Another bday card...

Another birthday card for a friend who's 19 today! :)

She loves bright colours (especially orange) and maxi dresses :)

A sketch:colour comparison.



Done in 45 mins. Used: Pencil, Pilot 0.4 brown fineliner, Copic marker pens

Sketches...

Just some sketches done a week or so ago in spare moments...

I had a subscription to Vogue magazine for 2 years, so have collected a good stack of reference material for drawing clothes/styles/fashion for characters. I really love going through them, getting inspired, and then drawing characters in the clothes or style of the photos.

For most of this page of sketches, I was on a particular page in a Vogue magazine which showed "night-wear" outfits...they're really fun to draw :)




I can't remember what page I was on for these sketches...I have a feeling I was just choosing a page at random and then drawing whatever.
I also drew a little sketch of Grace Kelly from "High Society" which was on tv one lunchtime. It was a scene where she was by the pool in a beautiful swimming costume and "dressing gown". She was so elegant and beautiful, I felt absolutely compelled to draw her.

B-day Cards

A Sketch to Colour comparison.

Two birthday cards drawn and coloured yesterday. I used colour pencils for the outline and Copic marker pens for the colour. I wanted to draw some cute characters in a summer fashion.

Fullview for bigger and clearer image!




More sketches will be uploaded soon!

3-Stage Fan-Art Illustration

This is fan-art for Vampire Knight, a very popular Shoujo Manga I have been reading for several years now. I adore the art style as it's really pretty and detailed. The story has taken a really big dramatic turn in recent chapters so I'm really enjoying reading it.

On a recent poll I conducted on my deviantart page, my amazing watchers/friends suggested some ideas I could use for my intended next "Vampire Knight Copic Illustration".

My main inspiration were old late 19th - early 20th century photos. I really adore them. I've found a few that I really like, and will be using these for future illustration in the same style as these.

Anyway---Here's the 3 stages I went through for this illustration:

1) Pencil. Done on A4 normal printer paper. Referenced from this photo -->
http://img6.imageshack.us/i/gg01160preview.jpg/



2) Pen or fineliner. Lineart. I put a new piece of paper over the pencil and held them together with 2 paper fasteners. I then put this on my lightbox and outlined it in the fineliner. This is the most lengthy and time consuming process. Mainly because my pen was bleeding into the paper, so I had to really carefully draw the lines - It was nerve-wracking! Done using a 0.1 brown fineliner.



3) Copics. I used 4 Copic marker colours to then colour this piece in. I love Copic markers as they're really smooth and fun to use. I have "Set D" which has 36 markers. I chose this set as it had the most "muted" tones. The others had nice colours too, but this one had less bright and sickly colours which I didn't prefer.
So I used Warm Gray 1,3,5 and 7 for this piece to give it the "sepia" feel.



And that's the finished piece! I really enjoyed the process and I'm planning on doing a few more for Vampire Knight characters. I also want to try some other themes with this idea too. I've got the whole summer, I want to make use of it!
This illustration can also be seen at my deviantart account--> http://daiskianimej.deviantart.com/

Ciao
x

Sketches from the National Portrait Gallery and Waddesdon Manor etc...

Skecthes I did during the Easter holidays a month or two back now. I went to the National Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery with my Nana in London. It was a really good day and I enjoyed drawing the different people wandering around the exhibitions (and I think she enjoyed watching me draw them too ). :)
Most of the sketches are of people's backs as they were looking at the paintings...





Some more detailed sketches done on the bus home from the galleries...



I also went to Waddesdon Manor (England, UK) with my lovely friends, Dazza and Freya.
This page shows a sketch I did quickly of Dazza and some sketches from around the Manor. I was only allowed to use a pencil to sketch inside the Manor as all the furniture, ornaments, rugs and curtains were incredibly ornate and expensive. I had only brought a pen with me so I had to borrow a pencil from the staff there, but I forgot to give it back! I feel bad! :P







This last page shows sketches done at my Grandma and Grandad's home in London. My uncle has recently had a child with his new partner (an older post shows the "baby girl" card I made for her)...so I drew some sketches of my family holding baby, Sura.


x

More Dr Who Sketches

Some DoctorxAmy sketches I drew the other day...and some Kaname (from Vampire Knight) sketches in there too :P
I love drawing the Doctor and Amy. They are so damn cute. I'll probably keep on saying this, but it's true. :)



I have been drawing the VK illustration all day (as mentioned on my deviantart journal/poll) I've done the line art, so I'll start colouring it tommorow. I'm excited for the end result! :)

My deviantart page ---> www.daiskianimej.deviantart.com

Doctor Who: Matt Smith

I've only just started to watch Doctor Who with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan, and I'm really loving it. Matt Smith is absolutely adorable and so is Karen. I think I'll have to go back and watch some past series. I really can't believe I missed David Tennant's episodes, I love him!
Anyway...Sketches...


I *attempted* to colour it in PS7 quickly... Forgive the poor quality!


Better get on with other stuff! More Doctor Who fanart is imminent though!

Photoshop Practise

Messing about in PS7 the other day. Unfinished. Inspired by loish on deviantart of course :)

Life Drawing Studies #2 - Trip

Last post of the 3 life drawing sessions done in preparation for the animation exercises. This last session was reference for the "tripping over" animation exercise.
All of my animation exercises can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/user/DaiskiAnimeJ

Life Drawing Studies #2 - Lead-Restrain

Some more life drawing studies from several weeks back now. These were done in preparation for the lead-restrain animation exercise on my course. I used some cheap felt-tip pens for some of these studies which I really liked. Using them I had to be careful, as going over the lines would make it messy, so it forced me to observe the model even more closely than before which helped me...
So here they are:

OMG!

So I was just looking through some Disney-related Tumblr pages (my new way of passing the time) and lo and behold I come across this image!!!!



IT'S LIKE EXACTLY WHAT I HAD IN MIND IN MY INITIAL DISNEY-FANART SKETCHES/IDEAS A FEW POSTS AGO!!! :D :D :D (Except for Ariel and a few more Princess' :P )
BUT STILL! AAAH! :)



:D :D :D I'm smiling so much right now! How cool! Guess my idea wasn't so "original" as I thought, haha!

This is the tumblr page I was on, the image is a few posts down :) ---> http://ohmyitsdisney.tumblr.com/page/15

That's all! :D

Life Drawing Studies #1 - Jump

Life drawing studies and pieces done in preparation for my "jump" animation exercise...These are from quite a while back now though! I'll try to keep up to date more in the next few weeks. Only 1 month and a half left of uni! The time's gone ridiculously quickly!





















This last image shows my thumbnail sketches of the jump sequence taken from my own video footage done with friends for this project. Click to fullview.

Photoshop Practise WIP...

Having fun in CS4...Inspired by the magnificent Lorelay Bove and Mary Blair...of course!

Only a screencap...I'm going to try and spend more time on this, I need to develop more patience with Photoshop! :) Click on the image to see it bigger!



Trying to work "geometrically" slightly. It's really fun...gets the brain working! :)

Image inspired from Tim Walker's beautiful photoshoot with Lily Cole in India. (Below)



Tim Walker is my favourite photographer, I love his ideas and how everything looks like a dusting of sugar is coating the photos :) They're so beautiful...

Fantastic Mr Fox MasterClass

Be Warned: Very long post!

This weekend just past was a very busy and exciting one. Through my university we have a special programme called "Screen Academy Wales" which we can sign up to if we are a Arts/Film/Media university student studying in a Welsh University. I'm subscribed to the newsletter, and a few months back, this fantastic oppurtunity appealed to me and many other students.

We were able to attend a special screening of the film "Fantastic Mr Fox" at the Atrium in Cardiff (the Arts university building) on Friday the 12th March and then come back the following day to a "masterclass". The day was a long one, but we were able to gain a really fascinating insight into the making of the film with several people from the film such as the line producer, models supervisor and lead storyboard artist (to name a few).

It was seriously amazing and I learnt so much from the day. It was fascinating to see how the industry works "backstage". I mean, I've always watched "behind-the-scenes" footage on DVDs and such, but this was far more intense and detailed than any DVD I've ever watched! There were only abround 50 people there so we were able to ask questions frequently throughout the day which was brilliant.

Out of all the people who talked yesterday I found the lead storyboard artist the most interesting. I was able to take some photos of his storyboards that were up as I arrived at the Atrium, however the woman very kindly asked me not to "publish" these online anywhere which is completely understandable. So I'd love to show them but I can't! :( Christian De Vity the storyboard artist had to reside in Paris when working on "Fox" to be close to Wes' current residence in Paris. It was awesome to hear what he had to say Wes was like as a person. In a brief question-time right at the end of the day we were able to split into small groups and ask specific people questions. I signed up to be able to speak to Chris and asked him "What is Wes like as a person", and other questions concerning Chris' way of working etc.
Chris said that Wes was "a very shy person, very introvert. Compulsive over his work", and that it took "a while for Wes to loosen up around new people due to his shyness", though Chris added jokingly at the end, "He did buy me several dinners in Paris, so maybe he has warmed up to me" (!) :)

Also what I found exciting was that when asking about Wes' style against Chris' he said something about how Wes had a very "2D" mind, which is noticed when looking at Wes' thumbnail sketches on the side of script pages. The drawings are simple but clear-and very "2D". Which is when Chris said, "Wes would do well with a 2D animated film too. He loves Studio Ghibli, I think he'd like to do it". (!!!) I do so hope Wes does one! How amazing would that be!? :D

Chris is also currently working on Tim Burton's new adaptation of his early student film "Frankenweenie". Chris said that he's met Tim and that although he does appear shy on-camera, that actually Tim was mad and excitable on his first meeting with Chris! Which was really cool to hear. :)

Anyway-I was able to grab a few photos from the day! The model supervisor brought some maquettes in which were on a table at the front of the room of a few of the characters. He also brought in a real armature model aswell as a skeleton of one to show what the inside mechanisms looked like.
I'll say now before I forget-There were in total 6 scale model sizes used for the entire film. The smallest being no bigger than a lighter! This one was called a "micro mini fox". IT WAS SO CUTE. I would have payed good money to own it! Unfortunately, again, I have no picture evidence of this as much of the information was shown on the computer screen.

Here's a few photos of the table of models. The guy standing behind the table is Andy Gent, the models supervisor for the film. I think he made the clay models seen here of Boggis, Bunce, Bean and Mr Fox.











Also throughout the day I was taking notes in my sketchpad. I decided I would draw each and every person from the day too which was fun. It's also great for my memory as I'll always remember what the people looked like. I mean, who knows, I may see them again in the future! So here are my pages of notes/sketches which I took throughout the day. If you are able to read my writing then you will see some cool facts I noted about Wes too. Most of these have a smiley face or a heart drawn next to them as they made me smile :) Click on the images to make them large so you can read/see them properly!







As some people know, I live in the town next to where Roald Dahl lived with his wife in Buckinghamshire. And a few years ago I also worked at the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre based there. So, inevitably, I knew a lot of the "hidden" meanings shown throughout the film that Roadl Dahl fans would most likely know! For instance, the chair that Mr Fox sits in when discussing his "master plan" with Badger is an exact model replica of the chair Roald Dahl would sit in (along with the wooden board) to write his wonderful stories. (Shown below)


Wes' style of film-making always interprets these fine details which make the film's significance much greater when compared to other film adaptations by other directors. Wes' beautiful sense of composition, layout, timing and script create the essence and heart of the film which really gives Dahl's story a beautiful and stylistic edge. Wonderful Wes! :)

Overall, it was an exhausting but extraordinarily fantastic weekend. I learnt so much and the masterclass on the Saturday left me buzzing with excitement at the prospects of working in this industry!

All in all, this weekend was, FANTASTIC. :)