Daily Sketch 101 - Pensive Creamy

I'm back to drawing again from a 2-week break after finishing my self-imposed 100-day sketch challenge.   The main objective of that challenge was to instill in me the habit of sketching daily.

I was a traditional animator before and was actually drawing professionally everyday. But beyond my job, I didn't do any personal drawings. It was because of many excuses, such as exhaustion from work.  lack of time,  unmotivated and uninspired, lack of understanding of the benefits of doing it,  and sheer laziness.  Then when I acquired a repetitive strain injury in my right hand, this caused me to stop drawing altogether and changed career from being a traditional animator to a 3d  animator. This further caused me to shy away from drawing for the same excuses as before.

To my regret, I now realized my folly. Daily sketching is like physical exercise.  To be physically fit, one needs to exercise regularly, if not daily. Same with drawing.  Thus the 100-day sketch challenge. And just like physical fitness, it is never too late. It won't be easy, but it's doable.
 

The challenge allowed me to test my art skills, it's strength and weaknesses. I'm gratified with what I've done, and inspired to do more.  Still far-off from my goal but very encouraged.
 

So for this next drawing series, it won't be as hectic as before.  I will be drawing everyday, but will not necessarily try to finish one. This is so I can put more thought, research and study for each piece, which is what I'm after anyway.  I might be posting work-in-progress drawings though.

 

 

And so I'm starting off with dogs again. She's one of my sister's pet. This was from a photo taken when she was still a puppy. A sad-looking dog. Not the most energetic of dogs. She still looks the same today, albeit older.  But she's cute and gentle. I called this drawing, Pensive Creamy.

Drawing and Painting Zebras

This is one of my earlier daily sketches. With my self-imposed daily sketch deadline, I over-estimated my time to finish this.  It was during the early days where I wasn't content to just draw one animal.I would draw two or three, just like in here. So I ended up working past my deadline.  I realized soon enough that this is not sustainable for me yet, so in my later drawings, I drew only one.  Hahaha.

Hopefully, with more pencil mileage and experience, these kind of sketches would be faster for me to finish. 







Music: Wagon Wheel
By Kevin MacLeod (Incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons : By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Drawing and Painting - Polar Bear

Another process video. Enjoy.


  

Music: Fig Leaf Times Two
By Kevin MacLeod (Incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons : By Attribution 3.0
 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Drawing Process of Cow Face

   I've been editing these time lapse process videos this week , as a sort of review of how I did some of my daily sketches. A lot of experimenting and exploring of techniques. Some subjects are easier to draw than others.

  In this sketch, while working on it, I didn't realized not until towards the end that there was a double image because of another duplicate layer that is out of place. Haha.. You can see it towards the end of the video when I corrected the mistake.

  That's the problem of working too up-close to the drawing. It's one of the limitations of working on a small drawing area of my Cintiq 13hd. I zoom-in a lot to compensate. Someday, when and if I have the money, I'll upgrade to a bigger Cintiq.  But for now, got to remind myself to zoom out more.






Music: River Valley Breakdown;
By Kevin MacLeod (Incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons : By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Drawing Process - Wapiti

Because I'm still learning and exploring the different tools in Artrage, I usually don't remember how and what tools I used. Artrage has this script recorder that can record every step and strokes I make, so I can look back and see how I did it. I'm glad I didn't forget to turn it on for this artwork, coz I usually do. So here's the sped-up process video of Wapiti, my Daily Sketch Day 52. Hope you all like it.






Photo reference by Ben C Masters;
Music: Cherry Blossom.
By Kevin MacLeod (Incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons : By Attribution 3.0
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Drawing And Painting - Giraffes

 Here's a look of how I did the Giraffes from my Daily Sketch drawing exercises. Done in Artrage 4 on a Cintiq 13hd pen display. As you can see, it's not without a lot of struggling and mistakes as I try to find the best way to make it look just right.

 
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Music: Tafi Maradi
By Kevin Macleod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons By Attribute 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Drawing & Painting Process - The Bear Hibernates

 For the meantime, while I'm taking a pause from my daily sketching, here's a sped-up drawing and painting process video of The Bear Hibernates artwork. Enjoy!





 This is the sped-up drawing process video of one of my Daily Sketch artwork for Instagram, called The Bear Hibernates. I used Artrage4 desktop app on a Wacom Cintiq 13HD pen display.

Music credit:
Monkeys Spinning Monkeys Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Daily Sketch Day 100a - The Bear Hibernates.

This drawing says it all for me. I'm taking a short break from the daily sketching,and will be back with a new drawing project. For the meantime, sweet dreams.

Daily Sketch Day 100 - Polar Bear

Woohoo! I achieved the end of my 100-day Sketch Challenge. This is Daily Sketch Day 100 - Polar Bear. I started this challenge to force myself to draw everyday and familiarize myself in drawing different animals. It's been fun most of the time and challenging some of the time.

There's still a lot to learn in terms of the anatomy and rendering techniques that I'd like to work on. But everday I'm surprised with what the resulting sketch would look like, as each animal presents different challenges and most of the time I'm not sure how to it would turn out. All of the sketches were drawn using photo references. 

It's a start. I would like to eventually draw animals from imagination and be able to design them.

Daily Sketch Day 99 - Grizzly Bear

 

 

 

For my 99th day sketch, it's the Grizzly Bear. The grizzlies are more aggressive than the black bears, and they usually stand their ground when faced with danger. One distinguishing feature of the grizzlies that differentiate them from the black bears is the hump on it's shoulders.  Also it's rump is lower than the shoulders, while in the black bear, it's the rump that is higher than the shoulders.  I didn't have enough time to draw the grizzly's full body to show these features, but I'll revisit this animal in the future to do a more in-depth study of it's anatomy. 

Daily Sketch Day 98 - Black Bear

It's now the 98th day of my self-imposed 100-day sketch challenge. It's another bear drawing -  the Black Bear.  It's the smallest among the bear species. They climb trees and are good swimmers. But they walk very slowly. They can run 40-50 kph but not for long because they tire easily.  Despite the name, they are not always black. They can be light brown, blonde and grey-blue. Now that I've been drawing daily for months now, finishing this drawing had been a lot faster.   Woohoo!

Photo reference by mmmavocado

Daily Sketch Day 97 - Giant Panda

With four more days left before I reach the 100 day sketch challenge, I'll be drawing bears for the remaining days.   It's a Panda for today.  It's a bear native to China. It's also an endangered species. 

In this sketch, I'm trying out a method of sketching  more quickly. So I didn't do any rough pencil sketch like before. I just went straight to blocking in color and used the palette knife tool to later blend and smudge the edges for the fur. It didn't take long to finish this.

Photo reference used by : Sharon Sipple

Daily Sketch Day 96 - Red Panda

Another furry and cute animal is my sketch for today- the Red Panda.  Although it looks a a lot like a raccoon, it's not a member of the raccoon family. And they are not of the bear family neither, but they are their own independent species and are considered by many to be living fossils with no living relatives. In short, they are one of a kind.

Daily Sketch Day 95 - Meerkat

All I can think of when drawing this Meerkat is Timon from the Lion King movie.  Another anthromorphic Meerkat I had the pleasure to animate when I worked on the Lion King 1 1/2  direct-to-video film years ago. And it's just four more days left before I reach the finish line of my 100-day Sketch Challenge.  Yehey!.

Daily Sketch Day 94 - Lemurs

Lemur is my animal sketch for today. Found only in Madagascar and neigboring islands, lemurs are small primates known as "prosimian" (pre-primates or "before monkeys") They are an arboreal animals which means they live mostly in trees, but unlike the monkeys, they cannot hang by their tails. I'm very much reminded of King Julien, from the Dreamworks animated film Madagascar and it's TV spin-off  All-Hail King Julien. I had the opportunity to animate this creature for the  Nickelodeon's TV series of Penguins of Madagascar before and it was a fun experience.

Daily Sketch Day 93 - Squirrel

 

 

The squirrel is my sketch for today. Another mammal of the rodent family.They are tiny and fast. And with their big eyes on the side of the head, they can see everything without having to turn their heads. They very forgetful that the acorn they love to hide would later become an oak tree because they forgot when they bury them.

Daily Sketch Day 92 - Gerbils

Another furry creature for this day's sketch, the Gerbil. Adorable, small and cute, these creatures are popular pets because they don't smell and produces very little urine and waste, unlike the hamsters, mice or rats. They also like the company of humans.and not so fragile to be handled.  One thing though, if they are left alone, they will be lonely and can make them apprehensive and aggressive.  So I drew three of them. Haha.

Daily Sketch Day 90 - Raccoons Fishing

It's ten more days left before I finish my 100- day sketch challenge.  So for the next few days, the animals I'll be sketching would be of the furry kind. Today, it's the raccoons, known for it's dexterous front paws and it's facial mask.  It's a nocturnal animal, that sleeps during daytime and is very active at night. 

Daily Sketch Day 89 - Koalas

Today's sketch is the Koalas, another marsupials found in Australia.  They are not bears as some  erroneously call them. They are nocturnal animals, who sleeps by day and awake at night. As an arboreal animal, they are always seen clutching atop the tree branches.

Daily Sketch Day 88 - Opossums

Today's sketch is another marsupial, the Opossums, commonly called as possums. It was described in Wikipedia as having "a head like a swine ... tail like a rat ... of the bigness of a cat." The mother will carry the young on her back, as they cling tightly as she climbing or running. When threatened or harmed, they usually will "play possum", mimicking the appearance and smell of a sick or dead animal. Haha, it probably works.

Daily Sketch Day 87 - Kangaroos

Today's sketch is the Kangaroos, a marsupial which is characterized by having a pouch called marsupium to carry their young.  It belongs to the family of Macropods which means "Large Foot" and is the largest among the "kangaroo" family.  The wallaby is the smaller version of kangaroos, while the wallaroo is the middle-sized version.

Daily Sketch Day 86 - Giraffes

 

A visit to the zoo wouldn't be complete for me, if there's no Giraffes. These are one of the animals I was fascinated with when I was a child. They are the tallest mammals on Earth. Their necks are too short to reach the ground that they have to spread their legs wide apart awkwardly or kneel to reach the ground for a drink of water.