Character-a-Day: 6.25.14

Today was an exciting and revelatory day for me for a couple of reasons.

First and foremost, this last week has made me realize how important it is to keep educating yourself in the arts. I got stuck in this rut of simply sitting at my desk day-in and day-out, touching up pieces of art I was working on, and never really pushing myself to grow as an artist.

For any of you that feel like you’re doing the same thing day-after-day and you don’t feel like your work is progressing, make a conscious effort to do some research, whether it be through reading, online tutorials, classes, or whatever.

In just a week of taking an hour or two to focus only on research and learning, I can feel an improvement in my work. Also, I’m having more fun with my artwork through exploring and experimenting, because I’m implementing new lessons I have learned, which keeps my process fresh. There is always someone out there that is better than you. Don’t take that age old lesson as an intimidating statement, but rather an exciting opportunity to learn from others!

So, today I finished up the book I’ve been reading titled, “Force: Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators,” by Michael D. Mattesi. Click Here to check it out.  The book finished today with a chapter on drawing force in animals.

This was a nice segue into some online tutorials I’ve been watching online, because today’s tutorial discussed rendering a character, and that character happened to be some sort of alligator, beast-like creature. I would like to take this moment to tell you all to check out Feng Zhu’s tutorials. It’s focused towards concept art and digital artists, but it can also help all artists with things like picking values for your art, composition, creating lighting, etc. You can check these tutorials out by clicking here.

So, after all that, I give you my character of the day, the WereKiba. I was inspired by my Siberian Husky, Kiba. So yes, it is your typical werewolf style character, but it was especially fun for me because I had an excuse to play around with my dog more than I usually do in the scope of the day. What project is better than that!

Anyway, I hope you all enjoy my dog. I feel this is a pretty accurate representation of his personality. Jokes! For the most part…guy gets straight up crazy sometime!

Take care everyone.

EG Claunch