Happy Valentine's Day! - 2014

Before the end of last year (December 30), I suggested that the "Dipper and Wendy" fanart I posted would make a great Valentine's Day doodle.  And after a busy day, that's just what I did today (in FireAlpaca).  :)

Here's the original for posterity:

Have a happy one!

GRAVITY FALLS - THE THIEF AND THE COBBLER

Here's one of the first Gravity Falls fanarts I planned on (despite the delay mentioned two posts ago): a mash-up with one of my favorite animated films, Richard Williams' The Thief and the Cobbler!

The pencils were done on November 1st, and inked/colored on tablet in Flash, assembled in Photoshop, and signed in Flash - the result was finished right at the end of November 7th.

The cast of characters depicted above are:

Tack the Cobbler: Dipper Pines
The Thief: Lil' Gideon Gleeful
Princess Yum-Yum: Wendy Corduroy
King Nod: Stan Pines (Grunkle Stan)
Zigzag: Robbie V.
Roofless: Soos
Mad and Holy Witch: Mabel Pines
The Mighty One-Eye: Bill Cipher

More to come!

GRAVITY FALLS Fanart

Happy Halloween!

I apologize for being rather disorganized here.  And I'm really frustrated, as I wanted to spend all of October doing the following, but I got sick with the cold for most of the month (still have coughs and partial laryngitis as I write this), and it really cramped up my schedule, so I was very disappointed, because I really wanted to surprise you all.  But I might as well turn up what I have, and rest assured, I would love to do more with this stuff later on.  :)

As some of you are quite aware, I've become a huge fan of the animated series, Alex Hirsch's Gravity Falls, which premiered on the Disney Channel over a year ago.  A really funny, wild, poignant, haunting, and sometimes dark series, with a great set of main characters: 12-year old twins Dipper (the protagonist) and Mabel (his goofy sidekick), who stay with their great uncle Grunkle Stan (the owner of the Mystery Shack, located in the titular town in central Oregon) for Summer vacation, and Stan's young workers Soos (a goofy man-child) and Wendy (a 15-year old girl and Dipper's secret crush).  Dipper & Mabel's stay in Gravity Falls turns out to be not-so-normal, with all sorts of supernatural phenomena permeating the town.  Dipper's guide to the phenomena is a mysterious book he found, labeled "3" on the cover.  There are secret messages hidden throughout the series, written in secret codes (including the Caesarian code; three letters back), and these hidden details have become a popular facet with fans of the show.  With Season 1 having ended (I will not spoil the season finale; it has to be seen to be appreciated), Season 2 (which is now in the works) promises to be more exciting and really ominous!  (Creator Hirsch intends for the entire series to take place over the course of an entire Summer vacation; he aimed for 3 seasons, but production on the series proved to be really difficult and challenging, so as it stands, Hirsch is trimming it down to 2 seasons, and a movie to close the series.  That said, I can hardly wait!  But I have to...)

So I was inspired to do full color fanart of the series, but was sidetracked by my above dilemma (and you'll notice huge time gaps, as a consequence).  I'll get to that soon enough, so I'll post what I did so far: my own personal model sheet exercise/design studies.  By default, I used series director/character designer Joe Pitt's designs/model sheets for reference.  I had little to work with on some designs, so I improvised by using screenshots from the series.

Here's Dipper, done on October 1st:

Mabel, done on October 5th:

This was after my first two weeks with the cold (the first week was the worst).  Wendy (done on October 21th) was a bit tricky at first, so aside from the model sheet I worked with, I looked at various screenshots to get a better grasp of the variations in her design.

The same deal with Grunkle Stan (done on October 25th), whose physique was even trickier than his expressions!

I'll get to doing Soos, eventually.  Otherwise, look for more Gravity Falls stuff from me soon!  I've had a lot of fun learning to draw these characters.

Lily Merriweather Design/Wardrobe - 2013

I've done more experimenting with Lily Merriweather in the last few weeks, and came up with this "CalArts-style" version (a style chiefly used by Disney and Pixar-trained students), which I have played with on occasion.

And yes, I plan to have Lily in both wardrobes depicted, depending on the weather.  I kept the striped dress I had her in last time, but decided to put her in something more stylish for Fall/Winter wear, so I went with a sort-of 1980s look!  I added glasses to one of the Lilys as a test, to see how she would look with glasses on (something else I played with from time to time).  I did the figure on tablet in Photoshop.  I simply had two sets of clothes/accessories that I could easily toggle, and pasted two types of figures onto this comparison picture.

 

This is very close to what I want for the final design.  As a matter of fact, my earliest drawings of Lily used a style very similar to this!  :)

Honeybee Taffy & Candy Canes

I went to see Wreck-It Ralph (Disney; 2012) on November 23, and needless to say, I loved it!  (Ditto the animated short, Paperman, which preceded it.)  It was a 10:25 PM private 3D showing for me, my big brother Peter, Tony, Stephen, and my nephews Angel and Gabriel!  (When we left the theater, it was dim and creepy, as the theater was about to close, and everyone was leaving, but it was a pretty cool contrast to the movie we came out of.)  All four of the main characters (Wreck-It Ralph, Vanellope Von Schweetz, Fix-It Felix, and Sergeant Calhoun) are great, and they all manage to steal their own show (rather than let some marketable character steal the show from the main character).

I thought Vanellope (voiced by comedienne Sarah Silverman) was adorable!  At some point, I strongly contemplated doing a fan art of her meeting The Mighty B!'s Bessie Higgenbottom (voiced by fellow comedienne Amy Poelher).  I could've done this in the style of that Vanity Fair 2008 photoshoot which featured both Silverman and Poehler (with Tina Fey), but featuring them both in Vanellope's Sugar Rush video game was more interesting.  :)

This was done tonight in nearly 4 hours on tablet in Photoshop.  I might do more Wreck-It Ralph fan art at some point!