Bones

The Animal Drawing course has entailed the drawing of, mainly, animal skeletons, so far. That is, we have to draw a dog skeleton from three angles, a dog skull from three angles, and one of these has to be worked out as a tonal study. A horse will receive a similar treatment. On two occasions, a live dog will come to pose, and a visit to a horse stable is on the agenda, and we do some miscellaneous exercises with dogs and horses in various forms. I am happy with the tonal study of a dog skeleton, but I am not very thrilled by the idea of having to do the same with a horse. We will see...

The Great Four

This week, Piet Wijn passed away. I read somewhere that Hans G. Kresse, Pieter Kuhn, Marten Toonder and Piet Wijn are considered The Great Four Dutch comic creators, and although I have not found any proof of this claim, it feels true enough to mention it here.

Hans G Kresse (1921-1992) is best remembered as the creator of 'Eric de Noorman' (Eric the Viking). His oeuvre spans a wealth of other comic series, like Vidocq and a series about native North-Americans, and illustrations in books and magazines.

Pieter Kuhn (1910-1966) created 'Kapitein Rob' (Captain Rob), who had a long series of adventures with his dog Skip on his ship 'De Vrijheid' (Freedom), more than once trying to counter the evil genius of Prof. Lupardi.

Marten Toonder (1912-2005) is considered the founding father of Dutch animation and mentor of a whole generation of illustrators and animators. His 'Ollie B. Bommel' and 'Tom Poes' (Mr. Bumble and Tom Puss) were born as main characters in a comic series for children, but ultimately grew up as mature characters, attracting a large audience of adult fans. Marten Toonder enriched the Dutch language with various words and expressions like 'minkukel', 'denkraam' and 'wees een heer in het verkeer'.

Piet Wijn(1910-2010) worked on a variety of comic series, but his most renowned creation is Douwe Dabbert, a happy old character, wandering through a fairy tale universe. He is sometimes referred to as the Mage of Dutch Comics, because of his great liking for magical fairy tale creatures.

Digital Backgrounds

Last week I completed the Digital Background Painting course. To be honest, I had not expected to learn a lot, as I know about digital, about background and about painting, but I was happy to learn how to use Photoshop in a way that does not distract so much from foreground matter.

The first three backgrounds are based on layouts and colour keys provided by my teacher Vladan Ignatovic. The last two are originals.

Update (December 30th): today I learnt I passed this course with honors.

The final countdown

This is my 'piece de resistance' from last year's Background Painting course. For this assignment, both the layout and the colour key were given, so it is really nothing more than an extremely neat copy. Well, it is good to know that, should I fail as an artist, I can still start a career as a fraudster or a xerox machine.

Halfway this summer I finally got my grading chart. I passed Life Drawing, Cartooning and Storyboarding, high passed Animation Basics, but was really surprised to learn that I high passed Layout and passed with honours for Storytelling. To sum it up, I passed my Second Year in Animation.

Next Monday I hope to start my Third Year, with an intensive two week course in Digital Background Painting. The other courses for this term are Life Drawing, Animal Drawing, Character Design, Animation Basics, Drawing Hands and Feet, and Drawing for Animation. Let's see what happens.

Looking back on Noda

It felt like a place of magic, and I was not really surprised that it was hard to shoot pictures there, as it was dimly lit and I could not stand where I had wanted to stand, to get the composition right. Years after, I decided to turn this Atago shrine from Noda, Japan, into an animation background, and I was quite happy with the result. Here you can see the original picture, the rough and clean layout and, finally, the gouache.

He, buddy, can you soak my head?

I was cleaning the school's entrance with a garden hose, in an oppressive heat that felt like 40° C, and the man took of his hat and bent his head, red-burnt and bald. I hesitated for a moment, wondering whether I would really do him a favour by aiming the powerful jet from my hose on his scalp, and right when I thought I would ask him to close his ears, I noticed. He had asked me to soak his hat, and he had not been bending his head in anticipation: he was looking down into his hat, waiting for me to wet it. So, I aimed my jet at his hat, he thanked me and walked on.

I still wonder what would have happened if I had missed that momentarily clear mind...

Forgotten

A bad memory has its advantages. It helps to forget bad things, to forgive bad people and sometimes it surprises me with good things I had forgotten about. The following sketch falls in the latter category, I did it during my first Christmas break here in Toronto. I called it 'Candle Magic' and still like it. Help me remember I paint this one day.