"Life Drawing" - Session 8

This wasn't a life drawing lesson, but it was a lesson.

This session had us down in the base room for a lesson on the rule of cool.
The rule of cool is the rule that an audience's suspension of disbelief can be pushed further than normal as long as the thing requiring the suspension is cool. If a film maker can pull it off, the rule of cool can help elevate the audience reception of the film, but it fails and the audience doesn't think the cool thing works, it can break the entire perception of the film.

For actual work this session, Simon got a random prompt generator up and our task was to draw the coolest thing we could think of.

Prompt 1: A slightly agitated historical figure livin' la vida loca.
I drew Henry VIII drowning in chicken drumsticks.

Prompt 2: A fast-talking werewolf striking an unflattering pose.
Errr, it's unflattering... at least.
I don't know how to draw anthro-animals.

Prompt 3: A sick knight vaping while wearing a fedora.
I decided to drew my knight from character design.

Prompt 4: A gelatinous bear traveling back in time.
Any excuse to draw an unhappy gummy bear being eaten by an Allosaurus Fragilis.

Character Design - Session 7

Back to Character Design, this time the focus was was on story telling.

Our first task had us find a scene from a film and break it down into a storyboard. However, the storyboard we had to make was only the key shots and not a full storyboard.
I drew Spinel's introduction from Steven Universe: The Movie.

For our next task Justin gave us a setting and we had to create a chase scene. I was give an office.
The first thing I decided to do was draw a rough layout of the office.

We had to create a kinda storyboard pointing out the key shots of our scenes.

Here's a couple more panels.

In the afternoon we returned to our main project.

I started by draw a stick figure version of the Archer in some action poses.

When speaking to Justin, we started working on a piece of concept art.

Here's a slightly altered version. This still needs to be revised and improved.

I also drew the layout of the castle as a reference of how the story will progress.

Life Drawing - Session 7

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Character Design - Session 6

This session was focusing on props and sidekicks.

Our morning session was about creating props.

Justin gave us a prompt civilisation and we had to create both a character and props based on that prompt.
Justin gave me Ancient Persia. I know absolutely nothing about ancient Persia, so this was not the easiest exercise for me. I started by drawing some weapons and clothing.
Justin suggested I look at Persian mythology and then I noticed that the Manticore is Persian.

Our next task was to take our prompt and give it a sci-fi twist.
I got a bit carried away with the Manticore. What I ended up with was a version of the Manticore inspired by King Ghidorah from the Godzilla Anime. I also created a spaceship inspired by Persian weapons.

Getting back on track, Justin suggested I create a cultist character that worships the Manticore. I ended up with a character wearing robes, with laser weaponry inspired by Persian weapons.

The next part of he lesson moved onto sidekicks, however instead of giving us a new prompt he asked us to create a sidekick for our project character.

Since my hero, the Archer, is on his own in my story I figured that his sidekick could be a horse, or more likely a donkey, in the distance.

However I then started to think, how about a sidekick for the villain instead. At first I thought of a crow for the villainous vibe, but then Justin suggested a falcon for the Archer, but we discussed maybe giving it to the Knight to show power.

So this is the general design I settled on for the falcon. It's hunched over and grumpy looking. This is a bird that's been jaded by life.

After talking to Justin, I started stylising my characters. The Falcon here is a bit more exaggerated.

The Archer is a lot more lanky than his design from last week, taking inspiration from the design of his longbow. 

The Knight is now even buffer than before and a lot more stylised.

Life Drawing - Session 6

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15 Mins

15 Mins. Changing up our utensils

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Character Design - Session 5

This session of Character Design was about facial expressions.

Justin showed us varies expressions that a human can pull and then he tasked us with drawing our own faces while blending some of the expressions together.

He then gave us a random object or building that we had to create a character out of. He gave me a church.

I started by drawing a couple actual churches

I then decided to do this with it. Take that as you will.

Our last task before lunch was to create facial expressions with animals. Justin asked me to draw a llama.

Starting with some ordinary llamas

Then tried to give it a somewhat snobby personality.

Back to the main project. I decided to use this lesson to explore the Archer's face a bit.

Luckily, Justin didn't hate these. He did suggest a few changes, mostly with the actual structure of the faces.

The Archer needed to look lankier and his face a bit more rounded. Justin also ask that I make the knight's helmet more aggressive looking, so I did that.

I also started plotting out the main action of the scene.