Master of Kung-fu

Here we go again, with another mindless dump for the sketchbook diary of a madman. Or a very sane man in an insane world. My favorite subject is the pin-up girl. I alternate between the classic pin-up and the sci-fi /fantasy pin-up. I enjoy studying the female form, and the face. Most of my girls are patterned after my wife ,Vicky, but I will use references for poses.







Here is a warm up of some animals I did earlier this morning , before I got into my commercial art work. And also a Master of Kung-fu ,inspired by the great Bruce Lee.

Animal Character Design

This first one is a dragon design for a Children's book I am working on, written by my good friend Don Rogers, Titled "The Chicken's Coo". It's a real cool project and I will keep you up to date as it unfolds.
The second one is some warm up sketches I did this morning before I started working.
The rest are animal character concepts I worked on in the past. When i work on animals, I use reference, but approach it the same way I do human characters. I try and capture who I am drawing and not what I am drawing. It is all about capturing the attitude of the subject. As always pushing shapes and trying out different styles while maintaining the proper drawing foundational skills that make for a good design. ( or trying to anyway).

Caricature and portrait design

These exercises are more about exaggerating shapes and facial proportions. I don't try to get a likeness when I work from references, but instead I try to concentrate on building a visual library in my mind of how things look, so that I am able to draw from memory and imagination when I need to.

Scenes and establishing shots

With these I like to draw my inspiration from film. My main focus when sketching a scene is trying to capture an action taking place and to try and establish location within the story. When working on a comic book, the establishing shot plants the reader in a set location. When done properly, once you establish a scene you don't have to repeat the background as much throughout the page, not until the story changes location. These next couple of sketches are more of an action taking place than an establishing shot. An establishing shot would normally be an exterior or interior background or landscape. A figure or two may be thrown in the picture to establish scale and proportion. Establishing shots can be panoramic and are often times far shots and not close-ups. There are always exceptions to the rules of course.

With an action scene I try to capture the action with an interesting camera angle, lighting and body language.

Environment speed paints

These are a few of the latest environment studies I have done. I like to keep these studies under 2 hrs. Mostly experimenting with brushes and textures in photoshop. They often star off as traditional drawings with pen or pencil and then scanned in and painted with photoshop and Corel Painter. Basically using traditional painting techniques with new tricks I picked up from all of my art buddies in the industry. What I try to concentrate on the most with these are mood and atmosphere. I rarely every take these to completion.

Welcome

Welcome to My Blog. I finally decided to give in and start one of my own. Anyone that knows me ,knows that I am a sketchaholic. I intend to update this blog regularly, so I hope you stop by often and feel free to leave a comment. I will be posting daily practice sketches and exercises that I do to keep my skill level up and also help to keep those creative juices flowing. This is also a good excuse for me to continue experimenting with style and versatility. For more of my work please visit my site http://www.woundedlamb.com/
Fell free to sign the site guestbook and let me know you stopped by.
So enough talk already ,let's get started:
My preferred weapon of choice is the ball point pen. It forces me to be exact and allows for a good translation of mind to hand and paper, without the crutch of an eraser.