Blog Crit 26/11

Today we had a group crit on each of our blogs, mine was towards the end so we didn't spend too long on mine, but I did get some criticisms to work on.

First off I need to show more drawings, especially in the way of comic books. I can do this by just sitting down in a cafe or something similar, maybe even work and get some quick sketches of people that are around.

Secondly was to try and draw some of the characters the way the artists I have put on for research. I want to focus on Brett Booth and Frank Miller mainly but I plan to do at least a one drawing for each artist.

Next up is showing how I'm working towards A Rake's Progress I do have a plan up but I need to show some working towards it. I have a setting so I should draw some stuff around that and the main characters.

I also need to work on my explanation a lot of the time I just have a few pictures with a sentence or two. i should just expand upon this whenever I can and will do in the future.

Finally I need to show developmental work, I can't wholly remember what was meant by this but I presume it's to just show some more progression, much like drawing in the styles of artists, maybe even using some different mediums and the like. Experimentation never hurt. 

Making wigs

We made started to make wigs in textiles. We started with a skull cap where we wrapped plastic round out heads.

From here we started to add materials to it to start making a wig.

Artist Andy Kubert

Andy Kubert unlike some artists does the inking and line art himself as well as write, because of his attempt to take on everything it seems like certain bits suffer sometimes. This is easily noticed in a couple of his facial illustrations as there's some off proportions.

Unlike a lot of artists in the same field Kubert tends not to use darker tones, but instead seems to use one main colour per panel, or at least one colour that stands out more than the rest.

Artist David Finch

David finch seems to have a rushed kind of look to his work at times often making some weird look illustrations. Most of his illustrations are good it's just when one is bad, it stands out severely.

This is what I mean the face is just awkward, to the point where it's actually frightening to look at. It's also just off putting and pulls away from the rest of the panel, the rest of the work looks fine it's just the face. I feel it may just be how the shading has come out and it wasn't meant to look quite like this.

Artist Brett Booth

Brett Booth seems to focus more on brighter colours against a dark background. This seems to make his characters pop a bit more.

This kind of work is best seen on the cover, where it clearly has a darker background, and lighter elements that pop out against it.

Artist Frank Miller

Frank Miller has one of the most well known styles of artwork in the comic book world. He focuses a lot on darker colours and shades. Sometimes only use few brighter colours to make pictures stand out.

This page is the absolute pinnacle of how Frank Miller works, not a huge amount of detail and only a couple of key elements that are not in dark or dull tones. He has the balance right as with the red cape you know who the character is, or if you haven't read comics before it builds mystery for you. It's certainly one of the more intriguing styles to be used in comics.

More portraits

I attempted to draw a portrait of my dad. One problem I had was the lighting it just kept on changing, still I think a couple of bits are off like the hands an his left elbow.

The foot is also at a weird angle, something that I'll have to work on.

Portraits

I did a couple of portraits today I wasn't fond of the the pencil drawings but when I went over the outlines and added detail with a pen it looked a lot crisper and neater.

I got the proportions wrong on this one I should have measured some more.

I'm much happier with this drawing as the proportions were fairly good I got a kind of movement in the arm as well. It just look like more of a comic book drawing. Though I do think in colour I could make it look less of having a third arm and more a motion.

Comic book covers

The cover of a comic book is what grabs a potential reader's attention, as such they have to be eye catching and interesting. Even a good cover can hide a terrible story and get sales so a lot depends on the cover.

Comic covers can be straight to the point in what is happening in the comic. These kinds of covers aren't really seen anymore, nowadays as we may not have the same interest if we can guess what will happen from the cover. 

Often creative liberties are taken, like making out the character has died or will die, more often than not these kinds of covers over exaggerate what has happened in the book to generate interest.

Interest is the point I keep coming back to as no matter how good something is be it comic, game, or movie if there's no interest no one will pay attention. That's why I with my cover want to have a bit of mystery, but make it feel known and relate able.

Western Character Design

A Fistful of Dollars is a movie set in the wild west, as such I'm using it as inspiration for my work. I'm mainly for character design and a style of drawing. The style that seems to be used in drawing is a scratchy aged feeling style where it looks kind of worn away.

Artist Takashi Okazaki

Takashi Okazaki has a manga series called Afro Samurai which is a mix of the Wild West and feudal Japan. Which is an interesting concept to help use his style of mixing in my Rake's Progress work.

This picture of the character Justice shows what I mean. He looks like the stereotypical cowboy, albeit with exaggerated features, but he's mixed in with Afro Samurai who wouldn't really mix with cowboys in our general way of thinking. Where both characters don't really mix but in the world of comics it can work. 

Artist Luke Ross

Luke Ross has worked on Jonah Hex a popular comic book series set in the Wild West. I like his portrayal of the west as a basis for my Rake's progress work. 

My idea for A Rake's Progress

My idea is a comic based in the Wild West where the main character is bullied by his father. He robs his fathers train of any money he can and goes crazy with all the money. He forgets about his past and just starts blowing his money away on bets and the like as he descends more and more into madness. Until he is left in the desert a shadow of his former self, while the people that once cared about him just watch him, as they can no longer do anything after he rejected them.

Storyboard painting

This is a piece based on the storyboards we did. With this we took it back to basics and only used colours we felt made the picture without actually drawing anything.

I think I could of tried some more ways to add colour to this as I either just dabbed colour on or stuck to regular painting.

Different ways of drawing

We brought in items to draw and used different techniques to get us out of trying to perfect everything all the time.

I like how mine turned out but I wish I had tried some more techniques as apposed to the couple I did.

Commissioned work

I was asked by someone at work to design a horse tattoo so I went with just a horses head. It's a simple design that works for a tattoo on someone's arm.

I never added any colour as they wanted it plain so they could do what they wanted with it.

Personal comic ideas

These are a couple of comic book ideas I had one was an apocalyptic future the other was about a soul. None of the ideas are fully fleshed just one off ideas.

This is the apocalyptic idea it's inspired by the Fallout game series. I was trying to get a little bit of Frank Millers style from Sin City to give it a dark feel.

This is the other concept please excuse the brown my cat decided to clean his paws on it after being outside. The idea was the water is like the river Styx and the soul was being taken out of it an would have to do some tasks to get his body back, or something of the like. I imagined this have a really dark or bland colour scheme, which would continuously get brighter as the book went on.

Life drawing

My drawing of a classmate to work on our life drawings and portrait skills.

While I feel a lot of the lines are about right it doesn't feel alive, it's just a drawing. I think with the right shading in places it would feel more life like and I'd feel better about it .

Trolley painting

After we had the outlines for our box portrait, we were going to paint it with the box, but we wanted a new way of using the box. We found a trolley which we tried to cover with a box but it didn't work, so we ended up tying a brush and a pipe, for dye, to the trolley. So I sat at one end and painted with the other end while moving myself around.

Box portrait

A small group of us decided to draw a portrait with one of us in a box, the one that was drawing, and the two out of the box leading them.

The problem of being inside the box was there was little light so I had to rely heavily on the instructions I was given.