ONE PIECE: SCENE STUDY

 I love the economy of how they direct scenes in anime, always cutting corners, but it never confuses the storytelling. In this sequence, the 180 rule gets broken, at the start Nami is SCREEN LEFT and we'll flip late in the scene.

I just love the storytelling details, the paw print design on the door, and the closed door sign say so much without dialogue. The little dog is guarding a petshop, that's now closed because his owner passed away.

So the Mayor character is SCREEN RIGHT, he walks off to feed the dog.

But instead of seeing him prepare the dogfood...which is a lot of animation for something unimportant, we get treated to this nice Dogshop sign while he delivers some more dialogue. 

And then simple just puts the dog bowl in front, still keeping SCREEN RIGHT.

So the shot below is kind of interesting because we see him walk off to the RIGHT

But all of a sudden he's going to the left here. usually that would be a big no. But because it's done it's such a tight framing, they get away with it. Importantly, he came into the shot from SCREEN RIGHT, so he is where we expect him to be. Now we know he's to the LEFT (we changed screen direction in our head).

So in the next shot, they zoom out slowly and he comes in SCREEN LEFT (where we expect him to be).

And now they establish everybody's new position to each other in a. wide.

More pages of J. Buscema studies

 Wanted to complete LVL2 of my artist studies by finishing 20 pages of studies from the artist J. Buscema. These are from the pages of Savage Sword of Conan.Another 30 pages of studies to go to earn an artist badge 😅

J. Buscema Studies

Couple more pages of Buscema studies:

(LVL1 EXP 70)

(LVL1 EXP 80)

(LVL1 EXP 90)

(LVL1 EXP 100)

 

Artist Study : Buscema

So the reason I am doing my ArtAcademy Level Up system (Need to find a better name for it :P), is 

A) To motivate myself to stick at studies for longer than just 3 pages, and 

B) to let myself know it's ok to suck when you're studying something new. 

For example, when you study an artist that isn't your natural style, it just takes a while to get how they draw. So in this case I did 5 pages of sketch studies so I'm at LVL1 EXP 50. 

And what do you expect at LVL 1 of anything? Exactly, you're a n00b (if people still use that word :P). 

Let's see if I am better at copying his style at LVL5, my guess is that I should be quite ok by then (meaning between 40-50 pages of copies).

(LVL 1 EXP 40)

(LVL 1 EXP 50)

Loud House 2

 Another morning study of a loud house panel before starting work.  It'a always good practice to draw from different artists, even ones you don't draw anything like. From working on more realistic shows, I realise how over elaborate my drawings are these days, I really love this stripped down style, really suits comedy so well. 

Loud House Study

 So whenever I feel like I am in a drawing slump, where I over draw and take too much time to go through panels (for work), it's time to look at board artists whose work you admire. One of those people is Kyle Marshall! 

So I copied a couple of his panels (badly) :D from a sequence of Loud House. I was interested in his line weight and how he simplifies his gestures. As always to really get a benefit from doing this, would need to do this daily for a while. 

Ink Study 04 + process

Last panel I did, and my favourite one. Just a really well composed shot. (Daredevil - Gene Colan) 

By this point I also figured out a process for inking:

Step 1: Ink everything with your thin line (in this case I used a pen nib)

Step 2: Pull out your brush and start filling it out with black fills and adding line weight.

Step 3: Set a timer for 10-15 minutes and erase your pencil lines. I'm always so impatient but it is the most fulfilling step for me :D

Ink Study 03

Study of Daredevil comic by Gene Colan. 

Ink Study 01

These are quite terrible, but practice makes perfect :P The original comic from Daredevil by Gene Colan. 

Daredevil Studies

 These are some drawings from Daredevil by Gene Colan. Look him up, he's a great artist from the olden days, some really solid figure work and likes to use a lot of shadows.