My Grandfather..

It's Christmas time. So that usually means I'm doing drawings for someone if not everyone as presents. It's a combination of being poor and wanting to actually creat something for someone. OK.. Maybe it's more the poor thing. Anyway.. This Christmas I decided I would do one portrait that I could then give to all my aunt's and uncle's ,as well as my mother and grandmother, as their gift. I had been wanting to attempt a portrait of my deceased grandfather for quite some time now. But I could never work up the nerve to do it. I've sat down with the intent of doing it before.. But never actually did anything that could be mis-construed as starting.

I had "borrowed" a couple of photos from one of my grandmothers albums a few years ago. One of them was picture of my grandfather when he was in the navy. So I thought it would be neat to do a double portrait. One of the young man and one of the father & grandfather that everyone knew. The photos weren't the best. The navy one was pretty good but the other one I had was pretty blur-tastic. I think I was moderately successful. I gave them to the family last night at our family Christmas party. I got one "Who is it?" So maybe my success margins were actually a bit below moderate. Here's the finished product along with the photos I used as reference. This made me realize how easy it is to see details in high res digital photos. These photos forced me to invent more than copy. I guess I've been spoiled :).

On a total side note. When I first looked at the young photo of my grandfather I thought he looked like a young Tom Waits. Minus the wild hair of course. Nobody else saw it. So I probably just had Wait's on the brain.


Happy Holidays everyone!

Girl Sketch..

Here's a sketch I did from an Image from http://characterdesigns.com.. I think it was taken at an Anime convention. Hence the wild headgear. I thought it had a great expression / attitude about it.. I'm not sure I got it.. And I think my end product ended with a bit more Rosario Dawson in her than the actual girl in the photo had.. Or maybe I'm just seeing things..

Flag guy..

I was surfing around http://earthsworld.com/ today and found this image.. And it just screamed "Draw me!!!" So I did. I should have caricatured it more. I'll keep that in mind for the next one..I apologize for the crappy flag drawing.. I just didn't have the patience for all those stars.. :).

The Dark Years...

The mini-series I worked on for Chuck Gammage Animation airs on Dec. 26, 27 & 28th on History Television. It was a very unique project that combined live action, archive footage and different styles of animation to tell the story of depression era Canada. It was very different than anything else I've worked on. The main animation style was visually bold and challenging to get a hang of..I came onto production late in the first episode so I worked mainly on the second and third episodes. If someone is committing suicide or attempting to.... It's probably one of my shots :). I don't know why.. But I got a handful of them. I'm not sure what times it's airing. So while you're enjoying your turkey leftovers do a little surfing and see if you can find it. And if you do, give it a watch and let me know what you think. :)


Have a good weekend!!!