"Real" Schoolism Assignment 1 Work In Progress

Well, I couldn't hand in my Schoolism.com assignment of yesterday, which was pretty much a straightforward copying of a photo taken by someone else, with a hat added. So I had to start over again. Deadline Sunday (it is now Saturday morning! eeee!)

So, I was thinking: I want a head shot. I want textures, so not just hair and skin. I want some fun accessories. And some color since we are going to have to color in this same drawing in assignment three or something.

And we want a fun expression. And it should be something kid-related and all, non? (well, not necessarily, but let's just say for the sake of me being a children's illustrator and all) And I have a crazy insane kiddo.

So. We take this:


And this:




And we take away the colors (desaturate) and then we do a sketch combining my son's current karate expression and attitude, with his halloween costume hair and tiara from October 2009, with his princess dress he got for Christmas Dec 2009 (and wore to a parade last summer) and we get him doing his "Mulan Princess" HEY_YA! bit:



And after a bit of work, and LOTS more to go, of the painterly sort, we get this:



Kind of fun eh! Still really an observation drawing, and not something super creative or off the top of my head. But I think that right now for learning to see and render shadows and tones, this is a good start. Once all that info is entered into my head I can try doing 3D created characters. This is a far cry from my recent "flat line drawings with wash" that I've been working on for clients. Hard to turn them into 3D!!:




More tomorrow, on the Mulan Princess!