Kristi G.
So I tried sketching with a pen for my rough ideas. I hope you don't mind me sending you these along with the finished. I was pretty excited about them - I usually use a pencil and find myself using the eraser more than the side I should be using. I tried to not worry so much about getting it perfect, instead tried to capture the movement. I am more pleased with the sketches than the final. Liezl has been following Jingle around the house for the last couple of weeks with a paper and pencil in hand. She has not decided which one she wants to send yet.
(I just took a peek at the scanned pictures and they look pretty fuzzy - sorry)
Nate S.
For my picture I just compiled a bunch of sketches of different breeds of dogs that were high up on the popularity rankings and some that had unique characteristics. Mostly I just wanted to explore the world of dog lovers and see where it led me. My reason for wanting to work on dog pictures for this contest centers around a story I’m working on that centers around a little girl and her greatest wish, to have a dog. She’s young but at her tender age she’s a sort of scientist, categorizing the breeds of dogs and doing her own scientific sketches. It’s a work in progress and this activity helped push me in the right direction. I went with the pen-only approach which was harder than I thought it would be but an enjoyable challenge. Hopefully this contest was as beneficial to you as it was to me. Either way, thanks for participating with me.
Scott W.
I took some time to draw lots of reference (didn't include all of it in this selection...should've included a skeletal sketch, which was really important.) And the biggest drawing is the design I was going for. Fun contest though, lots of room to play and if I had more time, I probably would.
Also, on my personal blog, I'm posting a process post for my Paperwings podcast entry. Thanks for mentioning it on your blog and I'm excited to see how both websites benefit from these fun contests!
Great job everyone, these were so much fun to receive and look at. I like the multiple sketches.
ReplyDeleteKristi, I enjoyed the character design you ended up with in the sketches. You got a lot of emotion out of the little sketches. I like the limited colors you used in the final piece but to me when you brought them into a larger format they lost some of their charm. I can't stand that issue when it happens in my work. We'll see if Scott has some ideas on that one. I loved your sketches! Great job, the other illustration is great too but it just doesn't jump off the page like the little Jingle sketches do.
Me, Nate, hmm...it's a little too honest for me to put all my sketches out there. The ones I wasn't happy with are mixing with the ones I was happy with and I don't know what to think. It was a fun exercise though and it was fun to see how much variety there is in one species of animals.
Scott, I really like how much you pushed to get some stylization out of your sketches. Two of my favorites were the upper left sketch of the dog sweeping (that's what I'll call it at least) and the other is the drawing above the central figure/dog. Great sketches/work.
I'm not sure if I'm answering the question you mentioned in reviewing Kristi's work. If you were wondering about scans becoming fuzzy...if that occurs often, I would scan it at a high resolution like 600 dpi and then in photoshop I'd change the (through "image size") dpi down to 300 for print or 72 for screen...whichever is needed. That yield sharper, more appealing results.
ReplyDeleteIf the question is about loosing the charm of sketches when making a final piece, then the key to that is that we should use our sketches in the process of the final piece : maybe sketch with sharpee till we get one we love, then place the sharpee sketch under the final sheet of paper as use it as a template to create our final line. I've also scanned pencil sketches into photoshop, really darkened them, and used them for the same type of effect.
And here's a thought I've been having about sketching. I think we need to make a variety of drawing types. Some should be loose like the ones we have. We should also do some that are more precise (realistic) We should try some where we start with a sketchy, lighter line, then clean it us with a darker, precise line. These may come out more successful. We should also try some which may not look impressive, but teach us how to draw the anatomy/form - figure out which 3d shapes the form is made of and how you can get the most accurate anatomy possible - then figure out how you can simplify the anatomy yet retain the same solidity in your drawing. If you've ever scene a wireframe of a CG animated character, the lines follow the surface of the object : creating sketches like these could also be very helpful in understanding form. Sketching becomes even more of an exploration if we use multiple sketching techniques. I've been using a book called Facial Expressions to do such explorations and my facial understanding / drawing / animation has taken a huge leap forward.
Kristi - way to explore different emptions!
Nate - my favorite is the far right dalmation - it's the most solid drawing with the most appeal. The bottom right is also very interesting. The ones with full body are appealing, and fun, and only lack a solid anatomy foundation...so I'd study more dog anatomy as you move forward.
Mine - It is a sketch of a dog sweeping, I sketched a photo. I also bet I could get better results from studying dog anatomy and simply drawing more dogs.