Watercolor - Bruiser and Scratch

Hello people who actually read my blog! (That's you Jason)

You might recall a time where I posted no art at all. Actually, I was doing all kinds of drawing. Just couldn't post it here because I was under a non-disclosure agreement. Anyway, I did a freelance gig with the really awesome guys at Steel Penny Games. Anyway, my job was to redesign the main characters from their first Wii title Bruiser and Scratch, so they could re-release it for the Intel App Store. I did so much work in such a short period of time, which was designing, modeling, and animating the 2 main characters all in one month. I pumped out around 40 animations, which I will someday show a few on my video game portfolio. I had no idea I could be so efficient, because after working a 16 hour day, I would still get on my exercise bike to keep my pounds in check every day. Anyway, I was incredibly busy, but I was incredibly happy, especially when my last job was to paint a family portrait of the characters in watercolor, which you see above.

Anyway, I did a lot of drawing but here are my favorites from that adventure:

OMG almost forgot!!

I started selling artwork on my Etsy store!!! I'm still in the process of setting up each item, but I have 6 things up there right now. Please check it out! Help support my watercolor habit!

Thanks for visiting my blog!
Tiffanny

Wishful Thinking

I haven't taken a vacation all year. I mean an actual one where I'm not taking my pets to the vet, standing in line at the DHS, or catching up on yard work. I mean a real vacation where I'm not doing some sort of chore. Anyway, I took a micro vacation this morning by drawing what I would like to be doing. Here is what I came up with:

I definitely want to go somewhere where I can wear something that I can feel vitamin D on my skin. It's a good feeling. Somewhere with heat and water both.I want to sip something icy and cold so I feel cool on the inside, while the sun warms me on the outside. Ahhhh.

Also SHAME ON ME for not drawing enough. Drawing is just as important as brushing your teeth and exercise. Should do it everyday!

Until Later,
Tiffanny

Sketchbook - Totally random collection of stuff in my current sketchbook.

Characters and Spanish

I'm learning Spanish. I'm doing it on my own with books, flashcards, and other gimmicks. It's kind of difficult to make it fun, so I decided to multitask learning Spanish and practicing cartooning. I have a box of flashcards of Spanish vocabulary. I pick adjectives and draw a character I imagine from that word. Here are some drawings I drew from various adjectives.

Wise - Sabio/Sabia

Bold - Audaz

Clever - Astuto/Astuta

 Heavy - Pesado/Pesada

Dont know which adjective this last guy came from, but the influx of office worker drawings is because my husband is working on a comedic animated 3d short based in an office building and needs a hand designing characters. He probably wont use these exactly, but use them as jumping points for his own designs and style.

I really should do these cartooning exercises more often. Drawing from imagination is very very very difficult for me and I absolutely salute those who can do it with ease. Having a word just as a starting point makes the job all that much easier than starting with nothing.

tiffanny
ps these were done with graphite, a medium that I am trying not to hate. I hate how shiny it is, how it smears, how it never goes to black but stays gray. ugh, I hate it.

Watercolor - Bride of Frankenstein (2nd place winner!)

I entered a classic monster character design contest 2 months ago. (Like Frankenstein, Dracula, etc) The winners were just announced today, and I won second place! The contest was a "learning" contest. Contestants were encouraged to show process, not just a final piece. During the process period, drawings were critiqued and guided by both contestants and judges. You had to do a model sheet of the character with an action pose. Rad Sechrist was one of the judges, (but was later replaced) and he generously donated his time doing draw-overs and corrections, as you will see in this post.

The final piece:

The model sheet:

The process sketches:

I like to start with a story in my head. I wanted the Bride to be running away from a mirror in terror, so I wanted to make sure I could draw a character as if she had just looked at something frightening and running away. I wanted to make the pose have dynamic curves. I also knew that most entries were going to be dark and scary. I wanted to be the different one, drawing something cute and colorful.

The judge encouraged me to watch the path of action and make sure that her body parts are flowing in that direction. He gave me a mini-lesson, as shown here:

So I listened, but I believed I could push the curve harder:

But was encouraged to think otherwise because at this point ribs could look missing :), here is the judges' draw over:

With the pose fleshed out, I did some variations on the character, and posted it for further critiques:

One of the critiques was that I was jumping the gun on the shape of the characters without exhausting more possibilities. In other words, I think, "thumbnail" more.

Which is what I did. I generally do not thumbnail, and I know many artists swear by it. I am really not psyched about doing little silhouettes. Eric Goldberg openly confesses to not thumb-nailing, so I am in good company. However, he IS Eric Goldberg *worship*, so he's allowed to break the rules. I suppose since so many experts out there swear by it, I really ought to listen. That's what makes them the expert, right?

I picked a few of my favorite silhouettes and did some more designs.

I ended up with the costume of the first drawing, the hair of the last one.

I did do color keys in Photoshop, but for the life of me I can't find the files to show you! Painting white was the biggest challenge. You want to add some color temperature shifts in there for interest but not lose the color's identity.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this post. I had fun drawing and painting, and I'm glad I won 2nd place. I think I get a t-shirt. :) But really, the learning experience was what I was after.

Oh! One last awesome news. Yesterday, I became a citizen of the United States of America. I am so happy!!!

Tiffanny

Agent's Identity

I have this probably wrong idea in my head that when people from other countries think about the US, they think Texans. Well, since Agent is American as apple pie, I figured she should be a Texan. My husband and I named her Austin, after Texas' most awesome city. Maybe her great great grand pappy was Stephen Austin himself! When she's not doing her secret agent business, she's at her Texas ranch living a full and happy life with her faithful horse Dallas, and lots of dogs.

I haven't been putting up sketches lately. I've been posting sketches that go with paintings, but not really exploratory sketches, or sketches that don't make it into a painting. Since the title of my blog is "Tiffanny's Sketchbook" I think I will show more unfinished work.