Practice with Inking
I cranked out this short comic tonight. It didn't really come out so hot, but it was really good practice inking for me. Tell me what you think:
I did pass that test, by the way. My stomach started growling as soon as I got ready to do my first situp, and I was pretty worried that I wouldn't have the energy to get through it all. It had been cool and rainy all morning, but as soon as we went outside to run, the sun came out and it got HOT... hot and humid from all the wetness. I was sucking wind like you wouldn't believe, but I got through. And as soon as we were done running? It started raining again. Go figure. God, look at me in those drawings... I need a haircut.
Anyways, I don't practice with inks as much as I should. This is something I'm hoping to change. Since I've never had any real formal training, all I can do is just practice, practice, get hints from friends and peers, and improve. Take these drawings for example:
The one on the left I drew like 6 years ago. The one on the right is the same character, drawn in the last six months. I'd like to think there's some evolution there. Hopefully, we'll all be able to look at my action drawings and my inks in a few months and see some similar progress.
And now, for one tiny last bit of good news I got in the mail the other day:
Huzzah!
I'm SAFE!!Thanks for looking, let me know what you all think!
Action! Satisfaction!
I find that when I'm doodling, I always seem to draw my characters JUST STANDING THERE. In an attempt to rememdy this, I dedicated my lunchbreaks at work this week to practicing drawing some actiony kung-fu style poses. Here's what I came up with...
I have no idea how one would throw a kick like this, let alone connect with it. I'm still pretty pleased with how this came out, though... I really like the angle.
Makoto from Street Fighter 3 does a punch like this. Apparently, so does my good buddy Mike.
Yeah... this is a pretty generic 'flying ninja' kind of pose. Anyways, while I was digging thru some boxes in my mom's basement, I turned up a ton of old old sketchpads. In one of them, I found a few of these two-panel comics I did about two years ago. Here they are...
I seem to remember that I didn't finish this one because I didn't think my facial expression came out funny enough in the second panel. Anyways, the important thing about this comic is...
THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED TO ME!!I was so upset that I had to take a nice long break and rethink my life. Not that it did much good, since I'm still working retail. Oh well, gotta pay the bills, right? Anyway, enjoy, leave me some comments, and thanks in advance!
Some more comics sketches
Thanks everyone who's left me comments, they're always greatly appreciated!
Here's a couple more quick sketches I've cranked out recently. While I do like animation a lot, my first love is comics, so here's a couple panels I did. I actually did these a while ago when I was really into the game Dark Cloud 2... to draw the plant monster, I had to sit there with the game paused for quite some time. Let me know what you think of this... the panel layout, art, etc... I'd love to hear some comments. I never did finish this, so I guess it was just practice. The joke was something along the lines of, in a game like this, I just get OBSESSED with all the minigames and stuff. I just have to find all the hidden items, level up every weapon, kill every monster, that kind of thing. I spent like over 150 hours each on
Makai Kingdom and
Phantom Brave.
Speaking of
Nippon Ichi games, this sketch was inspired by the 'lift' abililty in Disgaea. I think it could have come out a little better, but all in all I'm pretty pleased. I had an idea for a scene in a comic where they all lifted each other and tossed each other to get to... something. Didn't figure it out yet. Just thought it'd be a funny reference to the game. I guess the joke is that it's probably not that easy to lift a stack of people and throw them across the room.
I'd love to hear what anyone thinks, thanks a lot!
Ninja girls and Etch-a-Sketch
Here's something I doodled tonight. Someone who's known me for a long time and remembers characters I was drawing in like, High School... or maybe during my illustrious career in the Coast Guard... might recognize these as revamped (female) versions of some older characters. I just may use them in the 'project' I mentioned in an earlier post... I had an idea for a trio of villians kindof like the girls you fight in the first Grandia. I don't really remember that game, except that it had really REALLY bad acting. And somehow, I remember the tune it plays when you fight those girls. The weird shadow on the top of the pic is because I don't use a spiral bound sketchpad, so the page folds back funny when I scan it. I understand you can use Photoshop to clean that up, but I can't figure out quite how to do that. Anyways... LOVE the 90s X-Force style 2-tone-stripe-running-down-the-side uniform.
I also found this hanging out on my computer, too... it's not a very clear photo... taken with a cell phone camera, I think. I drew it on Christmas on a mini Etch-a-Sketch I got as a gift. I just HAD to share this with the world, though... it's Jesus holding a birthday cake. I hope you love it.
A quick doodle
Here's a quick little thing I doodled as part of brainstorming for the aforementioned project I have in the works. When I sit there in front of a blank page, I just get the worst writers block, so I cranked this out to try and get the creative juices flowing. Anyways, halfway thru inking (I was using a brush pen I just bought since it was quicker and easier than using an actual brush and dipping it over and over), the tip of my brush pen 'split' a little and started drawing double lines... bleah. So I tried to trim it down and resharpen it with a razor blade... all I succeeded in doing was lopping off the tip of it, making it even more dull. So the small details in panel two... yeah, that's why they're all mushy. Eh... I should just stick with a real brush and ink. Also, I didn't use a ruler or anything for the panel edges... like I said, just a quick doodle. Enjoy. I'll be posting more animation school stuff real soon.
Oh, and as for the coloring job I mentioned I was going to attempt in my last post? Yeah, as predicted, I butchered it. So... scroll down and just enjoy the black and white one again. Watercolors are hard! I need more practice!
A Short Break
Allright, taking a break from the John K. animation school today, thought I'd post this... just a bit of artwork for a project I'm working on. I'm going to attempt to color this, so I thought I'd post the b&w version before I ruin it (don't have much practice with colors).
Stretch and Squash Dogs
Here's some of these dogs... I REALLY struggled with this character.
This one looks a LITTLE better...
... and I think this one came out the best. I'm definately going to have to practice him some more, because even the best one I did looks pretty crummy.
Bears and Squirrels
Okay, here's some more of the heads from Lesson One. I'm having some trouble using this website... guess I'm just not very Web Savvy. I'm also giving myself a crash course in Photoshop while doing this... it seems I'm spending more time in there getting these pictures ready to post than I am actually drawing. Is there an easy way to resize an image to overlap it over another one? I haven't figured that out yet. If anyone could give me some advice, that would be great.
I thought this one looked pretty good until I put them side by side... a little crooked and a little squat.
This one seems pretty close, but without being able to overlap them, it's tough to tell.
I thought these came out all right too.
Something about this bear, though... mine doesn't seem to 'pop' like the original... if anyone's checking these out, I'd love some comments...! Thanks
My First Post
June 1st, 2006
Okay, I'm going to take part in John K.'s animation school. I originally learned to draw by copying from Sunday Comics, from Ed Emberly books, and from the book 'Draw 50 Famous Cartoons' by Lee J. Ames. Later, I graduated to Stan Lee and John Buscema's 'How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way', all of which showed similar techniques to what is shown in the Preston Blair book. Anyways, it's been years since I've practiced these basic techniques, so I'm looking at it this way: I'm going to try and forget everything I know and relearn all this stuff from scratch. Here's some of my first attempts at lesson one, let me know what you think.
Obviously, the one on the top left is mine, the one on the top right is Preston's, and the bottom is how it looks when I lay them on top of each other... looks like I need some work.
Here's a couple of the other angles I tried, too. Like I said, first attempt, I'll be posting more soon. Comments would be greatly appreciated...!!
I did pass that test, by the way. My stomach started growling as soon as I got ready to do my first situp, and I was pretty worried that I wouldn't have the energy to get through it all. It had been cool and rainy all morning, but as soon as we went outside to run, the sun came out and it got HOT... hot and humid from all the wetness. I was sucking wind like you wouldn't believe, but I got through. And as soon as we were done running? It started raining again. Go figure. God, look at me in those drawings... I need a haircut. 
The one on the left I drew like 6 years ago. The one on the right is the same character, drawn in the last six months. I'd like to think there's some evolution there. Hopefully, we'll all be able to look at my action drawings and my inks in a few months and see some similar progress.
