Kayaking

Here's the fourth wedding related thing I've done so far. Spent a good chunk of last weekend and the start of the week getting it wrapped up between other jobs. The background panel size is 110mm x 110mm, which might help give you an idea of the character scale. I've probably got all the kayak accuracy wrong but sure, been a while since I was in one meself. Them knees should be concealed I've a feeling, but lets say that they are relaxing mid kayak.

Here's a composite sketch I made up first for reference, I changed the guy quite a bit so he did not look so disapprovingly at the lady not rowing, but otherwise tried to keep it fairly tight. The Islands in the background are modelled off the Gulf Islands off the coast of Vancouver.

Though my hands are quite big, take it from me that these were quite small and tricky to do.  Where normally I would glue on the eyes, they were in this case too small so I had to draw them onto the 'face,' with a 0.05mm pen mind.

Thankfully the paddle/oar looks straighter in the final thing, but the stem itself is about a millimetre thick so it's still quite wobbly.

Here are the two finished characters. I made them complete, as I wanted to 'sit' them in the kayak properly. They are each about 25mm high.

 The boat has depth, with a flat back and curved front that's kind of pillowed, to allow the characters to sit inside the seat wells. The kayak was tricky in another way, the lines across the boat are supposed to be a kind of netting, which I was going to do with thread. That however proved problematic, as I just couldn't get it to hold it's shape properly and didn't want to have to smear the whole thing with glue.

You can actually take the fella out of the boat, though the lady's hand is unfortunately glued to the 'water'

I had to wait until they were placed in the kayak before I could do their pupils.

 Had to make sure they were looking in the right direction, him at her and her at the water.

You can see a little bit of the 'pocket' form of the kayak here.

I think this shows best the depth of the piece. Though I imagine it's gonna be a bit of a paint to frame or hang at the right angle hah...

Here is the flawed scan.

While scanning these I discovered some quirks my new scanner has which the old one didn't. I had a Xerox scanner from... maybe 2005?... and I used to get a great light drop-off from these layered cut out pieces, but everything would still be in focus. Unfortunately after using it to make some salt animations all the electronics kind of went kaputt. Seems with this new Canoscan LiDE 210 I got, it doesn't have any real light drop off, but it has a really shallow focal depth, as you can see it in the image above. Guess I gotta photograph all these yokes now instead of scanning them. At least we'll have sunlight for the next few months.

I hope you enjoyed this rather lengthy post about not much, and I hope all the pictures weren't total overkill. I am available for commissions if you'd like to contact me: eimhinmcnamara@gmail.com

Leroy drawing

I sent off another shipment from my print shop last week. This one went all the way to a friend of mine in Hong Kong. I think that's the furthest they've travelled so far.

In any case I included a little drawing of Leroy in with it. While I was writing the thank you note, he just kept circling and circling at my side on the couch trying to make a nest.

I was wondering if I were to make more little paintings, drawings and other originals would there be any one interested in seeing them for sale in my shop? All the recent lifedrawing is up for grabs if there's any people prospecting for that sort of thing. You can email me at eimhinmcnamara@gmail.com to get a quote, based on shipping and the size of the original.

Life Drawing at The Drawing Project 15-03-201

Started off with the ink brush pen again, didn't get a huge amount done, but here they are chronologically in any case:

 

Spent ages noodling with this one, messed up the face, though, doesn't really fit with the rest.

 

I'm having a 15% off sale at the moment for some of my old life drawing to clear some room for the new:

http://en.dawanda.com/shop/eimhinssecretshop?in_sale=1

International Shipping.

Life drawing at the Drawing Project 08-03-2012

Managed to get a little bit more done at yesterday's class, and even made one drawing that bears a passing resemblance to the model, Niall, a fellow animator who also teaches life drawing, both in Ireland and abroad on the continent.

I primarily used a wee refillable brush pen thing that I got in Annecy years ago but never used. I like the range from fine line to broad stroke you can get, may use it a little in the next class too.

Here are the drawings in chronological order:

likeness

 For a part of tonight's class we produced sequential drawings, breaking an action into 3 poses; beginning, middle, and end.

First sequential drawing, wanted to concentrate on the face for this one mainly

I next attempted to draw the poses one on top of another, as you might do when onion skinning animation.

(failed first pose of the sequential above, distance between shoulder and hip is all kinds of wrong.)

I then did my usual sugar paper pastelly stuff.

All drawings are for sale. Email me if your interested and I can give you a quote: eimhinmcnamara@gmail.com

Life Drawing at The Drawing Project 01-03-2012

Three 4-6 minute drawings, I was not in the best drawing form for these, just wanted to get back home to my Leroy.

Twitter 3

Twitter suggestion 3
I did a version first but neglected to include the important stuff.

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Twitter suggestion 2: Pug.
Anyone out there that hasn't watched BBC Horizons Pedigree Dogs exposed, should give it a gander.

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Twitter suggestion 1. Don't ask, I certainly didn't.