Pics!

First post of the new year! Hope you're all keeping well.  These are a couple of presents I did for a few friends of mine for Christmas/Birthdays.

The first one is for a friend of mine who asked me one night to draw her a Panda. I was surprised how much a film like Kung Fu Panda had subliminally seeped a default Panda design in me, so when I noticed this coming through in my roughs I went right back to basics blocked out a tonne of new shapes, just really quick gestures. 

Best to keep everything crazy rough at the start so trying loads of new shapes and gestures is a good thing to do and it helps prevent you over working a drawing and falling in love with what should only be a preliminary sketch and never the final product. I always find that when the shapes/pose have been rushed and not planned out/experimented enough always leaves you with a product that lacks that special something and is usually riddled with mistakes. This is the longest part of my process. It deserves the time when this has been figured out the rest falls into place.  

This particular image was when I was playing with some dog-like characteristics and shapes with the Panda. I was told a long time ago that if you're trying to make an animal character likeable it really helps to add some dog in the design/character of the animal. It's something worth keeping in mind, it always helps me anyways. Here's what I came up with. His name is Peter Panda

 The next one is for my girlfriend, it went through a few iterations again. I knew immediately it was going to be a film noir style to it. I got to play around a bit with this one. The original pose of the woman in the pic I really liked but I kept on changing my mind about the environment. I eventually settled on the last. Got to play around with some new brushed in PS that I have been enjoying. I don't think I've gotten the best out of em just yet, but something is starting to click. This is Lady Fatale

One of the many iterations

Here's the Christmas card version

and here's the final one. My fav

And here's another, This is a Mouse Guard pic. David Petersen's Mouse Guard is class! If you haven't read it I recommend you do. This was a present for a few friends of mine ( They're married now so I can cheap out and get em one present :P Ha!) They have some great art hanging up on their wall and i thought that this would fit in with the rest of their original pieces.

Since they're a married couple I kind of liked the idea of couple of mice running away together and the scape of what is at a mice's disposal in these books is huge. I had a lot of fun working on this one too.  I find drawing a good set of wings extremely satisfying. Got to play with a few new textures in this one as well.

More to come soon getting to the other end of the to do list. Hopefully I'll have as much to blog nest time as well.

Sketches and Ms. Noir

hellllooo.

So here's my latest bunch of sketches, I've finished another sketchpad and thought I would throw them up on the blog. Anyone who follows me on twitter will have seen this figure studies and sketchpad doodles already, but true to past blog posts I'll put those drawings up here too.

Here's a pic I did on the train last Friday the 13th.

Here's a hipster I saw on the same train. Here I used sharpie, fine pen and because I have no grey tone pantones with me, pencil

Here's a guy I saw outside a bookies

Another guy I saw outside the same bookies

Just a guy walking down a street 

This woman was waiting for her kids to hurry up, she wasn't at all happy

Pretty sure this guy was actually a zombie, one strange looking dude

I think she turned out as the best figure study of the day

This was guy outside a café

Some heads of random people

And this is Ms. Noir.  It's a piece I did for an animation art auction that will be on in the Science gallery next Sunday. There's some AMAZING pieces up for grabs, from old school films such as The secret of NIMH, The land Before Time, All Dogs go to Heaven. Not all of it is drawn/painted either there's some amazing crafted pieces that have been stitched and stuffed and pretty much you name it its there. It's a very eclectic gathering off work. 

I think a big congrats is due to Bianca, Estrela & Simon for organizing the whole thing. It's shaping up to be a great day. All the pieces will be auctioned in aid of The Children's Sunshine Home & LauraLynn House. So if you're free on Sunday the 29th of July and you want to pick up an awesome piece of art you know where to go.


Until the next post. Laters!