Apr 28, 2010

Great Goblin 2

The facial structure of the Great Goblin is making more sense to me the further I go into the design. I'm pretty confident that I've hit on something I can live with, but there's a certain joy to drawing further once you've happy with a design. You never know what you're going to stumble upon, and even if it leads nowhere, well, you can always backtrack.

I didn't draw any caps or helms on these guys because I want to focus more on their physical shapes. Those things will be added in later in the design process.

I suppose I'll be heading into silhouettes and armament for this guy soon, if not right away. I'm beginning to think a little further down the line to the next design I have to tackle, and that can be a little dangerous. I don't want to get complacent or over eager to move on without giving this guy the attention he deserves.

I've been reading a lot of the articles over on Temple of the Seven Golden Camels, which has been helping me keep my mind in order while I draw. Now that I'm on my own and no longer in school, there's no one to really kick me if my drawings start to get flat or if I start to get lazy in one way or another. The series of posts called "A Kick in the Head" (beginning with this one) has been especially useful. I forgot to draw the little arrows letting you know the order in which I drew those Goblins (top left, middle left, bottom left, top right, etc.), but I think you can tell that I started thinking a little bit more from the third drawing on. When the drawing is sound the design is easier to come by.

Also I am reading Making Comics by Scott McCloud. Take from that what you will.

5 comments:

  1. Interesting articles, though I'm not so sure about that whole 'appeal' business. It seems to me too much of an attempt at codifying a set of personal preferences. Appeal is a very subjective concept and stating as he does that it's achieved by doing 'this' or 'that' seems slightly snobbish and very limiting.

    I wonder though, were you taught things like that in school? Is there such strict attention paid to form?
    It's fascinating to me as I was never really taught like that.

    These are some great Great Goblins by the way, I love those bat-like noses. There was one in the other post that came very close to how I always pictures him.

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  2. Yes, the Appeal article is...controversial. I don't agree with the specifics, but I agree with the heart of it- that there is some inherent flow of "appeal" that some drawings tap into and some don't. I don't think it has anything to do with noses or with eyes that are close to mouths, but I think it's an interesting subject.

    No, I wasn't taught specifics like that in school, but I do love reading about it. It's a type of thinking common to animation and storyboarding, but there are nuggets of information in that there are universal.

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  3. Still, I feel terms used like that come from at least a cultural subjectivity that assumes that everyone reacts to a piece the same way. And I think he's confusing appeal with expressiveness, as that seems a major part of what he finds appealing.
    Not that he doesn't have a point though, I just don't think you can pinpoint it that easily.

    I like reading things like that too, as they sometimes offer some insight into making images that I would maybe not have come up with myself or force me to be more critical of what I do. And that's mainly because they're more focused on the technical sides of creating illustrations/drawings than anything I was taught. And it's something I see a lot of American illustrators are quite good at.

    Where I went to artschool the focus was very much on individuality and figuring out what you wanted, not so much on the actual craft of making pictures.

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  4. Beautiful buggers! And I love McCloud. Useful info in there.

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  5. so fascinating, i love how much care you're putting into these designs, its fascinating to watch it happen.

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