Atomic Beethoven

I'm late getting this done today because I goofed around and did other things till about 6:30pm I sat down with no ideas and a black screen listening to Beethoven and this sort of came out stream of consciousness. I recorded it all in a speed painting movie so I'll edit that up and get it up before too long.  This took about 30 min. to draw.

Caricature of Will Vinton

I worked 12 years at Will's Animation Studio in Portland. I made a speed paint movie of this drawing being created set to music.

Easter Bunny-001

I used the same technique I said I used in yesterday's sketch of a young black man. This is using the smudge tool for a paintbrush while having the "fingerpaint" option clicked and the smudge tool set at 97%. This creates a painting environment similar in feel to painting with oils on glass or maybe a white enamel surface like a butcher's tray pallette. I chose to make this my first speed paint demo movie.

I'm sorry for the slow speed. This was my first video and I forgot to set the frame rate to not capture at real speed.  So you are watching this as I drew it with all the pauses and hiccups.

Young Black-001

Normally I paint in photoshop with the paint brush tool selected but I painted differently in photoshop today! If you select the smudge tool, set it to about 97%, then click the finger painting radio button up on the upper menus, any color you have selected will paint as you stroke it on but then it will blend with the background as you smudge it further along. This has some posibilities for making oil looking paintings I think.  This painting was painted with a wacom tablet. It took about an hour but some of that time was just experimenting with the brush strokes and the smudge tool settings.  Smudge tool-97% with the fingerpainting option clicked.

Sepia Rat Head Study-001

I love drawing faces. This morning I started out drawing some more full body poses and I don't feel they turned out as well as I'd like so I launched into another rat head study. When drawing fails me, just sketching a head is like eating comfort food.

Rat Pirate Swordplay-001

Today I'm putting up imperfect work, warts and all.  This is the first stab (pardon the pun) at a composition of two characters in the rat pirate universe having at it with swords.  I wanted the smaller mouse-like character to be cool and have a classical fencing form.  And I wanted the bigger rat pirate character to be more awkward and clumsy... maybe tripping over a barrel or backing back into a mast pole.  There are some tangents where hands line up with tails in confusing ways that I want to correct.  Also I need to get some better drawing pens.  All I had this morning was a big sharpie and a smaller drafting pen.

I want to buy Mark McDonnell's book, "The Art and Feel of Making It Real".  I've budgeted it to buy next month. It costs around 40 dollars but I feel it will be worth the price.  I think I could benefit from reading it.

Signs of Spring

This is a quick 30 min. sketch done with the wacom tablet in photoshop from a dig cam shot I took this morning on a walk around my neighborhood.