Preston Blair exercises! Again!

Here's the real thing:

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Here are some heads inspired by Preston Blair's Cartoon Animation.

Sketchbook02, Heads, and Toucans

Here's a whole slew of updates for my audience of zero. The toucans are for a freelance animation gig I'm doing for a Children's hospital, specifically a saftey video aimed at kids. I tried to make sure the toucan wasn't too Toucan Sam, and yet sometimes I feel like he's getting a bit too Opus. I only need to animate him from a couple of angles so I didn't feel the need to vary his pose or the angle of his head too much.

And here's a more fleshed out, finished model-sheet version:

Here's a sketchbook page of mine I scanned with more toucans and some extra stuff related to the job:

One of the biggest hurdles I've had to overcome as an artist since I decided to try and do it professionally (and go to school to study it, etc) is breaking down my old bad habits and building process around more time-tested "classical" habits, while still retaining the flavor of my old style. Back before I started drawing seriously (as opposed to doodling pictures of my Biology teacher in drag back in highschool) I knew how to draw what I drew and never really pushed myself beyond that. I also followed more of the stream of consciousness approach as opposed to a more structured, planned approach to drawing a cartoon. I'd start at the eyes, then draw the nose, and then ears and hair, etc. Once I had it finally nailed into my head that the proportions, pose, and appeal of the drawing is the most important aspect, as opposed to the details, I started sucking horribly at drawing because I had to abandon all I thought I knew about it. So I'm still trying to recover. I'm better than I used to be, but I've still got quite a ways to go.

 It reminds me of the time I took golfing lessons. I was a below-average golfer before I took lessons, and afterwards I was beyond below average, I shouldn't have even been allowed on a golf course I was so bad. (Was? Am) Its because I was thinking too hard about the "proper" techniques I had just learned and that ruined my game. That's where I am with my drawing; the techniques I am learning are finally becoming so second nature that I no longer think about it.

Here's some more crap – trying to work on my Dubya caricature.

Done!

Squirrel comics

I went through a phase where I was drawing a lot of comic strips and am thinking of getting back into it. I dug a lot of my old ones out and a few of them made me smile, so I figgered I'd toss them up here just because I'm a lazyass. Its too damn hard to draw all the goddamned time like I'm expected to!

Anyways, the Gay Squirrel series of comics I did were my favorites, and this isn't the best in the series, but it ain't bad.

 

Sketchbook 01

Here's a sample of my sketchbook. It is not one page, it is merely a cut and paste hack job of stuff I like. One at a time, my sketchbook pages are really ugly and messy. I haven't quite worked up the point where I can consistently churn out good stuff.

 And here is a quick peek at some cartoons inspired by the little ones:

I'm gonna try REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAL hard to keep updating this thing.