The Knight Vangaurd

There are lighting issues on the third night pose in the first image but overall I'm pleased with how things are progressing. I have already started on my next character. Posing has been a challenge but I'll keep on trucking. I've been doing a lot of anatomy studying lately. It helps. Its easy to take it for granted.

Gonna be funny

I will die laughing or of shame when I come back to look at these 3, 6, 12 months from now. If I don't then I probably haven't improved as and artist and should beat myself with a stick.

Character Variations for three different characters.

I did several silhouettes and my Pixar teachers chose these characters  Then I had to make 3 to 6 variations of each one and turn em in. The one in the top left corner in each drawing below is the original design. These three below is the last guy I worked on. (I burnt out, thus only three.)

 I haven't done black marker silhouettes (I can't spell this word for jack) in forever so I have done everything with ball point pen. I call that the pencil of pens. I found I got better results and carried that over the these drawing.

 Drawing something different each time is tricky. I keep catching myself doing the same generic shapes and having to rework them to get something interesting. By the end I was starting to get the hang of it.

Pretty much the first guy of every drawing one out with the exception of the girl. The second one got top pick. 

I decided I to focus on the night for my first character. Here is a rough 3 perspective view with general details worked in over time. 

From that top design which was based on a lot of Japanese armor I decided to tweak it to be a bit more European. (I'm actually surprised how much different it looks now. Woopse!)

Posing. Turns out it is way harder then I thought.

I've been working on a character sheet for a portfolio class. It is essentially a knight but of my own design. I am working on details and the elbow functionality is a pain along with the knees and feat. Finding reference is tricky too because when you google Knight armor nobody is thinking about how the knee is connected to the thigh.

Photos are from my phone so sorry if its poor quality. This is a pose I just turned in to my teacher and I was feeling really good about it. Turns out it has a lot of problems. The good news is this taught me a lot about how creating poses works.

Its hard to read the notes on the page but what I found after my teacher told me this photo was "off" was that his body is arguing with itself. I hadn't locked down what I wanted him to be doing so as I drew the pose I was just making things up. Now half of him looks like he is raising his hammer in triumph while his legs appear as if he is jumping.

Lesson one. Use reference for the exact motion you are trying to achieve especially if its a dynamic pose and you don't have a good library of poses built up in your noggin.

Now silly as I may look, this is more natural. It may not have the proper weight in every place but it gives a good hint of what my drawing should look like.

I drew these based on this.

Rougher but its more natural and you get the idea about the motion and force that I am trying to suggest.

I showed this too to my Pixar teacher and he said "What kind of dance is that?"

I had the tork right but his upper body was still straight up and with his leg so high up he appeared to be graceful and dancing.

Since I feel like I am getting close to the pose (and I'm tired of redrawing it) I am switching to photoshop.

Hi. My name is John McLeod. I am a current student at Ex'pression college. I recently started a class at school where you choose a focus for your career. I was torn between rigging and concept art and at the last second I decided to do concepts. 

After drawing few quick sketches of people I realized my anatomy was way off. So for my first homework assignment to myself I drew this. I used PoseManiacs.com and Cyclopedia Anatomicae the book as reference. Even though I can see things wrong its a start. I'm going to keep at it and post all the things I learn on here. Hopefully this will help anyone else who is reading this and maybe they will help me out too. 

Here is to a solid 8 weeks of intense concept art and learning.