Stephen Silver's Character Design Class

Currently, I am enrolled in two online courses. One is Maya Basics offered by Animation Mentor and the other is Character Design taught by Stephen Silver, the class is on a site called schoolism, thank you Jose Antonio Prats for the website!  

Silver's website...

SilverToons

Silver is a fantastic cartoonist/illustrator who has designed characters for Kim Possible, Danny Phantom and other cartoons that you may have seen on Nickelodeon or Disney.  He is a great instructor and I am learning quite a bit from his class.

This first assignment was to design an eccentric fat British entrepreneur named Walter Chipwitther. Before starting the assignment, I viewed several influences of Silver's such as Jack Davis, Mort Drucker, Paul Coker, Don Flowers and most importantly Ronald Searle.  Ronald Searle is a hilarious cartoonist and I was very inspired after viewing his work.

After looking at numerous artists I began drawing several fat guy faces that had a monocle and a bow tie, because Walter Chipwitther had both of these accessories.  Here are a couple of fat faces...

This one was actually a caricature I did before the group of fat faces, could you guess who it is?  I would be impressed if you got it right

This one was a really fun doodle

Eventually, I made the face of the man in the top left corner in the final below and thought it was a good fit.  I drew a body of his with pants and no pants. Oh yeah and another description was that he had to be wearing a smoking jacket.

Silver gave me a critique and drew on a layer on top of my drawing showing the construction that was missing in the body and arms/hands.  

His corrections make my drawing more alive and have more personality, it was really impressive watching him draw my character in a matter of minutes.

After that week, Silver assigned us to do silhouettes of a character that is based on the story Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  (Walter White is a good example)

Anyways, I wanted to draw a female character for this project because I do not draw enough characters that are women.  I decided to create a nerdy scientists that transforms into a barbaric woman.  Here is the description....

After writing the examples I got lots of references for the character.  I did this for Walter Chipwitther as well.  This trick is great to get a idea of the outfit and personality for the character.

After I got references, I went outside and drew silhouettes of people in the park and the train.  I also went to Dare 2 Draw located at the Society of Illustrators and drew the silhouette of a woman warrior, which was perfect for my character Wren Blackburn.

Silver also commented on the faces that the noses and lips could be brought out more to exaggerate the person's unique appearance.

Finally, I did the silhouettes of my character here they are!!!

Silver then looked at them and liked 2 of the skinny girls he circled them in one of the examples below...

Silver suggested 3 of the Wren Blackburns. His advice of the characters was to simplify the shapes and to make sure the gesture matches the personality of the character.

At the end of this week, my new assignment is to draw one final of Baxter and another final of Blackburn.  These drawings are not silhouettes and are going to be like the 1st assignment.  Silhouettes were tricky for me, but they do help in creating a character that is simplified and lively.  I will experiment with silhouettes more this week in creating my finals.  

We were also assigned a caricature assignment for this week so I will post this project by the end of this week.  In the meantime, any feedback on any of my work especially assignment two would be greatly appreciated.  I am always interested in what people have to say about my work because it helps me grow as an artist.

Thanks for stopping by and check back Thursday for some new figure drawings!

Breaking Bad Art and Other Drawings

 Hey all Breaking Bad fans out there here is two Walt drawings I did in Illustrator and colored in Photoshop for my friends MJ Diller and Chris Savine.  I am a huge fan of the series and I am so nervous about tomorrow's ending. I hope Walter kills Jack and Todd and debases his old company, Gray Matter, some how.  These are my goals for Walter so when he dies he goes out with a vengeance.

Aside from fan art of Walter White, here is a piece I did for my uncle's avatar in his war games.  Yes, it is a pose from a Napoleon painting.

Here is an alternative version of my uncle as a centurion, I just put it up because it was fun to do and made me laugh.

Lastly, here is a snake drawing I did for my friend Max, I may start a website to do portraits of people's pets so I will have more information about that later.

Thanks for stopping by!  Remember tomorrow is the season finale of Breaking Bad, it has been one heck of a ride, but all good (or bad) things must come to an end.

Animation at Gobelins

This summer I had the privilege of taking an animation class at Gobelins.  There I learned

various techniques from wonderful teachers, guest animators and fellow peers.

It was an experience that will always be remembered.

Here is the animation I did there.  I am going to ink it and color the work one day so it is very rough at the moment.

Gobelin Animation

Here is a description of the assignment...

This summer, I went to Gobelins and created a project involving a character interacting with a cube. I chose Danny the cat from the film, "Cats Don't Dance."

The project emphasizes on depicting specific poses to describe the job of the character such as an aristocrat or spy. I chose a scientist for the role of my character and so all of the movements are methodical and contemplative.

This is a rough animation and I will clean it up with the inking and hopefully color it one day. Any feedback is appreciated because I plan on exaggerating some of the movements prior to the inking so that the timing and poses are more fluid and direct.

Thank you for your time and enjoy!!!!

I really do appreciate any feedback.  I have met tons of supportive animators
 and even if you do not animate, your opinion matters a lot to me.  

Thanks for stopping bye! 

Society of Illustrators and Living Gallery

Hello, I have more figure drawings to share....

First is from Society of Illustrators, it's a great place to draw in the city on the upper east side

1st Day 

30 sec and 1 minute poses

1 min to 5 min poses

10 min

20 min ( I missed the second 20 minute this day because a contact fell out)

2nd Day

30 sec to 1 min

I think the top head on this figure looks like an anime character and the face below looks Madam Medusa from "The Rescuers"

5 minutes

5 minutes

10 minutes

10 minutes

20 minutes

I also am going to the Living Gallery in Brooklyn that my friend Jenny Penny hosts.  The model was funny and wore lots of bizarre outfits, here are some drawings...

8 minutes

10 minutes for each full figure and about 3 minute for head

That is it for now.  I will upload my animation soon and some other art.

Musee d'Orsay Drawings and Digital Drawings

Hey Everyone, this summer I went to France to visit my sister and also to take a summer course at Gobelins for Animation.  I really enjoyed it a lot and learned many principles in animation.  I will post the animation that I did there on this blog soon.  

During my program at Gobelins, I went to Musee d'Orsay and copied so masters art to help my figure drawing.  Here are the drawings I did when I was there...

These quick poses were done from Degas sculptures in d'Orsay.  They are very gestural and fun to look at.

These next drawings are digital, I did it on this website called http://artists.pixelovely.com

I wanted to draw figures in photoshop and in September I plan to do them from a live source next time I figure draw at society of illustrators.

These two are 30 sec and two 1 minute poses

This is a 5 min pose

5 min pose

30 min pose

30 min pose

5 min pose

5 min pose

The next three are more 30 sec/1min poses

Next two are 5 min pose

30 min

I am also going to draw more animals, this all helps when I animate.

I have some more figure drawings from Society of Illustrators I am going to upload soon.

Any advice on these drawings would be very appreciative.  I am new to drawing figures in digital so any friends or fellow artists feel free to suggest some photoshop brushes or advice on how to improve these drawings.

Thanks for stopping bye!