theoretically, this is an ideal form of drawing, however it requires a great amount of time to master, and until that point your drawings will suffer.  One major flaw is that you must always have a model for reference.  Drawing off the top of your head is impossible with direct drawing.  Making life as a production artist very expensive as you must pay a model to pose for you regularly and provide a colossal wardrobe of costumes.  The second problem with this method of drawing is it is very hard to get proper anatomical dimensions drawing people.  This is practically impossible when illustrating architecture even from life as you almost always need to sketch the dimensions and make soft line calculations with rulers which will eventually be erased.  However, when illustrating people this method can be mastered like I said, as many have, but it takes many hours of training your eyes and hand to draw anatomically correct with out sketching out anatomical measurements.  This method can be quick once mastered, and can deliver great results.

Under Drawing:  This is the method of using blue line pencil or light graphite or charcoal pencil to sketch out and measure the calculations before darkening the final line work.  Many comic artists use this method which usually the final line work gets inked based off of the pencil sketch.  Animation studios also use this method as they blue line the initial animations which will later be refined to dark pencil or ink.  Personally, this is the method I prefer.  As you are not required to draw from a live model, but you can feel out characters or buildings as you see fit.  Reference material is a useful tool to help you visualize poses and costumes from your work space.  In many work places you don't have the luxury of posing a model, so being able to sketch your ideas and using reference material is essential.   One of the arguments between these two methods is that with direct drawing you are able to draw more quickly.  However, if you master either one, your drawing time will be quick either way.  Masters of under drawing use very little under drawing as they need to spend less time finding the forms of their subject as they have learned the form through experience just like the direct drawing school of thought.  Their benefit is that they are not limited to what is real and what can be directly seen.  Direct drawing limits the imagination of the illustrator, as they can only draw what can be created in a studio room with a model and drawn.  The under drawing method promotes creative thought as you are always using your create imagination to create drawings as you lack a live model to pose for you.  Sketching is also essential when coming up with ideas for layout for a scene with various characters.  Randomly sketching various characters or designs also helps your brain to develop new ideas.

You can come to your own conclusions.  Both are correct, but I prefer under drawing as I work a lot with fantasy and manga illustrations.  The artist I know who draw directly tend to only draw or paint portraits and some times pinup art.  However, there are many painters who use under drawings for portraits, pinup art, even if they have a live model to work with.

Bis Poster Design Revised

Here is the revised bis poster design.  I added some grunge, a brown tint, and straightened out bis' bassist.  I think it looks much better, though it's only subtle changes.

Bis Poster Design Project

This was so much fun to work on :D  This is a project for class, compiling all sorts of images like the background images were from a Google image searches, the bis logo and guitarist are from Cure Magazine scans, and the brushstroke work is my own touch from Illustrator.  All in all the layers came together smoothly and created a very nice poster design.  

If you really want to check out a cool magazine try and get yourself a copy of Cure.  Your best bet will probably be online, or if you live near a Japantown, like I used to in San Francisco, Kinokuniya Bookstore is a good location to pick up J-Rock and Visual Kei magazines.  If you ask me that's pretty much the best resource for character design and fashion design inspiration.  Much luv!

5000 Hits!!!

Thanks for the support :D  I've been having a lot of fun growing as an artist and exploring new mediums and work avenues.  I have some promising opportunities up ahead and I'm very hopeful for things to come.  There are going to be some very drawing intensive days up ahead, so keep your eyes tuned for much work to come soon. 

One project to keep a look out for is Battle Club Destiny.  I have been working on this project off and on for several months.  I should be getting relatively close to finishing the project this summer.  And, if I'm fortunate enough, you may find yourself playing it when you're bored with some friends.  It'll be my first game release, hoping to break into the indie board gaming industry.  Yeah, it's old school, but good times are good times whether spent in front of a tv or at a table with friends.  If I'm fortunate enough, perhaps it'll make it's way on the Playstation Network or XBox Live, hmmmm?  But, first I will have to make it more than just a dream and piles of notes and scraps.

Sketch Book 12: Gesture Drawing

 

This has been a little bit of a hectic week.  It's the first week of a new semester of school at AAU, and I have been having some serious computer issues... :p  But, finally, things are going smoothly.  One thing I usually don't do is sketch much.  I do a little here and there, but this semester and hopefully for the rest of my life, I need to keep a regular schedule of sketching.  Practice makes perfect as they say.  

I'm running behind on my own schedule...boo...  I've been wanting to make a 5000 hits image for the blog.  But, it didn't come at a good time.  I have an idea of what I want to do, it's now just a matter of trying to squeeze that into the schedule.

Another update.  A big goal for myself this year will be a board game project of mine.  Maybe they're a thing of the past, but hey, this game is lots of fun to play.  My goal is make a game prototype of mine into production.  I will make perhaps a dozen versions myself, and then see if this thing has what it takes to get published.  It's going to take a lot of art work on my behalf, which will put my children's book on the back burner yet once again (same old story with that project).  However, this game project will give me good experience at character designing, illustrating, and management.  I will be posting up the work as I get it done.  Be on the look out for Battle Club Destiny.  The title was previously Tokyo Bad-Ass High, but it needed a new title as the art direction is taking a new turn.  There will roughly be about 100 character designs for this project.  Talk about colossal endeavors!  Wish me luck, pray, and hope for the best :)