Jack & the Beanstalk - Character Turnaround

This week, we had to pick one of our characters and do a turnaround model sheet showing front, three-quarter view, side, back three-quarter view, and back angles.  Below are my rough sketches working out the turn, followed by the final turnaround drawings:

Jack & the Beanstalk - Initial Character Designs

This week, we've moved on to character design with our Jack & the Beanstalk story. We first had to draw several thumbnails to lock down the basic shape of the characters. Then we start adding some details here and there. Next week, we'll go more in-depth with the designs and create model sheets, but here are the thumbnails:

Jack & the Beanstalk - Value Studies

As previously stated, in my Visual Elements of Story class, I've chosen to work on "Jack & the Beanstalk". We began the class by making a series of small thumbnail compositions using just simple shapes and value to show foreground, middle ground, and background and to create a focal point:

We then had to modify these simple shapes and add elements of our story, essentially creating storyboards:
Then he had us combine some of the simple-shape thumbnails to create stronger compositions. I also used this opportunity to further define my version of the story, which opened up some great new compositions for me:
From the aforementioned goings on, we had to pick our four favorite compositions and create a simple value study. These are all 3 x 5.5" in size, using just 2B, 4B, and 6B pencils. Hopefully you see that they all have depth and a definite focal point:
Next up, we're designing our characters. I believe that, once we have the final design, we'll do larger, full value studies using the final character design and eventually add color to create something really cool. Here's a sampling of my character design ideas for Jack:

Jack & the Beanstalk

More to follow...

D'Oh!

This semester, I'm in my first core animation class, which is truly exhilarating! It's called Visual Elements of Story. I'll have plenty of great new artwork to post from this class, where I've chosen "Jack and the Beanstalk" as my story to work from--more on that later, though. The first project in this class was one that seems simple enough on the surface, but it truly difficult: Homer Simpson! So simple, yet so complex. First, some sketches I did to try to understand the character that I've grown up loving for 20 years...

The assignment was to draw Homer on model in 10 different poses. Since there have also been 10 Pixar movies, I decided to have a Homer representation for each movie. See if you can figure out which one's which...

Tinkerbell and the Lost Sketches

Over the extended Winter break, I didn't do much drawing. But, while I was watching Disney's "Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure", I was inspired by the great poses the animators achieved on Tink! Some really great stuff. You don't realize the beauty of Tink's character design (or at least I didn't) until you draw it for yourself. Great design and colors. So, below are some sketches I did while watching the movie; I recently colored them in Photoshop.

Clothed Figure Drawing: The Final Day

Alrighty, so I'm finally back to school in San Francisco after a six week break in Atlanta. As promised, here are the stragglers from last semester's drawings. First is the drawing I did on the last day of my Clothed Figure Drawing class:

And then there's the drawing I did for the final project from that class along with the original photograph reference: