Some stuff

Just a few of the random bits and bobs I've been scribbling lately...

Happy New Year... Two weeks later...

So here we are, the first blog post of 2011. The last couple of months have been pretty hectic, between moving flat, Christmas and New Year holidays and trying to sort out internet connection and whatnot; but hopefully I'll be able to update a little more consistently.

The resolutions for this year are many and varied, but the main one that I really want to stick to is to become a lot more organised when it comes to how I spend my time outside of work, specifically on the personal projects I want to get off the ground this year... Should be interesting to say the least. Watch this space!

So yeah, with that in mind, here's some of the random sketches I've been doing lately. Some of these I'm hoping to take to a slightly more finished stage...

Halloween SCAREblog- Day 2 (Bride Of Frankenstein)

Here's today's piece from 'Bride Of Frankenstein'! Definitely one of my favourites from what little I've seen of the Universal monster movies.

A little more of a comic book style on this one... Man, my inking really needs work... I've also included a couple of studies I did before I did the main piece. Elsa Lanchester has a pretty unique face, and I'm not convinced about how much the drawing looks like her, but it was a fun piece to do.

Halloween SCAREblog- Day 1 (Nosferatu)...

I know, I know, the name sucks, but come on, it's 2 am on a Friday night... SCAREblog was the best I could come up with. Ok, so here's the deal: back in 2007, James Rolfe over at Cinemassacre must have thought he didn't have enough projects on the go, so he decided that he would put a short series together chronicling the history of horror films, calling it "Monster Madness". He would post a new video every day in October, leading up to Halloween, with each one examining a film he considered important to the genre, making it like a really cool little advent calendar. I don't know how he finds the time, but he's done one every year since then. It's kind of become a tradition and something that I really look forward to each October.  

So, I figured I'd join in on the fun in my own way by doing a drawing every day in the month of October, themed around some of my favourite horror movies/monsters/characters/whatevers. If old Jimmy Rolfe can do a video for every day, I figure I can at LEAST do a drawing... They're not going to be in any particular order or anything, the only criteria is that I have to have SEEN the movie the character/scene/whatever is from. Let's see how it goes... If I manage this for the entire month, I'll be astounded. Day 1 is 'Nosferatu'!

It's off to a bit of a shaky start with this one... I have to admit it was a bit of a rushed job, but I totally forgot that it was October 1st already. I saw 'Nosferatu' years and years ago... I couldn't have been any older than 12 and it was showing on TV in the middle of the day. Despite the fact that I was watching it in broad daylight, it was still incredibly creepy, the movie feels like you're watching someone's nightmare. The scene this drawing's from is where Count Orlock appears in the distance and walks towards the camera, coming in through the arched bedroom door. As a kid, this kind of thing terrified me... Being alone and completely vulnerable with this creature slowly and inevitably coming to get you. The fact that the camera doesn't move only adds to the feeling of helplessness and dread, making you feel like you're rooted to the spot, but unable to look away. That scene really stuck with me, so I figured it'd be a fitting way to start the month. As the days go on, I'm hoping to use this as an excuse to experiment a little bit with different styles and get quicker at turning drawings around. This is quite similar to a lot of other drawings I've been doing lately, but at least it gets things started!

Very flawed Surfer and some more boxing studies

The title says it all, really... I was actually looking at the work in progress sketch for the Silver Surfer drawing, and it looks much better than the final piece... I've been noodling away at it for so long that it's just gradually got worse and worse in terms of proportions and so on... Ugh, definitely a lesson to be learned there. I think it's got to be a matter of getting faster and trusting the initial sketch a bit more, the computer makes it way too easy to pick away at things until you completely destroy the stuff you liked about the drawing to begin with...

Boxing studies and Brooks: Redux

So here's a couple of studies taken from boxing photos and another attempt at drawing ol' Louise. I think this one turned out a little better than yesterday's effort, but I'm still not entirely happy with it...

From tomorrow I'm going to try and get some more comic book inspired drawings on the go... We'll see how that works out.

Frank Gorshin Riddler

I know, I know, I missed yesterday after doing the drawing-a-day thing for two days, but come on, Friday deserves a pass... This is a quick drawing of Frank Gorshin, the guy who played the Riddler in the 60's Batman show. I saw this picture and thought it looked pretty cool, plus he's got such an expressive face, I figured it would be good practice. Hopefully there'll be a couple of new drawings up tomorrow to make up for the lack of anything on Friday... Although I can't promise that'll happen...

Face study

This is just a quick sketch I did of Summer Glau of 'Firefly' and 'that-Terminator-show-I-never-bothered-with' fame... She's also supposed to be voicing Supergirl in one of the many direct-to-DVD animated movies DC's been putting out. I don't know, does she really have that distinctive a voice? Although, a quick skim through the credits of previous DCU animated movies reveals an average of at least one actor from a Joss Whedon project per film... Maybe there's a quota to fill or something. 

ANYWAY, I'm trying to get a little more practice at drawing faces after yesterday's fiasco, and although I took waaaaay less time with this drawing, I like it much better. I guess you could also say that it's a study for a character I have in mind... You COULD say, if you wanted to. But I don't see why you would.

Some kind of fighting dude, I guess

Yeah, this was supposed to be a really quick drawing, but I couldn't get the face right, so I ended up spending loads of time on it... You can totally tell as well, the face looks NOTHING like the rest of the drawing and it's STILL crap... But who cares? I liked the guy's pose and it was fun to draw. I know I shouldn't say this, because I'm almost definitely going to jinx it, but from now on there'll hopefully be a new drawing up every day... Let's see how long that lasts...

A few random sketches

These are just a few (kind of) quick sketches that I did mainly as warm-ups or practice runs or whatever, so they're pretty ragged.