They're Not Moving, You Just Think They Are

I've recently picked up a commission to draw a dancing couple. I'm happy for this, mainly because I really love drawing dancers. Any type of extreme movement gives the body a lot of energy, but the illustrator is at a disadvantage because illustrations are static. Movement can--at best--be suggested.

Movement is a funny thing, because if you look at a still image of a person in the middle of just about any movement, but especially extreme ones, they look really, REALLY, weird. Reasons could be because weight is shifting, the basic body parts haven't arrived at their destination, or it just looks unnatural. The artist has to choose a part of that movement that not only tells the audience what the movement is, but also looks dynamic and interesting.

In these dancing sketches, I started developing a pose that is more towards the end of the motion: the guy is pretty much finished moving and is striking a pose, and the girl is pretty close to being done. The energy is high for both of them, but they are done moving. To create some more energy, and a more immediate sense of motion, I started playing around with the clothes they're wearing. Dancers commonly wear flowing clothes for this very reason.

Gridlock!

First off, there is a difference between copying another artist's work, and doing a 'study' of it. When someone copies an artist's original work, they are doing just that: copying. Sometimes this is done illegally and without the original artist's knowledge/approval. The copier might even advertise it as their own original work. This does happen a lot, and it's a shame, because I wish people could be responsible. Doing a study of another artist's work is a very good practice for an artist to do. When drawing, painting, sculpting, etc., the artist is looking very closely at every square centimeter of the piece. A good artist knows their own work incredibly intimately. Because of this inherent close attention to the smallest details, it is good for an artist to try and recreate another artist's piece. It'd be one thing to simply look at the piece, but recreating it brings that intimate knowledge too. This is very helpful, because if the original artist is one that inspires the new one, there is no measure to what an artist can learn by doing a study.

One method of doing a study is by setting up a simple grid over the original piece. For my example, I was drawing a bookmark for someone, which was a recreating of "Saint John the Baptist" by Caravaggio. I put up the grid in photoshop, and drew one of the same size on my paper. Instead of looking at the picture as one whole image, I looked at each square as an image in and of itself. This helps the artist because it taps into the abstract/creative centers of the brain (which we generally want to use), instead of using the more rationally-based centers of the brain, which would perceive this image simply as a young man. Looking at each square individually also helps make the study more exact. It's simply easier to figure out the exact placement of the shoulder when the image is 1"x1" instead of 2"x7".

Work Your Way Up

I've only recently realized that with pretty much everything I do that's creative, I start small/basic and work my way up to larger/detailed. I've been doing this for years, but it's only because I explain my processes on this blog that I saw the obvious.

Yet another example of this principle is the thumbnail. I don't know why they are called this. A thumbnail is a small--and in some cases very small--sketch of the composition rooted down to its most basic shapes. I've done them as small as an inch tall before, rolling through tons of ideas until I start getting something I like. Lots of beginning artists like to go right into the detail work when they start a drawing. I know I did when I first started learning. The cool details are very enticing and a lot of fun, but you can't start laying bricks without an architectural plan. As I grew as an artist, I learned that doing these basic rough sketches can be just as fun and educational as the detail work.

This example is a rather large thumbnail measuring 3x6 inches. I did it large because I already had an idea that I liked, and I wanted to get moving on this project. Also, I did a few smaller ones in my sketchbook I leave in my locker at work. So there. I usually have blocked out everything in pencil at this stage, and make mental notes of where shadows go. But, in my experience, it's always better when I grab a sharpie or brush-pen and start drawing in shadows as large shapes.

A "True Grit"y Remake

The remake is extremely popular these days. Especially if it's a darker, grittier version of the original.

The Good: Sometimes it reignites interest in the original material. Advances in technology (or even storytelling itself) can even help the original story be holistically better than when it was first released. A current example might be the "Tron: Legacy" movie that's coming out next week. I genuinely think that the technology that was around at the time of the original film simply couldn't accommodate what the story needed to be visually successful.

The Bad: Fans of the original rarely like remakes, reasoning that you can never replace a classic, or even do it justice. Sometimes the pendulum swings the other way and people focus a lot on the remake and forget about the original. While I'm a huge fan of the Christopher Nolan Batman films, I'm afraid that people have really forgotten how amazing the Tim Burton ones were.

The 'grim and gritty' trend is nothing new. Debates could go on endlessly as to where it really started; I'd say it's more of a steady evolution that took decades. "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns," "High Noon," EC Comics, and Quentin Tarintino are all from various decades which had various trends surrounding them, but each were revolutionary in their own way. I would hardly think, though, that the 'grim and gritty' approach is a holistic improvement on storytelling. Half the time it's inappropriate for a story. It's merely popular, just as several decades ago, the more idealistic, colorful, cleaner films, comics, and TV shows were popular.

I just watched the original John Wayne "True Grit." And I think comparing it with the new Coen Bros. movie that's getting ready to come out is a great example of what I'm talking about. The original film is a classic western, but I found it a little strange that with all the characters' talk of Rooster Cogburn's 'true grit' and the story's message of how lawless criminals will act, the look of the film was clean, idealistic, and at times pastoral (which was popular at the time). This new film that's coming out seems to let the visuals of the film echo the story's undertone of Maggie's (a stubborn, good Christian girl) immersion into the cold, dark reality of the west.

Time will tell how these trends really affect storytelling in general. Just know that someday, the bright, sunshine, Pollyana-style stories will be popular, and some director will want to remake "Terminator" where instead of guns, there are flowers.

Numbers

1x1.618. Looking at a sea shell, the parthenon, light switches, and your face, you will see this. It's the perfect ratio, rectangle, and mean. Nature creates things in this formula, and man naturally finds it the most pleasing. Euclid said "A straight line is said to have been cut in extreme and mean ratio when, as the whole line is to the greater segment, so is the greater to the less." Beginning with a square, you draw a line from the middle point of one edge to an opposing corner, and make that line the radius of a circle. The point directly above the center point is the top of the golden rectangle.

"What," you might ask, "the hell, am I talking about?" Back in ancient Greek times, numbers were kind of a big deal. Pythagoras was a philosopher that was all about numbers. Much of what we know about music comes from what the Greeks knew about the application of ratios and numbers to lengths of stretched chords that when plucked, made specific sounds. Phidias, when constructing the parthenon, knew of this ratio, and implemented it into the structure's ultimate design. Today, mathematicians, architects, musicians, and artists like me, still use it. I'm not entirely sure why a rectangle with these proportions is such a big deal, especially since there are tons of studies on this idea. What I do know is that this ratio works all throughout nature, and it's a tried and tested shape/line/design that is proven over the centuries to be aesthetically pleasing.

I was trying to think of a size for a new illustration I'm doing, and I thought I'd give the golden rectangle a shot. When I laid out where the image would be on the page, I have to admit, it's a good rectangle.

Yea! Field Trip!

Most towns of decent size have a museum of some sort. If you don't live in a town that does, then you probably relatively close to one that does. So, don't tell me that you can't visit a museum. I don't care if it's not the kind of museum you're interested in. Go to it. Bring your sketchbook. Sit down in front of something--anything--and draw it.

Across the ages, artists have always frequented museums and art galleries to pull influence from other artists. When I was in the Louvre, sitting down for a few hours and drawing a statue made me feel a part of the greater collective of artists over time. No matter what your medium, style, or skill level, every artist is the same when they set up their sketchbook in front of a museum exhibit: they become a student.

I went to the Ella Sharp Museum out in Jackson, MI. The initial pull was the comic art exhibit, but I was also interested in its exhibit on women's fashion of the Civil War era, and its permanent collection of local historical items. I took tons of pictures of everything, of course (you never know when I'll need to draw a woman from 1860, a WWI officer's uniform, or a surveyor's compass!). But I decided to sketch a few things in its permanent collection. A good learning experience.

Yo Joe!

I'm not sure where I first got this idea, but I'm 90% sure that I didn't think of it completely on my own. Artists use reference all the time. I'm not certain that most people realize just how much reference the average artist uses. Photos, live models, books, drawing on location, the internet, books, miniature mannequins, and, oh yeah, books (seriously, you can tell a lot about an artist by their bookshelf).

Anyway, one of the cheapest ways I've ever solved the problem of figuring out how to stage a scene is by putting my action figures to good use. While it might look a little ridiculous--in fact I'm sure it does--setting up a few posable action figures in relatively the blocking I want saves me a lot of headaches, and in some cases saves the drawing.

In this panel, the goal was to have a guy cut in on a dance, with the girl looking happy and the other guy looking angry. This is kind of a complex panel, since three people are going in different directions, and each one's facial expression is important. So, I took Stormshadow, Cover Girl, and Luke Skywalker and put them in the staging I knew would be required. Then I grabbed my digital camera and started taking some pictures from different angles. When I started doing this, I immediately noticed that what I originally had in mind wasn't going to work. Thus, if I hadn't done this, the panel wouldn't have been very successful. You can view the finished page on my Deviant Art page (link on the right). Poor Luke, in every scenario, he gets pushed away...

Gestures

"An imaginary line extending through the main action of the figure is the 'line of action.' Plan your figure and its details to accentuate this line. By doing so, you will strengthen the dramatic effect. The first thing to draw when constructing a figure is the line of action."--Preston Blair Cartoon Animation

What Blair means by this is that a figure in action should be reduced to one or two lines, and those lines determine everything about that figure. The reason behind this is that an artist can do very broad, sweeping lines in this first step, and the energy in those quick lines can stay in a drawing as it develops.

Right now, I'm working on a comic that has a lot of people swing dancing in it. This sketchbook page was from watching a few videos online. When drawing these, I also kept in mind the things I talked about in the very first post. I highlighted where the lines of action were in these sketches. At this point in the drawings, I'm not concerned with anatomy, costume, expression, or anything else other than the energy in the poses. Swing dancing is full of energy, and if I want to capture that onto a static image, it needs to begin with that as the central focus.

Face the Facts

Every now and then, I get on an Andrew Loomis kick. In my opinion, Loomis is one of--if not the--greatest figure artists of all time. He's certainly the best artist to learn from, because he literally wrote the book(s) on drawing people. Anyway, this time, I was looking at some diagrams he made of the human face, and tried to mimic it in drawing from photos. Fair warning to the person that draws from a photo: modern photos of celebrities and models are often digitally adjusted. You also have to remember that plastic surgery and makeup are miracle-workers these days. A good digital artist, makeup artist, or doctor won't manipulate a person's face making them look too different from what they actually are, or create physical impossibilities, but just be on the lookout. If you're doing a serious illustration, I definitely recommend the use of video and candid shots of people, as opposed to ads or glamour shots. For these sketches, I didn't really care too much, so the pictures I got were idealized in various ways.

The drawing of Gary Cooper was the easiest. Drawing men--especially as they get older--is much more forgiving for me, because I feel like if the lines aren't perfect, it's okay. Lines on a face denote age, so you can get away with a little more.

Lynda Carter took about 3-4 times longer to draw; I even had to use a lightbox to help with her lips a little. And I'm still not 100% happy with how it turned out, because I don't think it really looks like her. Drawing women for me is always difficult, because it's just the opposite of...um...men. Efficiency of line is of the utmost importance. One stray line, and it changes the image or makes them look old.

I learned recently that humans recognize faces by abstraction, as opposed to creating an exact image in our imagination. I think I got this with the Gary Cooper image. It doesn't look exactly like him, but I caught his long nose, square chin, and wide mouth. Loomis' diagram helps to place everything properly on the face. There are diagrams for the human face that chart every contour of it, and some of it is pretty wild how basically similar we all are.

The New Blog, and Swinging a Sword

Welcome to my brand-spanking new blog! This artist's blog will be about the creative process that I go through when I'm working on my comics. It won't strictly be a 'sketch blog' because I'll be posting work by artists that I admire and commentating on it aswell. The purpose of it is to show the curious and the creative how I go about the problem-solving process in drawing. I'll focus on three different things:

1) Other Artists: How they do it and me trying to mimic it.

2) Process: Behind the scenes of how I draw something--from reference to finished pieces.

3) Details: Those important, little details that make or break an image, and why it's vital to a piece.

I'll be posting once or twice a week, and the work here will for the most part be exclusive to the site. You can view my artwork at www.tedwoods.daportfolio.com. I'll also be getting a website soon, so look forward to that. As I said, this blog is for the curious and the creative. I've had many people ask me about my process, and they've seemed genuinely interested in the way I go about solving different problems. I also know that other artists can feed off each other's creativity. So check back often, and tell your friends!

For the first real post, I'm going to talk about an image I did of a knight swinging his sword. I'd already drawn a few versions of it before, but I decided to take the opportunity to get some decent reference and try to make this version of the drawing a bit more realistic. Plus, it was also fun to make my roommate feel stupid when he was swinging a sword around in broad daylight. I took a video of him swinging it from roughly the angle I wanted it shot from. The video was because I was drawing a person in a motion, and it's always obvious when someone is posing what they think the motion is and holding still, and actually doing the motion. Even with the video, I needed to make a few tweeks just to make the pose more dynamic and fluid. Wholesale copying from reference is also problematic because the camera flattens a 3-D image, and normal people have a difficult time looking dynamic, even when we try. Of course, the final image was about an inch and a half tall. But I think it's important to get even those small images right, even though in the back of your head you know that no one will really notice, since the finished product will be about half that size.