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Gnarly Scar Dude: a Character Design

cartoon vector drawing character design blonde guy with scar and earrings

 

I was poking around the harddrive of my laptop, looking to do some house-keeping… you know – clean up old files that I have no use for anymore, reorganize the stuff I’m keeping, etc… and I found this guy.

If my memory can be trusted, I’m pretty sure I drew this character in Flash using my Wacom tablet.  It’s possible that I did this in Toon Boom, but I don’t think so… this has the look of Flash.  It reminds me though, of how each program is like its own medium – and each one of them requires a different approach to be able to create satisfying drawings.  Yeah – I’m pretty sure I drew this one in Flash.

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Running Scared: an Animation Exercise, run cycle

hand drawn animation of person running through woods image

Here is my latest animation exercise.  Like my earlier ‘animation exercise’ posts, this was also done in the freeware program, Pencil.exe. 

This “Running Scared” animation is about as long and as complicated as I would dare trying with this program.  Once a project moves beyond a quick pencil test and gets to this level — which I admit, really isn’t very complex at all — it becomes too difficult to work with in Pencil.  But again, this is a freeware program… completely free to use… so I have no complaints.

This character is running through the woods in an apparent effort to escape from someone or something… it would be great if I could decide WHAT he was running from, and then have the pursuer enter the frame at the very end.  But I couldn’t decide if I should go with scary or comical.

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They wanted a Rock God… they got Jim: JIM MORRISON

jim morrison of the doors poster illustration drawing image

“I am the Lizard King… I can do anything”

About a month ago I watched the film “When You’re Strange”… an artful documentary about the Doors, featuring Narration voice-over by Johnny Depp.  The movie focuses on the Doors’ legendary singer-front man, Jim Morrison and it portrays him in a way that seemed new to me… I mean, I’ve been familiar with Jim Morrison for a very long time… but after watching this movie, I felt like all this time I had been missing something really special, and that now I finally “got it.”  I’d say that’s the sign of a really good documentary.

So inspired by my new feelings about who/what Jim Morrison really was… I drew this characterization sketch. 

Break on through, break on through – eh… eh.. eh.. eh.. eh!

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Zombie Slayer: an Animation Exercise

animation drawing of guy killing a zombie with an axe

Another rough animation done in ‘Pencil’… this is a great tool for these quick exercises.

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Heroic Leap: an Animation Exercise

 

I’ve been playing a little bit with this (forgive the pun) “sketchy” freeware program called ‘Pencil’.  I cranked out this scene of a figure leaping into the foreground to reveal himself as a superhero… I converted the frames to an animated gif for convenience of posting here.

The Pencil program is a bit buggy, and can be frustrating to work with – but then again, it is freeware.  It’s fun to use for quick little roughs, like this one… though given the number of times I’ve lost  considerable amounts of work (either from glitches or straight-up crashes)  I wouldn’t want to try and use it to do anything more significant.  Animation is far too labor-intensive to deal with losing your work.

I’ll probably keep using Pencil to do little roughs like this, to work out ideas… I’ll post them as I get the time.

The Beatles on iTunes – The Apple is Whole…*

Drawing of The Beatles by Sean Gallo

I’ve been really busy at work lately… but even I couldn’t avoid hearing that The Beatles are finally on iTunes.

I may be a little late with this – like I said, I’ve been REALLY busy – but I thought I should post one of my Beatles drawings to mark the event.

This is my original sketch/study, which ended up being the basis for my current work-in-progress, When They was Fab.

Got Walking Dead? Kill the Head!

The Walking Dead on AMC.  Sweet.

I was turned on to the comic (or graphic novel, I guess… I’m never sure) around a year or so ago.  I loved it right away.

The combination of the brilliant story written by Robert Kirkman, and the striking illustrations by Tony Moore, just really does it for me.  Both the story and the drawings in The Walking Dead are direct and efficient, without ever appearing to be anything less than Kirkman’s and Moore’s very best effort… on every page and every panel.

Maybe it was foolish of me, but I was a caught off-guard when Frank Darabont’s TV version chose to use a different opening sequence than the one from the comic.  I guess the opening sequence in the book worked so well for me that I couldn’t imagine anyone feeling the need to rewrite it in any way.  I mean the screenplay AND the storyboard/shotlist were all right there… why wouldn’t you just USE them?

But once I got over my surprise – and reset my expectations – I was able to thoroughly enjoy watching the show.

I mean, when was the last time any of us had the opportunity to watch a TV series about Zombies?  And this series is going to based on some top-notch source material… it would be a real waste not to enjoy the ride.

Here’s another Zombie drawing, in honor of the Walking Dead on AMC.  DVR – RecordSeries – Check.

Remember… always kill the head.

Homemade Matching Couples Halloween Costumes

homemade couples halloween costumes queen bee and worker bee

Homemade Couples Halloween Costumes, Worker Bee & Queen Bee

It’s almost Halloween, and all procrastinators are hurrying around trying to get a costume together.

So I figured I’d share the design I made for the super-cutesy, matchy-matchy homemade costumes that Kim and I put together last year.  Worker Bee & Queen Bee.

The real costumes came out amazingly-similar to the drawing – with the addition of big, oversized sunglasses… yellow frames for me, and rhinestones for Queenie – and were well received at the party.  Kim found a yellow shirt with black stripes, and I put the stripes on mine with hockey tape.  The yellow hardhat was just a few bucks at the Home Depot, and the jewelry was easy to find in the kids’ toy aisle… I already had the tool belt.

So there you go – if I’ve saved one procrastinator’s Halloween, then I’ve done my job.

Happy Halloween!

UPDATE… I’ve been meaning to upload a photo of the finished costumes, but have totally forgotten… until now…

This isn’t the best photo, but it’s the only one I’ve got handy… and don’t ask me why I’m standing like that… I blame the steps :)