Practice What You Stink At!

After using the Cintiq for a few days now I finally have started to draw quite a bit more freely. Doing my roughs and cleaning them up on a new layer has helped to make my traditional drawing flow smoother and faster. Even my repencils are going quicker finally!

(click to enlarge)

Gilligan suffering from a bit of gas.


Claude and his turtle are at it again!


Pirate a Day


Turns out the second outfit Theodore suggested for our little hero wasn't quite his style either.


Life's been a bit busy the last few days, so I haven't had much time to spend with my usual books, Drawn to Life Vol 1. and the Illusion of Life, but I have caught a few great little tidbits here and there. Kevin Cross and Mark Rudolph have been rather entertaining on Art and Story Extreme this week. I rediscovered the Toon In to Animaion Podcast and every episode seems to be full of rich history, interesting people, and fascinating interviews. I can't wait to get through the backlog. On a side note I really should look into UPA pictures more. They sound fascinating. Anyone have any good recommendations? Finally John K has had a couple of great posts this week on drawing exercises the best little tidbit out of them was "PRACTICE THE THINGS YOU STINK AT." Thanks for the inspiration!

The 3 C's Cintiq, Conan, and Cary Nord

If the Cintiq were a woman I'd marry it, and for the record not in a creepy way I just like drawing with it. It's so much fun. Wacom's Cintiq feels so much more natural than the old Bamboo I used to use. I still am trying to balance out my use of the Cintiq with traditional pencil and paper, but we'll see when I run out of sketchpads if I go out and buy more ... I probably will.

Gilligan Playing in the grass... I think...


Claude and his turtle still enjoying their time at the park.


Pirate a Day


Theodore thought the first outfit our little hero tried on didn't quite suit him.


I love Cary Nord's take on Conan. Frazetta is the Conan litmus test for sure, but Cary Nord just has a way with his line work that is truly appealing. That being said he hasn't done a Conan comic for quite some time, but it looks like he's going to be doing some covers at least again soon. I picked up Conan Vol 8 a couple of days ago, and if you are a fan of Conan, graphic novels or just illustration in general, do yourself a favor and pick up Vol 1 I'm sure you'll fall in love with the Cimmerian by the end of the first page. Thanks for the Inspiration!

Update running late...

Tonight's update is running a little slow... will be up soon.

*edit* Here it is!


Gilligan sneaking around.


Gilligan trying to dance!

Claude and his turtle's day at the park.



Pirate a Day


Pirate a Day episode II


Our little hero got up and ready for the day, but before he went out he stopped and took a look at his clothes. What a mess.


So before he went anywhere he first stopped at Theodore the Tailor's Shoppe.


I came across Ben Butcher's new Toy Story 3 Golden Book while I was out and about. What a treat. He really captured the old Golden Book era vibe. Check out his blog, Blips and Ifs!
Thanks for the Inspiration!

Happy Father's Day!

A little drawing I did for my Dad who loves Rocky and Bullwinkle among other great older cartoons. The Indian theme comes from all the fun times we spent together at the now renamed adventure guides (his "Indian name" was Longknife). Thanks for teaching me so much especially your great sense of humor. Happy Father's Day!

Drawing what you think you see isn't always the best.

I'm about half way through drawing everything in Preston Blair's Cartoon Animation book, and boy have I learned a lot. Looking back on some of the drawings I've done even a month ago I can tell I really have grown quite a bit. I thought I would have been done with the book by now, but some of these animation cycles are taking a little longer than I had originally planned and I still want them to look nice too.

Gilligan just hanging around.


Claude goes fishing for turtles.


Pirate a Day


After a good 49 hour nap our little hero awoke rested, ready to face the day and what ever adventures it might bring.


Walt Stanchfield has been teaching me a lot about angles lately through his book Drawn to Life Vol 1. He talks about angles in a similar way that Preston Blair presents line of action. Just drawing what you think you see isn't always the best. As humans our rig, or rather our body, knows how to handle itself, but as artists sometimes we need to see what the meaning behind a position, movement or action actually is. So sometimes it is necessary to over exaggerate angles or the line of action to better tell a story with an image. John K also did a nice write up on a similar idea, but focused on setting up a shot rather than a pose. Definitely worth the read.

Borders finally got Imaginefx's How to Draw and Paint Anatomy in stock, and I quickly snagged up a copy, well, after an hour or so of sketching people in the coffee shop. I've only had a chance to flip through it, but it looks like they've done a great job again. Thanks for the inspiration!

The Cintiq has landed!

I finally got my Cintiq in the mail the day before yesterday.

It truly is a thing of beauty. From the packaging, to the sleek design, to functionality you can really see how much care went into this product. It wasn't too hard to set up, the only complaint I have with it is so far is that I find it easier to just duplicate my monitor, but that means I have to lower the resolution on both screens to 1280x800, also I think I have to find a way to balance the color between my monitor and the Cintiq so they match exactly. Overall I'm am completely in love with it.


(*the wallpaper is based on a Dumbo, pink elephants, concept piece that Michael Sporn posted a week or so ago*)

I'm still figuring everything out with it, but here are a couple little images I've done so far.

Gilligan splashing around.


Sleepy Gilligan


Claude and his super fantastic flying turtle!


Claude may have inadvertently enlarged his turtle, or shrank himself... he's still not sure.


Pirate a Day

Pirate a Day II


On that day all the townsfolk celebrated! They had a huge bacon feast and held the first ever annual Our Little Hero Memorial Bacon Day Parade!


After all the festivities were over our little hero finally got some much needed sleep.


A couple of notable things have gone or will be going on this week in the internet art community. First off the Art and Story crew finished up their big Kids Read Comics event and it seems like it was very successful. If you haven't been keeping up with it they recorded a bunch of podcasts during the weekend and even a couple funny audioboos. Overall a great listen and some of the kid stories they share are priceless.

The other big event is the Pres-Aid auction being held this Sunday June 20th. The auction is a benefit for animator Pres Romanillos who suffered from a relapse of leukemia. It's amazing to see how the community has really reached out and jumped in to help him, not to mention the great resources and art pieces that are being donated. I really wish I could go. If you're in the LA area you really should check it out. I hope the event goes great, and that Pres get all the help he needs and the bone marrow transplant is successful. Thanks for the inspiration everyone!

Like what you like!

Between watching old Disney videos on youtube, the CalArts history video, and listening to Brad Bird (who trained under Milt Kahl) on the Spline Doctors Podcast, I've really found a lot of similarities in their approaches and advice. Disney himself had a passion for animation, but it was fueled and influenced by all of his other interests. CalArts approached and still approaches art by trying to give the student a broad view of what is out there by mixing music, with dance, theater, visual arts etc. Also while listening to Brad Bird speak he talked about what he thought animators should do and what he observed the 9 Old Men doing and that was to get inspiration from everything, and feed your outside interests. Don't just stare at your paper and pencil, but watch how your loved ones interact with others, pause to see how the trees blow in the wind or how your little puppies play together outside, play a musical instrument or in Walt Disney and Ward Kimball's case fall in love with trains. All of these unique views, special interests, and outside knowledge will only help inspire and influence your art. Thanks for the inspiration!

Camel Gilligan

Gilligan performing with his sock puppets.

Claude and his turtle going for a ride.


Claude and his turtle having a dance party.


Pirate a Day


Pirate a Day section B


As soon as our little hero got back to town, a crowd began to form around him. Everyone was wondering what had happened to the monster, how did he get back, and most importantly what was in his gigantic gunny sac.


Once our little hero had settled the crowd down just enough, he threw open the bag and out poured the most delicious scent any of the towns people had ever smelled. Right when they started to wonder what that mouth watering aroma was, the skies seemed to rain bacon.

Speaking of Animation (the podcast) put out another fantastic episode this week. They got the extremely talented Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois talking about my favorite film I've seen so far this year, How to Train Your Dragon! I've loved Chris Sanders drawing style for quite a while and it was fascinating to hear about his and Dean's process. From learning about the evolution of their Nightfury design to old stories about Mulan this is a podcast that can't be missed!