Monday Morning Marty & Minnie -- One Defining Line

Which one's Marty and which one's Minnie?

Talk about simplification! This is a good exercise for artists to help define their characters, real or fictional, and help them distill the essence of their personalities: draw one line that best represents the person (or animal) concerned. Can you guess which one is Marty and which is Minnie? (I'm not sure I made the definitive lines for them, but this is a good start.)

Now, unlike other forms of simplification this one may or may not bear any visual resemblance to your subject, though it often can. Your line should bear as many of the same characteristics as your character's persona. Is your character swift or slow? Ambitious or lazy? Focused or all over the place? Honest or shifty? Smooth or awkward? Your subject's determining line should reflect that.

Now here's the payoff: when you draw your subject, try to use this defining line as often as you can. Look for places where the physical likeness and this defining line meet, and accentuate those points as much as you can. You'll have a portrait or a likeness that doesn't just convey the subject's look, but the subject's personality and character.

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Monday Morning Minnie -- Fetch Girl Part 2

I know, I know -- I just drew Minnie last week, with a tennis ball, and with the title "Fetch, Girl." But really, she couldn't fetch to save her life then. We'd tried and tried, and all she ever did was gnaw on the felt of the tennis ball.

Well, this weekend the most unexpected thing happened. Minnie suddenly could fetch! She ran after the ball, picked it up, brought it back, and dropped it off in front of us, or even in our hands! It was remarkable, and deserved a commemoration.

My apologies to the estate of Dr. Seuss, but this is just how Minnie looks. It's not up to me.

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Monday Morning Minnie -- Fetch, girl!

(Click on image for larger version)

Minnie's not much into fetch. While I throw the ball for Marty, who'd fetch himself to death if given the chance, I toss a second ball to Minnie. Sometimes she tries to catch it or pounce on it, and sometimes she tries to chew it and put it in her mouth, but usually she just gets hit in the head and ignores it.

This illustration is based on a photo taken while Minnie had some interest in the tennis ball, but didn't seem to get what she should do. It was inked with a Micron Pigma Graphic 1 pen, and colored in Photoshop.

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Monday Morning Marty & Minnie -- Good to be back!

(Click on image for larger version)

First things first -- where have I been? I just finished a very long, very busy stint as storyboard artist on the new Terminator movie filming here in New Mexico! I'll have a post about that soon -- likely more than one. For now, I'll just say that the experience left me little time for other activities, including this blog. That's no excuse, though, and you do have my apologies.

Now on to the day's drawing.

Here's Marty and Minnie -- remember them? -- sunning themselves in the summer sunshine in our back yard, under a gorgeous view of the Sandia mountains. They've been doing well since you saw them last, frolicking merrily at my in-laws all day while I was at the studio, getting along very well and enjoying New Mexico summertime.

This drawing was originally going to be inked, but I liked the look of the pencils so I just decided to finish it at that stage. I started with the dogs, then went up and added in the background, then went back to the dogs, then the background. That's an important way to work a picture, especially with a medium like pencil, where you're likely to see a difference in your line work as you go. I tend to get darker and more bold as I go, so if I just started at one point and stopped on the other side, you'd see a marked difference throughout the image. Not that the image should look totally the same throughout -- just make sure your differences are intentional, depending on depth, texture or lighting, and not just the order you drew things.

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Tuesday Tutorial: Make it dirty!

(This is my first of what will eventually be a regular weekly feature: the Tuesday Tutorial. Because of my aforementioned storyboard job, I can't guarantee I'll be able to make weekly updates in the near future, but I will try my best.)

When you're working with photographs, adding new elements or combining pieces of other images, one important rule to follow is to make it dirty! Photos are never perfectly clean and precise, the way computer-rendered images are, and so it's important to give them the same imperfections as the photo, so they'll blend in seamlessly. We'll follow a rather silly example I've put together to (hopefully) demonstrate what I'm talking about.

1. Add the Additional Element. For this example, I'm starting with a photo of Minnie, after she got her first and so far only bath, above. I'm going to draw a simple cone paper hat onto her, and try to make it look real.

Here is a close-up of the image of Minnie with a simple cone drawn on her head in Photoshop. Though I did a fine job masking out her hair and shading the hat, it still doesn't quite fit in the image. (You may need to click on these images to see the larger versions.)

2. Add Noise to Additional Element. Every photograph -- and this includes photos of paintings and artwork, of course -- has some degree of graininess. This graininess runs throughout the image, and if your additional element doesn't have it, it will stand out.

I went to Photoshop's Filter menu, and to Noise. I added 2% noise to the hat. You'll need to look at the photo up close to see that the amount of noise you're giving matches it.

Keep in mind, it's important to make the hat on a separate layer, and to keep it on the separate layer, throughout this process.

3. Add Blur to Element. Every photograph -- even the world's best photograph -- is out of focus, to some extent. It may be the tiniest amount, but there's liable to be some bit of blur to the image. You need to blur your new image element to match the surrounding objects.

Note that in many photos, the amount of blur will vary from the foreground to background, so the right amount of added blur can help pinpoint the perceived depth of your new element.

I went up to the Filter menu again, went to Blur, and selected Gaussian Blur. I then gave the hat a small amount of blur -- just 0.7 pixels.

4. Do Whatever Else It Takes. As you can see from the finished piece, below, Noise and Blur were all it took for the texture of the image to match the photo. There may be additional steps depending on the photo -- if the image in the photo moved, and has a directional blur, adding Motion Blur may be needed. Sometimes lightening the opacity of the picture -- say, to 95% or so -- will allow background textures to show through. This usually ony works if the background behind it is fairly plain, without detailed objects. You also, of course, will need to make sure the colors work well too. But these first two steps -- blur and noise -- will get you on your way.

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Monday Morning Minnie -- Variations

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Taking the simplified image of Minnie from last week, I've made some simple variations to convey a series of moods or emotions.

(Thanks to Jack Atkins for the idea -- the "surprise" variation was his!)

My apologies for the lateness of this post. Blogger is having a problem uploading image files, and I've been trying since yesterday. It wasn't until now that it occurred to me I could upload it myself and then just link to the image here. Duh.

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Monday Morning Minnie -- How Simple is Too Simple?

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As you can see, I'm pushing the simplicity thing a little further this week! This is the first Marty/Minnie illustration I've done in vector format with the Illustrator program.

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Monday Morning Minnie & Marty -- 2-25-08

(Click on image for larger version -- as always!)

Continuing on my 'simplification' kick, this week I decided to make Marty and Minnie into cartoon characters.

Last week I mentioned the importance of exaggerating the differences between your subjects. Marty here is a good deal shorter, and stockier than in real life. It's hard to make Minnie even skinnier than she really is, but I did a little.

I also tried to get across Minnie's eager spirit, and Marty's friendly attitude -- at least toward those he knows.

Notice another feature of simplification -- choosing what to include and what not to. Minnie's tuft of white on her chest is very distinctive, as are Marty's spots. And of course Minnie's "crazy eyes!" Sometimes making these choices means leaving out some peculiar elements that, while accurate, may work against the general look you're trying for.

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Monday Morning Minnie & Marty -- 2-18-08

(Click on image for larger version)

This week I've returned to my quest for simplification, but as you can see the results were mixed. Minnie's tufts of fur and Marty's musculature proved too interesting for me to gloss over. That's okay, because overall the image feels the same. Well, except for Marty's face. It's perhaps a little too simplified, and those eyes are too big. He looks a little too "Muppet Babies" for my liking.

Actually, upon closer study, I think Marty's whole body is a bit more simplified and streamlined than Minnie's. That's not necessarily bad, either -- when you're drawing two subjects, it's often important to highten the contrast between them. Since Minnie's fur is longer and wilder than Marty's, the drawing should exaggerate the difference. I've started drawing Marty more short and stocky since we got Minnie, because she's thinner and lankier.

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Monday Morning Marty -- February 4, 2008

(Click on image for larger version)

This week I continue on the theme of simplification.

These gesture sketches of Marty (and one of Minnie -- can you guess which one?) show the value of simplification. The idea is to get the gesture, the movement of the dog, not to dwell on details like fur markings or shading. This is a good technique to help learn anatomy and proportion.

I recently learned that some people don't know they can get a larger, more detailed version of the images here by clicking on them. If you don't know that -- you do now!

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Monday Morning Minnie -- 1-28-08

Following my push last week to simplify my dog drawings, this one is very simple indeed. Minnie is a shock of black with those captivating orange eyes -- one of the workers at the rescue shelter where we got her used to call her "Crazy Eyes."

One of the secrets, in my mind, of effectively capturing a likeness or impression in a simple drawing is to first draw it out from memory. You're more likely to put down the noteworthy, unique attributes of a character and leave out the unnecessary details if you can't see those details in front of you. I first did this drawing from memory, then I called Minnie in -- she always comes when you call her name! -- and double-checked the general proportions and such.

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Monday Morning Minnie -- 1/14/08

I decided this week to try a portrait of Minnie using the woodcut technique I've used a couple of times with Marty -- on August 27 and December 10 and last year -- which I figured would work out even better, since Minnie's all black and the starkness would show pretty well.

I was right!

We love how Minnie sleeps curled up with her head on her back feet like this!

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Monday Morning Marty & Minnie -- 12-31-07

Here's wishing you a New Year full of warmth and togetherness!

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Monday Morning Marty & Minnie: Comparison

This sketch was done as a comparative study of Marty and Minnie's chests.

Though they're both roughly the same size, Marty is a lot heavier than Minnie. That's because Marty is solid muscle, whereas Minnie is mostly fur.

In this sketch comparison, you can see Marty's barrel chest on the right. He's got the muscles. His wide chest accounts for his front legs being so far apart.

Minnie's front legs are often far apart, as they are in this sketch, but that's more to do with poor posture than athletic physique. You can see her chest is a lot less bulging, a lot less muscular. And much of the volume that's there is her longer fur.

The odd perspective regarding the legs and tail, etc., are due to the fact that both the dogs were sitting right in front of me while I sketched, so I was looking down at a sharp angle. At first they were hard to keep still, but the more attention I'd give one, the more the other would want it, and they quickly figured out that sitting still was their way to get it. Quick learners, these two.

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Monday Morning Marty & Minnie!

The other day Marty and Minnie were tugging on the same stick. It was really cute, so we took a few pictures.

I used one of those pictures as reference for this drawing. I decided to do another woodcut technique, like I did back in August. Since the technique requires that the image be drawn in negative, then reversed digitally, it's difficult to visualize as I'm drawing -- every black line I drawn in ink will become a white line, and wherever the white paper is left will be black. So it's difficult to gauge exactly how it'll look. That presents a challenge, but also makes the project fun -- the end result is always a surprise.

I did retouch the image a little, around the dogs' eyes and some of the outlines. But overall, it turned out as I expected.

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Introducing Monday Morning Minnie!

Now that she's been with us a week, and begun to settle in here (?) It's time to give Minnie her formal introduction. Notice the black coat and those piercing orange eyes! Okay, you can't tell they're orange from a black-and-white sketch, but I was able to capture the piercing part. And those ears that tuck down onto her head -- sometimes you can't see them at all, and then she really looks odd.

I mentioned last week that Marty's first reaction to her was a bit -- well, aggressive. Well now they get on like a house on fire! They jump on each other like Grecko-Roman wrestlers, trying to get underneath each other and flip, trying to pin each other down. Their play is so fierce it's frightening -- Minnie will bite on Marty's face and pull on it, and Marty will bite Minnie's ears -- but it's all in fun. The tails keep wagging, and moments later when they're tired out, they'll just fall asleep next to each other. Crazy.

This sketch was done in pencil, then scanned and the tones added digitally. When I augment a sketch like this, I like to keep it minimal. There's a danger of the digital effects taking over, and it's easy to go overboard, but I want the piece to still feel like a sketch.

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