Watts Atelier - Week Two

Week two seemed to be much more mellow. Wasn't quite as crazy and overwhelming as the first week, yet it seemed like more of the same. Which when it's awesome, is a good thing.

Caricatures

We jumped right into the features of the face, and how they are broken down by ethnic categories and age groups. A lot of recapping for me, but it was still interesting to see. Then we started into thumbnailing caricatures for illustrations. This is something I'd never thought to do for caricatures. I thumbnail sketches and pages, but never caricatures. The closest I come is lightly sketching it out before actually drawing anything.

So we took different famous faces and did several five minute sketches for each. The idea was to start with a different head shape for each and exaggerate different characteristics. The funny thing is, I kept exaggerating the same with different head shapes so that it almost looked exactly the same every time, lol. Anyways, it was eye-opening. Pushing the face farther and farther. Almost exaggerating the caricature after a while. So here's my samples... they're very quick and unfinished. They're supposed to be more ideas than drawings.



Storyboarding and Sequential Art

I literally thought my head was going to explode in this class. We watched movies and broke them down shot for shot. Real time in some cases. It was so much to think about. And I watched a movie since then and I was like this movie sucks.. look at how they paced that, and keep cutting back and forth. Where's your pans?!! Where's your MED CU's?!! Oh it was sad. Anyways. I think it will get easier as I get more used to the language.

The class was fun, a lot of it cause I was hanging out with Brian. And he just makes everything a blast. But this stuff is just really interesting. Ron doesn't just go over the language, he goes over the history and creation of the language. Which is fascinating stuff. It also sounds like it's pretty easy to pick up work as a story-board artist. And the pay is pretty decent. You just have to know the language and draw as well as the next guy. Don't even have to be great, in fact I'm having to pare down my style to meet the needs of the class. Wierd, huh?

Figure Quick-Sketch

This class, as always was fantastic. I sort of wish I was taking the full figure drawing class too to go hand and hand with this. But I couldn't afford it this time around, with all the other expenses I've got going out this month. But this class is awesome. Jeff is awesome. I was trying out a Vignette style on my drawings this class. Leaving edges un drawn, learning what to leave out. It has an interesting affect.

There are two things I really need to focus on next class I think, one is getting even lighter with my linework. Getting hair thin lines on the page. I've gotten better about going too dark too quick. But to get the full use out of the tonal technique you have to have very clean light lines. And then let the edges, core shadows and tones do their jobs. It's cool when you learn a new step and suddenly your drawings come to a new level of life. So anyways... here's some of the teachers samples. Jeff's are the more linework ones and Marc's are the more tonal ones.



And here's mine...



Lastly, I recorded a short bit of Jeff doing a demo over someone's drawings. I think that's the absolute best part about this school, is they actually work over YOUR drawings so that you can see the difference between what you were trying to do and what your supposed to do. Best of all you walk away from the class with a sketch to redraw and try to master. Here's the video, right click and SAVE to view. Sorry it's sideways, I had a brain fart while I was recording, don't know what I was thinking.

--Will

AWESOME!!!

My cousin Melonie sent this to me. It's hilarious, if not a little too close to home(so to speak). If you've never lived in LUBBOCK, you don't know what you're missing out on.

--Will

Some of you may already know that I keep several blogs. Part of it is because I write so much sometimes that I think it gets overwhelming for readers. And of course... there are other reasons. So I try to keep this one pared down to "update" stuff. Anyways, I wasn't going to post this, but I've had a few powerful emails and comments about it that I figured I'd share it here. Hopefully some of you might get something out of it. You never know.

"What have you got to lose?"

My roommate mentioned that to me a few months ago and it seems to have really stuck with me. Of course, in context he was talking about how to get girls. But it works in pretty much any situation. It's a very powerful question. One in much the same vein as the questions I asked myself, and certain friends asked of me, to get me out here. And it's something that I find myself asking people around me. It's human nature to dig out a comfort zone for yourself. It's hard enough making things work as it is. And so if one can somehow manage to immerse yourself into a place where everything is handled, everything is known and predictable. It seems almost ideal. But in hindsight it almost never is.

There's this guy at work who is one of the most gifted artists I've ever had the privilege of working with. He's only nineteen and he soaks up new ideas and techniques like a sponge. I find myself constantly having to push myself to stay ahead of his curve. And even then I'm fighting a losing battle. This kid is a genius. But he's stuck. I can't believe he's working at a theme park, and not in school or in some apprenticeship system with a big company. What it is, he knows what he wants to do with his life, but he's afraid to take the chances it takes to do it. So I ask him... "What have you got to lose?" I could see the wheels spinning in his mind.

"What have you got to lose?"

In most situations the only thing you have to lose... is a few more years of your life, of doing the same thing you're already doing. And to be honest it doesn't always work out. But you never know till you try. But which is better, doing something you love and being challenged to grow and adapt - or being comfortable, unchallenged and not having to worry about anything; but not doing what you really want to do with your life.

One of my other friends at work told me he spent 13 years working at Carl's Jr as an assistant manager. I won't even say anything about that. See the thing is, they paid for his health insurance. All of it. And he has some major health issues that can be very expensive. But 13 years... working at Carl's Jr... as an ASSISTANT manager! He said he finally left when he realized there was no reason for him to be alive. You see, they were essentially keeping him alive... to work for them. So he does caricatures now. It's something he actually enjoys doing. It's a struggle, he makes a little more money, but he doesn't have the full insurance. But it's actually worth the struggle now.

Fighting the good fight.

Somewhere along the way some of us decide that Challenge is a bad thing. And it couldn't be farther from the truth. We are all given challenges to overcome in life. They are designed to make us better people. I see people at the parks that weigh 400+ pounds rolling around on these scooters. Too fat to walk - some people call them. Every time I see it I think, now there's someone who has given up on living. They're just observing everyone else's life and making witty comments from time to time. That's not being alive, that's existing. I know cause I've been there.

They say life is hard - well it is. That's how you know you've done something. That's how you build self-esteem within yourself. Who wants to play a game without a challenge. There's no fun in that. There's no pride in that. Taking the easy way isn't outsmarting the system, it's a disservice to yourself.

The world isn't meant to inspire us - it's meant to challenge us.

There's an artist who used to work at Seaworld. Who's art influenced almost every artist there. I've seen his sketches and they are breathtaking. And from what I hear they are effortless. He's in his Mid to late 30's now. He's going to his 4th art school. And he's stuck. He's one of the best artists, every artist I know has ever met... and he doesn't do anything with it. He's afraid to fail. He's afraid to try. Now that's a shame.

Failure is essential to growing. I know because I've got quite a few significant failures under my belt. I don't regret a single one of them. Learning how to do something right is basically learning how to do it wrong from every other angle. And the more challenges you overcome like that the more comfortable you are with taking those chances at failure. And one day, you figure enough of it out to make whatever you're trying to do, work. But putting off the lessons just puts off reaching your goal. Sometimes for decades.

Man I hate it when I get preachy. I'm just frustrated. I see so much potential in the world and in everyone I meet. But a lot of people are just short-cutting through life or not even trying. And the thing is, I'm not going around looking for people to help like I once did. I only give advice when someone asks me. Or when the situation is perfect for it. So this stuff kind of builds up and spills out here. But maybe it's helpful to someone. I mean... What have I got to lose, right?

--Will

Legoland

Work sucked today. (It's funny, I never get on here and say work ROCKED today.. it's always work sucked! blah blah blah.) I worked 12 hours yesterday - manager meeting in the morning, and then worked all day. To make it worse I was closing manager last night and opening manager today. So it was a little tough getting out of bed this morning. I never wake up past 8 anymore but for some reason today I overslept till 10. And I was supposed to be there at 9:30 to get to the vault and set up the cash bags for all the booths in the park. So by the time I get to the office with the money there's a half-dozen employees standing around waiting for their starting cash. Ugh! Why did I want a promotion again?

Seriously, I've enjoyed being a sort of mentor for these artists. The big difference between here and Seaworld is that most of the artists at Legoland are 16-19. Almost all of them, this is their first job, and they've never really had to draw like this before. So I've definitely had a lot of opportunities to give guidance to young artists. Which, funny enough, puts the last six years of teaching at the G&A to some damn good use. And I think I really do make a difference. Since I started at Legoland a few months ago, I've worked with almost every new artists one on one at some point, and EVERY one of them had a HUGE leap in their drawing skills and in most cases a doubling or tripling of their sales. It's a really good feeling that I can spend 3 hours with an artist here and take years off their learning curve. And that it will actually be put to an immediate visible use.

I really wish this job paid better, because it is very rewarding in many ways. And I know I would be fantastic at it in the long run. Maybe even as a park manager some day. But it's not what I want to do with my life. Or even the next few years, lol. But I am really glad that I have followed through with it, instead of quitting back in June when that was on my mind. I've really seen some fruition here. Part of it has come from being bored out of my skull when it's slow, and too busy to think when it's not. This creativity is something that could only come from this type of environment. But I won't be too upset when I'm done though, lol.

So, from time to time I run across someone that is just very hard to draw. Like my friend Corianna, her facial expressions are so fluid that you can't capture just one feature or expression. And unless you get the right combination of expressions it's impossible to get the likeness. One of the guys I work with named Jheremy is like that. This was probably the hardest caricature I've ever tried to draw. I had to do a half-dozen pre-sketches, and I never do pre-sketches. But his face kept changing. Then I remembered it was his personality that I was trying to capture, and so I started to attack it from that angle. And that's where this drawing came from. He is almost constantly dancing. I've never seen him when he wasn't doing a little dance. So that seemed to really bring the expression to life. I still think I could have done better on the face. But I'm happy with how it turned out. And he seemed to be REALLY happy with it.



...And here's a random redneck hillibilly.



--Will

Artistic Euphoria

I'm starting to get back to bidness with my art again. I spent the last couple weeks just playing with it and having fun like a kid with a new toy. But I'm ready to get back to doing some real work. Umm... right after this...



Theme park Bingo - TFTW: Too fat to walk.

We get these people weighing 300/400 plus pounds whizzing around the park on little scooters. It is a sight to see, I tell you. The beeping noise when they back up doesn't help with the visual. This guy was a jerk to one of our artists today, so I did a little sketch of him just because I could.

You know, way back when I first started doing caricatures I used to tell people I wanted to be one of the nice caricature artists. I didn't want to make fun of people. I was going to make people look cool like comic book characters. And I didn't understand why some artists were so awful with their sketches. Now I know it's just out of SURE BOREDOM!!! After you've drawn a few thousand faces it starts to get really freaking OLD after a while, lol. Especially when half of those were princesses or mermaids. Sheesh! And I'm not usually mean to people. But I am a lot less interested in making people look pretty. In fact I love to make people look EXACTLY the way they really look, so that I'm not being mean... I'm being honest.

I had a little girl today who was very pretty but she had the craziest teeth. And I made them exactly the way they looked. I didn't even bother to exaggerate them. And everyone laughed because there was NO hiding them teeth. She loved the drawing but hated her teeth. That kind of stuff happens all the time now. Because my drawings tend to look so much like the subject that I can get away with spotlighting some of their worst features without hurting their feelings. It's nice to be in that place. Before I would always go over board on backgrounds and bodies to make up for the lack of likeness. Most other artists tend to do that when they start out too. So I love the fact that I can do pretty much anything I want now. I'm even getting to the point now where I ask people how far I can go with the sketch. Just to keep pushing myself.

I think after the seasons over it will be high time for me to try setting up a gig at Dicks Last Resort. If they're up for it, I think I would fit right in. First things first though. I've got a lot of other important projects to focus on between now and then.

--Will

Watts Atelier - Week One

This is the first week of my second term at the Watts Atelier. I feel superbly enthusiastic and ready to learn. I've spent the last couple weeks really trying to apply the Tonal/Abstraction technique to all of my drawings, especially in my sketch book. And I have had some amazing results, especially in the last few days. So coming into these new classes this week I was very excited to see how well I can apply this back into charcoal and newsprint. Seems like I've got a HUGE leap on things compared to last term. Sweet!

Class One - Caricature Illustration - w/ Court Jones

Court started the class by going through the principals of caricature. Explaining that caricature isn't necessarily making fun of people, and it doesn't mean taking one feature and making it bigger. It is all about exaggeration, and trying to capture the personality of the subject. Exaggeration can be making things smaller or making things larger or closer together or farther apart and so on and so on. In one interesting example he showed the correlation between a box and a rectangle. And then a rectangle compared to an even wider rectangle. And most people consider the wider rectangle a better representation of a rectangle than the smaller one. The interesting thing is that when it comes down to it, people (and rats apparently) tend to recognize exaggeration more than reality. Often times a caricature will look more like a person than the person does. Fascinating. There was a lot more in depth discussion about the medium than that. Needless to say, I feel a lot more pride about my career than I did before. Not that I wasn't already proud of what I do.

We started into a drawing study of one of my favorite caricaturists, Sebastian Krueger. The drawing, also one of my favorites, is his painting of John Wayne. It was cool seeing how you can apply the Tonal/Abstraction technique to this unique medium. It gives it such a slick and professional style too. I love it. Anyways, the first one is my sketch and the second is the teacher's example. And last is Krueger's.


After, I went home and finished my drawing. I'm real happy with how it turned out. Keep in mind that this is from a Xerox, and the original is twice as big as our drawings and done in acrylic paint.


The thing that I am most looking forward to in this class is doing some full on caricature paintings for my portfolio through the course of the term. I've been itching to do something in color, but I figured it might be a while before I get that chance. So finding out that's part of the curriculum really got me stoked.

SIDE NOTE: Court was telling me about the sketch night the Wednesday after the Comic-Con preview. Jay and I were planning to go - I even called to find out when it was starting, but decided to skip it because we were both exhausted. I had worked all day and Jay had just flown in from Houston. And I figured we'd hit one of the other nights - but we never did.

Anyways, it turns out we missed an incredible night. Court and some of the other artists went to the National Cartoonists meeting beforehand and met up with Sergio Aragones (Mad Magazine, Groo the Wanderer), Steve Silver (Kim Possible, Clerks animated series), John Kricfalusi (Ren and Stimpy) Tom Richmond (Mad Magazine and Richmond Illustration (the guy that CREATED the theme park caricature style!!!) ) and a bunch of others. They all headed off to the bar together and had one HELL of an allstar sketch night.

...Sigh.

The first thing that came to my mind after hearing that I missed out on all that... I could still be in Lubbock, not knowing what I'm missing out on. It's funny the things that run through your mind with stuff like that.

Class Two - Storyboarding and Sequential art - w/ Ron Lemon and Doug Stambaugh

I have to say this class is intense. Part of it is because Ron is intense. He knows SO much about everything. He's incredible. And he talked virtually non-stop, bombarding us with so much information that I almost wished I'd had a recorder to process it all several times over. I'm thinking of buying the adapter for my IPod just to do that. I could listen to him talk all day long. He is such a fascinating guy.

Anyways, this looks to be more about storyboarding than sequential art. But I knew that coming in. They are essentially the same thing, it's just a different approach aesthetically to drawing a page, and more technically communicative for storyboarding. But I'm stoked on learning both. Especially since I found out that most story board artists/concept designers in San Diego - for games, movies and such - start out making 100 - 150 a year. And there are a half-dozen or so major Game companies within 20 miles of me (Rockstar, Blizzard, Sony, Angel, High Moon, Etc..) Something I'm definitely keeping in mind as I develop my skillset.

The first half was learning terminology. The language of story, and how to draw a storyboard to direct the camera. Then we took about 10 minutes to draw our own 6 shot sequence about an event from our day. I actually picked an event that happened the other day. It was very funny. But I'll see if you can read it. I chose a couple frames wrong, which fuddled things up a bit. But I like it. I think it's a good start. Especially for a ten minute sketch. This material is definitely going to help me construct my storytelling much better. A lot of this is stuff I never really thought about before, and now it makes perfect sense of how to think through it.



Anyways, the absolute coolest part is that my friend Brian Morante from Seaworld - who happens to be one of my favorite artists in the whole world - is in it with me. I swear talking to him is like watching a real life cartoon. He's so entertaining. And he really pushes me to be a better artist, just by watching him draw. He's also one of the best caricature artists I've ever met too, he captures personalities better than anyone I know. So I'm really stoked about that. We even went to dinner afterwards and had a blast talking about the Con, comics, cartoons, careers and all that stuff. Awesome.

Class Three - Figure Quick Sketch - Jeff Watts and Mark

This class is so cool. It's even cooler because of Jeff Watts. This is my first class with him, and he is just the most inspirational man. Like Ron he tends to talk perpetually, filling the room with knowledge so that it's all you can think about. He's constantly throwing out challenges, often subliminally, to artists. I find myself doing stuff in my drawings I never would have attempted, just because of something I hear him tell another artist in the background.

There's just so much I could say. Too much I suppose. He's just one of those people that you have to meet to truly know what it means to be inspired. He meets thousands of artists each year, and he's on his game almost every time. He's enthusiastic with complete strangers, pulling their passions out of them within seconds of conversation. He makes people want to be better. My bar has been raised so high from just talking to him - I can't even imagine what being in his class will be like. And not high in an inaccessible way... because this is all very doable. I find myself reaching higher and higher every time I put a pencil down on the page. I see my future expanding exponentially, because I see my potential expanding that way too. I'm letting dreams fill up the spaces I was always afraid to go. Now there is no fear. Only determination. And from the look of everyone in that classroom... I know I'm not the only one.

Anyways... the class. It was excellent. I started to get some incredible line control by the end of the class. I was sort of preoccupied with that more than trying to get the figure down. But that's okay, because I want the tonal control and edging to become second nature before I start to focus completely on the abstraction and anatomy. Here's some samples of my work from tonight.



And here's Jeff's.



This is going to be a GREAT semester!

--Will

New Art

I figure it's been a while since I've put any artwork up. So here's a few recent sketches. I mentioned in an earlier post how bored I've been at work lately and so I've just been going overboard when it's slow. This demo caricature is a result of that. And so is conan fighting the Lava men. I feel my artwork ebbing ever closer to a slick mainstream style that I never thought could possibly come from my pen. My newest sketch book is filled with vibrant characters in motion and with real life to them. I feel like a kid that's just learned how to fly and I can't get enough of it.


And these are actual caricatures. The first is a co-worker. She asked me to NOT be gentle with her caricature. Thus the result. The second, this girl asked me to draw her as a mermaid... with extra large sea shells. I told her I drew starfish instead because they were too large to be C-shells... They'd have to be D-shells. She thought it was hilarious. (That joke works a lot better orally than in type. Lol. Oh well.)


My new classes start this week. Tonight is caricature class with Court Jones. And Saturday I have the Sequential art and Storyboarding class with Ron Lemon and the Figure Quick-sketch with Jeff Watts. I'm very excited.

--Will

ComicBookConventions.Com

My thanks to the guys at Comicbookconventions.com for linking to my Comic-Con posts. I've had about 300 new visitors to my Blog and SITE in the last few days. I hope it was informative (or at least entertaining) to everyone that came to visit.

--Will

Sense of Direction

I woke up this morning at 7 minutes to seven. After a rush of visions and emotions in dream. As I laid there processing with my waking consciousness, I realized that it was a clearly defined path for my life to follow. One filled with goals, dreams and passions both new and old... some VERY old. Each of them tied loosely together by the fabric of the unknown and seeds of spontaneity. So as to make them more realistic goals.

Giddy with excitement, I dressed quickly and headed out the door to take myself to breakfast and to transcribe my newfound clarity. I have this tremendous sense of self now. A definite sense of destiny and direction. The path is one I plan to keep to myself. But it will hopefully show in my actions from here on out. And even more interesting, I think this whole thing comes from, and is rooted in, the realization I had two weeks ago.

I love destiny.

So... in completely unrelated news (or maybe not ). I did this sketch at work today. Work has been frustrating lately, today even more so. I know what to do now. And even though there's just 8 weeks left... I still feel like I'm wasting time. Especially with this morning's epiphany. It will work itself out I guess.


--Will

Balboa Park

Balboa park is located near downtown San Diego. It is a group of buildings built in/around 1915 for the World's Fair. The city decided to keep those buildings and do a lot with them. In fact the entire area is one of the most beautiful cultural areas, I believe, in the US. It is a huge park and I've never been able to see everything there, and today was no exception. I still haven't even been to the ZOO, the Air and Space museum, the Natural History museum, science museum, or any of the other ones on that side of the park.

Today we started with the Japanese Friendship Garden,


Today we started near the Botanical Garden and walked around most of that area just looking at the architecture, fountains, and people milling about.

I especially liked the Coy pond.

Then we made our way to the Botancial gardens, stopping along the way to admire some of the incredible architecture.



Here's the outside of the Botanical Gardens...


And the inside...


We stopped in the san Diego Model Railroad museum to check it out and it was pretty awesome. Jay and I were huge into modeling in high school. We would build this giant dioramas for wargames and such. Castles, forests and hillsides. We both had a huge passion for stuff like that. So model mock-ups of San Diego and Southern California are like candy. Here's one of many videos that Jay took of trains running(just right click and save). And here's some pics...



We hit a few other museums after that, I can't tell you how awesome this park. I just don't like going out there by myself. It's always more fun with someone else. One of the classes at the Watts school is Plein Air painting at Balboa park, and everyone gets together just to paint out there. I might do that next term. It's definitely something I wan't to learn.

So there's a ton more photos in the FULL ALBUM. Jay and I were both taking pictures. His are the ones from the Sony Cam and mine are from the Concord.

Oh... and we saw this on the way out of town...


--Will