Construction attempts

I've decided to post some ideas about construction today, even though it's a thing I fear and fight with all the time. It's so easy to draw something silly and energetic with no solid backbone, and just leave it at that. I'm usually very lazy and leave things unfinished that way. But it always makes me feel guilty, because I know with more effort and practice, that my funny or scribbly drawing could become a hundred times better and more believable if it had that hard earned skeleton of knowledge underneath.

I think the best combination for any sort of art is personality and skill. By personality I mean a certain energy or flair that comes from the artist themselves, and by skill I mean talents that need to be earned through work and study, like construction, perspective, etc. Of course, some people are born with a natural ability to learn those skills very quickly and easily. I'm not one of those people, however!

Learning construction has been extremely frustrating to me. Whenever I attempt to correct construction mistakes in my drawings, I'm always left with a hideously bland version of the original sketch. I often want to give up and just be satisfied with my wonky pictures, but one peek inside a Frazetta book or a Jim Smith sketch I have hanging up changes my mind again. I feel like I'd be so much more confident if I didn't have to struggle with construction problems and could draw with all that fierce energy. People who can combine all their strengths together like that to create such powerful art are total heroes to me.

So anyhow, I'm here to post some drawings that show my slow progress as I try to combine my natural drawing style with construction, which doesn't come naturally to me at all. I've always had a horrible time making both eyes on the same level, and making sure that the nose, lips, and chin all relate to each other. Usually I've got the mouth set too far inside the head instead of on a plane coming out from the nose, and the chin too far forward instead of underneath the mouth. In these recent drawings I'm posting here, I was trying really hard to consciously avoid those mistakes. The chins turned out a little better, but I still can't get the eyes to be right! By the way, I've flipped all these drawings so the mistakes can be spotted easier. A trick I learned from spying on Jim Smith himself!
I shouldn't complain too much, though. When I compare them to these sketches from a year ago, it seems like I've made at least a little progress. I know it's not much but it gives me a small thrill thinking that I might be a tiny step closer to where I want to be.
These drawings are pretty embarrassing, by the way. I'm sorry to say I couldn't tell how wonky they were until I flipped them over. And looking at them now I realize I have to worry about more than just eyes and chins...

My own head

Today at work, my buddies Luke and Fred and I got into a conversation about caricaturing and we all got inspired to draw some funny pictures! We all ran and hid in our cubicles to draw, and I came up with these silly attempts at a self-portrait. It's really hard to draw yourself! I think almost everyone has a tough time with it.
Then we came up with a wonderful new game...first one of us would draw a caricature, then the next person would redraw it and attempt to make it funnier and more like the actual person. Then they'd pass it off again...in theory, this is a GREAT way to draw! Just keep drawing the same thing over and over until you get it right. Usually when I try this by myself though, the drawing comes out more bland with each new try. I suppose the easy thing to do would just have Fred redraw all my drawings for me and fix them, ha! But I guess I ought to learn how to fix my own drawings by myself.
Anyhow, I did a funny drawing of Fred (see my link, Cartoons and Caricatures!), and he did a funny drawing of me. Here it is, the start of our new caricature game!
So when I was done laughing at this picture, I took it and drew it over again and made some changes...like making my nose a little more snubby...and here's what happened:
So then Fred took that one back, and did one more, which ended up being the funniest drawing and probably the most like me.
We also did the same thing with a retarded caricature I did of Fred...maybe he'll post the chain of Fred's in his blog sometime (hint, hint)!
Well, that's really it for the day. I didn't learn anything new about drawing today during my experiments, except that it's smart to befriend other artists who can make your drawings look better. Thanks Fred!! Everyone write down today's lesson!
Here's one last set of drawings for today-a picture of me and my favorite person, Luke!

Less than cute

Sometimes I think my motives for drawing not-so-cute girls is sort of selfish. I used to think to myself "I draw weird looking girls because I have a special gift for seeing unique and lovely features in less than perfect looking people" and that I had to "show people who had less refined tastes how to appreciate these lovely features." That's crap though...the truth is, most people like drawings of very pretty girls because that's what people like in real life- pretty girls! They're not the unrefined ones- it's me!
I have a few reasons for prefering to draw funnier looking girls. First of all, I'm not attracted to girls, so I'm not going to be drawn to the prettiest looking ones to use as subjects. I'll admit that when I first started drawing, I prefered to draw girls that WERE examples of perfect conventional cuteness, probably because I was in awe of them. I still like drawing super cute girls sometimes, but after drawing them so often, it just sort of became boring. I can understand why someone who is attracted to swimsuit models and other pretties would want to use them as inspiration, but right now variety is more appealing to me than beauty.
The second reason is because "real" girls are so much more interesting to look at to me. By "real" girls I don't mean the types of girls who watch the Oxygen channel and say "You go girl!" all the time...I mean the giggly goony girls you see at the mall and walking down the street and attending book clubs and whatever else. Real people are interesting...they have weird facial ticks, mismatched eyes, crooked smiles...they shift from foot to foot impatiently, the trip and fall over, etc. It's so natural to just draw a girl standing and posing for you, the viewer, in all her long-legged glory. And it's not a bad thing to draw a girl posing, but I want to learn to capture girls and people in their natural awkward state. It just seems cuter to me.

None of these drawings are good examples of capturing girls "in the moment," as I've just rambled on about. I still have to learn a lot of things before that will come easily to me. It's still hard enough just separating myself from my default girl proportions: large cranium, big far apart eyes, full cheeks, teeny nose, small chin, long neck, slender body, long legs. But these drawings are some of my attempts to depart from the norm as I work towards another weird goal.
P.S. Another reason for liking funny looking girls- I am a firm believer than many things can be so ugly they're cute, like pugs and those weird hairless cats. These girls might be just plain ugly, but I like them anyhow (you might be able to find some of them in the street fashion book "Fruits")!

No more floating heads!

Sometimes I tend to obsess over one thing for a long time, and then totally forget how to do anything else. For the past few months I've been drawing faces out of magazines without ever trying to attach them to a body, so now I'm gonna go back and try drawing some actual poses. These first ones are from the celebrity cellulite section of Star. The girls in the pictures actually had their heads turned away, so the faces I gave them don't really resemble anyone.

I'm not really happy with how these drawings lean more towards "realistic" than cartoony. I'll always prefer a funny cartoony type picture to a more realistic one. My problem is that when I ignore all the drawing rules, like construction and perspective, and rely on spontaneity when I draw, they always come out funnier and cuter and more alive. Of course, they're always filled with anatomy problems and whatnot. But when I actually try to use my brain while I'm drawing, and try to control the pen in my hand, the drawings come out sort of dead. In these other drawings, I'm attempting to keep some sort of structure in the bodies while trying not to let them seem too boring.
As you can tell, my plan didn't work out out very well, but I guess that's what this blog is for...to force me to see where I desperately need work. To me these drawings lack in both the things I'm trying for- they still have a lot of problems with flow and construction, and lack the "energy" of my more retarded drawings. Oh well, back to the drawing board!

Japanese fashion magazines

One of the best references I've found for drawing different types of girls are japanese fashion magazines. The best thing ever is driving down to Little Tokyo in downtown LA for curry rice and a pile of girlie fashion mags! These books are always filled with cute girls, striking weird poses and making funny faces. Go get some!!!

Every once in a while, I get lucky and find a manual on new girls' haircuts and styles. These are always my favorites, because they'll usually have a front, three quarter, and profile view of a model's face all on a page (although a lot of the time, the three quarters and profile views are kind of small). There is an amazing amount of variation in the different girls faces in these magazines...I suppose I could say the same for the models in american hairstyle magazines, but they're usually not nearly as appealing to draw. As far as easy to find drawing reference that IS from America, I'd have to say my favorites are Delia's catalogue, and the celebrity cellulite section in Star. I'll be posting some of those later on!

Profiles

I think it's hard enough trying to draw unique looking girls, but it's even harder to draw them in profile. I definately have a sort of standard, generic profile that I always draw over and over, and I'm trying to rid myself of that habit! So far it's not working out that great. It's hard to find reference for unique profiles, also. If anyone knows a good source that doesn't include taking spy pictures of strangers at the mall, let me know!

When I drew these I was consciously trying to make the two profiles at the bottom different from one another, but they turned out pretty similar anyhow. At least they sort of differ from my normal profile design.

Spumco Bjork Video

I think one of the coolest things in the world would be able to draw and animate a super cartoony and specific looking girl character. There aren't a whole lot of things to reference for this though. I think it's probably hard enough to animate something like a girl dancing, let alone give her a specific design that differs vastly from the sort of generic animated girl you usually see. I think the Spumco Bjork video, however, has a really great example of an animated caricature.
I love that this design has a totally specific body and face. The variety in Bjork's facial expressions are great, too.
I believe that when John K. studied Bjork to figure out how to draw her, he started out with more realistic caricatures, and slowly began to sort of "cartoonify" them. I think you have to be extremely comfortable with constuction and have a very analytical mind to animate an entire video starring a caricature of a unique looking person. It's extremely intimidating to even think about! I wonder if it's even safe to hope I will one day be able to draw like that.
Just recently I saw another really cool and inspiring example of a unique girl design jumping around and dancing...if you haven't seen the new Gorillaz video for "Dare," go check it out! It's really really cool!

Funny and cute girls

So here's my first post! The basic idea behind my starting a blog like this is mostly to track my progress, or lack of progress, as I try to reach various drawing goals I set for myself. I'm calling this site "funny cute" because that's my favorite thing about drawing girls- combining cuteness with sexiness or funniness or even stupidity.
I don't ever want to end up drawing the same two or three girls over and over. My hope is that through a lot of practice and analyzing cartoons, real life people, and my own drawings, that a wide variety of shapes and designs will be readily available to me in my brain whenever I call upon them.
I also hope to one day be a more functional artist- to take unique designs and be able to turn them and animate them and draw them with any facial feature or pose and at any angle. It's a long way to go!