Thursday, February 21, 2013

2013.01.21

Sorry for not posting anything yesterday. I brought shame to my famiry and this blog.


I did actually doodle yesterday - the cinnamon roll pomapdour man was done yesterday while I was at work. I was trying to draw someone standing in the kitchen area, but within a second they moved... so 90% of it was from memory/imagination. I'm pretty sure he had hair like that...

The rest of the day was frustratingly unproductive (I tried to explore an idea but got nowhere). Though the thumbnails there are virtually indiscernible, I had much better luck with that idea today. Still needs a lot of figuring-out, though.

And yes, Jane. I'll do a lot of testing with figures before I commit, but I can't promise anything good.

Late night edit:


My idea's to do a diptych, contrasting two perspectives on the same scene, where neither of the two characters are aware of each others' presence. I like the overall idea, and the angles, but I'm not satisfied with the girls' pose in either of them so I'm going to do some figure studies tomorrow of girls sitting and reading. I'm probably also going to cover up the merman more on the right so that he isn't too noticeable, at least not on the first glance - so the other image kind of opens the viewer up to looking again, and seeing the somewhat hidden character.

I'm a bit worried, though, that the world underwater is much more vibrant and populated (with fish, plants, etc) than it would be above. Not too sure yet what to do to balance that out. Perhaps I should rethink the angle of the shot on the right?

6 comments:

  1. hohooho do it Irshad. The only thing I got to say in your early sketches is that maybe the merman has his tail come up the water a little so you see

    http://www.vbgov.com/news/Documents/Virginia%20Aquarium%20Whale%20Tale%20Jan%202012.JPG

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    1. Thanks for the reference! Though you can't see it in those sketches due to the cropping, I usually drew out the tail in its entirety, going off the "page", but the tail itself, I left kind of... messy and undefined. ): I donno, should I go with a whaletail? or something more fish-finny (though that's kind of feminine)? Though considering the narrow cropping, there may not be room enough for a tail at all.

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  2. i also like the overall idea and perspective angles. i didn't realize she was reading until i read your words - i thought she was trying to draw something. that's where i put my sketchbook when i draw something in front of me - when i read, i rest the book somewhere. maybe it'd be easier to have her look more relaxed if you got her body weight leaning against something, like some wooden post and railing. OR you could keep her book that close to her face but have her knees up and her feet resting on the pier, so her arms holding the book are resting against her legs.

    if you wanted her legs dangling over the edge, i don't really see how it'd be comfortable to read with such a pose. maybe she's fishing?. and the hook is very near the sleeping merman's face? but she'd not even be paying attention and be staring at some passing dragonfly or watching cloud shapes in the sky. how dangerous. but that would connect the two entities and still clearly show their separateness.

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    1. !

      When I was first toying with the idea (which was unfortunately that night when nothing seemed to come out right), I was initially trying to make it so she was fishing. What I had in my head initially was exactly what you described - the hook hanging in front of the merman's sleeping face. It wouldn't come out right though, at the time, so I tried to connect the two sections by having her legs dangle in the water (breaking the surface). Not good enough, though.

      I'm going to go back to fishing. Having someone else echo the idea is definitely encouraging, and I think it's worth another shot. Gracias!

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  3. I think if you want to have the audience to have wonderment, you can alway have the first one more of a POV so that in the first image, people would be like, oh thats a cool image and when they read the second image, they'll see that it was from the merman's pov. idk it's just an idea

    for the first image, I think having it closer to him and over the shoulder will help sell the mystery, we wont be able to see his body and therefore we wont be able to know that hes a merman until we see the second image when it's revealed.

    These are just some ideas you can play with

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    1. Ha! I really like the POV shot idea. It's kind of the reverse of what I've been attempting so far (though it's probably confusing since I've got the first image as the reveal and the second one as the mystery), but I think it's a really interesting take.

      The only concern I have with making the reveal the above-water image is that it implies that the girl, too, would be able to see him fairly clearly (since the viewer is now looking from her perspective). Still, I'll give it a few goes. The idea of the viewer actually being the merman is really thrilling!

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