20 Minutes, June 12

Tuesday, June 12, 2012 - Defensive Line

20 Minutes a Day

I had actually begun this two days ago, when a friend suggested that I draw an action shot, and then another yesterday. The one limitation was that - since it would contain two characters, I only spend 20 minutes on each drawing (10 minutes for each guy). I enjoyed it, and had decided to do a third, when I read something that made me think.

The Sept/Oct 2011 issue of HOW Magazine had an article discussing self-promotion via the Internet, and specifically linked Jessica Hische's "Daily Drop Cap" and Noah Scalin's "Skull-A-Day" projects [page 104-105]. I had considered doing a ___-a-day project before, but always felt that school would get in the way, or had cast my net so broadly that I ended up flailing (and failing). But this, this could work.

I want to be hired by an animation studio as a character designer, sketch artist, or storyboard artist, and therefore need to improve my drawing skills. I need to be able to create believable characters, who occupy a realistic (or at least consistent) space, and move within the bounds of physics. So, retroactively, I have decided to begin a 20-minutes-a-day drawing project, picking an action shot (most likely based on a sports photo) with two or more characters.

I will use a mechanical (.7) pencil, a kneaded eraser, and a stack of 9" square paper I have left over. I will spend no more than 20 minutes on each day's drawing. I will aim for anatomical accuracy, a sense of dynamism, and unique characters, as though these were single storyboard frames.

Here are the first three I have done, including today's:

Saturday, June 9, 2012 - Ram Tackle

Sunday, June 10, 2012 - Turkish Oil Wrestling

Monday, June 11, 2012 - Orca Discus

Daily Sketch 9-7-11

Today's sketchbook page has thumbnails and titles for possible postcard designs for my up-coming show (10.10.11). I'm starting to get nervous, but in an OMG-I-need-to-get-off-my-tail-and-paint-something kind of way.

Daily Sketch 9-5-11

A new job is a wonderful thing. It does, however, take some getting used to. Especially as far as scheduling is concerned.

Still, some time can be found...

Daily Sketch 8-26-11

At the behest of one of my good friends, a mini expression sheet of...well, it ought to be an Atlas Deer/Barbary Stag. 

Better than the usual melancholic and/or introspective look my character designs usually have. He's right, though, "Aggressive" looks more like plaintive, or possibly agonized...

Daily Sketch 8-18-11

I was able to spend a few hours today in the Natural History Museum on campus, and spent a good deal of time (after photographing everything, of course) drawing these. It was a lot of fun, and I think I've improved immensely. These were done right-to-left, by the way.

Daily Sketch 8-17-11

Done today at work:

 

A scarf- and sweater-wearing badger and a saintly camel pouring fluid scorn (metaphorically) upon the words "Pouring Scorn." I like the way the latter is going, and may end up doing a large painting of it (for my show perhaps). It would be good lettering practice.

The phrase, by the way, stems from my listening to the Redwall book-on-cd (it's been probably a decade since I'd first read the book, maybe longer). It's interesting how our tastes can change as we develop a sense of discernment. I had never noticed how many adverbs the book has in rapid succession, nor how much Mr. Jacques seemed to still be feeling out the world he was creating (a world that is far more solid and confident in itself in such later works as The Long Patrol and Mariel of Redwall). Fascinating from a literary standpoint, and of course the entire series is a wealth of possibilities for illustration. But that is for a later day...

Daily Sketch 8-16-11

Roman baths (as mentioned here), a little waterfall/spring thing, and an even littler sketch of an Anubis. yay Anubis.

Daily Sketch 8-12-11

It always surprises me what 15 minutes and some good focused effort will do.

Drawn from an illustration by H.J.Ford (though the original was a young man, a'la Howl from Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle, and not a dragon).

I wish I could figure out why my scanner is so blurry all of a sudden...I may need to re-install the driver. Such a pity when technology falls down on the job.

Daily Sketch 8-9-11

Just some random sketches.

Daily Sketch 8-6-11

I love drawing with non-photo blue pencils...but gosh are they ever hard to photograph!

I can't wait to begin inking and painting this...perhaps tonight, perhaps tomorrow. We'll have to see...

The statue of Homer-bunny is based on the one in the Sorbonne, and yes, that's a shark.

Daily Sketch 8-5-11

First part of a weekend-long page. Slow going tonight, but a good start. Hopefully the next few days result in a faster workpace.

I need to work faster.

And yes, that is a rocket-powered penny farthing.

Daily Sketch 8-4-11

I'm tired, so here's a laughing goose and a pair of blue jays. Sorry for the low quality: cell phone pic.

Daily Sketch 8-3-11

-Yawn- so tired, but here's today's sketch. It's done with Faber-Castell's PITT big brushes - 4 colors only (red, yellow, blue, green), over a non-photo blue sketch.

Poor bunnies, moving their sofa around...apparently bunnies like to redecorate their cages a lot. A continuation of Portly Lagomorph week.

Hmm, it looks better in person...guess that'll teach me not to use very wet markers on very glossy paper. I'll stick to watercolor for the time being, I think. Ah well, live and learn; that's the whole point of this daily sketch thing.

Daily Sketch 8-2-11

In celebration of Fat Bunny Week (aka Shark Week), here's a fat bunny.

He's checking his pocketwatch, waiting for the precise moment when he'll hop in his blue steampunk carriage and beat that tortoise in the race...or something. I like where this is going, and may spend the next few daily sketches investigating it...we shall see.

I wish there were a better way to scan gold paint. Ah well.

Daily Sketch 8-1-11

For today's daily sketch, a little family vignette. A Roman citizen (probably a wealthy merchant, judging from the size of his box, though not a senator - no purple on the hem of his robe) has taken his son to see the games. The citizen is bored, but his son seems to be enjoying himself. They're foxes.

A quick sketch, with no research nor preliminaries. But pretty good nonetheless. Took about 30 minutes.

Daily Sketch 7-31-11

My first of—hopefully—several-to-many daily sketch pages. Done as a mutual challenge with my good friend Tony, who's posting his daily sketches over at his blog, Motu Proprio.

...starting rather modestly, with the cleanup of a page of notes from 10 days ago, at the Nevada Art Museum (top-left, top-right, middle-right) and sketches of the racehorses on screen at one of the Reno casinos (bottom-right), and finally some horse-head sketches from tonight (bottom-left).

Got a new tube of watercolor: W&N Terre Verte (on the blackberry leaves, among others) and I really like it. It's smoother than the Grumbachers that I ususally use (because they're cheap), but it seems to wash away easier.

For some reason, my scanner made it blurry. I'll have to look into that...

Reasonings

I've been pretty down on myself lately, feeling like I haven't been producing as much (in truth, I haven't) as I once did—measured, in this case, by the number of pages I filled on a weekly basis in my little Moleskine pocket sketchbook (some of which can be seen here).

And then I realized today what the major difference between "then" and "now" was: I am no longer in school, and therefore no longer sitting through mandatory lectures at sturdy desks with nothing to do to keep my pen active other than sketching (and taking the occasional note). Now, on the other hand, I'm always busy - at work, driving to and from work, walking from my car to work (and vice versa) - and don't have the luxury of being seated for most of the day (apart from work).


I am, it seems, far too hard on myself.