Wednesday Figure Drawing
[info]timpiotr

Last night was a very good night for drawing, at my weekly figure drawing group. I'm really happy with the progress I'm making. I would like to increase the number of times a week I go to a figure drawing group, and I've found several others that I'm going to start checking out. It helps when you have a good model, and Shawna (I think that's her name) was great. She does very good poses, she brought props, such as little crystal globes, scarfs and fun hats. And she does something with puppets, I will have to find out what, and if she does puppet shows.
 

 

Two ten minute sketches. I liked the proportions I got, with minimal correcting.
Two ten minute sketches. I liked the proportions I got, with minimal correcting.








Five minute drawings
Five minute drawings




This 20 minute drawing was my favorite last night. I just wanted to capture her with the scarf around her head, and I think I manged to do just that.
This 20 minute drawing was my favorite last night. I just wanted to capture her with the scarf around her head, and I think I manged to do just that.





I will admit upfront, I tweaked this in Photoshop. THe drawing came out fine, but I was having trouble with the interaction between pencil and paper. The paper is some what smooth, and I'll lightly sand it, to give it some texture, and then tone the page. I've done it on previous drawings, so I can have more depth. So what you see is what I intended, but the materials didn't execute as well as I hoped, so I'm going to have to find some pencils that work well on this paper.
I will admit upfront, I tweaked this in Photoshop. The drawing came out fine, but I was having trouble with the interaction between pencil and paper. The paper is some what smooth, and I'll lightly sand it, to give it some texture, and then tone the page. I've done it on previous drawings, so I can have more depth. So what you see is what I intended, but the materials didn't execute as well as I hoped, so I'm going to have to find some pencils that work well on this paper. I'm using a single sketch book for the longer poses, so I don't want to start a new book for that, till I've filled this one.
 

 

 

Draw every day
[info]timpiotr

So, here is another page of colored comics. Now, while I like this, I do feel it's not as tight as the other page, and I think it has to do with to much going on. So I'm going to try a few things in the way of experimenting, to see if Ican make a more unified page.

Cannonball_2-72


Brovember
[info]timpiotr
So, it's Brovember. How this started I don't know, but a lot of people participate by drawing a different bro each day of the month. While I don't think I will do each day, I will be drawing some bro's. So here is my first bro, Urban Cawfee Bro.

I got the idea from Dave


Draw every day (Saturday)
[info]timpiotr

So, still haven't gotten drawing done. Still doing color samples for Marvel. Which I'm enjoying very much and learning so much, through experimenting. I've got one more sample I want to do, a full page comic, which takes a while to do. Here is one page:

Cannonball_6-72

There was quite a bit of layering and such going on here. Take this panel, for example, here are 4 shots taking it from flat to final.

cb1

cb2

cb3
cb4

Whew, it's a process that requires a lot of focus. FYI, if there are any fellow cartoonists out there looking for a colorists, or any fellow cartoonists that know another cartoonists looking for a cartoonist, I'm looking to flex my skills!

This was a page from My Mutant Heart, written and drawn by Tim Fish.


Draw every day (Friday)
[info]timpiotr

With my new goal of drawing every day, here is one of the things I worked on yesterday. I didn't actually draw, like I intended to, but there is a tie in to drawing.

SecondChances

I'm up to do the coloring for an 8 page comic for the next Nation X Anthology, and I had to submit samples. I got asked to submit more samples. I've done some coloring work, submitted all that, and some of my own stuff, but my own stuff isn't the kind of stuff Marvel publishes. The art above is from a book I'm coloring that won't be done for some time.

So over Thursday and Friday, I put together more samples, asking other cartoonist friends for line work that I could color. I think my second set of samples came out better then the first set I sent. And I noticed that attending the figure drawing group has definitely made a noticeable difference. The shading on this and the other pieces came out extremely well. Very happy with it!

Drawing is pretty much the basis of good painting, and cartooning. Sure you don't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to look real, you just need to be able to make your drawing convey what you want it to say.

Now I have lots of coloring samples, so I'm going to put up a coloring section on the comics page.



New York, New York. It's a hell of a town.
[info]timpiotr


I moved to New York because I was looking for something different in life. I was living in Chicago, the heart of the midwest, and it's a great city, but even Chicago acknowledges it self as the largest small city in America. Chicago offers a lot, but in terms of general experiences (meaning not specific business', places and such), anything you can get in Chicago, you can get in New York, but the reverse is not always true.

That statement gets me a lot of flack from people I know back in Chicago. The two cities are just completely different experiences, and I pick where I want to live based on the type of experience I want. If my goal was cheap rents, or owning a huge condo, or everything within walking distance there are much better cities to choose to live in then New York City.

In fact, it would be a lot easier as a cartoonist and illustrator to live in a cheaper area, since you can draw anywhere, and technology makes communication so easy. But for America, New York is special. It's the fact that there are so many people there.

Always. It's a little hard in fact to escape from that fact, which I find invigorating. Even as I write this, sitting alone in my apartment, I'm reminded of the proximity of others, as about 20 people are currently giving the apartment courtyard a make over, with new pavement and lots of plants.

New York has helped me wake back up, and old ideas and dreams are coming back, and I find this time, I'm acting on them. Maybe this would have happened in Chicago, or where ever I decided to live. Maybe not, I'm not one to dwell on maybe's and what ifs. The fact is, I'm here in New York, it's doing wonders for me, I'm more productive then ever. I know that part of that has to come from me, but the environment you live in is a major factor as well.

I hope to capture what I feel about living in New York, in my comics, as well as part of my past.

Right now, my friend Sion, a photographer gives me a lot of inspiration, mostly because if there was ever an example of do what you love, it's Sion. He's a street photographer, who spends a lot of time, armed mainly with his iPhone, taking pictures of New York and all his travels. He's a new breed of photographers, who are able to capture real moments of life, because to the subject, he's just fiddling with his phone, they don't know he's taking pictures. 

I started doing this myself as well, before getting to know Sion. (FYI, I meet Sion and his boyfriend Anton via Facebook, through friends we had in common, social networks can work!) I have a series of pictures of people I see on the subway that for whatever reason, strike me as interesting. Often I use these people as inspiration for my comics, when I need people in the background. Mainly my picture taking serves as reference source for myself. But people find it interesting to look at.

However, Sion's pictures are really on the level of art, compared to mine. In fact, Sion's pictures capture a lot of what I love about New York. Which is the reason for this long post, to give you Sion's link to his Flickr site. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sionfullana/

If anyone ever thinks about moving to New York, look at these photo's and ask yourself if this is the kind of environment you want to live it.

I know I do, because just like Sion's photo's, I find myself living in an exciting, vibrate, always moving, always something, sometimes joyous (people jamming in Central Park, with everyone singing along), sometimes frustrating (Did you really need to just step in front of me, and then stop walking?), but always, always something.

In New York, it's almost impossible for something not to be going on. And that's the experience I wanted to live in. And those moments when it's quite and still and nothing really is happening? Well, that's special too.
 



Panoramic!
[info]timpiotr
While waiting for friends outside the movie theater, I took some panoramic pictures with my iPhone. In particular, I like this one, which I treated with effects and made black and white. These are wide pictures. So extend your browser left and right, if you can.



Then after the movie, on the way home, I took these two pictures.


 


Ah, New York, how I love you. You offer so much.



SPX this year
[info]timpiotr
This year, I missed the deadline for tables for SPX, but I still went anyway, and it was a lot of fun, and much more relaxing, being able to just walk around, look at books, talk to people. Well, Sunday was better for that then Saturday. It seriously gets really crowded on Saturday, and you can't even get up to the tables. I'm sure this effects sales for talented, unknown cartoonists.

And it was great to be with friends again, who I meet through starting to go too these conventions, and through their work. It's always great to get to hang out with them. We kind of have a group of people that travel around to the different conventions.

Here is a picture of us at the Silver Dinner, Sunday.

From left to right, Monica Gallagher, J. Brett Hopkins, Tim Howard, Matt Hollis and Tim Fish. Imagine me in your seat, taking the picture. This picture was taken with my iPhone, using the Pano and Camera Bag applications. I love the iPhone, because there really is an app for everything.

Already planning next year's conventions, TCAL, MoCCA, and NYCC we are already signed up for. I would like to go back to APE, because I'm sure Kool Aid would be welcomed on the west coast. But being in November isn't the best time, as it follows up MoCCA and SPX, and NYCC is now in October. That would be a lot of cons in a row.

But with my temp job coming to an end, I'll have time to create more work. Which I'm really excited about. I've got a lot of ideas I need to bring to life.




more life drawing
[info]timpiotr
I made it to my drawing group last week. Here are two drawings from the 3 hour session.


3 months ago, I took a temp production job, laying out and doing page corrections on some benefit materials for a consulting firm. The job runs till the end of October, so 4 weeks to go. The pay is good, there was only a few moments of frustration, which comes with any job.

But it seriously cuts into my time to work on my stuff. There have been long days over the last few weeks. Such as last night, I worked till 8. Now since I'm a temp, I get paid for all the time I work and time and half for anything over 40 hours, so there have been some big pay weeks.

Still yesterday I had the full intentions of coming home and doing some personal work, but around 5, it was clear I was going to be there late. So I didn't get home till around 8:50, which is enough time to eat and then go to bed soon. 

There had been some days we just sit around waiting for work to come back to us, and I try and get some stuff done, but I can't really draw at work, but I can write.

So this week, I've been planning out what I want to work on once the job ends. Hopefully they won't offer me a full time job, but I would totally come back and work again for them. Just hopefully not to soon.



My EYES!
[info]timpiotr
While out shopping the other day, I saw this person. You know, somethings once you see them, you can't unsee them. I will work to refine her until I have her just the way I want. This is 100% what she was wearing. Sometimes life just gives you these awesome little moments, and you hold onto them forever.


 

It's also partly why I love New York, the chances of encountering this is more then likely. Not happy where you are living, move to New York. You won't regret it.


 


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