Sunday, February 5, 2012

Week 4: Zoobilee Zoo!

"Come along with us to Zoobilee Zoo."  I don't remember too much about any particular episodes, but I do have the theme song embedded in my brain (below for your own torcher) and think I may have had a boyhood crush on the kangaroo.  So I thought I'd take a shot at the characters in a bit of an animation style.  Sadly, time got away from me this week and I narrowed it down to one character.  Ultimately I'm not too happy with it.  He ended up looking way more like Barack Obama than I ever intended.  If I were to take a second pass at this, I would probably try to push it further and make it a direct caricature.  There are some hand problems too which are making me real close to proclaiming that I will no longer draw hands without a reference for as long as I live.

The one thing I am kind of happy with is its my first try at simulating a "marker look" while still working completely digitally.  I found a site with some pretty interesting brushes and may be trying some different styles in future pieces.  All in all, I learned something from this piece and I think its important that I try and take something away from everything I work on.

You can see the original sketch over at my personal site: Mayor Ben Sketch
Marker Brushes: Premium Pixels

-Ben
Personal Blog: Still-Reaching
Twitter: NeedYourDisease

8 comments:

  1. Oh man, I remember clicking thru the channels and catching a clip or two occasionally. That theme IS a fine piece of mind flotsam.
    Don't worry if you think this didn't work, you have to go thru hundreds of not working drawings to get the good ones. I like your direction, taking him away from a human in a suit to more of a cat guy. I wonder if you pushed him further away from human? Plus he does look like a relative of Ben Verine, you aren't that far off!

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  2. Barack or not, you nailed the look of the dude. I watched the hell out of that show without ever liking it.

    Let's talk about hands next time we see each other. I had an instructor break it down for me in a way that's helped me immensely. Link to your brushes site?

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    1. I'll take you up on that. The markers were from Premium Pixel. Don't let the name fool you, they're free. I put the link at the bottom of the post.

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    2. I want to hear that hand talk too. Art club!

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  3. It amazes me at times how much you work reminds me of Bruce Timms. As far as hands, they can be such a bitch to draw. I had another artist explain to me that hands are just like faces. Every person is different and shape, texture and pose can reflect the character as well. I think comicbook characters are a good example. (See any villain caught soliloquizing whilst using extreme dramatic hand gestures.) After clicking on the image I can see your line weights a little better. I think if you keep the principal of line weight in the back of your mind...not to far back :D, it can be a huge help. And add a lot more depth to your work...it's a constant struggle..I still struggle with it.

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  4. Yeah, I think my problem is that I'm zooming in so much while I'm inking that I'm not getting the single, clean sweeps that I want. Its definitely something I'm wanting to work on in the future.

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    1. Ben do you ink by hand at all, or just digital?

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  5. This show would have been a million times better i fit had been an animated show in a style half as cool as this, nice job Ben.

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