Thanks to those who have drawn cereal mascots so far. Fun stuff. I hope some more roll in over the next few days.

The weekend went pretty well. A decent mix of work and play methinks.

On one of the forums I frequent I received a private post asking me to check out an artist’s website and give critique on the work there. After a couple weeks of it on the backburner I finally wrote some thoughts down about what I saw. After I finished it I realized that most of the feedback I was typing up would be helpful for other people to see as well.

Here’s some of that feedback which applies to a lot of art student work:

The general posing and rendering is good. She’s obviously enjoying herself and the subjects she’s working on, which is a big plus and shows through in the work.

I hope that’s helpful as a starting point.

The Cap’n’s Soldiers So Far: Ocarina Scarfman Scribe Insect Andreas Vitamin Jay Frankie Kyohazard Doc. Fennopolis Mercuryshade Damonk Troutman jamesstubbs Kywyn HellzGranny Brunorubio

The Cap’n is enlisting YOU. He’s calling forth all the cereal mascots of old, resurrecting their spirits ready to tackle a new generation of milk soaked goodness.

Will you answer the call?

The answer is ‘Yes’! Nothing else makes sense. He’s the Cap’n, for crying out loud!

Draw a cereal mascot. Do it today or this weekend. It’s Friday anyways. Grab all your old sugary memories and bring them forth in your art. You’ve been drafted by the Cap’n!

Any art medium, any style, any quality… just DRAW!

Link your artwork or cereal mascot art threads here. Tell other people about the art theme! Begin the cereal revolution NOW!

Can’t think of any cereal mascots? Here’s some ideas:
Boo Berry
Cap’n Crunch
Cheerios Bee
Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cooks
Cocoa Bird
Cookie Crook
Cornelius Rooster
Count Chocula
Dig’em Frog
Frankenberry
Lucky Leprechaun
Mr. Mini Wheats
Shreddie and Eddie
Snap, Crackle and Pop
Sugar Bear
Sugar Pops Pete
Tony the Tiger
Toucan Sam
Trix Rabbit

The response from people about the Zim fan art I’ve been posting has been very, very cool. I figured I’d make it a trio of Zim-based artwork and then move on to other subjects. Anyways, here we go… I hope you all like it:

The line art was done in pencil. Colors this time out were all done in Photoshop.

Yes, he’s drinking something called “Doom”. It seemed appropriate. 🙂

Last night’s life drawing session was short. I only stayed for the first hour out of three. I slept like crap on Monday night and zombied my way through Tuesday, so by the time the session started at 6pm I was already beat.

Weirdly enough, the best piece of the night wasn’t even from the model. Using one of the whispy 30 second gestures I did at the start of the session to warm up I added all the details and shadows while the model was on break. I’m not sure if it was just good visualization or what but it looked better than the poses where I was trying to analyze the model right in front of me. Weird, but cool. I think the figure drawing practice is paying off.

Anyways, here’s the pics:
Click here to see my best drawings of the evening.

Organizing assignments I’m going to be handing back to the students this morning, I came across one of the example sketches I did up last week to help drive home good line clean-up habits:

For the above example I used one of the student character designs, drawing over top on a clean sheet and then scrawling notes around it to remind them about certain key points. I’ve replaced my crappy printing with an actual text font so you guys and gals can properly read the notes here.

Obviously without the actual lecture to go along with it, the handout may not mean much. Each of the points on that page were accompanied by my blathering explanation while I drew and a bunch of other little things that didn’t make it onto the sheet. Still, there it is anyways – a little peek into my current Character Design class at Seneca.

Had to go to bed at a reasonable hour last night to wake up non-groggily to teach class today. It sort of worked.

Looks like the Toronto comic crew that went to New York ate a pile and had fun. I admit that I’m jealous of their trip-itude and probably should’ve gone with them to the Mocca comic festival even if I didn’t have anything to present. Next year.

The 12th One Step comic art portfolio article is up at Newsarama. You can read it right here.

All the nice feedback I received about yesterday’s Zim picture spurred on another Zim-itude:

I think the other pic has a softer and more painterly feel, but this one brings across a neat feeling of speed.

Both pics have the actual Irken alien writing from the show on them. Yesterday’s said “Zim Ride”, today’s is “Zim Zoom”.

I watched a pile of Invader Zim this evening. I’d forgotten how great that show was. I remember first seeing the episodes while I was working at the animation studio in Halifax and being blown away by how crazy and amusing it was. Fantastically funny stuff. If you haven’t seen the show, check it out on DVD.

Anyways, feeling inspired by the Zim-age, I thought I’d do up some fan art for Zim as my digital piece for today. I’m really happy with how it turned out:

I decided to go for something more painterly than the standard Zim show look. Here’s a more detailed look at Zim and Gir up top:

Zim line art and wallpaper image if you click here.