Steph's Brain Farts (NSFW): 11/17 - Creatures and CTN

[Sinix]

Those elephants make me happy, you gotta update more often, steph. And you know I love the tdome design, on to round 2 ye go. 5 stars for you.

[Gabby]

Yay a fellow RISDite! Your stuff is simply amazing I love it! My favorite is the Thunderdome sketch/finish, although i'm very biased because I love things that look creepy

[fukifino]

hey max, when ya look up the leucro mythology, apparently they have cloven hooves, so it seems more fitting them giving her paws.

I think he meant teeth, rather than feet.


I already gave you my comments on this sexy lady, so I won't reiterate them here.

[Steph Laberis]

0kelvin: I'll send it along this week. Listen to it EVERY DAY so we can do a karaoke jam at the next US workshop!

Seth: Thank you very much for that!

Max: A crit! A crit!! I agree that I relied too much on the description rather than the illustration; I had toyed with the idea of putting her in a setting with a Mama Leucrocuta and some pups, but free time called me its bitch and said "no!". Good call about the teeth; while Leucros only have a gumless, bony ridge in their mouths (the teeth are in the tummy! Mmmm!) it might have been cooler if I fused human teeth together into that sort of bony ridge shape. I also have been hearing a lot of crits about the linework showing; I'm a sucker for preserving linework, but I agree that it's a little muddy in this case, and that the coloring should go in either one direction (solid render with no lines) or the other (lighter color wash with lines). Thanks SO much for taking the time to crit!!

Red_Rook: True dat yo! Think I could get away with double-jointed rear legs, or is that too cliche?

Santa: Thank you! I went to RISD for illustration, t'was quite the experience. ^_^

Sinix: Dude, 5 stars? O.o Thanks man! And yeah, updates. I'ma get better about that. For realz. ...see you in round 2?

Gabby: RISDite!!! Nothing wrong with creepy shite, neh? I really admire your work as well, we must meet, sketch and be merry! Oh, and Sarah says hi (the shorter Sarah, not the tall one with the short red hair... there are too many Sarahs in my life!)

Fukifino: And they were muchly appreciated. Rawr.

An update! ...kinda! I snuck use of my roomie's scanner and finally scanned in the more coherent of my Boston Sketch Group works., and some other self portrait/girlie doodles (new haircut baby! Though it isn't that short IRL, I just suck at drawing it -__-).

I still feel like my gestures, at least of people, are too toony and I need to get to work on my faces.

Crits anyone? I'll give you a cupcake if you do!

Cafe doodles. The circles you see in the upper right are actually "roses" that were drawn for me by an adorable 5 year old girl ^__^



Poorly rendered garden trellis and some dogs in the park



This was Jazz, a Boston Police horse we met at the Commons.



One of the infamous mimes that we drew; they were so cute and sweet! ^__^ Also fantastic models, since they were miming as statues. Mwah!



Chubby girlies and me. Mostly. Oreo is there too!



Thanks for looking and see you guys again soon!

[Red_Rook]

hah, nice, how long ago did you promise to post these up?
the ffigures are alright, maybe a bit over worked, but thats only in comparison to the dogs which are fantastic. And ofcourse the self portraits are cute, specially with oreo

[Carnifex]

awww chibis! gotta love 'em. nice work on the quick gesture studies too. pretty heavy-boned horse

[ChromaticCodex]

Danm Steph, I love your animals, especially your birds. God the're cool. Some of your stuff really reminds the of The Dark Crystal , which I love. Keep drawing.. also, when you add color, some really amazing things happen.

[JoShuA]

Hey Steph, It was cool meeting you at the sketch group in boston. You got some great stuff going on in this sketchbook here! See you at the next sketchgroup, and I'll bring my daughter so you can see the joy you bring to cute little girls all over the world.

[beanmachine]

Hey Steph! Cat and I had a great time with you and the gang Saturday. It was a nice day out, got some good sketching done, had a few doughnuts, some laughs...great sketchbook by the way! Take care and hope we can all get together again next month!

Josh McHugh

[hito]

awsome. updated

really like the little face in the upper right of the mime page. The SP doodles are very nice too.

[Steph Laberis]

Rook: Shush you. You know when I say, "I'll do it today!" I mean "Yeah, maybe in a month when I have a chance to breathe..."

Carnifex: Thanks man. The horse is undoubtedly out of proportion, but to my defense, it was a stocky, draft horse

Chromatic: Thanks so much! I'm a huge Froud fan too and I have seen the Dark Crystal many times (scared me sh*tless when I was little!) I should color more, huh? :/

Joshua: Likewise! We have to do it again, neh? And I have a special pony for your daughter... just let me know if you'll be at the next group ^___^

Bean: Indeed! See you can Cat next time, I hope? Thar be animals and zoos in our future!

Hito: Miss you! Yeah, like the overfed, under-motivated sloth I am, I updated. Thanks for the feedback regarding the face... I need to suck it up and work more on my faces.

Alright then, I have some sketches from the last Boston Sketch Group to share, as well as some breakdancer gestures and Aquarium doodles. I was definitely more in my zone at the Aquarium, but I guess sometimes you have to accept when you're in an art funk and just keep going.

Duck doodles and an uderworked pond:



More ducks and a lion. Rawr.



Breakdancers, pre-dancing. They stood around for a WHILE because their MC was a complete dickhead and wouldn't let them dance unless we all paid them up the nose beforehand. I paid 'em $3 and they still wouldn't move!



Finally the dancers told their MC to go to hell and, in a stunning plot twist, they started dancing! 10 second gestures and the start of my trip to the Aquarium:



Little Blue Penguins!



Golioth Groupers!



Groupers and a sleepy sea turtle



The "Nike" fish and some nautilus doodles. I love Nautiluseseseses...




So. Crits? I'm posting my bad stuff here so I cen get some feedback... ya know, to improve my game and all. Tear into me. Please!

-Steph

[Groover McNab]

Cool stuff here. Had a bit of a hard time really thinking of anything specific to crit. I guess with the sketches I'm enjoying ones with a little better line economy, rather than the real scribbly ones. But it is a sketchbook after all. Feel free to ignore the nitpick

[Red_Rook]

omg win. The aquarium was wicked amounts of fun, and so was everything else acctually the break dancers were awesome, once they got started, the MC was such a dick though it was unbeliebable he had no idea how to handel his crowd. The gestures you drew of them are real hawt, no doubt about it.

and the penguins are some of my favourite, there really simple but they work so well. That and the turtle was cool. >____> i gotta post mine up.

[fukifino]

The textures on that turtle are awesome. And I love the cartoonification of the nautiloids. But why is one thinking of boobies? O_o

[Steph Laberis]

Groover: Well, that's good news for me then, neh? I agree, I tend to get frustrated and over work my figures, especially the humans. I guess the only way to tell if you've pushed a drawing far enough is to push it too far, which is a bad habit of mine. Blah.

Rook: Heh, thanks. Glad to hear you had a great time here and yeah, the penguins hold a special place in my heart too. ^__^

Fuki: Thanks for noticing the turtle; I'd like to start to bring in shading and textures into my gestures now, the lineart alone just doesn't show enough of the forms for me. And that nautilus is thinking of boobies because I was thinking of boobies at the time I drew it ^______^ Note that Oreo is thinking of toast and that fish is thinking of the Nike swoosh... because the fish looked like a Nike sneaker to me and Ben.

I was feeling a lil emo tonight, so I decided to pick up my mood and revisit those nautilus. I am toying with the idea of inking one up in Illustrator; those creatures are a gold mine for vectors!



Thanks as always for your comments, guys. See you in a few days!

[Groover McNab]

Ahaha, those nautilii (?) are awesome! Can't wait to see em in vector format. Would be even better if they were in plushy format.

[Carnifex]

i agree,those look awesome. looks like they all drank too much

[blankslatejoe]

hey, very cool look steph. I love the fluidy look to them.

cool sketches from the aquarium too, makes me wanna go draw!

[0kelvin]

Oh man, I missed some good updates! I need to pay more attention to things.

I love, loooooove the Nautilus. Especially the two surprised looking ones and the bottom-center one. Man, you can make anything adorable.

The texturing on the turtle is great too, and not something I see too often from you.

Kick some ass in the T-dome for me!



0kelvin

[Steph Laberis]

Groover: Hah! Thanks! You're actually the second person to request a plushy of the nautilus. If I had mad sewing skillz, the world would be full of fat, googly-eyed plushies... vector format still in the works

Carnifex: Thanks! Nice mohawk btw.

blankslate: Thanks much! After the museum trip, we have to do the Aquarium. No excuses.

0kelvin: Awwwwh! Making things look cute is a blessing and a curse... I"ve tried to make some narsty, mean characters and people still wanna hug them -___-

So, I offer a page of rattie studies and my first adventure in model drawing in over 3 years. One word. RUSTY. It was horrible, I made the same mistakes that I was making in HIGH SCHOOL. With much thanks to blaknslate and Jax, I will be model drawing on a more regular basis, now that I see how much I've slipped backwards

So! Oreo the lovely rodent model:


So uh, this is how my drawings looked at the beginning of the 3 hour session:


And thankfully, they ended up like this during the final poses.


Good lord. The moral of this post: DON'T FREAKING STOP DRAWING. EVAR!

So yeah. Point and laugh. But then crit me.

[Marie]

I'm just getting a look at your sketchbook now willow and its great! I love the studies of animals and fish you've done.

Your last post isn't bad at all either, I like how you showed the beginning and end of class, by the end you are usually loosened up and more expressive with the lines. *points and laughs anyway for no reason*

You have a knack for "cute" love it, will be sure to keep checking out your updates.

[omni1]

Hi, just having a peruuuse across your stuff, and i love the quick sketches.

just a quick crit
(you asked)
you never seem to look at how the ;light hits your subjects in the quicksketces.. hmm also thyre looking pretty linear.. not that i can talk..but anyway, also you couldl try to draw through your subjects a bit more . i dunno..

youve got some real talent.

bravo ! .

[Red_Rook]

niiiiccee! The first set of gestures is very overworked, ive seen you do that alot, and your still kinda doing that even in the final set. I think you need to try and stop yourself earlier, and not render them to death. The final one bottom right and the center one (both on the second page) have a far better line economy compared to the previous ones, wher you have 4 lines when two would do. Oreo is very good, and also incredibly "steph" my favourite one thought has to be the top center, the really small one, you can show alot of dynamic with her body even though her overall consistancy is that of a potato. Nice one

[S.C. Watson]

Wow Willow What Wonderful Work!

Seriously, sweet sketches.

~reg

[blankslatejoe]

nice work steph! I'm glad you were able to make it out for the session.. my apartment is a bit out of the way, eh?

[Wafflehouseninja]

I nautilus

[Carnifex]

thanx steph. nice life drawings. should do ones myself some day.

[Dirty C]

Hey Steph. the life drawings are really great, very little to crit. Though, as said, I think you would benefit from tonal studies, even if it is very fast and loose. Your last tdome I still felt was a little flat with relation to tone - I guess it's a matter of your background being so heavy in 2d animation.

And what, they models turn up shaved over there? Damn, I gotta get me over the water s'more haha

[Steph Laberis]

Marie: Thank you so much! I'm glad you're liking what you see here and that you took time to comment ^_^

Omni: THANK YOU. I NEED CRITS!!! I agree that I'm lacking in the light source department... I was sort of trained to look for gestures through line, which is good in of itself, but it's sort of a crutch for me now and I'm afraid to draw shadows. I will definitely try to draw through my subjects more often.

Rook: A very fair crit. It's a bad habit of mine to rework stuff to death, I guess I need a little more confidence in my first lines, huh?

Oregano: Your name's too hard to alliterate!!! But um.. Thanks Tons, um... Ttyl? Many, many thanks for the kind words ^_^

Joe: Yeah, it's a bit of a drive, but worth it, at least once a month. I'll bring the pastries next time!

Waffle: And he you right back ^__^ With all his tentacled love!

Carnifex: Thanks dude! Yeah, as boring as it can be, I've discovered it's not worth letting your life drawing skills rust... -___-

Dirty_C: Jax is one of the few attractive models I've drawn in my 4 years of life drawing experience... sorry, she's a rare gem ^_^ And yes, I agree about the tonalities, or the lack thereof. Shadows scare me!

Ok kids. Brace yourself. I finally got permission from Hasbro to show these off... I did them a little over a year ago and they are in fact hitting store shelves in a few months, so this is like my little claim to fame at Hasbro.

I invented a new breed of My Little Pony and you'll all like it, dammit!



They're 2 inch tall PIXIE PONIES! FEAR THE PIXIES! I also sculpted a prototype of these girls out of sculpey; I will post pics when I can. They didn't use my sculpt for the final casting, but they used my sketches and pulled a lot of reference from my sculpt for the actual toys. So yes, my saccharine sweet brainchild, the Breezie Pony.

...

...please stop gouging your eyes out.

[0kelvin]

Congrats! That's awesome!

Wow, those are incredibly cutesy, even by your standards. I'd crit them, but I'm afraid if I look at them too hard I'm going to get diabetes! I like how you did the hair, and the freckles are a nice touch. Adorable!

I can't stop looking at the bottom one's antennaes. I don't think Penis Pony was a mistake at all! You're slipping these phalluses into children's toys on purpose, aren't you?



0kelvin