Zombie Killer Extraordinaire

Sidge McDougal's Zombie Crisis is an original concept created by my boyfriend and his close friend.  When I started Visual Elements of Story at AAU and had the option to develop an original story I knew it would be this one. I'd previously done some character designs for the story but wanted to revise those and push the designs further. It's a fun story and who doesn't love zombies and the apocalypse?

Although, I must say, I need to do a lot more drawing of zombies in the future. I mostly focused on designing the living human characters in the story this time around. So, behold, Sidge McDougal! Our main character, anti-hero protagonist.

thumbnails exploring different designs; head explorations; and the final version on the right

turn-arounds! I had fun drawing all the spikes and accessories on Sidge initially, but man was it interesting to move them. I kept going over my checklist of spikes to ensure none were missed. Below the turn-around are several expressions. It's getting somewhere, but I think he still needs to be pushed to look even more manic and crazed.

we had to create boards at the end of class and here is my character board. I still want to revise some of the characters and finish the 3D character painting (bottom right) so once those are done I'll be sharing them in the near future.

I've had a lot of fun designing this story from characters to props to environments. I will probably continue working on it in the future. A part of me has been itching to do some animation involving this story, even if it's just some animated storyboards. We shall see what time allows....

Age and Self-Cartoon Portrait

Hello! Sorry this post is a bit belated; yesterday time got away from me and by the time I was ready to post it was bedtime.

Without further ado, here's some more work from my Character Design class this past summer semester:

Voila! Watch me age! The assignment was to do an aging of one character from toddler to child to adult to senior. I decided to draw myself since the first half of the assignment would be some good practice for my semi-autobiographical comic about Catholic grammar school (which will be worked on more!). I definitely want to fill in the age blanks for the younger ones... draw pretty much each grade--I'm thinking that second one is me in fourth or fifth grade. Also, for my senior one I figured it's gonna be the future and damnit I want a rocket rocking chair!

I decided to re-work and color the adult one as I can use it on my site and business cards. Our instructor went over digital coloring methods both overall and for lineart. So I felt it necessary to at least throw myself out of my comfort zone of black lines and to color them. Here's the colored lineart version:

I did like the effect to some degree, but when looking at it next to the black lineart I still felt drawn to the dark, inked lines. Also, probably due to my method, but when I colored the lines they became a bit fuzzy and that just pissed me off; I love crisp and delicious lines, what was happening to my good lineart?! I'm going to need to solve that problem in the future since I would like to integrate this technique into future work. But for now...

The finished product with black lineart!

What do you guys think? Do you like the colored lineart better? Does anyone know why my lines became fuzzy? If you have answers, let me knoooow~~!

Until tomorrow!

Kvothe the Bloodless (one of many names)

I do believe I mentioned the reading frenzy I have been in previously. One book that I've nomed up in the process has been Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind. It's a really great fantasy book and was super addicting; it was hard to do anything but read whenever I had the chance! I even cleaned a part of my room to create a little reading nook! Now that's dedication....

So for today's post I wanted to draw some more heads while also keeping in mind the rules and teaching of these great videos:

He has really great tutorials and there's more on his site here.

Here are my first head studies for Kvothe:

I think I like the bottom most left, middle of the middle row, and the bottom right corner. I still want to develop his character a bit more. This is meant to be him in his story that he tells the Chronicler in the first book when he's attending the University, about 15 or 16 years old. I think he still looks a touch too older in my drawings...

I'm looking forward to reading the next book in the series, but am also a bit concerned about the lack of doing anything else in life when that happens. Ah, literary addiction.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Last of the Class Drawings

I was working on a lil' illustration but didn't want to rush for today's post so that will have to wait until Friday. Meanwhile, here's the sketches from the last day of Character Design class!

I thought this pose was exceptionally creepy... haha... dolls always add a creepy factor for me.

I also have just passed 200 heads today! So another set of ten from there will be cleaned up/inked soon. There are still projects from classes I want to further develop, along with thesis work so every post should be pretty lively for awhile!

Have a good hump day! ~_^

Sidge McDougal's Zombie Crisis

I present to you some of the character design work for my final project in Character Design class...

We had the option of working on an original story or something for our thesis and I spent at least a good two days (that's a lot of time in summer semester) trying to figure out what I should do. Then it came to me one night as I lay in bed....

Sidge McDougal's Zombie Crisis!!!

This is an original concept formed from the brainstuffs of my boyfriend and friend. The premise involves a zombie apocalypse and the hero who steps forward to bash zombie brains. It's a pretty old concept of theirs, but one that stuck with me and that I wanted to see made. Henceforth, Sidge McDougal it is.

The designs still need some tweaking, but here is the main character, Sidge McDougal.

head studies

turnaround minus the bad back view.. that side view still needs work though...

And then one of the first antagonists, James Billy Johnson.

I still want to work on this project more and had a bunch of fun designing these characters. Once I develop them further I'll post some more. Time to really utilize the free time between semesters!

Sidge McDougal's Zombie Crisis was created by Jesus Gomez and John Prucha. The characters and concept all belongs to them.

Expressions

Hark!


Today's post are my character expression studies for my shifter shaman Tempest Brookshire, who I play with my trusty group of adventurers about twice a month. DnD (Dungeons and Dragons) is very fun and I recommend it to everyone to try at least once. Beware, you may become addicted. (Or you may just hate it, but that's no fun).

Just a couple of the expressions I liked for more detail.

Have a great week. And holy shit, it's August! How the time flies by...

draw draw draw draw draw

Feels good to draw, man.

Forgive me, Darling Blog

Alas, I've been so busy that I not only missed posting Wednesday, but also yesterday! School has kept me insanely busy--actually, I need to get my ass in gear and get even MORE work done--which means, of course, bending space and time.

There are a lot of projects I'm working on along with getting some thesis work done, so more substantial posts may be coming in the future. But for now, here are some sketches from my Character Design class. We usually have somewhere between 4 minutes and 7 minutes maximum for each pose. I'm really trying to work on my shapes, dynamic and realistic poses, as well as stylizing the human form.

Here's to drawing!

This guy's a renegade. Watch out.

This model chick was pretty badass.

Liking some of the stylizing of the shapes... and look! The hand looks like a hand!

Still working on my men. Trying to find a balance between MANLY and sexy more androgynous man without them entering anywhere near looking like a lady. Not looking for THAT androgynous...

Viking chick! This lady model also had super awesome poses. Unfortunately, I didn't capture some of her epic poses very well.

Nice pose!

And now, just to show you how much I suck still, here is my drawing of Khal Drogo in the style of Bruce Timm:

Pretty bad. Looks like he's about to top over.... and how exactly is he holding that weakass arakh?

Then my instructor, Michael Buffington or Drawaholic, drew over my shitty drawing.

Prepare for epic manliness.

Badass. Right?

Now to keep drawing and get better!

Are you up for the challenge?!

And so begins my challenge of 1,000 heads!

My CD (Character Design... which from henceforth will be abbreviated to this since there will probably be a lot more posts from this class) instructor told us about this challenge to do just what it sounds like: draw 1,000 heads and by the time you're done, guess what, you're better. Voila!

9,995 left to go until growing as a drawer! Leveling uuuup....! And you can say I'm farming Facebook because every time I visit I am giving myself the task to draw at least five heads. I'm hoping that helps me to keep on it more regularly (and possibly lower my checking Facebook sometimes, 'cause damn).

Also, forgive the awful picture... I even tried fixing it but my camera in a dark room is not that good. I took one too big a nap and awoke to darkness, thinking, 'Shit! I need to make a blog post and eat some dinner!'

Are any of you fellow artist friends up for the challenge of the 1,000 heads?!

Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-NUH... BATGIRL!

Last week I had some problems with transferring files from class and thought they were lost to me. Luckily, when I checked the next period they hadn't been deleted! Hurrah!

So I present to you... Batgirl!

I digitally inked one of the drawings from Ch. Design. I think it turned out pretty good, but there are some things about the drawing I may go back and tweak (Arch the back. No, arch it further! Further, damn you!)

Then I decided to place her in Gotham. Of course, I wanted to use reference from the Harold Washington Library in Chicago. If I ever work this through I definitely will share.

Have a great weekend!

Character Sketches

Really busy today so talk will be brief.

Here's some figure sketches from my Character Design class this past Monday!

Trying to push shape still, while also drawing poses and figures which I like.

There's far more bad than any good at all. But so is the way of getting better!

Have a great Wednesday!