Good news, everyone!

Well, just me. My student loan was approved today! Yippee!! I can breathe again! Given school starts on the 9th, I was getting a wee bit concerned. Now all I have to do is wait for the paperwork, take care of things with the school and I'm all set for the fall.

Biiiig relief.

Here, have something cute. More Preston Blair, blah blah.



And as promised, nekkid laydeez! Would you believe these are the same model?

One week

Not really new art this time, but I realized that one of this week's Sketch Night pieces was based on the same Dean Yeagle sketch I worked from last week. So I thought I'd do a quick side-by-side.

That's a big difference for only one week. I wonder where I'll be a week from now?


I also want to share this great animation by Jackie Lay of Tom Waits' Eggs and Sausage. I loves me some Tom Waits, yum.

Eggs and Sausage from Jackie Lay on Vimeo.

Ponyo!!

So a bunch of us went to see Ponyo tonight, and it was great! As expected of Miyazaki, of course, but it was great to see his work on the (relatively) big screen again. Well worth watching if you like family films at all, although it doesn't have the deeper themes of stuff like Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke. It was more like a fond call-back to the simple, sweet stories he'd done in the past, like My Neighbour Totoro.

It was also the first time the bunch of us who became friends back in Pre-Animation had gotten together since the wrap party at my place. Pity Kris didn't make it, though.


So as usual, Preston Blair studies. Only one page today.


Sketch Night at the school tonight. So I applied my new style to a piece from a Dean Weagle sketchbook and one from another book the artist of which I can't recall. I'm really getting to like this, and I'm learning all sorts of things I didn't expect.



Beware the NUNJA!!

Silently kicking ass for the LORD!

Yeah, someone came up with the name, and I had to draw it. Sue me, why don't'cha?

The meaning of the fast progress

I dunno what it is with me these days, but I've kinda gone a bit crock pot nuts. I guess a big part of that is finding this site with enough slow cooking recipies to keep me going for ages. I've already made shepherd's pie, tamale pie, Spanish rice cassarole, sausage with potatoes and spiced potato wedges, and I've got plans to try baking bread and checking out the rotisserie-style chicken recipe. Certainly I can't fault the quality, it's all been fantastic and no more difficult than any other dish. Less, I suppose, since there's a lot less prep and fussing involved for a lot of dishes. Even better, the energy costs are way less than the oven, and it doesn't heat up the house. Win-win-win, I say.

If you've got a crock in the house you haven't used, pull it out, there's so much you can do with it. Hmmm....a hummus recipie....

Er, yeah. Pictures. That's what you're here for, yes?

So the first couple of pages are more Preston Blair studies, mostly head shapes. I'm still trying to get the hang of drawing an egg shape that's not just an oval, but I guess it'll come in time. Then again, since it's mostly just a guideline it might not be terribly important. We'll see over the next few weeks.

After that, are a page of 60-second gestures I did this morning. I've started to feel like pushing realism away for now and start getting down and dirty with the anatomy. So we're talking bending stuff, twisting it, having all sorts of fun. Did those two sketches at the bottom there tonight, and they were an absolute ton o' fun. More tomorrow, with luck!

Things continue to be fun at Pastor Tom's All Night Whackaloon Warehouse and House of Pancakes, what with him generally melting down and tossing personal insults at anyone who ever looked at him funny, then bragging about how great Christianity is doing. Watching the clowns is always a fun pastime, but sometimes it's interesting to see what the adults are up to.

The adult this time is rather an interesting one. The Thomas Society, one of the rarest of rare breeds, an evangelical Christian who embraces doubt and actually interacts honestly with the world around him. He's well worth a read, so go check him out.

Oh, and Honest Tom hates him, so what better recommendation you gonna get?

Drawing today is a mixed bag. First is a couple of pages from last night's Sketch Night, drawn from any number of sources. The only one I remember for sure is some of the Dan Weagle sketchbooks, but who knows what all else is in there.



Next are studies from a couple of pages from Preston Blair's book, Cartoon Animation. Expect to see a lot like this over the next few days.


And finally, two pages from tonight's life drawing session at Sandy Hill. Haven't drawn a male model in ages, so it was a bit of a treat. I was a bit scared last week's successes were a fluke or something, but apparently I actually am getting better. Who knew?

There's no shame in Googling

In case you need to cut & paste, those names again are:

Stephen Harper
Morgan Tsvangirai
Abousfian Abdelrazik
Jacob Zuma
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Barack Obama

Well, I'm pretty sure you know who Obama is.

Listen!!

Do you smell something?

So starting to get somewhere fun with this stuff, after the past few months of hammering away at the basics. I've learned a few interesting things. One, I love hatching. I mean I really love it. I'm not that good at it yet, but I seem to be getting better. Two, I find angular stuff way more appealing to draw than simple curves. Maybe that's a phase, but it's really enjoyable. And three, although you don't see it on this stuff, I seem to enjoy exaggerating shoulders. Not sure what that means, but I would guess when I get to doing a lot more figure work again you'll probably see a lot of it.

We'll see if those observations hold up. For now, it's just nice to finally start getting some insight into what my hands find fun to draw.

Pressure

So after three months of staying at home and trying to improve, the new term is rushing forwards at a frightening pace. I get my schedule for the fall term on Friday, and in only six weeks I'll be sitting in my first class. Whatever that is.

I know I'll be working a lot harder this coming year than I did last. Not so much that I was slacking or anything, but because the courseload is way heavier. So much for 3 and 4 hour breaks between classes and days off in the middle of the week. This is gonna be real work.

It'll do me good, though. Hopefully I'll improve a lot.

Eh, it's a start

One thing Rich recommended back in April was to spend the summer doing caricatures. I can kinda see why now, so you can expect to see a lot more of this sort of thing.

Speaking of PZ Myers, his blog had a bit of network maintenance or something and as a result it spit up a bunch of old posts. Since I've only been following his blog since pretty recently, I hadn't seen this gem before. It's wonderfully evocative and poetic, well worth a read. That's one reason I always feel sorry for Creationists, by choosing to see the world through such a limited filter, they totally miss wonders like these.