Head Practice

So after having done a couple of studies yesterday, wanted to see if I could draw Sagat & Honda from memory. It's pretty good practice to add different face structures to your library and see where you're wrong. In my case, everything 😅

And a couple of studies from Naruto (manga and below from the anime):

 

STUDY: Hellboy 2 - action Scene - DODGING

Abe gets attacked by the Market Troll, he's not a strong fighter, so he uses his athleticism to dodge the attacks. Full scene HERE

We start with Abe Screen Right, we're looking down at him since he's the weak one .

The troll comes in to punch Abe. 

We cut on action, BLAM the troll punches down as Abe dodges. The effect of the water really sells the punch!

We stay with Abe as the camera pulls around him, before another punch comes in. 

In the first punch, Abe evaded going towards camera - screen right. This time he was close to camera, evading by going away form camera - screen left.

We have a similar thing here where Abe runs towards camera, then pushes away form camera to avoid the next punch. 

This scene works because:
- the camera keeps moving and tracking with Abe, we're experiencing this with him. 
- Keep the action varied by going towards or away from camera, and changing screen direction. 
- Framing, keep the action central, so we don't get lost.

Face Studies

 Did some studies from...Street Fighter! 

Jubilee Doodles

Totally random impulse to draw Jubilee

With some alt colours:

And then 2 heads, different styles:

 

SCENE STUDY : TRUE GRIT

So I tried to watch the Witcher series, because I feel I should like it. But the exposition sequences are so dreadfully boring I can't even get past the first 15 minutes :/

I then watched a bit of True Grit, and I was instantly hooked.  So I wanted to do a quick scene study. I figured out 2 main things:

- Frames are kept interesting during dialogue with moving backgrounds (sand blowing in, or people passing by).
- The classic :Get in late - leave early- way of writing. The filmmakers don't bore us, we get the information we need, and we are moving between scenes by having to figure out things for ourselves instead of giving everything on a plate. 

-> So in this short scene Mattie (the girl) is talking asking this guy if he can think of somebody who can help her track this outlaw. We have a standard 1 shot, notice how she is composed in the right portion of the screen for screen direction. The frame is also kept interesting with passerbys in the background.

Cut to a two shot (Over the shoulder), once again respecting screen direction by framing the guy in the left side. The frame is kept alive as well with passerby traffic.

We cut before he finished his dialogue to see Maggie take in the information , and then asks where she can find this guy called Rooster. 

CUT to new Sequence. Of an abstract shot. Close up of a door with Maggie knocking on it. Keeps the pace going, and as we don't know where we are, our brains need to piece things together, so we're staying interested. 

We cut out slightly, still not visually revealing where we are. We hear Rooster off screen saying it's occupied, so we figure we're in a toilet. But we had to figure it out, instead of being given the information visually.

Then cut wider to finally see where she is. We stay in this shot, and once again made interesting by dust blowing in the background, and a dog passing by the frame. 

We then CUT out the shot, back into an abstract shot. 

A board shaped like a coffin is slid in, with the station information, so again we are piecing the information together. We then hear a trainwhistle before cutting again afterwards. 

And below some frame studies I did from avatar, practicig drawing simple roughs with the same information as the final board drawing:

More sketches

 

Full Body Sketches

 Decided to do some full body poses for once. 

Lifted the look of Jessica Jones for this character :D

These are a bit stiff, but good practice anyway.

Mouths

 So doing a bit of study of live action (Zack Snyders' Justice League - don't judge, it's good for mouths :D). So first of all during normal dialogue we really don't show a lot of teeth, and even in shouting, we don't open up our entire jaw for display, and it's dark in there, so the back teeth are often hidden in shadow or covered. 

Heads?

 I'm going to need to study some mouths. It's a thing I've become sort of obsessed with now, trying to draw good open mouths.