Life drawing + doodles

Another update. I think I am starting to, little by little, understand some moments of gesture Mattesi tries to get through. But to keep myself from going mental with doing the same thing over and over, while doing life drawing, I did a pose that we had (20 mins) as properly measured as I could hand;e at that moment. It was rather hard being that slow and careful about making all the measurements, but hell, it feels good when you look at things and they actually come out right. I do feel, though, that drawing in such a manner tends to loose the life out of that drawing, and with Mattesi's advice, I feel like I am getting more and more free of being too rigid all the time (too many straight lines, etc etc). I have in plans a few portraits I want to do, all very academic, as careful as I can do them. Looking to get some new moments in understanding construction, planes, and tonal values. I am tempted to start on Preston Blair's book as well, but I think I will give it some time and go through Mattesi's book first, but I do not think I can resist trying my hand at some of drawings of Tex's Droopy and the other chars from his shorts.

Enjoy!

Post-weekend Update...

So, going through chapter one of FORCE, I have also watched the videos Mike Mattesi that he has on his site that coincide with the first chapter, and here is some of the stuff I ended up with. I still need to make more decisive marks, at the moment many of my lines are quite unsure, and repeat themselves one too many times. This quite evidently shows how much I am afraid of making wrong decisions when putting them down. I will keep practicing, maybe thinking a little more before each line, and will try limiting down any corrections I make to each mark.

I did start feeling a little of what Mattesi is trying to explain by FORCE. More in some cases then in others, but I still am practicing right now, so hopefully with time my eye will catch more of what I am after. Crits are always welcome!

Time to get Organized!

With the soothing beat of Chase and Status's - StreetLife in my ears, I come here with another update. Been a bit of a while, not happy with that, but the process of scanning things is never a quick one, and since I often doodle on loose papers that lie around, I tend to have drawings all over the place in a very "orderly" fashion...

But I have decided to get a bit more organized with my learning process. I feel that over the time I've been learning, I went too much into grabbing every possible book, and never ended up truly absorbing any. So my goal now is to grab a book at a time, and do about a chapter every 1-2 weeks. My starting point is Michael Mattesi's FORCE book. I have had it for some time now, but I have never really worked with books in the way it should have really been done. I plan to change this. I have also enrolled into his video lessons that he offers on his site www.drawingforce.com. Should be a blast!

Here are a few things I have done lately. Some are after reading the book, some are from life drawing sessions prior to the book. I think you should see what is what:)

RIP Pres Romanillos

Wow... This really makes me sad. Although I have not known much about Pres Romanillos, today, when visiting Cartoon Brew (who doesn't have this site bookmarked, DO IT NOW!), i learned that he has passed away, and I can't help but feel saddened. He has been a serious attribute to many a cartoon that I have enjoyed. You can view his blogs, "Pres Romanillos" and "Life is a Pickle", or watch Aladin, or maybe Pocahontas (yup, he has them both in his filmography and has done plenty to make these projects real...), and see, just how incredibly talented the man was. It is truly sad that one has to go sometimes at such an early time of their life... RIP.

Pres and Jeannine Romanillos. Photo by Tim Hodge

It has been quite some time... but i am BACK!

I really haven't updated here for a while... Feels like I should be collecting some spider webs from the corners.

After all this time I think want to start updating this place yet again. To start off, before I get to take the pictures of my latest figure drawings and sketches, I want to post a small morning sketch, a small thing I did for a welcome page on site, and a small walk cycle done in 2D (not on paper, yet, but soon those will come as well, since I got my animation lightbox!!!!). Enjoy!

2D Walk Cycle from Dimitry Kachkovski on Vimeo.