More ink

I drew some of these while watching movies-- "Pale Rider", "Blood of Dracula", and "Baby Doll". I think I drew directly in ink for all.





I wish I was better at this type of drawing scenes from our everyday life. Anthony Z is the master; I just humbly follow his lead...





"Blood of Dracula"! I think this was a Hammer film from 1958. Maybe I should draw more Halloween themed stuff and post it this month?



This was a frame I re-drew in ink, from a vampire movie I worked on called "Let Me In". After I saw it, I thought "why didn't I light the scene like that in my crappy storyboards?" I remember drawing that scene on the airplane back from New Mexico. I was drawing in a very light, tentative pencil line. I am trying to stop that bad habit...
Making weak drawings like that makes me feel ashamed like the frame below from Woody Allen's "Crimes & Misdemeanors"!




Some babe from TV. I kinda changed her into a spy girl from a 60's movie or something. I have never been very good at drawing pretty women. Gotta practice drawing the babes... Eric Ramsey is the master; I just humbly follow!




I actually got a sorta likeness of the great Karl Malden. I guess with a nose and hairline like that it shouldn't be too difficult.



Not a great drawing, but I am trying to force myself to "draw what I see, not what I think I see" (thanks Spark for that advice). In this case I was going to be timid about using black for the windows and doors. Not even sure why, but here I fought it!


Lovely Los Angeles, California skyline.


Trying to get a Noel Sickles type effect for the trees, using a pen rather than a brush.


The more finished drawing I actually penciled out roughly, then inked.

Back in Black

Well, I have badly neglected this poor sketchblog, but the good news is that the last post did get me hired on Spielberg's new film Warhorse. So I spent a few months being forced to draw horses from my head! I can't show any of that work, but here are several horses in ink. Some from my head, a few I copied from Toth or Kubert.





I really want to learn how to ink better, and use stronger blacks in my drawings. My friend Mike Vosburg talked me into trying out the Noel Sickles technique of spotting the blacks first, then finish with as few lines as possible.



Mike drew this at lunch in about 30 seconds, directly with an old sharpee!









Some of these I inked with just a double tipped sharpee. Some with a chinese inkdrush I got for cheap -- probably at Kunikoya (sp?) bookstore in Japantown, downtown Los Angeles.




Copied these from Toth's Zorro, I think.

New Horses

More sketchbook horses. Some copied from photos, or other artists (Joe Kubert, Jean Giruad, Victor De La Fuente, Sam Savitt). Some from my head.

Shoulders, Suits, Old Movies

There is a long tradition in Tinseltown of trying to look better than you actually do. In that spirit I used photoshop to cook up four pages of a 2 week sketchbook to just show the high lights. I tend to ignore my sketchbook, then rediscover it with enthusiasm - bad habit - but I think lots of artists do the same!

I like watching old movies, trying to get an impression of the folds as the figures move. It's amazing how many shots are just guys wearing suits. I tend to be obsessed with the things I can't draw over the years, and shoulders / necks / clothing has always been high on my list. Probably because it ends up so often in your framing if you storyboard live action.




I like the authority and direct drawing of these TV doodles -- I'm still struggling to be this fast and accurate when I storyboard. The figures in my boards don't usually look like this. I probably draw better when I'm not worried about the myriad stresses of an actual job...





Here is a great interview with the mighty Alex Toth, (from the Jan. 2001 Comic Book Artist Magazine ), which helped me to not be so precious with my sketchbooks...

More recent work

Here are some frames from recent freelancing I was lucky enough to get in this very lean Summer of few storyboard jobs:

Do you want to talk about NIGHTMARE jobs? Do you want to talk about the seventh level of storyboarding HELL??!! This was one of many more like it done at top speed, for a hi-res animatic, using 3D backgrounds I had to paint up, while I had a bayonet pointed at my guts... (okay, I made up part of that - the client was fairly cool)...







Various jobs, at various levels of finish. I continue to try different ways of toning the boards digitally, when I have time.


This kind of drawing teaches you that, YES, you are a commercial artist. So I guess try to enjoy the ride... I was thinking of Toth as I attempted to simplify everything.

Here I was trying to simplify a complex composition with a simple value arrangement. I spent way less time on the actual drawing than the tones. It passes the squint test, but this had the typical curse of a live action storyboard drawing: it needed to show a complex progressive practical effect, which reveals a VFX shot; we pan to show the windows blowing, one after another, to reveal the background, THEN reveal the Heros fleeing through THAT BG as the far windows blow.



I have never shown any storyboards before the film comes out, but this one is out next week, and I didn't get any artwork into the "making-of" book, so here is a page from a xerox. They didn't all look this nice, but it was a great job to work on!