Oil Painting!

Oil painting is REALLY difficult for me so far, but with practice, good books and videos, I'm making progress. I'll share some of what I'm learning as I go!

The great John Singer Sargent apparently often repeated, "DEMONS!" as he painted!

And Van Gogh cut off his own ear. Was it the sheer frustration of oil painting? We may never know...

 I painted this in oil recently after watching Alex Tzavaras excellent Youtube channel, Simplify Drawing & Painting.

He’s a UK artist and teacher, and his concise tutorials are the best I’ve found.

https://youtu.be/9ozcDjAg1ag

I tried his blue underpainting, though he pulls it off much better!

It’s also the first painting I tried softening some edges. I’ve tried it with a fan brush before, but it never seems soft enough and leaves streaks. Most painting instruction cautions against softening and blending too much. Unless you’re Bob Ross!

But a few variable edges can add interest and depth, so I found this sort of makeup brush and it worked much better.

Gregory Manchess’ post helped me understand edges a bit more:

https://www.muddycolors.com/2022/03/10-things-about-edges/

I tried to soften the edges where it seemed appropriate, remembering Richard Schmid's warning from his great book Alla Prima II:

“Remember- soft edges in a painting are not an end in themselves. They must be appropriately soft and should conform to what you perceive them to be in your subject. This is what will make your edges look authentic. Arbitrarily softening everything is like intentionally mumbling when you speak.”

New Comic in Progress... slowly...

Finally some new art! A few frames from a comic I'm slowly writing & drawing. It's going very slowly, but I am really enjoying learning to write, design, letter & ink, for realz! Using mostly Photoshop CS6, some real ink & paper, Manga Studio 4EX, and Comic Life 3 to letter and pull it all together. Here is a link to CL3. It's better & more powerful than it looks:
https://plasq.com/apps/comiclife/macwin/

The guy on the beach was ink on paper. Experimenting with tones in Photoshop. I've always liked the strange duotone of the old Craft-tint board. The guy with the gun & the girl were inked in Manga Studio. The rest of the frame is Photoshop. The money looks way too digital, but it reads, so I may leave it.

This was mostly done in Photoshop. I traced the car, experimented with more tones, and eventually cropped either side to tighten the composition more than you see here. I like the atmosphere for the story, but this level of elaborate illustration is murder to sustain in a comicbook, so I probably shouldn't keep trying this.

This was a previous version. I kinda traced her figure from a photo, and carefully invented light and shadow inking in Manga Studio. They are supposed to be desperate & hitch-hiking. This frame was a lot of work, but once I stepped back to look at it, I realized it was just a lazy composition.

This was inked and toned 100% in Manga Studio. My work is always painfully stiff, so I'm happy how rough this looks. I was channeling my favorite early 60's NY illustrators I'm sure!

No, I didn't draw this one. That's the great Roy Crane, from Buz Sawyer, February 6, 1946. Wish I could do it like that! Here is a video preview of that great book:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOxEoomkzvY

Trying to improve!

 Practicing hard in an attempt to solve several drawing problems I face every day on the job. Drapery I always fake. Generic heads. Lousy hair. Generic clothing. Unimaginative lighting. Poor attempts at likenesses. Some of the usual suspects of most live action storyboarders!
I spent nine years doing shooting boards for TV commercials, and it was hammered into me to always draw bland, generic characters, so that the client wouldn't focus on any particular type.  And it's a hard habit to break. Everything nondescript and bashed out quickly can pay the bills, but it also can be soul crushing as an artist!

Freeze framing movies, trying out poses, drapery, lighting. This was "For Greater Glory", directed by Dean Wright, who I worked with a few years ago.

 

 Playing around with blacks. Something I definitely need more practice with.

 If I see some staging or camera work I wouldn't have thought of, I sometimes thumbnail it out and do an overhead, hoping it will come back to me in a similar situation.

Copying drapery from Al Dorne is a bit maddening. Every wrinkle has it's own sub-wrinkles.

 Hoping I can improve my hair drawing. Nashville is a big hair show.

 Here is something I have rarely ever done: drawing from photos! And I think my work suffers because I've hardly done it all these years. I'm vowing to do a lot more of this. Right away I was drawing new shapes and lines I'd never drawn before. I think I'm getting less generic characters already.

 I drew some of these pages in the cheapest sketchbook I've ever found. Velvety smooth thin paper from China, that used to be available at Big Lots, or the 99¢ Store. When I tried to ink over the pencils, the lines just went fuzzy.

 National Geographic Magazine is great for a variety of people from all over the World. Trying to pay more attention to different head shapes.

Storyboard book

I have been interviewed in several books over the years, but this latest one has the longest interview by far, and several sketches. Thanks to my friend Anson Jew (Sergio Paez) for asking me to participate! Once I update my storyboard website, I'll try to add a link there too.
It is called Professional Storyboarding, by Sergio Paez & Anson Jew, from Focal press.
Here is the link on Amazon:

Tokyo Comic 1

A page from my sketchbook, that is from a short story I am adapting into a minicomic. I am sort of working slowly and in fragments, it seems.

I'm Back To the Blog

After a year of neglect I am back to my sketchblog. Apologies to my seven fans! It has been a crazy year, with most of it on Robopocalypse. I also spent a month living in the hospital while my daughter endured two surgeries (everything is fine now).
Lately I have started doing some comics in my sketchbook, just for fun. After doing these two I am now working on improving my lettering. Hopefully that'll be in the next post. These two are fairly somber, so I'm hoping to cook up something funnier for next time, although I am pretty darn slow at comics!

More old movie drawings

Sci-Fi Sketches

Some old sketches I meant to post 2 years ago, but decided I didn't like them. Not sure why. Now I like them!
This was trying to warm up for a Sci-Fi film job.
I had intended to ink & color all of these, but ran out of steam.
I think I was inspired by Jorge Zaffino's excellent drawings in Chuck Dixon's Winterworld comic.
Also, I remember my dad & uncle Andy drawing old cars with tank tracks when I was little, and I thought that was such a cool idea. I should try some drawings like that...

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.