INKtober 2016, Day 26!

INKtober 2016, Day 26: Herculephon
8x10 Staedtler Mars Graphic 3000 duo on Kona Classic artist paper

Some of you may remember Herculephon! He's an old college assignment from my 2011 Cleanup Workshop class. I spiffed him up and now he's bright and shiny again.

There's a major error in his wing structure: primary feathers do not fold behind the secondaries while resting. All the reason I need to make an even better version! Usually I'm good about using reference.

Sketchbook page (left) drawn May 25, 2015; tracing paper cleanup drawn May 31.

Quick Lumocolor trace-over made to combat Kona paper's opaqueness.

I used my light box to keep the proportions of the older sketches. Sometimes I miss cleanup animation - even though I developed a Pavlovian response to working on animation tables: I'd start to fall asleep!

Herculean gryphon: model sheet!

^ The model sheet was assigned before the final animation; it was challenging and engaging.

Herculephon's expressions don't match the Hercules style as well as the main pose does (or gets very close to matching), but they were fun to make.

Herculean gryphon: cleanup frames!

^ Cleanup frames for 1, 5, 11, and 13.

Za told me that this is one of my best pieces yet, so I will definitely clean up the remaining frames and reshoot the animation sometime soon!

Herculean gryphon: animation frames!

^ It's been a while since my gryphon graced this blog, but here he is again, showing his run cycle frames.

Herculean gryphon: blacked!

^ Hopefully this blacked drawing is a notch closer to hitting the style.

Did this in 309 today; there was a class listed for the nighttime slot, but no one showed up. Enjoyed quiet concentration and worked for a bit over an hour cleaning up the construction on a new sheet of paper and then blacking it.

I drafted my graphic novel page of Lily versus Decay yesterday. The final will be on 11" x 17" smooth bristol. It's going to be awesome.

Herculean gryphon progress!

^ Yesterday's progress in adapting the gryphon into the Hercules style. Allyson gave me some pointers on the third drawing to bring more of the style in.

After the fourth drawing, Za intervened to help me better understand the style's conventions. By my fifth drawing - following her corrections - I had gotten fairly close; still needs some tweaks to nail the style.

Matching styles is a lot more difficult than it first appears to be, and it proved challenging and engaging. I took only a couple breaks during class.

To-be-Herculean gryphon!

^ A super-quick gryphon I whipped up last night for an assignment in Za's Cleanup Workshop. This guy is going to be altered in class on Friday to follow the style used in Disney's Hercules; he'll get a full model sheet and everything. Gonna be fun!