Warm-up

Here's a collection of warm-ups done before work. The drawings are in chronological order. At first I thought about just drawing only black and white sketches but when I realized that I can do that under 3 - 5 minutes, I thought of trying to paint over the sketches. I don't paint that much at all so I thought it would be nice to practice it during warm-ups. 

There are lots of ups and downs in these sketches. You can tell when I knew exactly what I was drawing and when I was struggling. I learned that one of my bad manners is that I keep drawing way too many details even though it isn't really needed. This happens especially with simple subjects where details are not necessary. I have to avoid this because that's often my downfall in my drawings. Pay more attention, observe and keep things simple. 

Photo references from Google were used in all of them.

10 min

10 min

10 min

15(?) min

10 min

10 min

10 min

10 min

10 min

10 min

10 min

15 - 20 min

20 min

10 min

20 min

20 min

20 min (my favorite, and a proof that anger is the best motivator)

20 min

The blog will be on hiatus for the next 3 weeks so don't expect anything new for a while!

Inking!

Stuff that I inked (or was supposed to ink). Then I said “the hell with this!” and stopped. Behold of head shots and almost-finished-drawings-of-full-bodies-and-stuff!

You know what? I kinda like the inked version more than the sketch.

Apparently that snow leopard is thinking about pie or making one... of humans!

I'm pretty sure someone has created a character that looks something like this. I'll call it "ötökkä" (= "a bug") for now on.

A bear.

A female mandrill.

I don't draw monsters anymore because I keep repeating the same ideas over and over again. Plus, I always think that every monster I create is a rip-off of someone elses drawing.

This was supposed to be a cave inside a waterfall but I couldn't draw.. well, the waterfall. Now it's just a random unfinished cave.

This was something random, never meant to be actually inked or coloured in serious matter. Just a doodle done during a break. And yes, I don't know how to draw griffins because I never draw them. And.. oh, shoot, the front legs are in wrong position, I just realised that.

Noo, more griffins! How did this happen?!

A giant kitty! Looks quite bland, though..

This sketch has been haunting me since 2011. And that is a mask that the girl is holding, not an actual animal head. Well, if it was an actual animal head, I wouldn't know what animal that is even supposed to be. Some sort of mandrill-god or something neat like that.

In case you were wondering what the lineart of NegaDuck looked like without the colours. Coloured version can be found here.

Yeah, no dynamic or very interesting drawings this time. All the work is taking so much energy right now.

Ranting about drawing bears

There are some animals that are hard for me to draw. Those animals usually have lots of fur that hides all the muscles and anatomy under it. Because I want to draw animals in different poses I have to know how the body of the animal works or at least what it looks like. So if the animal looks like a giant furball, that causes serious problems..

Right now my greatest enemies in drawing are these three animals:

a red panda
a binturong
and a bear.

And right now I'm having a battle with the bear. Especially the face. I usually get the eyes and the snout quite right but the shape of the head causes serious problems. Sometimes I get it right by accident. And that frustrates me because I don't understand how I made it look right. If I'm not thinking when I am drawing something right, I can't use that knowledge when I am drawing again.

I kinda think I am making the face way too complicated than it actually is but.. I don't know. Or maybe it really is so complicated. Or maybe I just don't know how to draw them properly. I feel so lost here.. Aaargh!

Sketches (reference used)..

 Then from memory..

Dammit, dammit, DAMMIT. Aaaargh!

Speaking of bears, I have to mention this guy:

This man has incredible relationship with his bears. His name is Sulo Karjalainen and he takes care and studies bears' behavior at The Predator Center in Finland. He has taken care of the bears since they were little and they think he’s their mom.

What I think is very amazing is that when Sulo is feeding (I’m talking about giving them meat, not grapes or small snacks) the bears, they don’t act hostile or possessive of the food. Even the tamest animals can quickly change when food is involved. But those bears stay calm and wait patiently. Incredible!

If you ever thought that bears are just giant furious beasts, these videos will change your mind completely. They can be loveable, adorable and calm, but only with people who know how to handle them and who they can trust. So remember kids, only professional people can do cool stuff like this!

More cool videos:

There's a Finnish document about this guy but there's no English subtitles for it (yet). If you are still interested, the document is called "Tosi Tarina: Tarinoita karhunkolosta" (2011?) (in English "True Story: Stories from the bearhole"). You can find it from Youtube.

What are these anyway

I don’t know what these are supposed to be. At first these were “background exercises”, then “silly attempts to draw anything dynamic” and finally random doodles. What a transformation.

I realized something funny while drawing these. Apparently I can make a simple basic structure of the background but then suddenly after that I lose all my interest. That’s why all of these drawings look so empty and unfinished. They lack interesting details and texture. I’m not that much into drawing details or polishing the drawing unless it is absolutely necessary. I enjoy more making rough drawings because there's just "something" in them, like I have said before.

My personal favorite is the one where the wolf is running down a hill (come to think of it, it has been forever when I last time drew a wolf. Interesting..) And that picture where a red animal in falling down is absolutely horrendous but I learned a lot while drawing that. Like how to mess up a picture without knowing how to use perspective correctly! 

Why yes, I do like to draw rocks but I am too lazy to bother to use any reference of them. How lazy and unprofessional is that?

And now something else: This is a bit old news but if you still haven’t seen Waking Sleeping Beauty documentary, watch it. It’s a document about Disney Animation Studios during 1980’s – 90’s. It doesn’t really focus that much on animation process but more about what happened inside the studios during that time.

Blue and orange

Let's forget for a moment that I have some schoolwork to do and upload some drawings.

We have some variety here. Girls, tigers, birds.. Everything for everyone!

And some digital sketches while watching Kiki's Delivery Service (1989). No, I didn't draw any fan-art.

And now something completely different!

A drunk camel. Because everyone loves drunk camels.

I really have to stop reading Inception and Philosophy: Ideas to Die for. I have started to question my reality because of it.