Archive for the 'Character' Category



Sketchcrawl 17!

I spent the most recent Sketchcrawl (#17) in San Francisco’s Chinatown. It was one of those tricky days in SF. The sun was out and shining brightly, but everything was cold everywhere. If the sun’s rays hit you directly, you could get a little toasty, but as soon as you were in the shade… brrrrrrrr! I sketched as fast as I could, trying to keep my hands warm. The plus side, I suppose, is that it was not raining.

So here are my sketches from the crawl.
sketchcrawl17_01sketchcrawl17_03

sketchcrawl17_02

sketchcrawl17_04b_crop

The gamers/gamblers were a popular subject:

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Little comps:

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One of my favorites from the day is the one on the left here with the lanterns:

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I really slapped this one onto the page fast. Not too happy with the colors, but I do like the way it looks in grayscale!
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sketchcrawl17_09a

And of course, Chinatown would not be complete without Peking Duck.

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The crawl was great. There were about 65 sketchcrawlers there, in all. I finally got to meet a few people whose blogs I’ve been following for a while. Namely, Pixar artists Enrico Casarosa and Ronnie del Carmen, and Martha of Trumpetvine Travels. There were new people as well, and lots of great sketches from everyone. Many different tools, techniques, and styles, and lots of inspiration.

Visit the forum to see work from others at this sketchcrawl and crawls all over the world.

PJ

PJ
A caricature of PJ Harvey based on a photo in today’s LA Times (Oct. 26, 2007).

Doods

The blog took a long nap! Now I’m posting this, just a couple of doodles

Doods

to let you know I’m still around. More next week.

Zzz…

char70
This is my latest masterdoodle. I call it, “Falling Asleep Watching Television.”

Hey, Baby

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This is a character from the same personal project as the “cityscape” sketches I posted last week [1, 2]. (Shown here as a doodle. Yes. Another doodle.)

Another Beauty

Another Beauty

What’s This?

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Yup. It’s a doodle.

Oh No!!! Another Doodle!!!

char66

Oh, Well. Watchaganadoo?

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The post I wanted to post this evening, wasn’t ready in time. So I squeaked out this doodle instead. Enjoy!

Goodies!

After months of admiring the “LOL Cats” cartoons by Flickrpal Ape Lad (aka Adam Koford), I finally ordered one (for only $20 on Hobotopia.com)! The timing couldn’t have worked out more perfectly. My birthday was this past Saturday, September 15th, the very day that my LOL Cats cartoon was mailed. It arrived today on Monday!

What day is it?

I requested that he sandwich the cartoon in some cardboard, because my mailboxes are ridiculously tiny and my mail carrier, disgruntled. He was oh so generous and threw a little extra cartoon on the purple board.

Burple

“Mebbe a vineyard asploded?” LOL!!! Also pretty serendipitous, because Jamie and I spent this past weekend celebrating my birthday wine-tasting in the Santa Ynez Valley area of Santa Barbara County. Yes, folks. That’s “Sideways country” — and we did stay at the Buellton Days Inn, or “The Windmill.” This is our second time visiting the area for my birthday. The last time was in 2005. Our favorite wines continue to be made by Daniel Gehrs, who does not own any of his own vineyards, but purchases grapes from various places throughout the region and turns them into bottles of heaven at his winery in Buellton.

Great Grapes

And I got more goodies today! A birthday present arrived from my brother. Wrapped in images of outer space, were two E.T. “Original Collectibles” from 1982. I was E.T. crazy when I was a little kid. These are showing some age, but still in their original packaging. Kinda like me.

The Original Collectibles

Eastern Plane

Eastern Plane

Another page from the Land of Ink. Bonsai branches, watchtower gourd on hourglass temple, old-man’s-face-breathing-dragon, smoldering volcano, and other things yet unnamed.

Backwards Bill

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I saw this guy on Pico Blvd the other day. I don’t know if he realized his shirt was on backward. He was carrying a big ring of keys and seemed a little lost. I hope he found his way home.

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Here’s the smoking girl from Sketchcrawl 15, but with added watercolor. This is one really nice aspect to the modified Moleskine and having a sketchbook with watercolor paper. Any drawing is a potential future painting.

A Girl and Her Dog

char63
I was having lunch outside at Bloom Café last week, when I sketched these two. She was lunching with friends while her pup trotted around on the sidewalk all around and under the table. The drawing might be a little confusing, but the dog was not standing on the table. Also, he was about half the size shown here in relation to her. I don’t know much about dogs, so I can’t tell you what breed he is. Maybe you know? At any rate, he was damn cute.
Tents and City
This (above) was near the cultural center. After sketching & painting the giant float, I felt I needed to loosen up and keep things simple. I liked the colors and the composition of this view, so I banged it out, just trying to focus on the key elements.
Astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka Street
A sketch of the monument to Ellison S. Onizuka and the Space Shuttle Challenger. The street this is on is actually named “Astronaut Ellison S. Onizuka Street” and is an exception to Los Angeles’ letter limit to street names (Though I’m not sure what that limit is. Maybe 16?). This monument and place is significant to me for at least two reasons. One, I remember when Challenger disintegrated. I was in my fourth grade classroom when we listened to the live broadcast on the radio. I remember a fair amount of emphasis being placed on the death of Christa McAuliffe, a schoolteacher from New Hampshire who was on the shuttle, and I wasn’t quite as aware of Onizuka. My fiancée Jamie, however, is from Hawaii (where Onizuka was from) and so I think more emphasis was probably placed on the death of Onizuka there. Granted, it was a tragic event for all involved.
Secondly, this place is significant to me, because I used to live here. I lived in Little Tokyo for about 2 and a half years, right on the 200 block of East 1st Street and the back of my building faced out onto Onizuka St.
Incidentally, I had a roommate from Japan who once told me that “Onizuka” translates to “Devil’s Tombstone.”
Smokin' Geisha
I sat at a table near a group of young (maybe 16-year-old) Japanese-American girls dressed in Kimonos, while they smoked cigarettes and talked about makeup. One of our other sketchcrawlers, Akiko, said she overheard one of them say, “Okay my dad is here, so I don’t do anything, okay? I don’t smoke and I don’t drink!”
Pippy Legwarmers
Another view from the back. It’s easier to draw people from the back, especially when they’re not going anywhere. I don’t think this girl was even Asian. Maybe hapa, but it was hard to tell if that was the case. She had her straight black hair in pigtails and her short kimono or “happi coat” with the big ribbon wasteband/sash (Obi) — plus legwarmers and sneakers!
New Otani Gardens
Lastly, we went up to the New Otani Hotel’s Garden. Where there was this inspiring view of the beautiful California Bank & Trust building.




About Lee-Roy  

I’m a Storyboard Artist and Illustrator currently in Los Angeles, where I live with my fiancée, three cats, and several colonies of ants. My earliest memory is as a three-year-old, drawing a picture. About three decades later, the picture is still being drawn. It’s one I never want to finish.


 

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