Roberto's sketches

Some studies

2009-08-20T10:03:00.000-07:00

More sketches

2008-08-11T07:44:00.000-07:00

I have some work at the moment, so I will wait to have more spare time to continue with the inking. I can do some sketches though. I wanted to know if I was learning to draw the characters a little better by tracing them in illustrator. There are probably some different proportions here and there but I guess I come up with better George-s now...First page of sketches was drawn over another rough-er page of sketches where I drew more construction.

Some Sody

2008-08-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

This time I inked a couple of Sody's drawings. When I'm working in a little scale the lines seem thicker, maybe I should remember to use thicker brushes in bigger drawings...

Inking Jimmy...again

2008-08-03T09:48:00.001-07:00

Ok, my first drawings most of the lines a little too thick and the ones in the previous post perhaps weren't thick enough. I decided to imitate one drawing that has already been inked so I could get a better idea and that's the result. The original one has some better decissions like making the arms more separate to the body (wider arms) and the cheek on our right looked better, among other things, but I'd try to apply this thicker lines outside with thinner things inside in my next attempts.

Here is the original. Incidentally I inked the pencil drawing, of course. I just took a look to the inked one while doing it. I made the smile line thicker cause John said it was thicker in the original.

Inking scribbles

2008-08-01T11:50:00.000-07:00

This time I inked some of the scribbles John has just posted in his blog. I don't know if we're supossed to ink those, since I guess they should be cleaned up before, or at least some of them should. I actually had more fun with this cause it was not perfectly drawn already and there was some room for interpretation. Also this one in particular I though it was a very, very funny drawing. I didn't make it on separate layers, but now I'm just trying to get better lines. I just realized George's eyebrows are frowned in the original sketch. It was a little hard to guess.

Here is another scribble I just inked, I made each character in separate layers, but I guess I should also separate head from bodies if this was a serious attempt. Maybe Sody should wear earings too? Lines in Sody's shape could be a little thicker to be closer to George's ones.

Another Slab and Ernie

2008-07-28T09:24:00.000-07:00

Third attempt: Jimmy

2008-07-27T17:02:00.001-07:00

Second attempt at digital inking

2008-07-27T15:10:00.000-07:00

Again the prop was kinda more difficult than the character itself ,which was quite difficult too, but I can't manage to draw straight lines that are not really perfectly straight, using the tablet and the brush tool.

I didn't make this one in layers, but I'm trying to get the lines right first. Most of the lines are a little too thick, I will try to accentuate the differences in the next one. I now realize he has one toe too many in one of the feet.

Attempt at digital inking

2008-07-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

Ok, this is my first serious attempt at digital inking and the very first in Illustrator so it is being quite hard. I put a lot of effort in the character faces but very little effort in the rest. I draw the chairs really fast this time. I used both Illustrator and Photoshop, since I still don't know how to do certain things in Illustrator. I hope that's not a problem. I shouldn't have drawn that line under...I believe he's Slab. Never quite learnt who is who yet.Now I realize I maybe made some of the lines thinner when I filled the blanks in Photoshop in the illustration bellow. I still don't know how to use the colouring in illustrator, I get some odd effects. I filled the blanks in Photoshop so I could show the finished drawing and not the layers. But maybe I should have change the order of some layers? We should see the table under Ernie's hands...

Inking Jim Smith

2008-07-24T07:47:00.001-07:00

Here George should wear a sleeping hat instead of a fez, I just forgot it cause that's the first one I drew.

Sketch-O-Rama

2008-06-18T04:43:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a lot of sketches. Why? Cause I'm pretty busy, but I enjoy doing this in my spare time. Maybe I should copy the originals a little more, I don't know. Anyway, some of those are actually copied from some Spumco cartoons that I was watching on youtube.

In this last one I tried to draw Sody based on a girl from the Dan DeCarlo Pin-Up Art book.
Some of these are from Spumco's commercials and flash cartoons:

Some Sody

2008-06-05T10:14:00.000-07:00

Here is one of my own, it lacks some volume, her left eye and forehead are a little flat, but I think it's an almost decent expression.

I thought this one was quite decent, but I was wrong. It's a totally different drawing! Well, the model was a little too small, I guess.

Body should be more inclined. More "butty" so she looks sexier. Keep the "two hairs" shorter.

Face is not too bad. Hair should be shorter, mine smiles too much. The body should be longer, longer legs. The first half of her body is too low in my drawing. The skirt flows more in the original one.

An attempt at inking

2008-06-05T09:57:00.000-07:00

Here comes Jimmy!

2008-05-31T14:37:00.000-07:00

I've been awfully busy but I finally found some time to draw Jimmy. I'll check them later, I believe the fourth one came out pretty good.

More Sody doodles

2008-05-07T06:04:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm really busy at the moment, so I am not copying originals for a while, but I did draw some more Sody poses I invented cause I draw that much faster than the original ones...I actually drew a couple of original Sody drawings yesterday, but I'm not posting them...they were pretty lousy, but I must say I copied them directly from John K's blog and I wasn't even watching the whole drawings while doing it, so I couldn't get the line of action. But I did get some aspects of Sody and I could do these doodles. Some of those look like her, others I guess they don't.
Maybe I do the head too big sometimes.

Some of those are partially inspired in the drawings I copied. It's kinda difficult to be sure whether some of those are close or not, cause, even though the construction is kinda similar she still looks a little different from one picture to another, especially when you compare these two: Ok, I'm posting my version of those, but I warned you they were far from perfect...
Hummm...I made those hairs at the back of her head a little too long in the ones I created. In the Raketu those hairs are longer, but maybe still not as long as I draw them.

I'll continue with George's originals when I have more spare time.

Yep, still more attempts...

2008-05-06T04:27:00.000-07:00

Yep, I'm still with this one, and I think I'm still not getting it totally right...

Also here is my attempt at doing a half-decent expression of my own, based on what I've learned...though maybe I haven't totally learnt the construction yet...

Gone fishin'

2008-05-05T06:52:00.000-07:00

I copied those from the comic books. The first one came out pretty good I think, the other two...maybe I should concentrate in simpler expressions.

George and the bug

2008-05-04T16:17:00.000-07:00

I'm concentrating on this one cause I really want to nail it, it's such a cool expression. I can easily see now that the eyes are not quite right, he should be looking more down, to the bug. Why do I see that now and not when I drawing it? Note to John K. if he's looking : the construction is (or was) there at some point. I just traced it down several times in my light-table, so some drawings show the construction more than others, but I'm always tracing down another drawing that has more construction.

Well, I got the nose and the mouth quite good this time. I should know at this point that I don't have to make the hair too tall, but it's difficult to keep it small. His right eye should be smaller (there is a thing called perspective!). I swear to God that the size of the eyes seems more compensated when you look at the real drawing in the paper, for some reason. Maybe cause I made the whole drawing pretty big. Actually the eyes are probably better in the one at the top of this entry. I'm still doing the cranium too short. Heh, each time I make a tiny improvement I find my previous efforts weird. Now I find the one in my previous post kinda odd (especially after making the flip canvas horizontal thing), but at the moment I thought it was pretty accurate.

The magic trick

2008-05-04T02:42:00.000-07:00

I have one of those tables with a lamp inside, but I wasn't using it with the other sketches cause I was copying directly from my computer and I don't have that table in the same room. This time I printed John's drawings and I went to my other room to draw them. After drawing them I turned the paper and I looked at it from the other side and BLAM! a lot of the mistakes became apparent to me. So I copied those again in the other side of the paper, using the construction of the first drawings that I saw through the paper. Now I apply Flip Canvas Horizontal in Photoshop and compare...
Ok, they are still not quite perfect, but at least I think they look pretty decent on themselves...Mainly I shouldn't have changed the neck of the second one and the mouth is still a bit too big, but the rest of the drawing I think I got it quite better when I turned the paper.The first one is more exaggerated in general.

Specific expressions

2008-05-03T16:12:00.000-07:00

John posted some specific expressions. What do you know? It seems I'm a bit better with those. That or I actually learnt something from the previous ones. The one in the middle is pretty flawed though. I still find the chin pretty tricky, I try to keep it short, but I always end making it wider once I start placing the mouth. But when the drawing is finished the mouth is sometimes bigger in my drawing and the chin is almost always too big. All the drawings have pencil lines that indicate a placement of the chin that would have probably been more adequate, however while making the drawing I felt the chin was too close to the mouth compared to the original and that's why I made it bigger. That's cause I normally place the mouth below where it really should be or I make it bigger than I should.

Also I took a taste of Jimmy, copying one expression from the comic books. I have not compared it yet, but , as I suspected, I think I'm better with Jimmy. I'll continue with George now, though.

Let's see another try

2008-05-03T06:41:00.000-07:00

Cleaned up (though a little fast-inked) version: Comparative:

It seems that each time I fix something I get something else wrong that I got right at first...

More comparative

2008-05-03T06:17:00.000-07:00

Again I made the cheek too long and the cranium too short...wow, this is hard...but I guess I'm getting a little closer...

Sody doodles

2008-05-03T05:41:00.000-07:00

Ok, here is something different. Since John posted his Raketu ad I've been drawing lots of Sody's skethes of my own. I enjoy drawing sexy girls, but I probably have changed Sody a little. Other artist I've tried to copy are Paul Dini and Preston Blair. And I usually pay attention to Shane Glines' work, though I think I've never tried to copy it. I did a lot of drawings of Red long ago, so maybe the shape of Sody's body look a little like that sometimes.

In this first one I was actually trying to make her on model, though I probably made her a little less cartoony than she actually is.
The one in the left corner is pretty poor. The one in the right I ruined it a little with the face.
I went a little too extreme with the proportions in some of those I guess, the head is too big sometimes.

Now all those are free-style. There are probably a lot of mistakes and I will probably learn it when we start drawing Sody, (for example I guess I should give her more space in her forehead instead of too much hair and probably I should use the squash and stretch thing in her face more often) but I think some of those don't look half bad. I had a lot of fun drawing them, at least.

A couple of attempts more

2008-05-03T05:00:00.000-07:00

Cleaned up versions, I erased the pencil with the scanner this time, just to see how they looked, but I'd probably include it again in the next sketches to show the construction. This is not the best inking I can do, I draw those pretty quick, but I can make it better (if you see the drawings full size you can see the second one has some very fast inking).

More comparative

2008-05-03T04:11:00.000-07:00

Hmmm, they are not very accurate. I almost got it with the first one, but the cranium is too short. I hope I can draw that better without having a mistake in anything else.

Less cheek and jab, more neck, ear in other place, shorter eyebrow.

More faces

2008-05-02T06:19:00.000-07:00

Here are some more I made after checking them...

Let's face it...

2008-05-02T05:16:00.000-07:00

Maybe I should concentrate only in the head, that's hard enough...I cleaned this one up a little bit to improve some features in the second round...

And more...

2008-05-02T04:18:00.000-07:00

I'm clearly not very good with the exact copy, but I'll keep trying. Maybe I'm working on too many expressions at the same time, but hey, I like variety. I added a couple of ones from the comic books. Ok, I made the last one myself just for fun...I know I shouldn't be doing it at this early stage, but I hope Mr. K. isn't looking...Heh, in fact, I hope he's looking.

Let's check another one...

2008-05-02T04:00:00.000-07:00

-Shorten chin

-More inclined

-Pop-eyes

-Smaller hand

Let's try another one.

2008-05-01T16:50:00.000-07:00

Here I make him slimer, but I think this pose is a little "easier" than the other one...Those two are the cooler ones. I guess the rest are more in model.

Not too bad I guess, but I must confess I actually have made the image a little wider in the photoshop, so I have to make him wider and place things in his face a little differently.

Something new has been added

2008-05-01T16:05:00.001-07:00

Ok, a couple of drawings later I think I'm getting the proportions better. I have to exaggerate more. I didn't think I was especially conservative in my drawings, I love to draw off model poses but these cartoons are a lot more exaggerated than anything I've tried before I guess. The second one I had to make the drawing extremely big in the paper but the character is shorter in his body, like George should be. I've a lot of work tomorrow and next week, but I hope I can continue with this in the (little) spare time...

More George Liquor

2008-05-01T15:23:00.000-07:00

I think this one is especially cool, but also extremely hard to copy. After comparing in photoshop I got his body more inclined, but I need to make his eyes biggers and the whole face should be more in the corner of the head because of the 3/4 pose.
This one is a lot less inclined and the body should be shorter. The face is not too bad I guess but it has to be wider.

George Liquor's drawings

2008-05-01T15:04:00.000-07:00

So, John K. is asking for some people who can draw his characters and even though I'm from Spain it seems he would hire some free-lancers as well, so I thought I should try it at least, cause I'm a very big fan.

Problem is I'm extremely busy with other work at the moment. I hope I'll be finishing it in a week or so, then I hope I can continue with this...

Those are my first ones...some of them look like George Liquor I guess, but I believe I'm not an expert in copying the drawings exactly like John K. is demanding. I kind of get the construction of the characters in some of them I believe, but especially when I draw the full body I make him less inclined than he actually is in the original drawings, or the feet are too big...or sometimes the expression looks different, even though it still looks like George sometimes. Especially the last one I believe it's not such a bad drawing of George but it looks pretty different to the original one I was trying to copy.

Anyway, I'm currently comparing some of these in photoshop. I really hope that helps.