Friday 4 February 2011

Eggs and eyes!

Egg shapes are hard to draw. For whatever reason i really cant draw a solid egg. I only started to realise this when i went back to studying cartoons. I'm using a book which was done by one of the guys who i believed either worked for Disney or at MGM. Its really good. The first page is about basic construction and being able to rotate characters using simple spheres and eggs.

So far i've been struggling with these studies more then i thought i would.I believe it mainly falls down to not getting that basic head shape right. My first study is always useless, afterwards i go tighten everything up and check the proportions as well as the direction. The bear at the top took me many goes until i actually got it sort of right.



The top is head is wrong is so many places. The second and third one are are closer but still not there yet. The proportions of the third attempt are a lot closer then the other two, but unfortunately the direction is off. His eyes appear to be floating around his head. The direction on number two is pretty much perfect but the proportions are wrong.


The direction on the bear is now a lot better. The main fault here is the size of the eyes. They are to small and don't follow the flow of the head. As well as being to thin. The chipmunk at the top shows my struggle to draw a nice neat egg. An inability to do this prevents me from drawing nice consistent characters.



The head shape is better on the blue rabbit, but the details within his head looked rushed and sloppy. Also it looks likes his muzzle is about to fall off. I believe the rabbit finalised in red is the best study out of everything here, despite the fact the head is pointing down to far. Everything fits a lot better with the small exception of the teeth which are drawn on the wrong angle. The eyes for once dont look like random ovals but follow the flow of the lines around it.

I'm not to sure why these studies are so complicated for me. Hopefully i'm just having a bad day. What seems to throw alot of my drawings off is that i have a tendency to draw overly large and slightly squashed ovals for the eyes rather then allowing them to follow the flow of the head. This then ruins the the perspective off the face. I just need to discipline myself a lot more. Draw slower and look more carefully at what i'm studying.

My tutors said my drawings were always very quick and sketchy and i think i need to break away from this habit if i want to become better at drawing. Any thoughts and critique is welcome.

2 comments:

  1. I think fast and sketchy is far better to do drawings right, i have a problem with character sketches at times where i take too much time at it and it all looks to rigid and doesnt flow, i need to start sketching quickly more often and then doing the detail as the next layer. This is inspirational Pal, i might have a go at a turnaround drawing tonight.

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  2. Cheers pal! I think i need to moe away from mechanical pencils. They don't really give you any variation or depth with the line.

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