Thomas' Best Day

My best day would be spending time reading. This is my preliminary sketch. I'm going to finish it in acrylic.

Worst Day sketch

I wanted to do a worst day sketch. My final, I wanted to make a very bad day for someone. I came up with a man on a rock with hungry sharks waiting below. I had in mind to do it in watercolor and make it kind of realistic. I did this very sketchy with colored pencil but I am definitely going to make it look better.

Best Day Sketch

My best day is any day when I can draw fairy comics! They’re my favorite subject for art, and I like making colorful wings for them. As for how I will color it, I am thinking about using Corel Painter. This sketch was done in Photoshop and I usually use it to color as well, but I think it might be nice to play with Painter. I’ll use either the watercolor brush or the round water blender brush, and whichever I choose, it will be brightly colored.     

Best/Worst Day sketch

I decided to do my sketch on the Greek myth of Alcyone and her husband Ceyx.  Alcyone and Ceyx called each other "Zeus" and "Hera", which angered Zeus, so when Ceyx went off to sea, Zeus threw a lightning bolt at his ship.  Morpheus, the god of dreams, appeared to Alcyone as an apparition of Ceyx, telling her of his demise.  Alycone was so wrought with grief that she threw herself into the sea.  The gods took pity on her and turned both her and Ceyx into "halcyon" birds, or kingfishers (although in this culture the Halcyon bird is a mythical kingfisher which lays its eggs in a hovering nest over the ocean).  

I chose this because I stumbled upon this myth and really liked it, and the Herbert James Draper piece based on it, which you can see here.  I figured this could work for both worst day (she finds out her husband is dead) and best day (she and her husband are saved and immortalized as birds).

Best Flippen Day Ever

This was really easy for me, I have been thinking about this project since the first day, when I skipped ahead to the final project in the syllabus. So here, my best day ever, starts and ends with my lovely boyfriend Josh! He is basically my other half and my perfect match, and we have a ridiculous amount of stuff in common. But we also have many things not in common. So here, I illustrated us waking up together, having great days, and still being together even though not all our perfect scenarios match. Him having "the best day ever" would make my best day even...best-er! We have me, playing with puppies, eating ice cream, playing with knitting stuff; and him playing video games, eating pancakes, and pretending to be a wizard from Harry Potter.



I think I am going to do hard line-work, then live-trace it in illustrator and digitally color it with green and while and pale, flat sections in photoshop. I don't do a lot of digital work but I would like to explore it, and as there will be a lot of little stuff going on I don't want to overwhelm it with too much shading.

Critiques, ideas, any input welcome! I can take some "harsh" input as long as it's well intended :)

Adios!

Whether you know him by name or not, Glen Keane is the creator of a lot of famous Disney character designs as well as a storyboarder. He's responsible for characters including, but not limited to, such as Pocahontas, Tarzan, Beast and has also worked on the more recently released Tangled film.

An instructor recently suggested that I check out Glen's work, as I'm more prone to work on a rough style, which is Glen's forte. While I tend to try and fight to create obsessively clean work, I'm trying to convince myself to just work with what I've got going for me. Glen is obviously excellent at what he does, however, much like with my own work, looking through his portfolio, nothing feels "finished."

Don't get me wrong, the guy is a fantastic character designer and storyboarder, but I'd really love to see his work past sketches or hasty looking watercolors. I guess I'm just too OCD to appreciate his work in the way that I should...

All in all, Glen is a master of the wide-eyed Disney look, which a lot of illustrators grew up trying to emulate. The silver lining with his sketchy work is that it makes what he does look so effortless and natural for him, which, quite frankly, has me completely envious.

Karl Kerschl

Karl Kershl is the writer and illustrator of a webcomic entitled "The Abominable Charles Christopher." It follows the adventures of a naive yeti among a cast of endearing animals. As a writer, Karl is excellent. The stories read a lot like a children's book or movie, but the themes are much deeper and geared toward an older audience.

The entire comic is done in a sketchy style with black outlines and cool grays. While I always love to see cool grays, as I prefer them to warmer ones which tend to feel too... sepia to me, I always wonder how the series would look in color. The characters and settings have so much to offer and I feel like the addition of color could either make it more whimsical if they were on the bolder side or more nostalgic if a water-color type style was to be used.

Regardless, Kerschl has an excellent style. The roughed out appearance works well for a storybook feel and all of his animals are absolutely adorable.