two train sketches and two from S.D.

Cartoon Brew

So the guys at cartoon brew have slammed DW and Jeffrey katzenberg and then went after Steve Macleod? Why do they have such a chip on their shoulder? All of us who are actually working in this business are putting tons of time and energy into trying to make good films.

The truth for me is, I used to go to cartoon brew quite often as well, but I stopped going about a year ago because they just don't get the fact that there are a lot of talented people working at Dreamworks who don't deserve to get thrown out into the trash can with someone's opinion.

I think Jeffrey has got a good head on his shoulders and I give him credit for keeping the studio alive for this long. Im also surprised to see that when we opened the gates to hire a couple of story artists, we recieved tons of portfolios from amazing artist around the animation community. So it makes me think that there arent as many DW haters out there, especially when they need a job.

I met Jerry Beck {when he was authoring the "Bee Movie" Book....interenting?}and I liked him, he seemed genuinely interested in the studio and the art behind it all. I cant say much for anyone else at cartoon brew and I'm just not interested in the bashing that comes from the site-especially for Dreamworks.

I'm on Macleod's side.

Gravity pulls!

Many times in class or in sketch books I see drawings that seem to be off balance or unstable. I started thinking about it. remembering that I'm constantly trying to place the feet on my sketch as quickly as possible before my subject moves or before I forget and I have a floating torso drawing.

The foot placement or contact with gravity has all the stability built in. if you find that placement and lock down those feet early, your sketch will usually feel pretty good. I've done drawings before that seem incomplete or off balance because I hadn't given enough thought to the feet{or even drew them in for that matter}. Even if the subject where to be sitting then gravity would pull from their rump and you'd want to feel that flat contact like the little sketch above. When a sketch is off balance, then it looks like the subject is falling.

So with that said..... I played around with some squiggles that showed blue stability and red gravity. It pulls!





No Problem





A little lean but still no problem




Problem! but we he can still catch himself if he tries.




He's probably not going to catch himself.



Too far gone.

waiting for the next meeting....

Stay loose

anyone doing a story test? My advice? ......Stay loose!

Time enough for Doodles

I'd like to thank my wife for going through what it takes to have a baby.  Our son Gabriel James Pimentel was born on 4-4-08 and I just had enough time to doodle a bit.  It felt like survival getting this stuff out.   Have a good one!

smile

Pointy

In time

Old Sketches

My Wife, My son, a guy on the train, and a couple in San Diego...

Small Challenge

Some friends and I saw this amazing caricatured person on the train and pledged to do a drawing for the following day from memory. Here was my take.

BoB!

I hope Bob doesn't mind but I linked him on the right.  Check him out, he's got some great stuff!

Another sketch from the break

These are some of my Story buds.
Ennio Torresan, Jenny Lerew and Dave Derrick. They were probably drawing me at the same time.

Take breaks

By no means do I mean "be lazy". But taking a break from our daily grind is needed. It's a great opportunity to get a sketch out. I have a break pad that I like to take out as I drink a cup o' joe with friends. This drawing was done a while back but, either way...It's fun.

out for a burrito

This Chipotle kid looked way older then he was.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2008 from my new cat KiKi and Me!

Zig Zag

Sometimes we get models who don't want to be involved in creating interesting poses, so they just stand there. One of the things I always try to express when this happens is, remember to zig zag your line. What I mean by that is when drawing a model that's too stiff we need to push and pull the pen left to right, find what's interesting in the pose. Feel their balance in the hips, the shoulders or the tilt of the head and neck. Many times our drawing arm moves mainly up and down {in the strokes} causing the structure of the sketch to be too stiff. Moving left to right can help add some rhythm and zig zag!

A pen worth mentioning

This is actually a very bad photo but it's all I got for now. I did the drawings below with this pen called "Copic sketch". it's japanese and very cool. It has the brush tip on one side and a chissel tip on the other.

Jenny Lerew of "Blackwingsketch.blogspot.com" introduced it to me.

Quickies

5 one's, 1 two and 1 three. Model --Jason Naylor