#024 Daily Sketches 26-08-2010

Since I’ve omitted a few updates lately, I thought cool to upload some sketches I’ve done a few weeks ago along with the sketch that came from tonight’s Nocturnal Drawing Session with Dave.

I’ve been thinking about my version of a gecko such as my Standing’s day gecko Curtis in the God Metropolis universe for a while now, I’ve sketches some stuff lately (I won’t be sharing that tonight, sorry) and tonight, before our drawing session, I went to pet Curtis and he bit me pretty hard; the thinking and the violence of the bite got me in the mood for drawing the gecko.

Here are a few week-or-so-old sketches.

#023 Daily Sketches 01-08-2010

There isn’t much to say about this particular drawing session; it was creative that’s for sure, but it wasn’t exactly oriented towards anything in particular either. There’s nothing wrong with random drawing, although I was hoping for better results when I started.

I just went from basic shapes such as circles, squares and triangles, searching for faces through the shapes. I ended up with some fat guy, a slim happy man, a bald weirdo, some creepy old lady, a witch and two orc faces. Oh well, at least I drew.

#022 Daily Sketches 28-07-2010

I was absent for a few days, visiting my mother in Granby, but I’m back now with some sketches I’ve done a few days ago. I sadly broke my two day update streak (fail), but time, resources and similar factors rendered it impossible for me to update during my time away from home. On the upside, I’m back and by tomorrow, I’m hoping I can get back in the train of updating daily.

I didn’t draw with David that night since he was away; that didn’t stop me from taking a little half hour to draw a bit. I had been doing quite a bit of research on felines, considering I don’t know how to draw them; in order to change that, I decided to sit down with some reference pictures and sketch away. You should expect frequent drawings of felines from now on; I am truly trying to get the hang of drawing large cats.

In other news, not even art related, I have acquired a large 55 gallon tank which my mother’s boyfriend found in the trash near his house; the thing’s 4 feet long and I’m wondering what I should put in it. I also bought a fire eel today, to accompany my Oscar fish; it’s pretty cool.

This concludes that, I should probably end on an artistic note, and since I’ve been giving out tips of the day these past updates, I’ll go with this one: when you don’t know how to draw something, get the feel for it by drawing from reference. Have a glorious night people.

#021 Daily Sketches 27-07-2010

As I sat down at the dinner table to draw with David last night, I had a pretty good general idea of where I was headed; I had posted yesterday’s blog entry a few hours prior and was going to expand my whole body shape concept and style; as I said in my previous post, I want to push the sizes much further then what I already had, because when I look at a slim or fat guy in a Pixar movie, they don’t look as standard as what I had drawn and I’m aiming for something out of the ordinary. First things first, I dedicated myself to the slim shape yesterday and explored various ways to add style and body to this faceless character’s shape and posture. I found my first body to be a little stiff, but it was a start; the second one I liked because I love drawing low shoulders and long trapezius; in the third body, I tried to go for an in-between of the first two. The fourth figure I exaggerated even more, pushing the shoulders way down and drawing even thinner limbs. In the fifth, I didn’t quite know where to go anymore and just went with a more natural feel to the posture. By the time I got to the sixth figure, an idea sprouted: would a slim hero have the same posture and look as the other ones? I lifted that chest and gave more confidence to the shape; there’s our young paladin. Still in the same line of thought, I drew the final figure thinking of what a shady thief or rogue could look like, where he some skinny guy.

Tonight or some other day, I’m pretty sure I’ll continue expanding on these shapes; our slim figure might even get some more, who knows? My trick for today, in complement to the sketch I’ve posted, is to think outside the box when you think you’ve hit a wall. By the fifth figure, I was running out of ideas, but then I thought: “hey, these shapes are for characters, what would these characters be like?” and I got two more figures out of this; had I had more time to draw, who knows how many more I could have drawn? What would a slim archer look like? Or a slim warlock? Think outside the box.

#020 Daily Sketches 26-07-2010

David and I sat down last night at a late hour in the night to join pencils and create sketches whilst in the presence of another creative mind; our efforts were not useless. I will not recount his creative experience, for I have oriented this blog on my personal artwork, but I assure you he was just as productive if not more then I was.

 

I had been brewing the idea of a character body shape sheet for my God Metropolis project for quite some time now and had already tried my hand at it without prevailing; last night though, I got around to a satisfying result. I was able to get five major body shapes for the male human being, these are: slim, average, muscular, chubby and fat. I think it could be cool that a player could choose what corpulence his character has from the start; look at Guild Wars and World of Warcraft and all those popular MMORPGs’ character creation pages, I’ve rarely seen much diversity in body shape; I suppose that’s because designing custom equipment for X number of races and the additional male/female body shapes is quite a bit of work; various body shapes for all these would be terrible, but then again, I’m in no rush. These shapes are only the beginning; I plan on expanding the concept, since I can feel that my style can be found in these shapes, but I also think that I can deepen the styling to make a more caricatured and exaggerated palette, after all, this is my world I’m creating and I don’t see why I should limit myself at all. This is my tip of the day for you aspiring artists: explore everything; seriously, unless you’re in some kind of hurry, why would you place barriers for yourself? If you’ve got an idea, expand it, give it depth, and explore every door the first idea opens.

Inspiration was needed for the second sketch I tackled; I was browsing through my Magic: The Gathering game cards for general ideas of creatures or characters I hadn’t thought of; their universe is so vast and large, I was pretty sure I could find some stereotypes. I was not disappointed; after looking at a few cards, I stumbled upon a Bog Wraith card and decided to explore what the ghostly figure of a wraith would be in the God Metropolis universe. I went for a common wraith at first, this would be the type you could expect to meet in a haunted graveyard or mansion; the common wraith inspired me a grim reaper-like hooded figure with a large mantle and large skeletal arms with long skeletal fingers; the wraith would hover above the ground and so its garment would be whole and not torn. Then I rolled with the card and designed my very own bog wraith, the kind that would haunt dark swamps and marshlands; I thought its garment could be torn from all the brambles and thorns and low branches you’d expect to find in a bog, the bottom of the draping would be dangling with algae and foul colored water would drip from it, ball and chains would dangle from the figure, because these wraiths would represent haunting ghosts of people having drowned in the swamp, fungus could grow on some parts of the vestment. I started on an ice wraith but it was still too sketchy to be anything tangible.

I would say that concludes today’s blog message. Until next time (hopefully tomorrow, if I stick with the planned schedule), have a glorious night and be creative. Explore everything.

#019 Daily Sketches 20-05-2010

You worried the blog had been deserted, but it has not; in fact, I am back and have some art to share. I have sketched between today and my last post, although I am not going to share it all here, because I lack the patience to scan every single sketch and because none were truly satisfying; what I will be posting though, are four pieces of artwork I worked on today as well as a drawing I did during my trip to Cancun, Mexico. In other news, I have had the chance to purchase a Wacom Cintiq digital tablet and it does wonders; you can expect to see allot of new digital artwork in the months to come.

One thing I admire and love to draw is the feminine body; as much as I love drawing toothy scary monsters and funky characters, drawing women is a totally different world for me and I appreciate it a whole lot. I checked my female reference folder and picked three pictures which looked inspiring and drew all three ladies. The first one is sort of vague, but I am very satisfied with the second drawing; also, tits. Thid is okay.

The following drawing had been started in a previous drawing session with David but I finished the touch-ups and inking tonight; the illustration depicts a common thief, as suggested by Dave; there isn’t much more to say about it.

The final piece I present tonight is a drawing I did of my wife Mélissande as she posed for me during our trip to Mexico; we had a great time and drawing her that day got my art machine started up again.

Have a good night and thanks for viewing; keep in mind that I do appreciate comments when you have an opinion about what I say or draw.

#018 Daily Sketches 10-03-2010

 I did a few more heads on my Cyclops head study sheet; I inked the ¾ view head and drew what would appear to be a youthful Cyclops, donning the Mohawk haircut. I also started my new sketchbook, but the sketches did still not resemble anything yet so I decided to keep them to myself. 

#017 Back on Track

Major lack of updates, it happens.

Here are some Nocturnal Drawing Session with Dave sketches.

I will be trying to get back on track from now on.

#016 Daily Sketches 19-02-2010

I did sketch with David, but nothing came out of it, I ended up erasing everything I did, because it was constantly off and as a result, I have no Nocturnal Drawing Session with Dave sketch to show, although I did do a daily drawing fairly late at night.

I had time for some daily drawing, although I didn’t have the patience to see it to an end; I begun a clean version of the creature I call the ruinback tortoise. The great land turtle has a shell composed of ruins instead of the average bone shell, as it grows the ruins grow larger until the weight is too much to bear and crushes the tortoise; as it dies, the ruins continue to spread and from its rubble, new hatchlings will grow.

#015 Daily Sketch 18-02-2010

I was able to produce two sketches instead of one last night.

As I was browsing my sketch book I found my drawing of a young adventurer (left) and decided to draw a new adventurer next to it (right). Afterwards I realise I prefer the original.

I also drew my lizard Bertrand’s head from memory, it’s a Sudan plated lizard; in the mood for lizards, I also invented a reptile loosely inspired by the mangrove monitor and the large iguana we have at work.

#014 Daily Sketch 17-02-2010

I’m nearing the end of my sketchbook and I’m proud to say that I’ve filled it up quickly and with a wide variety of artwork since I’ve started my daily sketches.

Lacking inspiration last night I decided to push my study of the Hypolite a little further; exposing its side, the working of the mouth, an alternative body shape and a close-up on an open hand and foot.

#013 Daily Sketch 16-02-2010 and Ferret

 I’m back from the weekend, sadly, I was busy up until 2:00 AM on Sunday night so I couldn’t fit my Nocturnal Drawing Session with Dave on that night, although yesterday night’s schedule was open and we were able to draw.

With work I’m finding it quite impossible to squeeze in a daily sketch anymore so I’ll be dropping that for the time being, although the Nocturnal Drawing Sessions will stay because I find it important to draw at least once in the day. Last night’s drawing was a much needed a new twist to the Hypolites, who hadn’t been drawn in a few years. Not much has changed, I mostly wanted to modernize the look and adapt it to my present style.

I said I’d share some personal news when they were notable; today’s the day. On Sunday the family grew large with the addition of Choupette, our new pet ferret, given by the same lady that had given us our lizard. She’s adorable. I’ve included a few pictures (the camera's bad, her true color is white/yellow, kind of like a polarbear).

 

 

#012 Story-Boarding and Sketches

I’ve been trying to get some balance between all my activities lately; my daily tasks, my job and my art are three hard things to juggle with these days. Yesterday I finally got to sit down and work on some serious work; I will be applying for a job as a story-board artist in the end of February and was asked to produce some story-boards in order to show that I am up for the task.

So the first story-board I’ve created is but a segment of what could be a longer story; no further details about it will be given as I do not wish to reveal any information about this particular story at this moment. The artwork was completed over a few hours of on and off work using Adobe Photoshop.

I considered the story-board to be my daily drawing but I still wanted to go on with the Nocturnal Drawing Session with Dave. I ended up drawing my character Ben-Oni from What’s that Feeling They Call Love?

That’s all for now, I don’t know if I’ll be posting anything during the weekend; if not, I will be back on Monday with my daily updates.

#011 Lag

I’ve been missing out on you haven’t I? Sadly I have skipped too many days in both my Daily Drawing and my Nocturnal Drawing Sessions with Dave; I have many excuses, I’ve been distracted by friends, work, etc. but it’s not worth sharing and it’s truly mediocre of myself to have let down my commitment and to let myself get distracted so quickly. I promise to double the effort and draw everyday as told in the first place.

Although I haven’t respected my everyday commitment, I have drawn on the occasion, so I’ll be sharing my sketches with you in this blog entry.

First up I have a guitarist rocking out for February 2^nd, not much of a back-story to describe, I drew him perhaps once or twice during my high school and stumbled upon one of those drawings while searching for that night’s inspiration.

On February 3^rd, I had finished reading the new Amazing Spider-Man comics featuring the return of Mysterio and his fishbowl head reminded me of an old creature I had drew in elementary school. The creature is a giant humanoid that lives in rocky gulches and ravines, its head is a large glass-like dome which kills the beast when shattered. This redesign of the thing got me thinking that it could be integrated to the God Metropolis universe as a monster.

I’ve skipped a few days going from February 3^rd to the 9^th where I drew some Khamaeli lizardmen heads, still trying to figure out how I want them to look.

On the 10^th I found my old drawing of the Khamaeli and was able to mix both the look I had been working on and the old look in order to attain the optimal looks I could imagine. It worked and I am very satisfied with the result.

Finally, I can catch up to where I am now with my drawing from yesterday, we started late so I didn’t get some serious drawing down, I sketched two bodies (the fattest was inspired by some of Skottie Young’s characters from the Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Marvel; I also drew some dwarf visages. Sadly, I did not complete a daily drawing though.

Hopefully by tomorrow I’ll have the blogging routine back up and running.

#010 Daily Sketches 01-02-2010

Last night’s drawing session had to be cut short because both David and I remembered our nocturnal drawing session half an hour late; I can’t say it affected my drawing that much though since I was able to produce something within the 30 minute drawing time. As for the daily drawing, another face has been added to the lot.

Still in the mood for some Khamaeli lizardmen drawing, I decided to picture one on top of one of those pillars I drew the other night while working on their architectural style. I’m proud of the general feeling it has, but the technical aspect of the drawing sort of disgusts me in a humble way; I thought it looked okay at first, but now I realise how the poor thing is so anatomically disproportioned and the drawing is fairly weak compared to my usual standards. I’ll try and make it up to you, readers, do not give up hope on me yet.

Today’s daily drawing was a portrait of Suicide Girl Antigone.

#009 Daily Sketches 31-01-2010

It seems that our will to draw is stronger than our will to do anything else because Dave and I pursued our nocturnal drawing session right through the weekend; this will not be the case every weekend since it’s common that I’m out of the house on weekends but it’s cool that it’s been like this for this time.  

I fiddled around with some sketches which I ended up erasing from last night, after about twenty minutes of abiding to nothing I resolved to ask David for some suggestions, he suggested a Viking and that got me going. My friend Philipp came to visit this week and he’s a big Viking fan and I told him about this Viking story I read somewhere over the net of this awesome Viking warrior who stood alone on a bridge against hundreds of Roman soldiers, killing all that wished to cross while his entire battalion was dead. The bad*ss trooper fell to a brilliant Roman who decided to poke him with a spear from beneath the bridge by riding the waters in a barrel. Sad way to go for such a manly fighter; anyhow, my sketch was my tribute to this Viking. I didn’t have time to finish it during our hour session; it’s missing the blood on the axe and the corpses of the fallen enemies.

As for the daily sketches, I’m still keeping up with it; I even went as far as drawing two faces today, but that’s mostly because the first one I drew didn’t show any eyes (and I love drawing eyes).

As always, I hope you enjoyed and I’ll be back tomorrow with some new daily sketches.

#008 Daily Sketches #007: 30-01-2010

I’m definitely back in the run these days with two consecutive productive days. Yesterday produced a Rawdakian house but last night got me some totally new architecture done.

The God Metropolis universe is large; it also houses many humanoid species who all have their own culture, art, architecture, fashion and style. I have been exploring some races, but some I have never approached yet; one of those are the Khamaeli lizardmen. I had a vague idea of where I wanted to go with them, but never got to drawing anything yet. I was looking for an Arabian-style architecture while not having a perfect replica of it like World of Warcraft does for its races (Tauren=American Indian, Troll=Mayan/Aztec, etc...). I think I’ve pulled it off quite nicely. After sketching the first building I wanted to get an idea of what a street layout would look like and since my front view drawing didn’t give place to much depth, I went for a top view.

I also got back to my daily sketches of people; yesterday’s female visage was borrowed from my friend Mary. Here’s hoping this time I’ll stick with the “daily” part of “daily sketches”.


God Metropolis © Vincent Laurie 2010

#007 Daily Sketches #006: 29-01-2010

It’s good to be back! Last night I was finally able to lay down some solid work and draw a complete building; I even got to ink and shade it. I drew a house from the Rawdakian district in God Metropolis; Rawdakians are the disciples of Rawdak, the God of war, which explains the number of arrows shot into the house. This morning I did a quick color sketch on the work I had done last night, I have included both below.

#006 Daily Sketches #005: 28-01-2010

Not all days are good for drawing; once again, I found myself hitting an art block; I could see what I wanted to draw in my head but couldn’t translate it on paper, so I ended up drawing a whole bunch of things which I erased because it wasn’t the result I was hoping for. Since I said I would be posting my sketches, here’s one, although it’s not finished, it’s the only one I’ve got left from last night. It’s some sort of tower.

#005 Daily Sketch #004: 27-01-2010

Well, here it is, the first daily sketch update that’s on time; please, do pat me on the back for it, ha ha. Last night’s nocturnal drawing session with Dave definitely went better than the last; although I didn’t get to finish my drawing, I did get some solid linework down.

The top drawing had already been done a few weeks back, last night’s work was the lower panel, which is some sort of tropical exotic landscape.

#004 Daily Sketches #003: 26-01-2010

Apologises for the lateness, I did in fact have a drawing session with David yesterday, but it completely slipped my mind to upload them on the correct day. That day’s sketching session was sort of weak on my end, and I tried to compensate for the quality with quantity; without much success; yet as promised, here is my work.

At first I wanted to draw a comic page, and since I was fresh out of inspiration, I flipped through my sketch pad for some ideas; I of course landed on my last drawing, that is, the sketch of the demon; I thought it might be cool to have a comic briefly showing their first appearance in the world. I like the way the creepy evil warlock looks, as well as the second panel’s action and environment, but I just couldn’t get it done quick enough; when I saw our drawing time was almost over, I abandoned the page and tried myself at something else.



Wanting to change air a bit, I decided to go for the opposite of evil and draw something good; the first thought that came in mind was a white knight. I like the shape of the character, but I can feel it by looking at him that he was done in a hurry while trying to compensate for the previous page.



After the knight, I had about five minutes left and tried myself at some troll designs, which all failed miserably.



Not every work is a masterpiece, yet practice is practice and nothing is lost (except for a few sheets of paper and some time) and I’ve learnt a lesson of time management.