Head drawing class flashback 4: Wonky Self-Portrait

The assignment, of course, was meant to be a regular self portrait (not a semi-creepy weirdo version).  I had super high hopes for it, as I’d been pretty happy with my other images throughout the semester and I’d done self-portraits before that had caught a likeness. Unfortunately, something went awry maybe 10 hours into the project… and no amount of layering on pastels could…

Head drawing class flashback 3: “Man with Hat” (oil redux)

Remember the guy from last week’s post? Well, for another assignment in my head drawing class, we had to use another reference photo of him, but this time we had to “draw” with oil paints. We were supposed to thin the paint out with turpentine, but I hated the smell so ended up using something else- mineral oil, I think?  Anyway, the concept was…

Head Drawing Class Flashback 2: “Man With Hat”

A follow up to last week’s post – another pastel drawing process for “Man with Hat.” I know, I know, where do I come up with these titles? Here’s the black underdrawing…. …and the smeary black chalk overlay… … and then oops, apparently I forgot to photograph the other middle steps. Here’s the finished product:

Head Drawing Class Flashback: “Girl with Dreadlocks”

So, my posting schedule started to suffer at the end of the Fall 2012 semester when I was working on assignments for a head drawing class. Luckily I still have the files for most of them so I’ll post a few of those before my classes for this fall get going in the next couple weeks. After focusing on sanguine/white studies on tan paper,…

fabric fold design

Take a look at your elbows – if you’re wearing a long-sleeve shirt, you’ll have a bunch of fabric folds there. Anytime you move, bend or stretch your arm, those folds change. The folds in fabric help describe the action of the figure, but sometimes they’re super complicated and it’s not necessary to include every single fold.  How can we simplify fabric so that…

character design class & more!

School’s back in session! I have a fantastic lineup of classes this fall:– ANM 633 Character Design – basic character design, already lots of fun – FA 602 Head Drawing – a traditional fine arts class, mostly in the medium of sanguine & white pastel pencils on grey toned paper. – ANM 670 Preproduction- an excellent course to learn about film preproduction and to…

storyboarding

Classes just started up again this week! I’m taking Acting for Animators & Storyboarding. The acting class will mostly be videos of myself (& probably Nick) so I won’t be posting much from that class, unless we have some really Oscar-worthy performances.  The courses run double-time in the summer so I have two deadlines per week. I’m looking forward to the storyboarding class –…

snow white dancing scene – Drawing from the Imagination Final

Here’s my final project submission for my favorite class last semester, Drawing from the Imagination. The assignment was to illustrate an excerpt of “Snow White” … of course, I forgot to save the text… but to paraphrase, Snow White & the dwarves (none of them higher than Snow’s waist) have just finished cleaning all day. After a good supper, they all celebrate with dancing…

evil queen from snow white

We recently had an assignment for Drawing from the Imagination that required reflection plotting – so complex! The theme was Snow White’s evil stepmother; the process was challenging and counterintuitive. In order to make sure that the drawing included the both the queen and her reflection, we were instructed to draw the queen & her reflection first, then fit the frame of the mirror…

combat!

This assignment was a lot of fun to work on! It was a three-week process for my Drawing for Imagination class, and my instructor provided lots of great feedback along the way. Here’s the finished piece – I am really happy with the characters, their costumes and the general layout. The first week, we had to design nude characters in combat – this way…