faun

 

Centaur archer step by step

Step 1- Scan the drawing. This was drawn on newsprint paper, with a B pencil. Just a loose sketch, that was what I was going for.

Step 2- The original scan was not dark enough, so I darkened it by duplicating the layer and making the new duplicated layer a "multiply" layer.

Step 3- I added some white highlight areas with a photoshop brush on a new "lighten" layer.

Step 4- I added some dark shaded areas with a photoshop brush on a new "darken" layer.

Step 5- FINISHED. I added a texture layer on a"multiply" layer. There was already a bit of texture in the original scan from the natural texture of the newsprint, but I wanted it to look old and worn at the edges.

cut out girls

I haven't been posting as diligently as I normally do. 3 reasons; 1-I was at the Ottawa Animation Festival for a week. 2- I got back from the festival and was sick with a horrible flu that I am just getting over now. 3- BURN OUT. I have been working on a number of projects over the past year and I need a break to clear my head. I have a lot of stuff I could post from this Mythology project still. So here are several cut outs of some of the females in the series.

Actaeon

More from the mythology project. This guy was a hunter that was turned into a stag by the gods. The hunter becomes the hunted.

what to do with all these cut-outs?

By the end of this production we will have hundreds of characters, cut out and painted on water color paper. What to do with them? My idea is to pick some of the better ones from each myth, frame them with a colored piece of construction paper behind the character cut outs, and have an art show to sell a few of these pieces of art. There are three of us working on this project Errol Burke, Roxanne Ducharme, and myself. Together we have created some very nice pieces of work. Even if we don't sell anything, an art show is always nice.

POSEIDON

Another stick puppet from the mythology project, and a screen shot of the scene he is in.

centaurs

A centaur named Chiron, from Greek Mythology. He looks pretty good as a stick puppet.

studio pics

Here's my work environment. Pretty messy eh? That's the way I like it. None of the sterile work environments you get at most studios. Those places are more like banks than they are animation studios. We are doing it OLD SCHOOL here on this part of the project, water colors, paper, messy paints. When this part is done, we move onto the new school computer part. The water colors will be replaced with digital programs, the paper with computer monitors.
Excuse the bad pics, they were taken from my camera phone.

horse study

I need to draw a centaur for this Mythology project. I could count the number of times in my whole life that I have ever drawn horses on one hand. So it goes without saying that I needed to do a quick study of the body of a horse.

TALOS

The man made of brass.

Demeter colored

With a flat application of water color.

push

King Minos again, this time pushing a bull.

gardening

In every show I work on, I stick my girlfriend in as a character. She was in My Goldfish Is Evil, Stand Up, and now this mythology project.

Minotaur

King Minos

He doesn't have 3 arms. The two right arms are for his two poses.

Hygeia

Goddess of medicine.

Demeter

She is the goddess of agriculture and harvest.

stick puppet screen shot

No animation, in the traditional sense, but there is stuff moving on the screen. The curtains really add to to the stick puppet stage look, as do the sticks of course.

mythology bg

This is the bg I came up with for the stick puppets. It will change color from scene to scene, but other than the color, it will be a constant. Depending on what the scene is, different elements will appear; for example, for an ocean scene, this bg will be blue and I'll add a couple clouds and waves of water at the bottom. Or if it is a scene of Mount Olympus, other elements will appear, a column and a mountain.

Alcmene

Just a sketch of the mother of Hercules and his half brother Iphicles.