Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Still Working on Memory Bots

Hello and welcome back. I previous posts I showed sketches for a book on memory I am designing and (if they ever actually make a decision on something) illustrating. Well, here's a recent round of drawings I did for them. Not much new lately because they are slow to get back to me and slower to actually say what they are looking for. I don't know if you have ever gone through this but they can't make a decision because as they say, "Jeff your stuff is so good that it is hard to make a decision, each new drawing is great..." Alright I like compliments as much as the next guy but come on...just tell me what you're looking for, so of these are just terrible. Maybe they feel like because I'm the 'talent' that I'm fragile or something. We are all adults here, just pick something so we can move on.
Another bit of annoyance is the crunching out of new ideas only to find they liked the early stuff. Whoo boy, welp, work is work I suppose, and at least they LIKE my stuff. Too bad, I'm starting not too, yikes some of these drawings- I would have fired me. There was a pizza delivery job in the paper...
Er....Amara wants to play Elmo's Potty Time.
I'll post something more complete in a while, sorry.

Monday, February 18, 2008

Cookie Monster Interview

Howdy.

I love Cookie Monster, I always have, he's my favorite Sesame Street Icon. So because I have no cool images just yet, I thought I'd post this link to a video of NPR's interview with Cookie. Sorry no video file I can find but the link is great. If you're really paying attention; look at the broad actions and posing that make Cookie believable especially when he looks over his shoulders and pinches his nose. Wow, it's like a good animated character but in (pseudo) reality. There is a lesson to learned from just this four minute clip.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/incharacter/2008/02/cookie_monster_comes_to_npr.html

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Chest and Shoulders

Hello and welcome back. We have reached the point in the semester where we move from construction to anatomy and I have included some quick notes for constructing the chest and adding shoulders. In the first example below, I suggest either using an egg shape or a box to build the torso. Note, that both have the shoulders come off away from the central form. Egg shape users should treat the ribcage as a place where the clavicals, scapula, pectorals, deltoids, and trapezius are lowered onto the egg like should pads on a football player. This will "push" the shoulders out so the arms don't look like they a just sprouting from the ribs. Those who opt for the box, should draw out the six sided shape and then add a slight rise to the top as shown in 'A' and 'B'. This will get the the clavicals lower than C7 (the insertion point of the neck to trunk) The shoulders should then be drawn slightly inserted to the corners of the top of the box as shown.

In either case, one should always consider being able to "see up" from the front of the ribcage as it is turned slightly upward due to the curvature of the spine.

The next set of drawings are examples of both types of construction in use. Note the flatness of the top of the shoulder when at the side and the roundness when raised. I hope this helps,
Thanks for stopping by.