Schoolism.com: Memory Sketching

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Yesterday I covered part 1 of my latest schoolism.com assignment (my instructor is Stephen Silver). Part 2 was to do a memory sketch. “Memory sketching” is an exercise designed to strengthen your observation muscles. It works like this:

Go to a place where there are a lot of people (i.e. a mall, airport, coffee shop, etc.). Choose someone in the crowd to draw. Before you pick up your pencil, spend a few moments studying everything about them (their clothing, their posture, their face, the way they do their hair, their height….everything). Don’t look at them for longer than one or two minutes. If they haven’t walked away by then, turn and face the other direction.

Now, close your eyes and continue to study them in your mind. Analyze as much as you can remember. What was that hairstyle again? How far apart were the eyes? What color were the shoes? What was with that funny walk? (Don’t peek. It will completely destroy the purpose of the exercise.)

Finally, when you’ve got your target burned into your brain and you’ve thought everything through, THEN pick up your pencil to draw. And again, no peeking.

This was my first attempt at memory sketching. This guy was helping to take down a small stage in the Mall of America east court. Once I started to draw, I suddenly realized how little I had actually noticed about him. I had to improvise a lot of the details. Memory sketching is HARD.

But that’s why it’s such a great exercise. It forces you to really work your observational muscles for faster and more accurate drawing. It will also help fill your memory bank with facial features, hairstyles, body types, etc. so that you have more to draw on when you have to design a character from scratch. Personally, I’ve noticed that I have a clearer memory of this guy than I do of most other people I’ve drawn.

To see sample memory sketches from other artists, check out these two blogs: SketchClub and Sketchcub East.

Two Reminders…

This weekend is FallCon, Minnesota’s largest comic book convention. Here’s a recent post about it, and here’s the official site. I’ll have a table to display some of my work and sell a few sketches. If you are in the Twin Cities area, stop by and say hi!

Also, don’t forget to watch the season premiere of 3-2-1 Penguins! tomorrow morning on NBC! (I’m a character designer on the show). It airs at 10:30am central time. Check your local listings.

Schoolism.com: The Importance Of Sketchbooks

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For eight weeks now I’ve been posting my assignments from a character design class I’m taking at schoolism.com (taught by Stephen Silver). Only one more week to go!

This week’s assignement was another two-parter. For Part 1 we had to go to a busy public place and fill a page with observational sketches. The Mall of America is near my house, so I went there to sketch the above page. Part 2 (which I’ll post tomorrow) was about memory sketching.

I can’t over-emphasize the importance of keeping a daily sketchbook. The only way to get better at drawing is to draw. As Stephen likes to say, “A page a day keeps the competition away”.

A sketchbook isn’t for polished drawings. Rather, it’s a private place where you can stay loose, experiment, stretch yourself, and make mistakes. Lots of them! (Mistakes are the best teachers). If you want to keep growing as an artist, the worst thing you can do is fill your sketchbook with things you already know how to draw.

Going to a busy place to draw real live people is something you should do regularly. (Stephen fills a page every day over his lunch hour). Most people don’t sit still for very long, so it forces you to stay loose, think fast and make bold decisions, which over time will increase your confidence. Don’t sweat the details; focus on the essence of a pose (which can usually be captured in just a few lines). Try to capture the overall physical attitude of the person, which is the foundation that breathes life into a drawing. You can always go back and flesh out the details later.

In his lecture, Stephen talked about what a character designer should focus on as he sketches the people around him (i.e. balance, gesture, line of action, negative space, rhythm, attitude, etc.) He also talked about not just seeing, but studying what you draw. Observe the different ways people walk, talk, and gesture. Notice body types, hairstyles, and clothing choices. Study how fabric clings and hangs around the body, how people position their legs when they sit, how they lean when they carry things, how their posture changes with their attitude (i.e. excited, bored, annoyed, etc.) These are the things that give your drawings personality and character.

Stephen also talked about “frankensteining”, that is, assembling parts of several people into one character. You might start to draw a man reading the paper, but as soon as you rough in his body pose he gets up to leave. Don’t abandon your drawing. Add the profile from another person, maybe the hair from a third person, etc. Frankensteining keeps you from getting frustrted when your models keep moving (or leaving) in mid-drawing, and you might be pleasantly surprised at the new character you’ve created.

The point is that you keep drawing, keep experimenting, keep learning.

Now get out there and draw!

This Saturday: Space Penguins Coming to a Planet Near You!

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For the last few months I’ve been working as a freelance character designer on 3-2-1 Penguins!, a new animated series on NBC. The premiere episode airs this Saturday (10:30am Central, check your local listings).

3-2-1 Penguins! is about four wacky penguins (Zidgel, Fidgel, Midgel, and Kevin) who travel the universe along with two kids, Jason and Michelle. Imagine Star Trek as a screwball action-comedy, raplace Captain Kirk with a clueless penguin with a pompadour, and you’ve got the basic concept. Penguins was created by Big Idea (the studio behind VeggieTales), so each episode is built around a Bible lesson form the book of Proverbs. Some of the scripts are really wacky and hilarious, so I’m hoping the show gains a solid audience.

Big Idea owns all of the artwork I’ve done for the series, but they’ve graciously allowed me to post it on the blog—as long as I don’t show any artwork for a given episode until after that episode airs. So watch for lots of concept sketches in the coming weeks.

I didn’t actually start work on the show until episode #2 (which airs next Saturday), but if you happen to catch the premiere please leave a comment to let me know what you think. I’m not fishing for compliments. I genuinely want to know your honest opinion. It airs this Saturday at 10:30am CST on NBC.

“Dream On Silly Dreamer” is now on iTunes

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Dream On Silly Dreamer is a fascinating documentary about the rise and fall of modern Disney animation, told from the point of view of the animators who lived through it. I’ve blogged about it before, but here’s a summary: The film starts with the “renaissance” of Disney animation in the 1980’s (i.e. The Little Mermaid), moves on towards the Oscars (Beauty and the Beast), takes you through the phenominal success of The Lion King, and finally ends with the massive Disney layoffs of 2002. The film ends on a sad and poignant note, but that was very much the mood among animators at the time. Now that Pixar’s John Lasseter is running Disney animation things are arguably more hopeful, but the film is still fascinating nonetheless. Click here to watch the trailer.

Until now you could only watch Dream On Silly Dreamer on DVD. Now you can buy it on iTunes for only $1.99. Just click here. (Kudos to Tom Sito for the update). Or, if you want a version with extra footage and some nice special features, click here to order the DVD.

New Edition of “Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines” Now Available

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One of the more challenging aspects of freelancing (especially if you are just starting out) is figuring out what to charge for your services. Different clients have different budgets, and they will be using your artwork in different ways. How do you know what your fee should be for a greeting card illustration? What is a reasonable royalty for a children’s book? What about that ad agency who just called and needs storyboards by tomorrow?

Fortunatley, there’s the Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines, published by the Graphic Artists Guild. The GAG is a professional organization for commercial artists. Every few years, the GAG surveys their members (both graphic designers and illustrators) to find out what they are charging for various projects and publish the results in book form. The 12th edition is hot off the presses.

Each chapter covers a different industry that commonly hires freelance artists (i.e. advertising, magazines, book publishing, etc.), and gives a detailed explanation of the standard industry contracts/terms you should expect to see for use of your artwork. The more you know about a particular industry, the more able you are to present yourself as a knowledgable professional and the less likely you will be to undersell your services, or worse, get ripped off by a client with low respect for artists (and believe me, they are out there).

Each chapter also includes charts that list the current “going rate” for various projects, to help you figure out what you should be charging. Since every project is unique and there are many factors that effect price (i.e. complexity, deadline, rights purchased, the artist’s experience, etc.), the charts often have some wide price ranges. Still, those charts have saved my bacon many times.

(Incidentally, when a client calls I have learned to never, ever give a price quote off the top of my head. I’ll either over-estimate and scare away the client, or underestimate and wind up resenting the fact that I’m working so cheap. Instead, I always tell the client I need to run some numbers and get back to them. After I’ve figured out what I think I should charge, I usually grab this book to see what others are charging for the same service and, if necessary, adjust my fee accordingly.)

Finally, the book also includes sections on professional ethics, legal issues and contracts, complete with sample contracts and business forms for you to copy and use. I’m surprised at how many freelancers (especially those just starting out) don’t use formal contracts when being hired for a project. If you come to the client with all of your terms spelled out in black and white, you immediately present yourself as a professional worthy of respect. You also scare off any shady clients who might want to take advantage of you. And by spelling everything out up front you prevent any misunderstandings about fees, deadlines, or what exactly is expected of you. I personally have adapted my estimate/contract from Tad Crawford’s Business and Legal Forms for Illustrators because it comes with contracts on CD which I can cut-and-paste into my letterhead. But the GAG info in the Handbook is very helpful as well.

I should also mention that most of the book’s content is geared towards graphic designers and illustrators, though there is also some info for cartoonists, animators, website designers as well. I’m still waiting for my copy to arrive in the mail, but the previous edition had only a few pages of general information about freelance animation work. But that edition was published four years ago. With recent advances in Flash technology and the YouTube phenomenon, internet animation is booming like never before. Hopefully the 12th Edition will have more in-depth pricing info for animators.

This book is an absolute must-have for any freelance artist. Make sure to get the 12th edition (although curiously, the 11th edition is still featured on the GAG website). If you freelance, run out to the bookstore and grab a copy right away. Or order one from Amazon.com

Schoolism.com: Attitudes and Expressions

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As my regular blog readers know, I’m taking a character design class online from Stephen Silver over at schoolism.com. I’ve been posting my work from each week’s lesson here on the ol’ blog-o-rama.

So far I’ve designed a character (Dr. Jeckyll) for a pretend “Jeckyll and Hyde” movie, starting with thumbnail silhouettes, then concept sketches, final clean-up, and then turnarounds. This week’s lesson was all about model sheets, specifically attitudes and expressions.

A “model sheet” is a page of drawings that animators and storyboard artists will use as a guide when animating a character. A good model sheet will give a sense of both the personality of the character (i.e. how does he react to certain situations?) and the physicality of the character (i.e. how does he walk, move, etc.).

Our assignment was to create a model sheet for our character, consisting of two parts:

1. Six standard expressions (anger, surprise, sadness, happiness, fear, and disgust);

2. Two full-body attitude drawings, which could be whatever we wanted. The only rule was that they give a sense of the character’s personality and/or response to a given situation. I chose to depict Dr. Jeckyll before and after drinking the potion that transforms him into a big, ugly, hulking monster.

I’m fairly pleased with how my expressions turned out. The attitudes not so much. The first one turned out ok but the second sketch was done late at night, so I was tired and rushed through it. The face isn’t a dead-on likeness, the pose should have been more unstable (dizzy, almost drunken), and the feet are a mushy mess. But, since this is a class and not a paying project, I only have so much free time to invest in the assignments. All things considered, I did ok.

Next week’s assignment is all about memory sketching. I’ve heard a lot about it but have never tried it. Can’t wait!