MORE SCRATCH

Sum more Scratch doodles. This time I copied a lot of David Gemmill's stuff. He's awesome, you should check out his stuff.


_Hat

DESK CLEAN UP: MEETING DOODLES

Cleaned up my desk at the studio today, I'm really bad about keeping my workspace tidy. There were piles of paper everywhere, but I did find lots of doodles from meetings/cereal breaks of past. Here is a compilation of desk cluster;




Am I the only one who's desk gets out of control? Nevertheless, when I do finally get around to straightening things up, I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside, perhaps one of those precious little parts of life that is often over-looked.

-Hat

SCRATCH DOODLES

I stole most of the poses from Rex Hackelberg.

-Hat

BI-DAILY: RAIN

BI DAILY: BEAR

I call this one 'Bare Bear Underwear'


After drawing it, I realized I really want that hat.

-Hat

BI DAILY: COLD FEET & EARTHY

Cold feet;
Earthy;

-Hat

HAN DRAWN STORYBOARDS

I recently struck up an online conversation with Han, an aspiring animator/artist. She just posted her first pass at storyboarding on her blog, which I was thoroughly impressed with (without question better than any of my first few attempts).

I had some advice for her, primarily some principles she could look to incorporate into her boards as she moves forward, that I think will really help take her sequences to the next level. She was kind enough to allow me to post my notes here, so that others could benefit and learn from her work!

To illustrate the principles and techniques, I took a single panel from her sequence and drew over it. I gradually built up a new panel using hers as a starting point.
(The entire sequence can be seen on her blog, however for the sake of clarity I chose to focus on one panel.)

1. ORIGINAL PANEL FROM HAN'S SEQUENCE:

Conceptually, it is a good.
-She has clearly established a screen relationship between two characters (left and right).
-Indicated an envirment (the mountain range in the background)
-Suggested a certain degree of depth.
My main note, push it! push it good! Push the depth! Push the background! Take the concept of this shot and push it to find a more interesting and compelling compostition.

2. DRAW YOUR GRIDS!

I started my redraw with a horizon line and laying down a grid.

Laying down your grid is something that's been pounded into my head by almost every feature board artist I've ever worked with. It'll help clarify your depth, and can be used as a guide for incorporating mid/forground elements (illustrated in Step 5.)

Trust me, lay down your grids, it'll help!

3. PUSH THE DEPTH

In her original panel, there is a lot of empty space around the characters, not particularly interesting visually. I drew over the characters, using my grid as a guide, and tried to push the depth.

By pushing the depth, bringing one character closer and pushing one further away, you can create a much more engaging composition, as well as utlizing the real estate of the panel more effectively.

4. USE THE BACKGROUND TO ENHANCE THE COMPOSITION

You can use background elements to enhance a composition and direct the eye.
The important information in the above panel is the charatcers, so everything else in the composition should support that. Keeping that in mind, we can use mountain ranges in the background to help lead the eye to the character.

5. POPULATE THE MID-GROUND

Put some junk in the mid-ground.

Populating the mid-ground can help in a few ways:
-Further help define the enviroment
-Help push the depth by incorporating over-lapping elements as well as visual depth cues (things getting smaller as they recede)

6. A LITTLE SHADING GOES A LONG WAY

In the original panel the shading was a bit too detailed yet oddly unspecific. You can simplify the shading by thinking about it in terms of foreground, midground and background.

I did a quick shade pass over the panel using each object's relative position in the composition, how close/far away it is from us, and shaded accordingly.
We can also use shadows to help direct the eye (just like the background) by having them point towards other important information.

Below is a gif of the progression so you can see how being concious of these principles while your boarding can really help enhance your work. UPDATE:(You may need to click on it to see it animate)

With storyboarding it is just a matter of getting sequences under your belt, the more you board, the better you get, plain and simple. Don't be discouraged if you don't see immediate improvement. It takes time for these principles to become second nature, the most important thing is that you are aware of them and how they can affect your work.

Han is off to an amazing start, I can't wait to see where she goes from here!

A big thanks to Han for allowing me to post this here. If you've taken anything away from this little break down, please visit Han's blog and thank her! It wouldn't have been possible without her hard work and generosity.

-Hat

BI DAILY: WATER PRESSURE

I was honored when Jeff Snow asked me to come up with today's Bi-Daily theme. I felt pressured to come up with an awesome theme, and then it hit me in the shower... "water pressure".

Below is my submission.

Perhaps one of my more cerebral contributions.

check out;
Dave P
Jeff Snow

Also a whole slew of Bi-Dailies from Steve Macleod.

-Hat

BI DAILY: SOUR

See other sour drawings;
Dave P
Jeff Snow

BI-DAILY DRAWING: PAMPER

Today's theme (technically yesterday's): Pamper

Check out all the others yo;
Dave P
Jenny Lerew
Jeff Snow

Normally I try and spend a little extra time on these bi-daily drawlings, to make em look nice, because quite frankly everyone else doing them is super awesome and their drawings are amazing, but I cranked this one out pretty quickly.

Dig in.

-Hat

BI DAILY: BATTERED COD

This was the first thing that came to mind;


Be sure to check out all the other guys' drawings, they are all awesome and hilarious, some of my favorites out of all the Bi-Daily batches so far... and who would have thought with a theme like 'battered cod'.

Jeff Snow
Dave P
Dave Derrik

-Hat

LINE UP

I was going through one of my older sketch books (from back before I knew anything about drawing), and came across a bunch of crude characters that made me laugh. So I thought I'd take a stab at updating their designs;


-Hat

BACK IN BUISNESS; BI-DAILY DRAWING: TRESPASSING

So according to Dave Pimentel, the Bi-Daily drawing challenge is back on! Every other day, new theme, new drawing.
Today's word was 'Trespassing'


As always, anyone interested in participating is welcome to join.

-Hat

WARM UP DOODLES

Some warm up doodles done recently prior to getting down and dirty on a comic I'm working on.

-Warm Hat

OTTERS IN ACTION

Another Pokemon piece. It was actually inspired by Rad Sechrist and the stuff he posts on his blog. He is crazy good, his compositions are so dynamic and interesting. I've been trying to get better at those kinds of things, so this was an attempt at that.

-Hat

OTTERS IN THE HOOD

I go through phases where all I want to draw is pokemon... I am currently in one of said phases. If I had my own pokemon, after he battled this is how I'd let him relax and regain his strength. Pokeballs are animal torture.

-Hood Hat

PS- Just noticed this is my 200th blog post... and I posted a drawing of myself, barefoot, carrying a pocket monster in my hood...kind of a waste of a landmark post. Oh well, I'll try again at 300.

RUNNING WITH OTTERS

Realized I hadn't posted anything in a while so did this little drawing.


-Hat

POKEMON INSPIRED PIECE

Following up on the last post, here's a little piece I did inspired by Ken Sugimori.

I did a version that I had shaded, but liked this one with the flat color better.

-Hat-Man-Do

KEN SUGIMORI; POKEMON PERFECTION

When I heard they were making a whole new generation of Pokemon I was pretty excited. I've been a fan of the franchise for a long time due in most part to the artwork and character design of lead Pokemon artist Ken Sugimori.

This guys is amazing. The amount of character he can convey in a single pose is mind-boggling. There are certain Pokemon he has designed and posed to an extent such that you know all you need know about that particular character from one drawing.

He has crafted, with Pokemon in particular, a style that is beautifully minimalistic yet complex at the same time, specifically in the anatomy, which contains brilliant subtleties all while maintaining the overall appeal. The hierarchy of details in his designs is unmatched. He has an uncanny ability in understanding where high volume areas of detail, as well as low volume areas, need to be in order to suggest types of fabric/skin/fur all without drawing attention to itself and distracting from the overall harmony of the design.

When I saw the 5th generation of pokemon I was, to say the least, underwhelmed with most of the designs. It's not that they were bad per say, it had more to do with the concepts behind a majority of them which seemed somewhat questionable for what I knew as 'Pokemon'. However, I got over my initial uncertainties about them, and at this time most of them have grown on me. So I decided to draw a few.


-PokeHat

NEIGHBORS FROM HELL BOARDS

About a year ago I had the chance to board a sequence for 'Neighbors from Hell'. I recently found the clip I boarded online and figured it'd be ok to post the work I did. The show was awesome to work on. I like the designs a lot and I had a lot of fun drawing and posing the characters.

I think I've gotten better at drawing since having done this sequence and I can see things that I would have drawn differently, but I'm pretty happy with the shots and the flow of the sequence.







Below is the clip, the first 35 seconds is the stuff I boarded. The animation team did an amazing job matching and enhancing the poses and shots I boarded.



I'm not sure what happened to the show... I think it got canceled? I don't have a TV so I never saw it, did anyone see it?

-Hat

PIMENTELL ME TO DRAW

I recently had the pleasure of catching up with my good friend, mentor and all-around awesome guy Dave Pimentel. This past year has been quite a challenge for me artistically. As I began storyboarding on my first animated feature I came to realize very quickly how far I needed to go in terms of drawing ability in order to get my sequences up to par with the other incredible story artists at the studio.

Reconnecting with Dave and listening to him talk made me realize how much fun drawing can be... and should be! He has reinvigorated my passion for drawing and inspired me to strive to get better. Dave is one of the main reasons I am where I am today and I owe much of my success to him.

I've taken Dave's words to heart and been drawing at every chance I get, even going as far as sketching during cereal break at the studio. Below are some doodles from said break;

Some 1 and 2 minute gesture drawings;

Random sketch book page;

A couple caricatures I did for and of some dudes at the studio;


If any of you ever get the chance to attend a Dave Pimentel talk or class DO IT! You will not be sorry.

-Hat

SCREAMING CONTEST

They are having a screaming contest, for keeps!

-Hat

20!! THE INAUGURAL BLOG-URL

Hi

Happy new year!

Thanks to all the peoples who stopped by my blog this past year, you are awesome. I hope this year I get a chance to meet some of you that I only know by artwork.

May all your dreams come true, and all that is true become a dream... not sure what that means but it sounded good.

-Hat

MONOCHRO-MANNY'S

Random Manny's

MONO-KHAN-MATIC

Just a buncha random Khan doodles.

MANNY AND KHAN DOODLES

I been drawins Manny and Khan quite a bit lately, as me and Joe-dawg are working on some new Chronicle comics. These are some warm up doodles I did. Hopefully we'll have something to post soon.



-Hat-Man

OOGELY BOOGELY

Just a random little doodle I did during the day.

BIANCA-LLAMA AND BEAVER BOY 2

The new adventures of Bianca-Llama and Beaver Boy

(Add your own sound effects, it makes the drawing better).

-Hat

BIANCA-LLAMA AND BEAVER BOY!

The residents of super-cube as animal themed super heroes. This is just one of those drawings that gets made after I say something stupid at the studio.
Note: The Bobcat is a super-villain

_Hat a.k.a Beaver Boy

MANNY AND KHAN COMIC STRIPS- VOL. 2

A few more M&K strips. We actually made these about a year ago with the intentions of creating a weekly comic, lest me and Joey got busy with other shtuff... But Joey did such a kick-ass job inking and coloring these, I feel obligated to post them. And with the impending end of the calendar year it feels like a good time seeing as how the first two strips deal with Manny and Khan's new years resolutions;



Hope you enjoyed the antics of these idiots.

_Hat