In need of a Proxy

When I get sick, I liken it to a train wreck. This big old locomotive called R.R. Werner doesn't stop on a dime and, when I get knocked off my rails, I'm a mess. Such is the case this week with my badly-timed cold. I slept almost all of yesterday and a good chunk of today as I've found this the best way to deal with my discomfort: just sleep it off. 

After eating like crazy Tuesday then hardly anything for 48 hours, I ventured out today to get my medications. You see, as much as I'd dearly like to crawl back into bed and veg out to some DVDs (The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles are getting a work out this week), I can't. I have a school final in T-minus one hour and fifteen minutes. It is times like this that I wish I could rely on a proxy like the old days when a duelist picked their number two as their stead in case they couldn't meet their obligations. While this is hardly a Life and Death matter, I don't bounce back well from sickness. Here's hoping the medications do their job.

So what do I have here? These are backgrounds that I've been working on since the end of my late mid-term (more like a 75% term). I've been trying to do some digital painting and the results are mixed. To see how these worked as backgrounds, I've included some figures in some too. Above is the Morlock's hole that leads to the caves.

Above is the Eloi's home.

Above is the Sphinx in the Eloi's garden.

And the Morlock's caves.

Below are two more backgrounds that I didn't have time to color.

Too Much Fun!

I've probably been having too much fun of late hanging out with my art friends. We've been doing meet ups of the Bay Area Digital and Traditional Sequential Artists group every few weeks where we eat, talk, and sketch in cafes in Berkeley or Walnut Creek. But many of us go out after our animation class and hit up Krispy Kremes or Dennys as well. And then, with Saturday, it was dropping by one of my old haunts from my SJSU days with Gordon Biersch after the BIG WOW! Con. All that fun and running around and, sure enough, I'm home sick. Just in time for finals week. Ugh! Well, I can't complain too much. I've managed to ward off any incoming colds for the past few years.

Above: Nick gives a thumbs up!

Above: Trevor shows off a Doctor Who print he picked up.

Tim sketches away.

And both guys picked up some goodies at the con.

Callie draws away.

Steven and Colette finish their meals.

I enlarged the one part of Colette since it made for a good photo. I probably could have done the same with Steven's part too.

Callie and Tim Tam.

Figure Drawing with Frank Cho

BIG WOW! coverage continues!!!

Right after the Joe Jusko demo was the Figure Drawing with Frank Cho session. I did this last year and it was a blast. Essentially it is live figure drawing by Cho but the audience is invited to join in. Like last year, our model was the voluptuous Ivy, the Baketress (is that a word?) from SoCal.

We did two poses at about 30 minutes each and then Frank critiqued several of the audience member's drawings and added corrections.

For those not familiar with Frank's panels, leave the kids at home. As much as he draws cheesecake, he's not shy about talking about body parts either.

Frank's drawing was projected onto a larger screen. The lighting on the model was low and challenging but we made do.

Frank makes it look easy. The secret to drawing well? Just Draw! Draw! Draw!

Ivy's elaborate Dejah Thoris (John Carter of Mars) costume. My own personal preference, I much rather draw curvaceous models like Ivy than skinny ones. Curves are MUCH more fun to draw.

Later, Frank would critique audience member's drawings and correct them.

More corrections.

A break between poses.

So, how did I do? Below are my four drawings. Four and not two because I think I just draw too fast, something trained into me. I had this problem in my figure drawing marathon a few weeks back. I need to slow down and look more carefully.

I do prefer the close ups.

Last year, I had my work critiqued and, while the drawings were not bad, a lot of the form got lost in all my rendering with my pencils. But since December, I've been using a mechanical pencil instead of the traditional array of HB, 2B, 4B, 8B, etc. While the mechanical pencil doesn't give me the value range for a great pencil study, I noticed it is great for my pre-inking drawings. But these drawings still seem very loose.

Joe Jusko Demo at Big Wow!

Saturday was a day spent at the BIG WOW! convention in San Jose. With no Wonder Con in San Francisco this year, many of us were looking at this and March's IMAGE CON in Oakland to take the edge off. BIG WOW! has been around for a few years under different names like Super Con. Previous years haven't always yielded the best of conventions like the times back in the Oakland convention center were guests and artists were leaving early or recent years in its newer San Jose location were one could be done with the dealer's room in an hour and the masquerade, if the contestants were not called up for a 2nd and 3rd time, could have been done in 5 minutes.

In many ways, this is a very uneven convention but its strength is the line up of artists whom attend. One of the convention owners, Steve Morger, is also the art rep for Frank Cho, Travis Charest, and others so that helps to land the talent. Paying for the big talent to come on out to sunny California and treating them to wine tasting after the con also helps. This is a good relaxing con before the craziness of San Diego two months later where fans and get some good face time with the artists and, I imagine, the artists have time to chat and hang out with their peers.

I was talking with Steve Wyatt, the other owner of BIG WOW! back at March's IMAGE CON with Jane Wiedlin of The Go-Go's (I know, right??) and I was mentioning that they really need to play up their strengths at this con. Last year, they started doing some art demos with Adam Hughes and Copic markers and a figure drawing session with Frank Cho where audience members were invited to draw along and then Frank would critique and correct the drawings. I absolutely loved it and, with such an array of artists on tap, they could really make this con something special going beyond just a good con for buying original art to a destination for artists wanting art seminars. And I think the owners were listening as more art-centric panels and demos were on the agenda for 2012.

Having arrived a little late, I only caught the last few minutes of the Coloring Comics panel but was just in time for a two hour acrylic painting demo by Joe Jusko, whom I had just purchased his book minutes before. While the volunteers setting up the hardware for projecting the presentation 45 minutes in was a little distracting (I think I get spoiled with how smooth of an operation the San Diego Comic-Con is), it was a great two hours to just watch, enjoy, and learn. I took photos so here is what went down...

Joe starts with a pencil drawing on crescent illustration board. He says he prefers the cold press (rough surface) over the hot press (smooth surface) because the hot press feels like he is painting on glass. His subject for today is VAMPIRELLA....

Normally he paints on a drafting table but this easel was for the purposes of the crowd getting a good look at the demo.....

Joe likes to work with glazes by thinning out the acrylic paint with water, much like watercolors. Oils take too long in the fast-paced deadlines of the illustration world but acrylics dry faster. He keeps a denim rag on hand to wipe the brushes and usually has a hair dryer to quicken the drying process if need be....

Jusko began by blocking in the skin tones. He says he likes to get this down first, as the most important part, and then work on the rest of the painting to match. Some artists work the background first then the figure but I believe Joe said he does the opposite. He will mask out the figure when working on the background.

Joe was under some time constraints here with only a two hour demo but he said normally he could do a paint from one day (working maybe 12-14 hours) to 3 to 5 days. Under this compressed situation, there was no time for backgrounds and a limited time to work on rendering....



Joe would put in some darker browns to start shading the figure.....

 With the limited time, Joe wanted to concentrate on the face, really the most important part of many paintings.....

Getting some hair in there helped with the contrast. Personally, I don't think I could ever work that tight standing up at an easel. I just don't have that kind of control and it would drive me bonkers. After shading the face, Joe went back with a lighter tone for highlights on the skin, which really makes the figure pop.....

And there you go. Less than two hours of work which just shows you how labor-intensive illustration can be. But what Joe has so far is beautiful. Thanks to Joe Jusko for sharing how he works. Many of us artists appreciate learning from the pros and, personally, acrylic was always the 'kiss of death" for me so I always did my illustrations in watercolor. I might just have to give the acrylics a try again.

Thanks again, Joe!

 Next up....Figure Drawing with Frank Cho!

Oh boy!!  :)