Church drawing

I'm back! I didn't mean to be gone so long...my brother Chris and his buddy Mark dropped in unexpectedly from L.A. and we spent the week refamiliarizing ourselves with the awesome town we call home. We had a blast doing all kinds of ridiculous touristy stuff and slowing eating our way across the Northwest side...Superdawg, Al's Beef, Lou Malnatti's- oh yeah! Come back soon guys...I can't go to those places all by my lonesome! :)

Anyway, I finally got this thing done and up. I'm not sure how I feel about the willow tree on the right...I kinda like it but suspect that it might be ugly too. I took a risk with the weird stylization- I just wanted all the major tree types to be different and felt that one should have an undulating form. I also wanted to add a Protestant church name and message to the sign but didn't want to wait to post until I came up with something. Thoughts anyone?

"Map" for church drawing

I say that because it's more like mapping things out than anything else! I wouldn't even call this a preliminary sketch, because it's missing so many important layers yet...like style, and fun! This is more about figuring out foundational stuff- the right amount of elements, the right overall shapes, and the right distances and placement. I haven't done one of these in awhile...I forgot how difficult these seemingly simple tasks are! I think the secret to great bg's is all in the editing...keeping only the necessary elements and letting the imagination fill in the rest.

Anyway I completely snatched the church photo that John posted on his site. It really was too perfect to change. I'm not even really sure what they call that style of architecture, other than totally outdated. Here in Jefferson Park in Chicago there are a TON of churches like this one...I think it's the Polish influence shining through. We love our chotchky shit! >:)

More work on this piece to come.

I lied...two more!

I'm only posting this b/c I think they're slightly better than the pen doodles I posted before. Sheesh, I feel like I have such a long way to go. Oh well. G'nite!

One more cause I can't sleep!

Wow, Sody is built like a brick s***house. I wish I had a bum like that! I would be queen of the freakin universe. ANYWAY, I decided to sketch her in rear view to try to capture the shape of her head and the curves of her overall backside. There's a lot of cool stuff going on, especially in the shoulderblades! It's really tough to catch. I also this would make good practice for angles you don't see quite as often. I'm not even going to put the originals over these to see how accurate they are.....it's too late and I don't want to be thinking about it all night.....

Doodle dump

So I stayed up really late last night practicing and tried to loosen up a bit (SO hard for me sometimes!) and although none of these are very proportionate I think I'm making some headway in overall feel. As you can see most of these are taken directly from the source material (I'm trying to be good and follow the lessons!) but I couldn't help improvising a little bit on some. I wish I could make that first step of finding that perfect balance of structure and flowiness.....argh, so frustrating!.....but I think that's something that will only come with time and practice. Additionally, I'd like to find a little bit more of my personal voice in these...they are coming off a bit Rice-ish (not that THAT'S a bad thing) :) but I'd really like to bring something new to the table. It's all about contributing something different, right? Anyway, please be nice (I'm new at this) :) and enjoy!

More Sody practice

Hmm...why did I think these would be easier to do than George? I think I got waaayyy more things wrong on these...I mean, look at those deflated boobs! Boo! The only thing I really like about these is that the drawings are starting to flow a little bit easier and the skull proportions seem to be improving. Yay for practice!

More Sody- cuter this time

Well, I don't have much to say about these- other than she's a lot easier than George! And she has really fun eyelashes. I wish they sold them that way, all thick and in cool shapes! More to come.....

Sody Pop- Naughty and Nice versions

So I'm taking a quick break from George to start on some Sody drawings...now that her samples are up on John's blog I'm taking that as permission to switch gears for awhile! I tried drawing her in her usual sweet, bubbly girl mode but had to swing to the opposite end of the pendulum and do a semi-evil/mischievous one too. "Nice" is so boring for me sometimes...I have to balance it out with a good dose of darkness once in awhile! >:)

And oh yeah...it must be said that I never ever would have dreamed up some aspects of these drawings if it weren't for Katie Rice. She deserves mad props. She is the ultimate girl MASTER and everything she tries is fricking brill! You MUST MUST MUST click her name on the right side of the page if you've never seen her artwork before. It will change the way you see life itself, I swear! :)

Glutton for punishment

So I'm back to practicing volumes and proportions. These are some of my most favorite George expressions ever, so I'm doing them even though they're ridiculously out of my skill range. His amused/unperturbed/superior expression in the first one cracks me up! :)

My best efforts today

So I started out today intending on reworking the images below, and thought, f*** it, I'm going to try one more round of George's from memory. I like these a lot better than what I had yesterday, but I'm still kind of disappointed with my progress- I sketched all day today without figuring out my way of shorthanding this character. Argh! That's the way it goes I guess. Anyway, whatever George art I post next will take a purely structural tack. Looking at these, I really need more practice in that area anyway!