I'm Still Drawing...

Mouse Ears as promised.

I think I'd like to give those feet something to cling to but I'm not sure what yet so I'll get round to it.

So, as I won't be able to do any large works for a couple of weeks, I've decided to do as many rough sketches as I can so that once I'm back to my previous routine I'll have plenty of  material to work from.

I'd like not to reveal to much so for now I'll just leave you with this rough drawing of an Entelodont, a pre-human critter from the Eocene and Miocene.

Mouse Ears Again

I shall have a better photo for you soon. I promise

Mouse ears is all done now. Influenced by the Warthog, I gave the little guy ear phones as a prop. That head is far too small for actual head phones.

Expect to get fewer updates over the next week as  I won't have the time to draw. After that things will be back to as they were. I have no intention of stopping.

An Update on Mouse Ears

So the bat has been transferred onto A2 in pencil.

I still haven't decided on a prop yet. I really need to as tomorrow will be the last opportunity I get to spend a day on drawing for a while...

Forty-five Grams in the Attic

I've begun work on my next drawing! The last one was meant to have been simple and relatively quick to complete. Well, it took three days. I thought maybe this time I should try not to repeat that.

So, I decided to try bats. Their skeletal structure is minimal making them an easy choice. Now I just had to pick one out of 1,240 bat species. (It's only an approximate figure!) That was when I discovered they were the second largest order of mammal species. Yay? I think.

After some searching and reading, I chose the Greater Mouse Eared Bat as the neutrality of the skeleton makes their silohet immediately identifiable as bat like.

The Greater Mouse Eared Bat. Apparently at 45 grams its beefy for a European bat...our bats are pewny!

With the images I had collected, I was able to make a rough sketch. When drawing these rough pictures I gather images of the animal with fur on as well as just the naked bones. It helps to build a picture of how it behaves, moves as well as understand it's physical limitations. Footage can help too. All this information goes towards creating a "pose" in my drawings.

For this particular drawing I needed to see how these little dudes affixed themselves to the ceilings of caves (and a lot of attics apparently.) I also wanted to make sure I was able to create a sense of weight because, although they are tiny, they aren't entirely weightless and using images as aides would help me to do just that.

I found that arcing the little guy's back slightly solved the weight issue and determined that keeping the toes only slightly apart and relatively taught was what gave the bats the firm grip that they have so I stuck that in too.

I forgot to take a picture of my rough sketch so I made the educated decision to replace it with a subed strip of Batty from FernGully.

I love his design, so flexibly expressive. I envy the guys who had the opportunity to animate him. Anyway thanks for reading.

It took a little longer than planned...

I think this proves I need a large scanner...

Look. I did it. Ha! You think I'm elated? No. I'm anksty! It took three days. Not two. Bah!

By the end of the first day I had pencilled it onto A2, as usual, and I was feeling quite happy with the progress I was making. Eight 'o clock, the next morning, I began inking but by nine that evening however, with just over three light bulbs completed, I had learnt keeping the shape and shading of each light bulb consistent took hours at a time, far too long to keep going with it growing so dark. Eager to finish, I returned  to inking it at five the next morning. Drawing identical bulbs did demand a degree of patience and several times I thought I'd ruined it, making me consider wheather I'd tried to do something to ambitious. Was I wasting time? Should I stop and start on another idea? Some how, six and a half light bulbs later, it was done.

Ok, I moaned, but I am pleased with the final out come. Also, I don't want to sound too corny, but I kinda enjoyed the challenge.

Those Simple, Poseable Skeletons

I was convinced I couldn't get more than two drawings done in a week, even if I really tried, but I managed a third and all three, individually completed, far faster than I expected. I've decided to try something a little more complex with the intention of completing it as quickly as the last.

So frog skeletons.

Frogs generally have comparatively simple bone structures, with very few bones, which assists in superior flexibility, giving me plenty of freedom regarding how I'd like to pose one on paper. Tree frogs in particular are probably some of the most flexible with the added ability to grapple to a multitude of surfaces making posing one even easier.

Cheeser watches my progress

So now I have this very rough sketch of a tree frog skeleton clinging to the wire of a light bulb. It'll need to be fine tuned before transferring it onto A2. I think the final drawing should take a couple of days to complete. That seems to have been the pattern so far.

It Began with a Chicken, a Duck and a Warthog

I realised it had been almost a year since I had drawn a single thing. My motivation had been smothered by a lifestyle consisting only of work with overtime stacked on top. It had become easier to simply tell my self I would start something soon and dream about it to make my self feel better. Then, I decided to make a change. I couldn't afford to simply just quit my job so I stopped doing over time and, yes, I would have less money to spare but it would give me time to try to rekindle my interest.

So within a couple of days I drew up some rough A4 pencil sketches. They were the skeletons of a chicken, a warthog and a duck skull The chicken and the warthog were given props to provide visual contrast.

It was time to convert them free hand onto A2, in biro pen. The first drawing, the chicken, took two days to complete. As it was in biro pen, and large enough to fit on A2, I was convinced there was plenty of space for error and once it had happened it would be permanent. Some how it turned out ok despite the fact that, the rough drawing I was copying from, had a truly disproportionately big head.

Ok you've seen it already but take another look at that head....

...and now compare...seriously, the size of that head...

The completed version with a much smaller head.

By the end of the week the chicken was accompanied by completed versions of the warthog and duck skull.

"Quack"