Enchanted Grove

Enchanted Grove Drawing

Enchanted Grove Quick Sketch

Over Christmas break I worked on a detailed sketch of a scene I wanted to create. This scene was based on the forests of Washington State. In the detailed version of this landscape you can see the ferns and the moss covered rocks of the pacific northwest. The detailed sketch ended up being entirely too detailed in fact. I couldn’t focus on one side of the drawing so it ended up getting smudged. After realizing that this scene was too overdone I decided to do a quick sketch of the same scene. This is the result.

Animal Kingdom

Disco Flamingo

Nap Time

Swingin’ Fido

Prance Around

Frisky

Tentacles

Feeding Time

Hands down, the most challenging part of creating my portfolio was sketching the animals. Animals are more difficult because their shapes and movements are not as simple as human beings. Some of these sketches were faster like Frisky and Dancin’ Fido. However, Some of these sketches actually turned out to take more time because I felt it was necessary to get the shading just right. The horse was one of these sketches. The muscular body of a horse can be portrayed much easier with some decent shading. The penguin drawing is only halfway done so I can demonstrate my technique. I start out with a rough outline and then I start working on details on one side of a drawing and work my way down or over. The penguin shows some shading techniques for fur. Penguin coats are more difficult because they are somewhat “glossy” looking. The octopus was just for fun. It’s not an animal that people usually draw. The cat and the dog have a little more character. The Disco Flamingo also has some character in him. I wanted the viewer to imagine a dancing flamingo (Don’t look at me like it’s unusual, remember Fantasia?). The cheeta’s pose is my favorite. He probably took the longest because of all of the spots on his coat.

Foreign Scenery

Kyoto Tower

The reason for drawing this was to demonstrate that I could draw some abstract architectural structures and to show how much I enjoy drawing foreign landscapes. This is an important sight for me because it was the first thing I saw when I stepped out of the train station in Kyoto during my study abroad two years ago. If I could go back and do it again I would draw more of the department store situated under Kyoto Tower to add a little more perspective to the drawing.

Different Movement Ideas

Clumsy Dancer

Someone’s Pulling My Arm!

Wachaa!

This first sketch is quite possibly my favorite in my whole portfolio. There is a little bit of character in this sketch as the head is a perfect sphere and the body looks almost bean shaped. The serious, fighting pose justaposed with the playful proportions of the character are really what make this quick, 2 minute sketch entertaining. To draw the second character I imagined someone pulling on his right arm and catching him off balance. This sketch took only a couple minutes as well. The last sketch was intended to be a male dancer in a pose but it almost looks as if his balance is a little too far up on his foot. The only unpleasing aspect to this set is that they all appear to be balancing on one foot. Next time I will try for some poses that are a little more unique.

Female Drawings

Confident Stand

Shoulder Weight

Reach For It

As I said before women are harder for me to draw. There is little muscle tone so shading looks very smooth and almost fake at times. As with the male drawings I tried to show a little bit of motion and expression in the photos. The first photo shows a woman standing with her shoulders back and her right leg locked in a confident stance. The shading in this drawing is very simple and fast. This probably took about 10 minutes because of the size of the the drawing and the amount of shading involved. Hair is also more difficult to shade because it has to look shiny. The second picture I tried to show a little bit of weight. The woman has all of her weight on her upper back and shoulders. This one isn’t as detailed with the shading and probably took about 5 minutes. The third picture shows more shading and the important parts of the female body. This drawing really illustrates the difference between the male and female body. As you can see the female body is curvier in the breast area but not so much in the torso area ( at least for lighter women). The female torso tends to be flat and smooth even when muscular versus the muscular male torso. The last one probably took about 30 minutes.

Male Drawings

Stretching

Male Stride

Pose For Me

I am better at drawing Male bodies than I am at drawing female bodies because I am a guy. I like the Streching drawing the best because I think I got the proportions just right. It took about 20 minutes. The second and third drawings took about 30 minutes. The tough part about drawing the male body is the muscular build. Because of the tendency of males to be more visibly muscular than females there are many more muscles to worry about shading. However, I think muscles are more fun to draw than breasts. The key to some of these poses was to imagine where the hips lay in relation to the shoulders. This can be easily understood by using reference pictures.

Hector Space Hare Character Design

Detailed Profile

Sincere Hector

Cynical Hector

This is Hector the Space Hare! I wanted to create a fun character that could show a range of emotion. Hector’s body is somewhat fuzzy as reflected in his detailed profile drawing. In the other two sketches I simply wanted to show some of the emotions that Hector is able to portray. The drawing probably took about 30 minutes while the expression sketches took about 5 minutes each. I really hope to use this cute character in a video game in the future. I believe he fits the video game character genre perfectly.