Last 90 Minute sketches of Winter Quarter

I've been going through my work from Winter Quarter, which just ended last week (still recovering from a week without sleep... uhg). I ran across my last few 90 minute ink studies, and realized that I never posted them here.

The topic of this one was Usagi Yojimbo, which is a comic about a rabbit samurai in a world full of other humanoid animal warriors. I didn't really know anything about the topic and frankly, I found the idea of a rabbit fighting large natural preditors a bit absurd and amusing. So, I decided to redesign the character to look a bit more like an actual rabbit (comparitively speaking).



This next one is the last 90 minute challenge of the quarter. Dr Manhattan of the Watchmen was the topic. I didn't have to research this one at all. I read the graphic novel years ago and remembered it well enough to start drawing right away. I just wanted to have fun with this one, but overall I feel pretty good about the quality of the piece, too.



This process taught me that I could think and produce even in a massive time crunch, and even manage to have some fun while I'm at it. The quality of these pieces is definitely not comparable to what I can do with lots of time on my hands, but I still really enjoyed doing them and enjoy looking at them. This coming quarter I'm planning to try to find a happy medium btwn this and my finer line art, so that I can manage to get some comics done on a deadline.

This quarter was full of other little self discoveries and small triumphs. After just over a year in grad school I feel like I'm finally catching my stride. The same thing has happened to me when I've embarked on other artistic journies. Not the same thing at all, but it took me just over a year of drawing caricatures for a living before I finally felt like I could get a likeness on a consistant basis. That was several thousand faces before I felt like I could do it worth a damn. My program of study in grad school, Sequential Art, is far more complex an indeavour than that, but I'm seeing the same curve. Just over a year and I'm starting to feel competent. Cheers to the next 3 quarters, eh?!

Spring quarter I'm going to be nailing down the particulars on a graphic novel concept that I've been working on for nearly 3 quarters. I'll be writting the script, finishing the character designs, doing some more environment designs, and nailing down the look and style of the art. It will be a very busy quarter.

I'll also be interning for Nolan Woodard's first Maquette Design class. I've only done around 4 of these things myself, so I'm no expert. I'm already doing as much research as I can on the subject, so that I don't walk into the classroom unprepared. Speaking of which, my next post will include some images of a maquette I did last week, and finished painting yesterday.