Drawing aligators

A process I go through often is a basic iteration from idea to interpretation. In this case it was our friend the aligator, cause Vicki goes, "Hey, draw an aligator!" And I'm like, "Sure!"

When you actually sit down to do that, strange things happen. You think and start doodling, and what happens is you start to throw down lines that might be an aligator. Unless you just happen to love them and draw them all the time, an aligator is a good example because it's not something immediately familiar. However, it is a common reptile and most people have a pretty good sense of "aligator."

The first drawing is direct from my brain, as a decently experienced artist, my idea of an alligator. Or more accurately for me, my idea of how other artists might draw an aligator. While not necessarily bad, this is common for more artists than they would care to admit.

As I expected after a quick google image search, my drawing looks absolutely nothing like a real aligator. Reference is good, practice is better. So a second drawing was drawn from photo ref and is used as a learning exercise.

Of course, you don't have to draw a "real" aligator, that's probably not the goal anyways. So taking the elements I had from the idea of an aligator, the lessons learned from drawing an accurate aligator, plus some good old fashioned imagination, my final drawing ends up as my creative interpretation of... an aligator!

Soccer Girl: The Artist's Curse

The Artist's Curse:

This loose pose looks like soccer pose. I'll make it a soccer girl!

What team does she play for? I don't know anything about soccer so I'll just make one up. This will require a logo, of course.

Dragons? Too ubiquitous. Hmmmm. A Roc? Yea!

But I like horns on things. A horned Roc bird thing. A Devil Roc!

Accidentally created a new mythological creature-- should probably contemplate origin of Devil Rocs. Later.

Where do the Devil Rocs play? What kind of town is cool enough to research and choose the Devil Roc for a young adult soccer team? 

Whisper Cliffs, that's fairly normal yet unique. Do they just have cool people who choose cool mascots or is the town itself fictional in origin to support such choices? Where are the cliffs? Why do they whisper?

Is the mayor of Whisper Cliffs hiding a dark secret involving the last existing egg of the once mighty Devil Roc?

(by this point the doodle has already been done for ten minutes)

Sketchdump

Not all drawing is towards any specific goal, as it is the essence of the doodle! This is a small collection of just "showing up at the page."

Blanka: roughs and clean-up

A little playing around in my sketchbook, then a dirty rough in Manga Studio. It was enough to get serious with tho :-)

Juri duty: roughs and clean-up

Continuing my recent love affair with Street Fighter, I've wanted to do a pic of Juri Han for some time. It's hard thinking up an original pose because a lot of artists have already done so well! I did a little 3-inch thumbnail in my sketchbook of a Tae Kwon Do-ish stance that I dug, and did my best to re-create it in Manga Studio.

Manga Studio supports layers, but each layer is defined by specific type. A raster layer (as opposed to a bitmap or vector layer... it gets a little technical) works best for sketching. I really enjoy the feel of the pencil tool with the wacom. There seems to be a more natural variance with pressure and direction than Photoshop's brush tool. Using a grey-blue is just a personal preference, tho it does work nicer for inking overtop.

In this instance I did a rough for pose and then moved to a new sketch layer to define details before inking.

Cammy: Inks

Ah yes, over to Manga Studio. I do pencil quite a bit right in Manga Studio, just not this one for whatever reason. I was really pleased with the results :-)

FYI, I use a darker background color cause it's easier on the eyes.

Ink samples from Manga Studio EX

I've pretty much locked down on inking my work with Manga Studio over the last couple of years. It still takes practice but I've (hopefully) been moving out of the technical learning curve into the artistry phase. The pen tool is where most of this takes place and it has some really cool settings to establish a style alongside personal tastes.

Here are some examples of what the settings (checkboxes on the tool prefs) allow. You'll see a very loose pencil sketch posted as the base, this was actually pencil on paper scanned from my sketchbook, but I also enjoy Manga Studio's pencil tool and may post on that separately. The Assisted "Stroke In" and "Stroke out" is largely what is in play; different pen tips do affect the line but not as dramatically. I like the swashy, thick strokes akin to the brush of my dream artistic ability, tho I don't think software is any kind of a shortcut to good old fashioned work. But it sure helps :-)

Stroke effect can come to bite you as you are giving up some of the control, but extended use eventually teaches a nice give and take. As you see above, I'll use a combination of stroke effect and a raw tool to get where I like. Using only the stroke in/out effect takes a little life out of the drawing but is clean. Going under your own hand-- using the pressure sensitivity of the stylus to determine stroke-- relies more on your abilities and retains personality. At least that's what I'm getting from all this.

2012: Year of the hand

The hand has vexed many an artist, it is a detail of anatomy that often requires as much attention as the body whole. Hands are magical in their ability to relay gesture and emotion all by themselves, and I as an artist marvel at other artists who make it look so simple.

After years of research and observation I've learned the secret. The trick to hands is... draw hands. Like, all the freakin' time. Over and over again. My own hands are passable but often times one that comes out good is more an aspect of a pleasant accident than stalwart study. So this year I'm devoting extra time to study the hand, and basically make an effort to draw so many god damn hands I can at least reach a halfway-decent comfort zone.

I'm not looking to master, as that's a lifetime's pursuit. But I am looking to improve and improvement comes through continued study and practice. Don't worry, Cup Doodle won't become a repository of endles hand doodles, but I'll surely throw some up now and again.

Drawing Bo-Katan: Colors and Presentation

Here is a clip of the rendering without all the Photoshop nonsense:

I know, I know, it seems like a huge jump from the last stage, one day I'll have to spend a little more time outlining the coloring process. All coloring is done in Photoshop, which also offers some valuable tools to  fix things up outside of colors. Some of the adjustments I made after the inks were with the bent knee and a subtle perspective correction (with 'distort') that helped the overall proportions.

In the end I felt it to be a successful piece, at least for being my first attempt at the character.

Drawing Bo-Katan: Inks

Over into Manga Studio now, which is pretty fun at this stage of the drawing. Was really pleased with my inks on this, a somewhat rare occurrence :-P

Drawing Bo-Katan: Cleanup

Knowing I was going to ink this and that the outfit had some very specific details, I spent a little more time refining the roughs. Was also irked by those funky kneepads, so I whipped up a dirty 3D model for help. A little creative licence here, too, just felt like putting something a little bulkier than the model showed.

Drawing Bo-Katan: Pose and Roughs

This was done on a Wacom in photoshop. Loose roughs for the pose and then a little refinement before the detail stage.

Drawing Bo-Katan: Reference and Sketching

Saw this character on a snippet of Clone Wars and was quickly drawn to her, so of course popped around the web for a little reference. The sketching was just to get a feel for things, specifically how that armor would work in a drawing. I also love the design of the classic Boba Fett helmet, and the variations of the Mandalorian armor that artists have been creating over the years.

The X-Mas Girlie in progress

Playboy Bunny Research

The many bunny facts and figures (get it-- "figures?" hehe) I've presented on here of course come from research I've done on the subject. Hard work, I know!

If you are a fan of the Playboy Bunny, or just the era that brought them, there are two books I can't recommend enough:

The Bunny Years by Katherine Leigh Scott is a first hand account of life as a Playboy Bunny. Not only is it an endearing biography of her time at the club, but an extensive history of the club itself with contributions from a multitude of women and men who were involved. It is full of little details that I now try to incorporate into my drawings, as well as just having the knowledge and feel for the Bunny life. The book also presents stories from many women who worked at the club, what it meant to them, and what they went on to become. There were/are many misconceptions and attitudes towards Playboy Bunnies, and this book will leave you with an entirely new appreciation for one of America's most enduring cultural icons.

50 years of the Playboy Bunny is by far the best visual book produced to date, having been released only last year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Bunny. It also acts as a mini history of the club but its main draw is the fabulous photographs that chronicle the phenomenon.

I'm a longtime fan of Playboy itself, not just the Bunnies. It's not uncommon to find Bunny images in the magazine proper, tho random. There were a few special editions over the years that focused on the Bunny, and these can be found through second-hand book dealers and e-bay. I love these vintage magazines because they are a time capsule of the era from photos to advertisements.

There are a few resources online, aided of course by the ever-useful google image search. However The Ex Playboy Bunny Website is a trove of information, FAQs, and links.

These aren't my last bunny doodles by far, tho I'll be moving on to other subjects for a spell. Check back often for more cool doodles and lovely ladies!

And don't be shy, Cup Doodle loves to hear from our visitors!

Drawing a Playboy Bunny: Colors

 

Be sure to check back tomorrow for the finished piece!

Drawing a Playboy Bunny: Cleanup and Inks

The pencil cleanup was done in Photoshop, but I am growing fond of Manga Studio for inking with my Wacom Intuous 4 --there was a recent update to better make use of the Intuous pen functions. And I gotta say what was once the most arduous and nervewracking stage of my art process is becoming one of the quickest.

Drawing a Playboy Bunny: Rough sketch and follow through

Bunny Details: Collars and Cuffs (the ones that match)

Collars were one of the things I imagined different but have since corrected. It's much more of a full, tall collar, not just a simple band.

 

Cuffs are rounded, not square like I first thought. One of the coolest details are the cufflinks,  silver with a black laquer to frame the Playboy logo.

Bunny Details: Rosettes

Of the costume details, the "rosettes" seemed to have the most variation, possibly dependent on (geographic) location. The most common are the black interior/white type for the name, where the fringe and the ribbon were either white, black, or matching the costume color.

I did come across white and colored interiors with black type, tho most type I saw were all sans-serif block lettereing. I don't feel too bad about taking a little creative licence here with some script or some different color combinations.

There are a few notable cuts for the corsets, which evolved over time with function and fashion. Feel free to do your own image hunting, there are some variations with patterning that are pretty far out. But of note on the classic is where the telltale satin bunches up in the seams. There's supposed to be three seams down the front (with one right down the middle which I seem to forget), one on each side, and two more plus a zipper up the back. At the hip there are little string ties, which are easy to miss and often obscured. And of course the cottontail, don't forget that ;-)