12/20/15 - Carol of the Bells (Part 2)

Fine-tuning a second rough sketch, along with a color comp.  And more progress on the music track itself.

12/18/15 - Carol of the Bells (Part 1)

Well, I decided painting fruit was a little too intensive for my daily practice with this blog.  I was getting too detailed with it, and with each post averaging about an hour, it was a bit too much.  I might resume it in the future if I just do really rough versions, but for now I'm gonna try other things.

I have a few new ideas coming up, but for now I'm going to begin a small project much like the one I completed near the end of Halloween: painting a background image for a new music track I'm going to try to create, "Carol of the Bells".  I've been meaning to create my own orchestration/rendition for a few years now and I've just never gotten around to it.  But now that I'm doing this blog, trying to stay active and creative… what better time!  I've always loved the tune of the song, probably my favorite of all the wintery/Christmasy songs for its adventurous and faintly mysterious atmosphere, and it's the perfect track to practice both my musical AND digital painting skills.

And so that's what I'm gonna do for these next few posts: show a bit of my progress on the music track, as well as the background that will be featured alongside it.  I won't explain my steps so much this time though, since I already did that for my "Halloween Gothic Castle" posts.

Anyway, without further ado… my first step:  A bunch of rough sketch ideas for the image, and a basic melody for the track.

(Click image for higher resolution)

11/22/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands

(Click image for higher resolution)

And now I'm finally back to sketching freehand.  I'm sure there's a pun in there somewhere… ;)  Basically I just sketched these while glancing at my left hand every now and then, posing for visual reference.  I was not trying to emulate any particular style or pose from another character, but simply letting myself sketch freely.  I still have a lot of practice left to go before I really get a hang of things, but I think I've definitely improved after sketching all those preexisting characters.

11/20/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Phineas and Ferb)

(Click image for higher resolution)

Winding down with my hand sketches now.  This should be my last sketch using reference from existing material.  My final reference for today's post?  Various characters from another great animated series: "Phineas and Ferb".  Much like Hey Arnold, this style is way more what I had originally imagined when I first thought of doing these "cartoon" hands.  Again, I kept things fairly rough since I wanted to try to pump out more in the 10-15 min. timeframe.

11/17/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Hey Arnold)

(Click image for higher resolution)

Been missing a few posts lately, just been busy with a lot of stuff and didn't get around to them.  Or it might be that I'm starting to get a little tired of sketching hands, haha.  But I have a few more posts of them to go, so I'll finish them up and then who knows what I'll do!  lol

Today's post is all about the show "Hey Arnold!".  Not specifically Arnold himself, but just various hand designs in general.  THIS type of design is probably what I was really imagining when I first thought about sketching "cartoon" hands, as opposed to more realistic designs like Aladdin, Beast, Chernabog, etc.  Fairly simple and straightforward, pretty much always the "4 fingers" design, and no real texture details.  Perfect for making a long-running animated series for instance, or in my case short web-series (as I vaguely have an idea for one right now).  More info on that in like 2 years.  LOL

I didn't clean it up as much as I usually do today; I just wanted to focus more on quantity under time constraints for this one.

11/14/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Bugs Bunny)

(Click image for higher resolution)

Basically just a slightly thinner version of Mickey Mouse's hands.  I forget what the origins of these "white gloves" are.

11/12/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Nicodemus)

(Click image for higher resolution)

Now this guy seriously has some of the coolest animated hands ever.  I spent way longer on him than I should have, but I had fun.  My first non-Disney character: Nicodemus from "The Secret of NIMH".

11/10/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Milo)

(Click image for higher resolution)

Milo from "Atlantis".  A similar design to Kuzco's, again very stylized.  It'd be interesting to compare those two purely on their differences in body language.  I had a bit of trouble with this design as well though.  You'd think I'd have an easier time with these stylized designs, since they're relatively simple compared to the Beast or Chernabog or something.  Yet, for whatever reason they're still more difficult for me.  I've also never really been a fan of this sort of "box" design with square edges as the fingertips, but it's certainly a unique design nonetheless and has always stuck out to me ever since I was a little kid.

11/9/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Kuzco)

(Click image for higher resolution)

One of the thinner male characters, Kuzco from "The Emperor's New Groove".  They look okay, but I feel like I have trouble sketching the more stylized designs like these.  That bottom pose looks way too much like E.T. to me.  haha

11/8/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Tarzan)

(Click image for higher resolution)

This guy was pretty fun to draw, though I did take a bit longer with him.  Tarzan from… well, "Tarzan".

11/7/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Timon)

(Click image for higher resolution)

Timon from "The Lion King".  Had a bit of trouble with this one.  I don't think I could quite figure out the shape of his fingers/fingertips.  Looks alright now, but this one took me notably longer than my normal posts.

11/6/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Mushu)

(Click image for higher resolution)

This guy was really fun to draw.  Mushu from "Mulan".

11/5/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Baloo)

Still sketching cartoon hands… or should I say… paws.  Gonna do a few of the more humanoid animal characters now.  First up: Baloo from "The Jungle Book".  Probably the simplest of my hand sketches so far, and a very pleasant design in my opinion.

Interesting to note, he seems to continually switch between having 3 or 4 claws.  I imagine this is to make sketching and painting easier for wide shots vs. tight shots, though I'd just assume stick with 3 claws for everything so there's no discrepancy.

11/4/15 - Sketching Cartoon Hands (Cruella)

(Click image for higher resolution)

Getting back to sketching cartoon hands again, trying to finish up the rest that I planned to do.  Today's post: Cruella de Vil (I think that's how you spell it?).  Man, she must be the thinnest Disney character ever!  Although it could be Yzma...

P.S. I should totally devote a post to studying the way they did Cruella's smoke effects in the film.  There's at least one shot in particular that has this really unique style, more like flames or something.  It's pretty fascinating.

10/27/15 - Halloween Post 10 - Gothic Castle (Part 5)

(Click image for higher resolution)

This is where I break away from Tim Jacobus' instructions, since the rest of what he describes is mostly geared towards working with an actual canvas.  Since I'm creating a purely digital work, I'll be continuing on with my own methods for the rest.

For today's post I scaled my digital canvas to its final output size (1920x1080), where I re-sketched the entire scene and fine-tuned additional details.  This took WAY longer than I expected, mostly because I had a heck of a time trying to figure out the perspective (especially for those two front archway paths).  I can definitely see some future blog posts dealing with that, just managing perspective.

From here on out it's all gonna be about color.  4 days left.

10/26/15 - Halloween Post 9 - Gothic Castle (Part 4)

And some final design tests before the next step...

(Click image for higher resolution)

Step #6 - Tim Jacobus refers to this step as the "color comp", where you take your final thumbnail sketch and just play around with colors.  This helps iron out the mood and palette before proceeding with the final painting.  Especially helpful if you're working with real paint on an actual canvas.

10/25/15 - Halloween Post 8 - Gothic Castle (Part 3)

Step #5 - Pick your final favorite.

(Click image for higher resolution)

*Bonus - Some visual research, using "Dracula" (1931) as reference.

(Click image for higher resolution)

10/24/15 - Halloween Post 7 - Gothic Castle (Part 2)

Step #3 - Select your favorite 3 or 4…

(Click image for higher resolution)

Step #4 - Rough them out a bit.  Redraw them in slightly more detail, but still keep things fairly rough.

(Click image for higher resolution)

10/23/15 - Halloween Post 6 - Gothic Castle (Part 1)

(Click image for higher resolution)

"In these lonely halls, abandoned and decaying, an unseen organist plays a tune.  A chaotic, gothic medley that spreads along the walls… elegant, gloomy, and grand."

*Brace yourself for a long post today…  ;)

Back to Halloween now!  Missed yesterday's post, but I figure that's just gonna happen every now and then.  I'll keep trying to post daily though.  Anyway, I've decided that the remainder of my October posts are going to be a sequence of smaller parts culminating to a larger project at the end.  My project?  Well, every October I like to create and post a new track to my music channel on YouTube.  I'm still working on the music track itself (which will be done outside of this blog), but I'll need artwork for it by the time I post it, and that's where this blog comes in.

My main plan is to create a fairly fine-tuned digital painting (1920 x 1080) as the video's background, and I'm going to be following a certain set of instructions to create it.  The instructions (or process) comes from Tim Jacobus, who, if you don't know, is the creator of all those awesome covers on the "Goosebumps" books (the original set) (which I've always been mesmerized by, ever since I was a little kid)!  Obviously, my painting won't be anywhere near as cool as his, but following his process should give me some insight into new methods of creating a work like this.

I won't give away all his secrets (you should read his book or check out his website for that), but the way it usually starts (Step #1) is with a simple 1-2 sentence description of a story element, character, plot, etc. of the book (or in my case… music track).  You may have noticed my little description at the beginning of today's post.  That's the general description I'll follow for the remainder of these posts.

Step #2, which is FINALLY what today's post is all about… is creating dozens of "thumbnail" sketches, very rough, just scribbles basically, where you play around with things (patterns, shapes, character designs, camera angles, etc.) based on that description.  I forced myself to do 12 of these (exactly a dozen), which is what you see above.  And I'm thankful I did.  If I followed my normal process I would've skipped this stage altogether, just done it all in my head, and never really played around with things.  But doing 12 of these little sketches really forced me to be more creative with it and come up with things I wouldn't have otherwise.

Anyway, tomorrow comes Step #3 & #4, which is basically selecting my 3 favorites of these thumbnails and roughing them out a bit.

P.S. Here's a link to Tim Jacobus' book if anyone's interested, published way back in 1998.  It's mostly geared towards kids, so it's a fairly short and simple read, but it really is very inspiring.  He's a really cool guy, with a lot of helpful information to give:

http://www.amazon.com/Came-Jersey-Artist-Goosebumps-Cover/dp/0590108530

P.P.S. He also gives a simplified version of his process on his website for free.

Alright, this post is getting way too long now, I gotta stop talking.  ;)  That's all for now!  See ya!

10/20/15 - BTTF Clock Tower Sketch

(Click image for higher resolution)

Gonna switch gears today and tomorrow for a special couple of posts dedicated to one of my favorite movies and franchises of all time…  The special day occurs tomorrow at precisely 4:29 pm, and if BTTF in the title is enough of a hint, you'll know what that means… ;)  For now, enjoy this preliminary sketch.