Odds and Sods

The end of the month is rapidly approaching, as is the end of the year, and the end of the decade.  Madness.  So, before this year becomes next year I though I ought to do a final catchup post in 2010 so I enter 2011 with a fresh slate as it were.  Some of these have been floating around since November, a couple I drew just yesterday, but they're all things I had meant to post and either couldn't find the time to post them, or weren't worth a post of their own.  There's some good stuff within, but also some stuff that'll make you wonder why I bother (Made me wonder, I can tell you).  This might be a long one, so you might want to go to the loo while you can... All done?  Good, on with the show then:

A random sketch of a girl.

I did this sketch quite a while ago. It's an ArtRage sketch that I thought came out fairly well. Unfortunately it doesn't scale that well without looking a bit rough - I have no idea why. It's fine, it just looks like I was sketching on sandpaper or something.  I've forgotten where I put the picture it was based on, but I don't recall it being a good likeness, though she looks OK on her own.

Sketches From Reference

Pencil and Ink sketches in the newsprint sketchbook I like.  As with the last few posts these are Good and Bad all jumbled up, although for the first time I don't think any of them are actually terrible, just bits of them.  They're all taken from reference material, but how closely I stuck to the source is highly variable.

The girl on the right has a sort of messed up head, but the rest of her looks quite good (The model I referred to really did seem to have a giant bum due to the perspective), the muscular guy to her left looks fine except for this front leg, which seems a bit skinny, and in the picture of my wife (lower left) I've drawn her eyes too far apart (This one actually looks better on the original page - I've said before that pencils don't scan that well off the newsprint, yet I persist in using them),

The picture in the top left is from reference, but not one specifically - it's supposed to be the 11th Doctor (from Doctor Who) and was for a card that I didn't finish...  It may still happen though since the sketch is better than I remembered it being.

It does rather look like that large arm belongs to the girl next to it (Once you see it you can't make it stop!), which reminds me I need to write a post about optical illusions one day.

Sketches Without Reference

Like the previous picture these are the best and worst of the last month all sort of glommed together. These ones were off the top of my head, without any reference, and the rougher style reflects that. Really pleased with some of these considering, and I had to double check to ensure that I really had done them with no reference - But I can't find any, so I must have. I think the angry guy in the upper middle is my favorite, but the mad elf and the Zombie are also rather fun.

Out the Window

I'm not sure this one is really worth posting, but I scanned it at some point, so here it is.  I was sitting at the kitchen table wanting to draw something, but nothing was coming to mind, so I drew the view out of the window.  Took about 15 minutes, and I should have used a ruler, but I didn't have one handy.  The colour of the paper here is closer to the actual colour of the newsprint I use than the pink background I usually use, but for some reason it usually shows up pink when I scan it - here it didn't, no idea why.

The Missus

This is a sketch of my wife. Sadly it doesn't look much like her (I'm pretty sure it's due to the eyes, which I messed up). I was quite pleased with it, but when I showed it to her she said "It's lovely, who is it?" sigh. Apparently she didn't think it was her because it was too pretty (whatever, it doesn't do it justice).  Oddly enough when seen from a distance it looks a lot more like her, possibly because the further away it is the less of the eyes you can see.

It's based on this photograph, which put me in mind of those stars in the older movies (Katharine Hepburn, that sort of thing), and was inspired to draw it as such. It's black and white charcoal, which is the first time I've ever used charcoal. This is actually amazing in retrospect, but charcoal was always considered "fancy" when I was growing up - no idea where I got that impression. It's interesting, has the feel of a hard pencil, but with the value range of a soft one. Anyway, the pic didn't work out, but I may revisit the idea at a later time - let's consider this a first pass.

Failed Christmas Card Idea

I'm not showing you all of this image because it's always possible I'll use the same idea next year, and I don't want to spoil it.  You can click it to enlarge.

It's 4 takes on the same idea. The first image is the initial rough, the second (top right) was where I was going to paint it, but it wasn't feeling right so I decided to do it as a charcoal sketch (simulated in art rage, not real charcoal this time).  I wasn't feeling that either, so I went for a more cartoon look, which was working out well, but then life caught up with me and I never got it finished.  As I say, I like the concept behind the image (Which you can't see much of), so I might use it again next year.

I think that's all the catching up done, but if I think of anything else I'll add it here.  In case I don't post again in the very near future I  shall wish you all a very happy new year...  But I hope to sneak one more in before it's upon us.

Full of Christmas...

There's a little tab in Blogger labeled "Stats".  It's a fascinating button and gives all sorts of anonymous info on who's reading the blog, and when, and where (very roughly speaking - I don't have your address - well, yes, I have your's, but that's because I'm related to you, but I don't have your's, because I'm not...).  Anyway, it does show that my Wife is no longer the only person who reads the blog, and it also shows that the blog is surprisingly popular in Poland and Russia.  It can also show where the hits from the blog are coming from, and while most of them make sense (A Google search for things related to uDraw will often get you here eventually) some of them don't.  One of them is a renovation contractor in Russia (I had to use Google's translator to find that out, and the other is a porn site.  I've been to both (hey, I'm no prude, I just want to know why I'm linked to from a porn site) and can't find any logical reason why they'd be leading back to me.  It's very odd, but I shan't complain; a hit is a hit no matter where it comes from :).  Anyway, this is all beside the point!  I just wanted to get it off my chest that I find this fascinating (Especially since my only commenter's are all people I know personally).  Back on topic!

Shortly after December began I decided I should do Wintery/Christmasy speed paints.  Somewhere along the line these ceased to be particularly fast, so they ceased being speed paints and became Christmas-Paints instead.  Some of them worked out reasonably well, others were dreadful, as you shall see momentarily.

Time Taken - 55 Minutes

Some explanation is going to be needed for some of these images (Like, for those in Russia, or Poland, or even the US).  This is a verrrrrry bad portrait of Noddy Holder, lead singer and guitarist of the band Slade.  The photo it's based on was taken in 1973, which puts it around the time their Christmas hit Merry Xmas Everybody was first released.  If you've never heard it go look it up - it's my favourite ever Christmas song.  If you're in the UK and you've never heard it you must be dead, because you can't escape it during December.
Oddly, shortly after I painted this I heard the song playing at our local County Market - it's th efirst time I've ever heard it in the US...  Weird.

Time Taken - 65 Minutes

"Now I have a machine gun.  Ho-ho-ho."  Yes, it's Bruce Willis as John McClane in the original Die Hard.  Sorry guys and girls, Die Hard is a Christmas movie, even though there's no snow and it's full of blood and bullets and Bruce.  It's basically awesome!  It was a coin toss between a picture from this or one from Lethal Weapon (another classic Christmas movie), but I figured Die Hard was just a tiny bit more iconic.

When my Brother saw this picture he asked why I'd painted him wearing a false beard (Take another look, once you see it you can't unsee it - sorry), but you know what - it's right there in the original photograph: Go take a look!  "Welcome to the party pal!"

Time Taken - 105 Minutes

This one took a while, it's quite detailed; I'm not sure it was worth the time. Anyway, this is going to need some explanation again for those who are not British.
This is a "Principal Boy" from a pantomime (Dick Whittington from the look of it). Yes, I said boy, even though she's clearly a girl - This is a tradition; for the leading lady to play the traditionally leading man's part (not THAT part! Got in on the brain you have). Good legs are vital in a Principal Boy. To redress the balance they usually have some older man playing an old woman. Pantomimes are plays for kids based on classic tales (A bit like Disney does), with a streak of subtle jokes for the adults lurking beneath the surface (like Pixar does, but ruder). I've not seen one in years, but when they're good they're very, very good (Oh no they aren't! etc).

Time Taken - 35 Minutes

I realized, after the last one, that these were now taking too long.  This one was an effort to get back to the "speed" part of speed painting.  It's a European Robin, which is completely different to an American one, but also has a Red breast. The first time I saw an American one I finally knew why Batman's chum would be called such - I always thought it was too cute a name for a superhero previously because European Robin's are adorable.  The American one looks like it'd have your eye out in a second.

Time Taken - 35 Minutes

This is my favourite of all the "Christmas Paints"  It's a Reindeer obviously (Or maybe a Caribou if you're American, Yes?  They're still Santa's Reindeer though aren't they?  Not sure I fully understand the distinction).
Anyway, that's all I have to say about this one, except I saw my first live Reindeer on Christmas Eve (It wasn't flying, it was on a farm).  I was struck by how much smaller they were than I expected, but at the same time how much more powerful they seemed.

Time Taken - 25 Minutes

It snowed quite heavily in my home town this year (So I'm reliably told; I wasn't there - it snowed here too, but it's not unusual here). My friend Owain got this photo of him and his wife (I think) walking along a snow covered beach, and I was struck by how it was so bleak yet so beautiful at the same time. I tried to capture that, and sort of failed (I painted his wife to small too, at least I think it's his wife - hard to tell with those winter clothes). I did try some different media in this one though, including the roller and watercolour for the figures and background, some pen on the figures, and then chalk and my simulated spatter airbrush for the snow.

Time Taken - 60 Minutes

Like the Noddy Holder pic at the top this was going quite well right up until I needed to paint the face, and then I rushed it and made a right mess. This is of course Dan Aykroyd in Trading Places, which, if you've never seen it, is one of the funniest Christmas films ever made in my opinion, plus it has Jamie Lee Curtis in it, and she shows her boobs (This is a big deal when you're 13, which I was when I first saw it). It has lots of swearing too. I like Scrooged as well, and as with Die Hard and Lethal Weapon it was a toss-up as to which to paint, but once I found Aykroyd in his filthy Santa suit my mind was made up.

Time Taken - 70 Minutes

Growing up in the UK one of the perks of Christmas was being allowed to stay up late and watch The Two Ronnies Christmas Special.  The Two Ronnies used to be the sort of double act that turned up a lot on British TV back in the day.  Some were good (Morecambe and Wise) and some were... less good (Little and Large - Who were still, at the very least, amusing).  The Two Ronnies were the creme de la creme of these, at least they were when I was 10, and they've continued to be funny in the 26 years since.  They stopped making new ones in 1987, although they recorded some retrospective specials in 2005 shortly before Ronnie Barker's death.  The other Ronnie; Ronnie Corbett I didn't think was as funny when I was a kid, but he seems to get funnier as I get older.  This year he's doing a one off called The One Ronnie (you may have seen this clip from it already), and I'm sad I can't see it due to being in the wrong country - I'll catch up to it later I'm sure.

With regards to the painting, Barker is well rendered but not a good likeness, and Corbet is a good (if comic) likeness but badly rendered.  Put them together and there's a decent painting of a Ronnie in there somewhere.

Time Taken - 30 Minutes

The less said about this one the better I think. It's so bad I haven't even posted it on Facebook as I do with most of my pieces, so it's appearing here first. Yes, she looks like a drag queen. This would be fine, I have nothing against Drag Queens (Fnarr-fnarr), but she wasn't supposed to look like one. Sometimes you just lose your mojo - I think it took a flight to Bermuda while I was trying to paint this one. Ah well... I liked the idea, and the reference, so I might try again at some point, even though Christmas is now behind us.

And that ends this exceedingly long post. I hope you had a Happy Christmas (or whatever it is you celibate at this time of year) and I'll try to post more stuff soon for all my porn loving Russian contracting fans out there ;)

What I'm Thankful For

I am not an American. You may have gathered this by now. I do however reside in the US (legally), and my wife is American through and through. This means I now celebrate Thanksgiving, although celebrate is perhaps the wrong word for it. You see, where I'm from there is no such thing, and since I haven't grown up with it it isn't a big deal to me. I enjoy it, but the traditions are not my traditions, they're somebody else's and I'm just playing along (I like it, I just don't really feel part of it)

Yes, it's time for the Thanksgiving post, almost a month late. I have no excuses for the delay, or the relative dearth of imagery in this post, but I did feel it prudent to post about Thanksgiving before it was time to post about Christmas.
Before I show you the sketches (and this is another good/bad all in one image affair) I want to give you a little background.  This is more for my recollection in future than for your entertainment, but feel free to read it or skip it as you please.

I live in Illinois, my wife's Family lives in Minnesota.  When I first moved to the States I lived up there too, so I'm fairly familiar with the region.   This year my Wife pointed out that through one thing and another I've not been back to Minnesota for three years.  She has, numerous times, but I haven't, so it was time to go and show my face.

What with all the fuss over the amazingly ill conceived security practices at airports these days ("We'll beat up innocent women over contact lens solution but let the guys with guns and foot long razors waltz on through!  You feeling safe yet mam?  Why haven't you dropped your pants yet sir?"...  Maybe I should keep my opinions on the TSA to myself, or at least save it for another post) we decided to drive.  At least my wife did - and to be honest I'm glad she took it upon herself to do all the driving because as it turned out, had I been driving, we'd probably be dead (She's a better driver than I am).

On the way up from IL to MN we hit freezing rain - really bad freezing rain.  On one of the first overpasses after it started we saw cars flying around in the opposing lane like children's toys on a freshly waxed floor. My wife decided to slow down on the ramp to the overpass as it was clearly a little bit on the slippery side.  As we came up over the rise we could see that another vehicle had spun out in the lane next to us and was blocking that side.  My wife checked the mirror and said "We're going to get hit".  I was in the back seat with my son, so I grabbed his hands and put them and my hand firmly on his chest (He was in his car seat, but I'm sure wildly flailing limbs can do some damage).

 As it happened we weren't hit - the guy in the gigantic truck who had thought it a fabulous idea to ignore the world around him and not slow down in the slightest finally realized we had slowed down and swerved to avoid us, crashing straight into the rear side of the other truck that had spun out.  There was a big bang, a lot of flying shrapnel, and a rather large vehicle spinning around from the impact to it's rear side.  I'm fairly sure I saw the wheel of the "attacking" truck fly off, I'm quite certain I saw the driver of the "defending" truck step gingerly out of the way of his rotating vehicle - He'd stepped out of it for some reason. I'm also pretty sure that if the attacker had rear-ended us then my hand on my son's chest would have been as useful as using a cocktail umbrella in a monsoon; we would both be very thin and gooey.

We couldn't stop as there was no traction with which to do so, so we slid quietly to the far side of the overpass and tried calling 911 - it was busy.  You know it's bad when the emergency number asks you to try again shortly.

The rest of the journey was fairly uneventful, if somewhat terrifying. I don't think I've ever seen so many cars in the process of spinning out, crashing, or simply lying in ditches (upside-down in many cases).  I say cars, but a reasonable percentage were trucks and SUV's (That's 4x4's UKers, but not always with 4 wheel drive).

Anyway, we got there.  The next day was Thanksgiving, and we were staying with my Brother-in-law and Sister-in-Law.  The rest of the loal clan would be coming for the meal the next day.  The day came, and I more or less hid in a corner and frantically drew things.  I proceeded to draw things over the next couple of days, and here, finally, is the best and worst of what I drew:

Click it to Embiggen.

So, there's some terrible stuff in there, but some of it's reasonable. Much of it (That which doesn't feature inanimate objects of sleeping animals) was cranked out in well under a minute, due to peoples propensity for moving around. I won't mention anyone by name because if you're not part of the family (or their friends) then they won't mean anything to you, but if you are then you can either tell by looking, or its bad enough that you'll be offended when you discover that the figure you can't identify is you. I was thankful that some of them were recognisable at all.

But mostly I was thankful I wasn't a corpse.

...uDraw A Crowd

For the first part of this story see this post. I split it into two for the sake of my sanity. Brief recap though: Volunteered to do a uDraw demonstration at an event at the local Children's Science Museum (The Orpheum), and was asked to do art for the poster. We pick up around the day of the event...

Up until the day before I was under the impression that we'd be showing the kids how to use the tablet and software, maybe walking them through colouring one of the built in pictures (yes, uDraw has a built in colouring book mode - something that proved extremely popular at the event). I was wrong though; while most of the volunteers did do exactly this, myself and another Volition artist (Jose) were to be doing a live demo of the software.

This would prove trickier to myself than Jose I think as he is employed as a 2D artist and has years of experience painting family friendly work without reference - he used to do those airbrushed t-shirts and (legal) graffiti murals. Anyway, this raised the stakes, and my heart rate, a bit.

I would not be able to attend the whole thing, and nor could Jose - He had to leave at 7, and I couldn't be there until then for the second session, so we'd be flying solo for an hour in the evening. The afternoon demo we would take it in turns for though.

When I arrived (a few minutes late due to heavy snowfall the evening before) Jose was already painting an impressive beach scene and putting me to shame. I wasn't too depressed by this, as I said this is Jose's day job too. I won't be posting Jose's work, impressive as it is, because it's his work :) If he puts it on line I'll come back and link to it.

Before we move on to showing my pieces I want to introduce you to the volunteers. I took photos of everyone (bar one) at the event, but they were pretty unflattering. So, given the subject of the blog in general I decided to draw them - And this resulted in even more unflattering images. Regardless, here they are:

If I was smart these would have been done in uDraw too, but they aren't; I wanted to try out my new white Gel pen, so they're all done on paper. Quite small too. Anyway, sorry for the terrible pictures guys (if you're reading). I won't name them all specifically - best to maintain privacy, and no-ones likely to identify them from my poor sketches anyway :) One of those is not from a photo at the event though, and I think it's probably also the worst one - but this isn't about my poor illustrative skills, this is about the event!

Jose finished his Beach Scene and then it was my turn. Unlike Jose I need some form of reference to work from, and the only this handy was a photo of a little boy at his computer (we were place in such an area that it was easy for folks to see us, but we couldn't see anything really except the screen). This photo was small, about 3 feet above my right shoulder, and reflecting the overhead lights. This really isn't a very good excuse for the result, but it was what I was working from regardless:

OK, maybe it's not that bad, but it's a long way from good, and that Joker smile is just plain embarrassing.

While I was painting a nice girl from Eastern Europe came over to chat - she was from the local University doing a study (I can't remember of what) and had some questions. She'd spoken to my wife, who was at the museum with my Son at the time, and this naturally ended up with her watching the painting. This was a good test, as at that time of day the museum was fairly quiet and not many people were around to see our demonstration. I consider the afternoon session a warm up for the main event.

After the Jr. Joker I had a few minutes and sketched out this pretty poor dragon before time ran out. I'm only posting this here because the promise of the blog is you get to see the best and worst regardless of how embarrassing they may be. This one is pretty embarrassing.

And that was the end of the session. I went upstairs to see how the rest of the gang was doing and they'd had it almost as quiet as we had downstairs. I guess one or two children had come up to have a go, but mostly they'd just been drawing Christmas Trees and Ogres - I think some of their stuff was better than what I'd been doing in public downstairs. Anyway, that was that, and so we broke until later - in my case 7PM.

When I returned I was somewhat stunned by the queue outside the museum. In addition to us the museum was also throwing a "Snow Globe" which is a sort of indoor winter activities thing in the main auditorium. The area this is in is pretty big, and it's not heated. I had expected it to be popular, but the level of popularity was far beyond my expectations. My heart rate went up a little more because to get to the Snow Globe this vast line had to go directly past where we were doing the live demo. Eeek! hundreds of people get to see my suck in person! Terrifying.

It took a few minutes to get past the crowd to where we were doing the demo, and following a bit of good thinking from Deb I grabbed some cuddly toys on the way for reference (It's children's museum, there are cuddly toys 'k?). This time Jose was painting an elephant (He did 5 pictures to my 3 - Beach Scene, Shark, Graffiti name, snowboarder, elephant... I think the snow boarder was to show off the colouring book feature though). I pointed out that between the crowd and the weather he should get moving to make his appointment, but he decided to finish the elephant, which looked great. Then it was my turn.

So, picture the scene - I'm in a side corridor (more spacious than it sounds) with a queue of people filing in from outside directly past my back and through a set of doors to my left. Past the doors is the unheated auditorium, and the through draft from outside to the Snow Globe was freezing (Seriously, I was so cold I started to lose feeling in my fingers toward the end). I'm sitting with my back to the line, so I can't see what's going on back there, and I'm painting a display of cuddly toys on a TV screen about 10 feet away. Children regularly wander in and out of the way of the TV (they want a better look at what I'm doing, but of course I can't do anything with their head in the way :)), and one little girl keeps trying to pilfer the toys in the display I'm painting. None of this is condusive to painting a good picture... And then the drums started. They were having a demonstration of African drums on the other side of the wall I was seated next to.

If you think that sounds terrible and dreadful and I clearly hated it you'd be wrong, it was a blast! The results weren't what you'd call good due to the distractions (well, you might call it good, but I don't), but it was a lot of fun trying to do it. Also, thankfully, Elizabeth had come down from upstairs to talk to interested people and sell Raffle Tickets. She was my hero that night as it meant I could focus on the painting despite the distractions. She also occasionally moved the children out of the way so I could see what I was doing. I was, quite frankly, terrified, but I still had a lot of fun. Over the course of the hour I painted this:

Which is kinda cute right?

After that we hung about for an extra hour or so as the display upstairs was so popular (I think someone mentioned that they ran out of ink for the printer due to printing out the pictures the kids had done to take home). Myself and Elizabeth stayed more or less by the uDraw and Wii downstairs so people could try it out there as well. Finally it was time to go home, and I got a lift from Laural (Thanks Laural!) as my wife had taken my son home to bed a few hours before.

All in all it was an exciting day (I didn't mention the holiday parade I saw with my son between the two sessions, but there was one, and it added to the Christmas spirit brought on by the event and the snow), and lots of people seemed impressed by the pictures I was doing even if I wasn't particularly happy with them. More importantly they had a great time at the museum, and some of them spoke of getting a uDraw for their kids for Christmas ("Where do we get them from?" and so forth).

No more uDraw posts for a while though, if for no other reason than I'm running out of eye-rolling titles for the posts.

uDraw A Poster...

Today's lame pun post title is brought to you by the letter U and the number 500.

Several weeks ago someone thought it would be a great idea to do a cross promotion between the local Children's Science Museum and the local video game studio (where I work).  We wouldn't be promoting the studio's games though - those would be utterly unsuitable for a children's museum, rather we would be showing off the uDraw tablet which is produced by our parent company (as has been mentioned before).  This isn't sarcasm by the way, it really was a great idea.  Give away some goodies, give the local museum and the new tech some exposure and generally have a great time.

So, somewhere around the end of November there was a general call to arms for volunteers, and since I'd been using the uDraw for a bit already I felt duty bound to do so, and said as much in my response.

Since I already had a tablet, Laurel, the lady organizing the event on the Studio side, asked me to bring it in to show it off to those organizing it on the museum side (including Deb, who used to work for the Studio, so we all knew each other).

Unfortunately, while I brought the tablet I forgot the software, so that was a bust. As a result of my ineptitude though I was asked to provide some art work for the flyer using uDraw.  I said OK of course.  The museum supplied some photographs and asked me to pick one, which I did; a nice picture of a lizard (I think it's a one of the museum's male Bearded Dragons, but I'm no expert).  This was the result:

Which took about two hours. I have to admit this is not the original uDraw version - As I've mentioned before the uDraw is highly dependent on the settings of your TV, and mine is set to be really bright, so I've tweaked the levels to better represent how the image looks on TV. They print fine in my experience, they just lose a little in the transition from TV to monitor. Anyway...

I finished it, looked pleased and then re-read the email. I had failed to read the text below the bottom of the window which needed me to scroll down - it said that the picture should not be intimidating to non-artists... Ooops.

Round two - same picture, but done much faster, and less intimidating:

And this is the one they picked for the flyer. One of the reasons it's taken so long to post this is because I wanted a copy of the flyer for prosperities sake, and now I've finally manged to get one to scan:

So now you know where I work! Remember, my work there does involve art, but not traditional 2D stuff - the quality of my illustrations has nothing to do with the quality of the work I do there, 'k? Good, glad we got that sorted.

So time went by, Thanksgiving came and went (but that's another post) and then December 4th arrived. But that too is another post, and for that... Read on MacDuff!

Playing Catch Up

I know, I'm terrible. I should update far more often than I have been. Let's just move on and pretend I'm updating regularly shall we? No? Oh OK, I can deal with that. What can I say, the new Assassin's Creed is pretty engrossing.

Actually today's post does have a little to do with catching up in general. I realised I hadn't posted any good/bad general sketching in... 3 months? Yeah, I think that's right. So this is a big catch up.  To save time I just threw the best and worst of the last three months into one image(With some exceptions that were prep sketches for things that may still happen).
You'll want to click this through to get a decent size.

You may note I threw in a couple of sketches for Wolverine that I forgot about for the Wolverine post. Other than that there's some muscle studies, some gesture drawings, some facial studies, yada-yada-yada. It's a real grab-bag of good and bad. Obviously I did more in the way of sketching than this, but this is the very best, and the very worst.

And there you have it. A short catchup post. I'll try to crank out another before the end of the week - though Burn Notice is double the length this week and I'm off to see Tron Legacy on Friday so time will tell if I succeed.