smith sketch!

Jekyll, Hyde, and a whole lotta shapes a-goin' on

2012-01-23T20:18:00.019-05:00

It's crazy, you blink and the month is already almost over! Here's a bit of a doodle dump from my character design class. It has been a lot of fun, right now the goal is to really work on basics & stick to finding fun and interesting shapes. So read on, lovely blog reader! Read onnnn. And feast your eyes on some sketches!

One of our ongoing assignments is to work on our own versions of Jekyll & Hyde. Originally, I was thinking of having my Jekyll & Hyde be a 1920's Jungle Explorer turned Monster due to downing a Witchdoctor's potion. Here are a few shape ideas for those characters:

But then while listening to music (the 'Drive' soundtrack = great tunes to draw to), an idea came to me. What if my character was from the Vaudeville era! And wants to DANCE. So I thought of Jekyll being a Vaudeville theater's janitor, a very small but stocky man of about 4'0, who perhaps has scoliosis. He's loved by all at the theater community, is a little shy, and his dream is to dance. One night he falls in to his cleaning solution and turns in to Hyde: a tall, graceful & beautiful dancer. It's his dream come true... except for one thing: Hyde has a nasty jealous, dark side to him. He must be #1. Jekyll comes back around to find that one of his dancer friends has been murdered... Was it Hyde?! To his dismay... yes.

A few shape ides for the Vaudeville Jekyll/Hyde:

And then further exploration below:

I'd like to explore Jekyll a bit more, I don't quite feel as if I've gotten him yet. We shall see.

Last but not least! An exercise in caricature:

(We were to draw the image of the bowler hat man realistically and then caricature his face, focusing on making it a type of circle, square or triangle.)

& quick doodles - emotions, stuff I did during the day:

More to come! There are some awesome projects that I want to finish before Feb 1st rolls around & I can't wait to share them with you.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-02T18:39:00.001-05:00

So here we are, 2012! Hope everyone has had a relaxing & fun long weekend (if you had today off, which I hope most of you did!), and had a great time saying farewell to 2011 & ringing in the New Year.

I'm taking a Character Design class that lasts 9 weeks - check it on out at schoolism.com if you have any interest! Our first assignment was due today, with it being to sketch out a character named 'Walter' who is in his 60's, wears a monocle & smoking jacket, and is a wealthy entrepreneur. I had a lot of fun sketching him out and am really looking forward to receiving feedback. Feel free to drop me a line & let me know what you think!!

Full body sketches:

Head sketches:

And color!

Pirates, Zombies & Santa... Happy Holidays!

2011-12-28T12:43:00.007-05:00

Let the posting BEGIN!! It certainly has been awhile since I posted anything, so I figured I'd get rid of all the old stuff and start afresh. So this somewhat is 'doodle dump numero uno.' I'm really looking forward to this upcoming new year & posting way, way more.

I wanted to send a fun card for one of my oldest & dearest friends, E, on her Birthday this past November. For some reason 'pirates!' came to mind, so I did a sketch of her, her hubby & little baby B as the Dread Pirate Bratcher Family.

Drawing the Bratcher family is always fun, I think this is the third image I've done of them and it certainly won't be the last.

My goal for the past few Holiday seasons has also been to send out my own handcrafted holiday cards. Originally I wanted to make a few and send out a variety of cards, but I only had time for two.

My boyfriend was pretty excited about this and asked if he could give me the design idea for one of the cards & then I could mock it up. First came the sketches...

SANTA FIGHTING ZOMBIE INVASION! The left side are a few of my interpretations of his idea (rockin' Santa head there on the bottom right is his), and then on the right is basically all him (minus the Santa & buxom babe on the top right that I drew.) We had a lot of fun discussing this card. And then here's the final version:

Back note on the card: Spreading Peace on Earth... One Zombie-Kill at a Time. Happy Holidays!

Last but not least, my other Christmas card that features Santa & a near-sighted little French Bulldog:
And then the back of the card:

So with that said... Happy, happy Holidays everyone! Have a wonderful rest of your season & here's to an amazing upcoming 2012.

-katie

Blog under construction!

2011-11-03T12:41:00.001-04:00

It's about time, right? Right? Yes.