Friday, April 2, 2010

Seeing is Believing!

Back to basics again, this time with some sketches from the sketchbook this week. I've been heeding the words of Stephen Silver and investing time in gesture work and doing memory gesture work. I've also been reading quite a bit of Walt Stanchfield's book...

The first two pages are one minute gestures with about 10-15 seconds of observation before people moved. The next two pages are memory gestures where I studied to "see" the people and mentally recorded their actions over the course of one to two minutes. I then came back away from them and sketched my impressions of them. These are one to two minute gestures, as well. I stylized them based on my impression of their shapes...I like the memory exercise alot!









9 comments:

David Colman said...

nice work here..i like your ballplayers and fairy"bell"

reminds me of Loisel....well done!

lincoln said...

Hi David! Many thanks!

Marcos Mateu said...

Good work! love the eating girl in the middle

lincoln said...

Thanks Marcos!
Ironically, that was one that I had the least amount of time to observe— a scant few seconds as I was walking by. I've been concentrating my efforts on really burning the impressions left by people into my mind so that I can translate their character accurately back at the drawing desk or at the cintiq...

Hans said...

Great sketches! Love your new header as well:)

-Hans

lincoln said...

Thanks Hans!
I thought it was time to update the header with art from this half of the decade...! I'd done that piece many years ago, plus I wanted something that reflected where my work is at currently...

The sketches are a part of my daily routine in addition to drawing from line of action poses from the film Treasure Planet and also drawing hands... you-man's exercise.

Bill Dodds said...

My have your gesture drawings improved over the years! These are fantastic. The new header is a trip too!

Justin Rodrigues said...

Great stuff man! love all the flow you have going on here.

lincoln said...

@ Lucas— Many thanks!
@ Bill— I've been concentrating on seeing people and being observant and really remembering the action that I see. I've also been reading the books of Walt Stanchfield and Mark McDonell (both of whom taught and teach at Disney) on gesture drawing. And I warm up doing it every day before I start work and draw from life on lunch. The other really big thing is that I try to picture the story first and thus have a visual image about the action before I put pen to paper or to stylus. I used to just rely on my hand/eye coordination to "copy" the model in front of me to make accurate drawings...but illustrating and telling the story is about sooooooooo much more. If I were teaching in our illustration department at CIA I would make it MANDATORY to begin each day with a propped model drawing session of at least an hour. And I'd require sketchbooks to be kept and not just sketchbooks for concepting illustrations...As I look at what it takes to thrive as an illustrator in the areas of the biz where you can thrive, I'm shocked our instructors were not more diligent in instilling these habits in us. Concepts are great, but If you're not constantly drawing with a purpose to "see" you'll never be able to execute these ideas... Personally, I found myself over the last several years relying too much on photo reference, the computer and deadlines to direct how I think and create...

@ Justin — thanks again! I'm just trying to get my skills and creativity sharpened so i can get a portfolio out the door to get some character design work, you and the rest of the great group out here in character design blog land!