drawing from dvds

to help refine my process and reassure confidence in mark making i have been sketching from dvd covers, they are something i have in abundance also they are very good examples of extreme poses, lighting, makeup, costumes, props and so on, just about anything imaginable.

for this page i was working from An Idiot Abroad 2, Saw, Bad Lieutenant, Lucky Number Slevin, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, District 13, Red Lights, and Scott Pilgrim vs the world.

they were all sketched in a moleskine with some calligraphy ink, dip pens, and brushes, this is the sum of the best bits- put together in photoshop. 

this is an amalgamation of all the sketches above just left how they appear in the sketchbook, some pages are denser than others, purely depends on the source imagery. as a little drawing task it has kept me busy in between writing the dissertation providing a bit of recreational relief. 

Sketch pages

thought id try and keep this blog a float with some quick sketches i've been doing in between the dissertation, 

some sketches of eddy the cat in biro, i caught him on a day where he was just enjoying a good stretch, the poses made good reference for animal anatomy

this was some drawing with a dip pen and red ink, on the left page is a series of characters and the right was copied from the Lawless dvd case, the formal clothes, dynamic poses, and extreme light appealed for refining character sketching and setting a mood.  

final sign

i noticed there were a couple of unfinished details, one being the loop which holds down the unicorn, trying to stay current on this blog i thought it might be appropriate to show the most finished final.

variations

it is my intention to colour this sketch, however with the time frame i was slightly limited to what alterations i could do to a good standard. another option was to invert the sketch, i wasn't quite sure how it would look it is something i have seen illustrators put to good use, primarily james jean.

with a bit of further refinement perhaps this could look like something good, in its current state not quite.

development on the pub sign

the inked sketch was not quite finished as some details were lost in translation to digital, i used sketchbook pro 6 to re establish these as it allowed for the most flexibility and accuracy in manipulation.

this is the final of the pub brief with text, the text was probably the biggest headache of the entire piece, formatting it to curve like that was nigh on impossible. i took the font i had prepared with the intention of manipulating it to the shape i required, however after some advice from Jim the best solution appeared to be right it out again in a curve instead of a straight line.   

i produced this page of fonts with the intention of picking the best bits and piecing them together to make the final font- below

 the final font which i produced couldn't be manipulated to the shape i wanted without distortion to the quality and kerning of the final font, the advice to print out text in the vague shape i wanted and then sketch over it seemed to be the only way to get it right. this means the final font is a little different to the one i had intended to use i still used the same style of brush work to render the piece so some of the qualities are present.

finished sketch

the scanner not recognising any of the detail wasn't the end of the world as the image would've progressed that way eventually, and after I showed my tutors they agreed the piece should be inked in the same style as my initial sketches. I have produced a couple of pieces in this style, the final for the smoke project, and summer  show poster, for example. both of those seem to carry the tones better in my opinion. Appearing more interpretative and less heavily rendered, the contrast in the tones added something to the image, in this current piece the contrast almost bleaches out the details, left as just lines I think the image would be flat and static so the tone in it’s own way is a good compromise, with the addition of filled colours I think the resolve of the image could be even better. 

this was the sketch just after the scan, the bleaching of details is quite obvious here. with a bit of cleaning up areas of detail do come into to focus but some of the subtle nuances are lost. 

these two images are good examples of how my work can look when things are rendered in black and white, and the contrast is pushed. a good initial scan meant both held up when manipulated especially compared with the pub sign sketches. 

sketches for the sign

I began this image by trying to fill as much of an a3 page with rough sketches from reference, I used two brush pens for this, a pentel gfkp for the lines, and a worn out Faber castell Pitt artist pen for the tone. The latter gives a nice mid tone which with pressure can become shadows. From this I had a clear idea of the elements needed for the composition and which reference would be useful, I pencilled the sketch to a clear resolve however the scanner failed to recognise any detail, which was quite frustrating.