Compilation of Sketches

For this entry I just took a bunch of my sketches and stuck them all together. Lets see, the upper right muscle man was done from a magazine I think a little over a year ago. The two really dark ones (the turtle and the skeleton) where done a few days ago with pen in my evolution class. In my defense, I was paying attention because we were talking about fossils in the ocean, hence the homo sapien and turtle. I honestly have no idea what a homo sapien skeleton looks like but I was just aiming for something primitive. Bottom left is another pose of the Drunken Duck logo I mentioned a few posts ago. In this one he will be leaning up on some text. And finally the bottom right is a copy of a drawing by Claire Wendling. I did not make that up, that would be ridiculous.

House M.D

About 2 or 3 years ago, I drew Hugh Laurie playing as Dr. House. I love that show!

Big empty chalk wall

So last year in my dorm I drew a Shelby Mustang GT 500 King of the Road on my wall (yes I know I'm cool). I was named after the car; thank you dad! And this year I have a lot more space but it's very empty. So maybe the day will come when people actually see my blog, if anyone does, please give me ideas on what to draw!

free programs

So I still can't find an adaptor to borrow which really sucks because I have stuff due in classes where I need one. But anyway, I was talking to one of my professors and was telling him how I want to be a 3D animator at DreamWorks long-term and he emailed me a few websites that give you free programs (except one of them).

I don't know too much about google sketchup but we made some 3D models in it and I think its a program worth learning. Smustard it an add-on for sketchup and gives you more features. Rhino as far as I know is a 3D modeling program. I think it can animate but I'm not sure. And the best thing is they're all free! Finally there is pepakura. You feed it 3D information and it it will tell you how to make the model out of paper by putting in tabs for you to stick together and telling you where to fold. This one costs something, but apparently a lot of people buy it to make halloween costumes. On the website you can look at other people's portfolio and there are some incredibly detailed creations.

http://sketchup.google.com/intl/en/download/index.html

http://mac.rhino3d.com/

http://www.smustard.com/

http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/

some of my own stuff

I wanted to put up some of my own work but unfortunately I left my camera adaptor at home and won't be able to get to it till winter break, so all the big stuff will have to wait. Eventually will scan the smaller stuff.

But luckily I have a drawing of a logo I made on my computer. My parents are building a house and wanted a logo for their bar. It's called "The Drunken Duck" (Duck since my last name's Drake). The first one is the image engraved in a brass plaque that will eventually go on a pool table and the next is from an illustrator file.

People to learn from

There are a few people I would like to point out because they have already tremendously helped me become a better drawer. As I said before, Rad Sechrist. In one of his posts he talks about what it takes to get into the industry or just get a job in general. They keep talking about how difficult it is so it's making me a bit worried. Thank goodness I am trying so early in the game.

Another person of note is Riven Phoenix. He is one of the most incredible artists I have seen. I am taking his "Structure of Man" course which teaches you how to draw an anatomically correct person. He goes over the skeletal system, muscle system, how the skin overlays the body and how to move it around. His program is truly incredible and remarkably cheap for everything you are learning.

Finally I have Jeff Snow stuck in my head. He is doing a project where he draws dinosaurs for 100 days. Then he switched it to writing a story about this baby dinosaur named Gus who is absolutely adorable! One thing that I have absolutely no experience in is color scheme so I am trying to learn from his drawings because they all go together very well.

Inspiration

I have finally reached the breaking point where I know that there is nothing I want more then to be successful at what I do. This entails this thing I know called "The Gap". The Gap is the period that comes right after the time in your life when you think you had talent.

Take me for example! I used to think that I was a pretty fantastic drawer. Turns out I suck; I only have a slight inclination of drawing skill. In middle school I just enjoyed it, then in high school I found out that I was a bit better then everyone else at it. Finally I decide "Oh hey, I'm pretty awesome! I could incorporate it into my career". Once I did some actual research into the topic I found how completely unprepared I am to be able to go out into the real world and make something of myself. (By the way, I'm not in the real world yet. I'm a sophomore in college)

Then I found this quote that completely talks about my position. I suck - but with an incredible amount of relentless work (the gap), I can become decent. Maybe 10 years after that I'll actually be good. So, the purpose of this blog is to continuously motivate me to keep on drawing. Also, I want to help give information to young wannabes like myself.

Long-term, I want to be an animator at DreamWorks. So most of what I write about will be geared towards that. I know a lot of great blogs that are authored by people who work directly in DreamWorks. I will highlight them some other day. But for now I will just mention my favorite, Rad Sechrist. He teaches you how to draw, and gives plenty of tips. I swear I've gone through his whole blog a few times by now.