As you can see by comparing the rough on the left and the final inked version on the right, I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted with this one. What did I say about winging it?! How 2014! By the way, Happy New Year!!!
I like how the orphanage building itself turned out. I was going for a Mr. Magoo, UPA style. Looking at the metal sign over the gates, I see I should have added more designy stuff around the word "Orphanage". I wanted to make the plant in the basket between the gates clearly visible and planned on doing that with cast shadows but that didn't coincide with the rainy overcast day I had in mind. The rain helps sell the idea of how miserable a place it is and fortunately, it also helped to highlight the basket. The woman also turned out well. I tried to indicate smiley eyes by pushing her cheeks under the eyeballs, but perhaps it isn't quite in style. Maybe I should have shown lower eyelids instead and done them like clam shells.
Something I'm not terribly happy with is that the whole thing doesn't read quite as well as I'd hoped. I think it would have read better if the whole thing were rectangular with the long edge on the top and bottom and put more space between the three elements - the woman and her word bubble, the plant in the foreground and the thought bubble containing the orphanage. As it is, I think it's too crowded, and the sweat and thought bubbles coming off the plant aren't visible enough, but what do you think?
And yes, for those tricky spellings, best write them out beforehand!
Do you ever get a better idea for the project you're working on the second you finish it? Well that's what happened here. These were done for my Christine's monthly orchid society newsletter. I knew that by doing a second cartoon would exceed the amount of time allotted to work on it, but I had to do it. I knew the right hand was better and funnier.
And it's almost Christmas! I can afford to be generous, right?! Right.
Regarding the cartoon on the right, I like the line work (a round brush flattened so it naturally creates some thick and thin. I have to keep rotating the brush (if you're listening Adobe, I'd like a "brush rotation" hotkey for Christmas!) to work as I want where I want. It's also a dark blue line, which is really quite nice and not harsh like a black line. The jewel on the left side king's hat is pretty good, but I really like the body language of the characters and the way the one king's elbow overlaps the other. It really helps both to show their proximity; they weren't so close in the rough, but it looks better and funnier if they are crowded together a bit and it also to suggests one is elbowing the other. The colours could have been nicer, but (confession time), I'm not very good at imagining colours.
I know the word bubbles are a bit unconventional in that the tail is just a line, not a sharp ended thing, but I think it still works AAAAND, in my defense, I'm sure I've seen it done somewhere (just can't remember where). It was only when I finished the bubble on the right did I decide to break the line which as you all know is the way to show someone is whispering, which really improves that comment.
But enough about what I think. Which do you like better and why? And of course, any comments about improvements are gratefully received and learned from.
Fanks!
This one is inspired by a photo I saw of a small fusion reactor. I went to a concert and expected to be there for a couple hours, so after a few false starts, I drew my version.
For a while I wasn't very pleased with the drawing. The lines looked too rough, then too clean and straight and the perspective wasn't so believable, but since I had nothing else to do, I kept at it and kept at it.
I like the tonal and contour lines. You can feel the dimensionality of the tubes. At some point I realized it was a bit too sterile, so I put the dogs near the steps which helped add some life to the piece. The wires are good, but if I did another version (or had another hour) there'd be more and chunkier ones and I would have added more pipes and tubes and other gak. The way the floor tiles don't make a flat grid, but suggest a circle and add a bit more drama to the machine.
So the moral of the story is, if at first you don't succeed, stay a while, and try again.
This was a pretty challenging piece and I'm going to try not to to tell you what it is about... that's for you to decide. I was just trying to suggest something, to inspire thought and imagination and to that end I think it works.
I had an image in mind - a spaceman, a sacred cow, birds and that's what I drew (top drawing far left marked with a "1"). The symbols and the odd shape behind all of them were details that just happened. I knew from the outset that the sketchbook (yes, the sketchbook told me to do it) needed, nay, wanted (DEMANDED) a bold, bright (ORANGE) page of ink. What could I do?! I knew I was going to wreck the drawing, but I had to do it.
I also knew from the outset that this drawing was going to be put here, so it was going to have to be worked over and thus rough drawing "2". This is closer to what I wanted and looks to my eye like a plastic sheet of model parts that you punch out and glue together to make a toy model, or a laying out of all the things an astronaut might need. You didn't know every astronaut needs a sacred cow?! Ah, now we're getting to where I was pointing, to space and hope and absolute bowel loosening terror and what a culture might need if they venture out of our solar system, into... I thought I said I wasn't going to tell you what it's about. Right. Sorry.
So we get to drawing "3". Clean? Check. Visually clear? Mmmm... not so much. Suggestive of that reaching, yearning?! Ah... no. Not to my eye. In fact it's just more confusing. I left it for a few days, asked Christine about it a few times, and thought about it some more.
Part of the problem is that I didn't have much time to spend on the drawing and that feeling that I wanted to inspire was going to require too much work and time and I wasn't sure I'd even be able to convey it. Below is how I left the drawing. If you just saw this drawing, perhaps you'd feel my intent, but perhaps now that you've read all this, you see what's lacking! Tell you what, forget I said anything! It could make a good bumper sticker, or stamp or tattoo on some square shaped man's back.
I'm learning. And the neat thing about this blog and showing these pieces in stages is that you can see the learning and progress. I read your comments, we spitball it over email and then as I do the drawings and refine them, I hear you, I hear your comments. GET OUT OF MY HEAD!!! GET OUT NOW!!! Joking! You can stay, you're helpful in there.
The girl with the pony tails was easy and didn't change much from how I imagined her to drawing her on the page. I like her hair and glasses and the hands are pretty funny too.
The other character was more challenging. I had a sense of his pose, but the hands, arms and shoulders were difficult. I wanted a nice, readable silhouette (one of those principles of animation!) but couldn't see how to manage the arms till I looked at drawing 2 in the computer. The trick was to tilt his shoulders so his left arm is slightly higher than the right. Notice the slant that the paper bearing drawing 2 is on. I did 2 as a layer over drawing 1, but could see that I didn't have his body tilted enough, so I turned the paper till I had it right, then drew the square border around it to help register it to the overall cartoon when scanned in. I really like his pose with his hands stuffed to his mouth and his slightly tearful eyes are hilarious. I've never tried eyes like that and it worked really well - Thanks Ren & Stimpy!
I included two inked versions to show a slight change between the two. Can you see it? Shortly after finishing drawing 3, I realized that the plant needed to look cold. So this morning I added some icicles to the plant to sell that idea. It's a bit extreme perhaps and less realistic, but there's that great saying "Don't let the truth get in the way of a good story". The same is true here, and anyway... it's a cartoooooon!
