Visual Communication: Creating Texture with Markers

Hey all! It's been about a week, during which time I have had the opportunity to practice creating textures with my new Prismacolor markers and colored pencils. I'm having a blast with these, and I can't wait to improve and keep practicing! Lemme show you what I've made so far.

Starting out: Learning the marker - For our first assignment, we were attempting to get used to how our markers work. The four squares on the left were the first part to this assignment. First, we practiced what's called the "venetian blind" technique, which you see demonstrated in the top two squares. Next, we learned the "side-by-side" technique, which is displayed in the bottom two squares. Both have their pros and cons, though I'm partial to the venetian blind. The next part of the assignment involved mixing the markers and the colored pencils to create effects. I like how all of them turned out, though I think the yellow design is probably the best.

Moving on: Shapes and grayscale - This next assignment taught two different things. First, it helped us figure out how to use our markers in different types of shapes, from circles to triangles and squares. Secondly, we were able to see the difference between grayscale markers and color markers, which will be quite useful later on.

Going 3D: Creating a tri-tone cube - This assignment was useful in teaching the differences between shading with markers and shading with pencils. The cube on the left was shaded with only marker, the cube on the right has a base marker layer shaded with colored pencil. Not quite as clean as I hoped, but it was a good experience.

Creating texture swatches - This assignment was more difficult than the previous ones, but was also more rewarding. First, we had to create 4 square swatches of texture using marker and pencil: metal, stone, wood, and brick. Then, we had to create 2 tri-tone cubes with textured faces, one with wood and one with stone. I'm most proud of the brick swatch and wood block; I think they really work well.

Well, that's all for now! I'll update again soon!

Until next time.

Character and Object Design for Animation: Backgrounds, Adding Characters, and Creating Motion (Plus a character redraw)

Hey all! Sorry for the long wait. Got a few drawings to make up for it, so hopefully you'll enjoy!

After creating our superheroes and supervillains, it was time to delve into creating environments for our characters to inhabit. Picking two of our characters, we created two sets of backgrounds, one indoor and one outdoor, with the intention of eventually grafting our characters into them. I decided to create backgrounds for my granny character from a few weeks prior, as well as Vanessa, my female scientist.

While I was initially pleased with my resulting backgrounds, several students commented that the interiors were drawn in a one-point perspective, causing the view to be somewhat uninteresting. I redid my interiors so they would be more interesting.

The next step was to redraw our characters in different poses, and graft them into the scene using any method of our choosing.

After we became used to creating static characters, the next step was to create the illusion of movement by drawing our characters in key points of a motion. Choosing any of our previous characters (or creating new ones), we were to depict our characters lifting something heavy, running, and jumping over a box.

Our final assignment for the class was to take one of our characters that we felt was our worst and redraw them. I chose Sandra, my policewoman character from a few weeks ago. I didn't like any drawing I did of her, so I was happy to try and redraw her.

I'm much more pleased by how these turned out, although she's STILL not consistent from drawing to drawing. I suppose that's something that will come with practice, but I'll gladly give it a rest for now and move on to something else. Next on the agenda: Visual Indication, aka creating texture via marker and pencil!

Until next time.

Character and Object Design for Animation: Animal studies, Heroes, and Villains

Hello all! It's been a while since I last posted; my apologies. Got pretty swamped with work and the large workload we had this past week. However, I did a lot, and while I'm not proud of all of it, I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of drawing in an animation style. Let's get into it, shall we?

After we did our Realistic vs. Cartoon character drawings, the next step was to do Realistic vs. Cartoon animals. Luckily, this one was much less work than the last one...only 12 drawings (6 animals, 1 realistic and 1 cartoon). I decided to do a turtle, a bear, a fox, a fly, a gecko, and an elephant. The final products are below.

Next, we started getting into the more complicated part: Creating characters that personified "Good" and "Evil," and giving them moods and trying to show body language. Unfortunately, this was a time where my brain had an idea that my hands couldn't duplicate. My villain and hero are as follows:

Villain name: Mnemesis, Dr. Hugo Victor

Powers: Low-level telepathy, teleportation

Hero name: Psyclone, Jordan Roberts

Powers: Psychic conjuring (can create shields, projectiles, etc. with mind), can create "Zero Fields" for up to 15 minutes (though the time is lessened when he uses his conjuring powers concurrently)

Next, we had to create characters of opposite gender as our main heroes, for contrast. Both luckily and unluckily, we didn't have to draw model sheets for these characters. Instead, we were asked to draw each character in 5 action poses, for a total of 10 drawings. The female hero ended up really bad, though I like her backstory, but the female villain turned out almost exactly how I wanted her to.

Name: Sandra
Female police officer

Name: Vanessa
Lab technician

I really enjoyed coming up with these characters. There's a lot of potential there, and I'd love to explore that in the future. 

Thanks for looking at this week's blog! Next week we start creating environments for our characters to inhabit. I can't wait!

Until next time.