Bee head

A sketch where I tried to make use of some of the things we've done in life drawing class.

Visby - Summer evening sketch

This is the view I see from the back of a computing lab at HGO at this very moment. It's a beautiful, warm summer evening and it would seem that a family is having a garden party. What an idyllic picture of Swedish summer at it's best!

HGO Life drawing: Day 1

I've finally scanned in some life drawing sketches from the first week of class at the University of Gotland (HGO). We're already 6 weeks in now but somehow I feel that those first intense days were some of the most rewarding ones. That week we were burning through paper at a furious rate. It was exhausting but fun as well. Pernilla would go around looking at people's work one at the time and angle her advise to each person's level.
There was a lot to go through in those first 3 ½ days since we had get along on our own for the subsequent 3 weeks . I was a bit disappointed when I realised how little actual model & teaching time we had in the course. Pernilla commutes to Gotland for a few days once every few weeks. In between we have a model for one afternoon each week and a weekly assignment to send to Pernilla.
In a way it probably could have been expected since HGO is not an art school. Many of the people attending the class are either current Game Development of Industrial Design students at HGO and they get models through another local art school. Still, I would have loved to have a few intense days like those first ones every week. I think the effects would be quite noticeable.

I've compiled som drawings from the first day. Comparing with more recent drawings, these seem more lively and spontaneous... but also a lot messier. It might be because we were focusing on movement and gesture at the very beginning. A lot of people were pretty much beginners at life drawing so it was important to establish some proceedure. In later weeks we started looking more at form and we got a (*cough* stiffer *cough*) male model, so the drawings lost some of the spark in my opinion.


Some notes from the first day:

• Start by getting the overall rythm/direction of the body. S-curves or C-curves (if bent over) are often great for this.
  
• Use curved lines to get the movement and the gesture, but avoid symmetry. Let the lines flow into each other through the body while pushing from one extreme to the other.

• The direction/angle of the shoulders is not necessarily the same as the torso. The shoulders can move somewhat independently.
  
• The nipples, on the other hand, are good markers for determining the angle of the ribcage.
• The S-curved is used all the time to describe organic shapes, get used to it!
• The "body bean" is a good shorthand for describing stretch, compression and twist.
• Use the neck/head line as a marker when drawing the head from the back. It indicates the tilt and direction of the head which can often be hard to see from the back.

As a final note, this type of life drawing is most famously taught by Glenn Vilppu who has a great video series to complement his Vilppu Drawing Manual. It's a form of life drawing that lends itself well to animeation, and comics for that matter, since you learn to construct the body without a model.

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University of Gotland (HGO) - link
Life Drawing at HGO - link
Pernilla Persson - link
Glenn Vlippu - link

The King is Dead

I got into pop music way too late to have caught the Michael Jackson wave but he was a legend and touched so many lives. The world's reaction is a testament to his greatness.


For the first time I spent some time watching his videos on Youtube. I was watching a song called Beat It when it struck me how expressive and full of gesture his dancing style is.
We may exaggerate people's gestures to create more lively and expressive poses (which they often do in animation), but in Jackson 's case he is that exaggeration. His dancing is constantly pushing the limits... bending, stretching, twisting and turning.

I did a Google image search for "Michael Jackson gesture", and found Alex Woo, who has worked as a story artist on Wall-E. He taught a life drawing class back in 2008 where he used Jackson as an example for gesture drawing and camera awareness (link). He makes the point that Jackson is a master at positioning himself as to create the most striking and readable silhouette against the camera, and that artists shouldn't be afraid of manipulating poses to clarify the action.

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Beat It on Youtube - (link)
Alex Woo - link
Michael Jackson gives some insight into gesture drawing - link

First post from Visby

There's quite a lot I want to talk about. Meeting with the wonderful Yosh and Soya of the Swedish manga collective Yokaj Studio for one, my courses in life drawing and concept art at Gotland University are others, but in the midst of settling in, starting a part time job and keeping up with coursework my time management has proved insufficient so for now I'll update with tonight's view of Visby.

I spent the day working at the university since their computers can handle a lot more than my little laptop. The university is right by the sea and as I started heading back the sun was just setting. Couldn't recall when I saw a sunset last, so I sat down on the wharf, watched the sun go down and sketched a family with two kids sitting on the pebble beach below me. It was very relaxing... just wish the sun hadn't sunk so fast. :)


It's very beautiful here. I feel like there's a new and wonderful scenery to discover every other day. Visby is a great vacation spot especially around early/mid June, before the bulk of the tourists invade. I hear there's quite some night life to be had here as well, although I've yet to experience that. :)