My First Day of School

This is a little cartoon strip with a kid's story of his first day at school. I avoided adding much details. The main focus was upon replicating the same character over and over. I'm pretty satisfied with what I got. Next time I'll do better. The initial treatment of the story had lots of other details, but I eliminated most of them to accommodate in a 5 panel strip. That's editing; loved every bit of it!

Cartoons, Products and a bit of real life sketching

At first I tested my cartoon skills. I started by drawing Rajnikant, but that didn't turn out to be that good. Then I tried drawing the same face from various angles.

  

After that I did some product sketching from various real life objects. Here are a few (drawn on full A4 sized papers). I mainly concentrated on the form. I thought of adding proper texture as well, but that can wait. Let me get the shapes right first!

The following is a long due sketch of The Balcony People. I started out rough and my aim was to complete it as fast as I can. I took a lot of time to sketch the products, but in this I took as less as possible.

The following is a vain attempt of a live sketch. I guess I just need to practice more.

Back to the basics

Today I will talk about some basics in drawing. Everyday we should start our drawing sessions by drawing straight lines,arches,circles and ellipses and the bigger the shapes the better it is. This should be the warm up exercise until we get a perfect straight line or circle. Actually these are the basic shapes which can make any complex object that we see or imagine.

Next thing is drawing objects that we see or use daily like a stapler, cell phone, utensils, scooter etc.The important thing is that we should draw them as big as possible, ALWAYS USE THE FULL LENGTH OF YOUR PAGE. It helps to develop the idea for proportion. Also big drawing requires greater details and so more observation. First start with simple line drawing and then gradually go ahead with shading and rendering. But we should always break an object into basic  the shapes (straight line,curved line, square,rectangle,triangle, cuboid,ellipse,circle,etc). This always makes the drawing easier and helps in keeping the proportion intact.

After doing this practice if one is confident enough he should then try the memory drawing, i.e. drawing simple objects from memory. This tests our observation skills.

We can always enhance our drawing by making imaginary lines called construction lines (like the one in the gas lighter above). It gives a better understanding of the object and creates a depth of field.

The mouse in  the middle is horribly wrong because I could not put it's basic shape right, which is an ellipse. And who ever does the warm up properly will eventually use less eraser.

Pencil Sketching: Landscapes, Buildings & a bit of Illustration

With reference to my previous article I continued with pencil sketching. I reckon from the results that I need to improve greatly on my shading skills.

The architectures  were especially the disasters.

 But the real drawbacks came in memory drawing. I tried a lot and at last I had to give up and look for some photos for ideas.

I tried redesigning the NID and NIFT logo, but couldn't do much.

Then I delved into illustrations. This was the only fruitful task among all.

Pencil Sketching: Trees

I wanted to improve the basics of pencil sketching. Though I have been attached to sketching (usually as a hobby) all my life, but I primarily focussed on other things. Sketching from memory was never my domain. All I did was portraits. I started Pencil Sketching (2nd Edition) yesterday. It is a very decent book I must say. The illustrations are very good and the explanations are also easy to understand. Overall it's a great book.

At first I did some random sketches.

Then I practiced some shading and texturing. The rough scribbles are tree leaves.

Today’s topic is 'trees' so I directed my attention totally upon trees.

 

Trees without foliage give a lot of pain. The best method I found was to draw the skeleton structure with minimum branches first. Then it's better to add some details. Usually the branches get more clustered on top. The third and final step is to start shading. I must say that I need to improve a lot.

Illustrations and Cartooning

Actually taking a random word and drawing it is a great way of improving lateral thinking. It helps us to generate more and more ideas. It is actually generation of alternatives, which a technique of cultivating lateral thinking. We should do the exercise over and over so that we can sharpen our thinking.Here is my practice page

I wanted to complete the poster exercise but as start doing it I get to know where I am very weak. I cannot  express the concept as I visualize it. Here is a concept for the poster on Child Labour.

I enjoyed the most in doing the following exercises. Its both creative and humorous. 

The Pencil Box Conspiracy

The Sholey scene...

Gestures & Expressions

To study various gestures and expressions I had firstly drawn a lot of facial expressions depicting various moods.

 

After that I had some fun. Inside my pencil box there is a fountain pen, a sharpener and a pencil, and something has happened between them. You see, the fountain pen conspired with the sharpener to shave off the pencil while he is sleeping and break his lead in the process. I made a comic strip which looked something like this.

Then I delved into some vintage classic. It's the classic scene from Sholay where Viru is all tied up in chains and Gabbar is asking Basanti to dance. It's just that the characters have been replaced by birds. This can also be done with kitchen utensils.

The next assignment is a bit tricky. I’ll have to draw four or five expressions. Then based on then, I’ll have to draw four or five knives. The knives will be real, but the shape and look should reveal that expression. For example a butcher’s knife generally depicts aggressiveness or wrath etc, while a plastic knife used to cut birthday cakes may denote playfulness etc.