So recently as I said before I have been feeling really motivated to do some of my own art work again and have found myself just sitting around and doing some digital drawing work in the evening which was been a really nice change as I have been struggling to get some art work done, whether it is for uni or my own personal stuff for a while now. It think the reason that I may be actually up to do some at again is just that I have found a lot of inspiration from shows I have been watching and games I have been playing recently. They have just made me want to get on with my own drawing and try to improve it as best that I can which has been fantastic as I really do want to become better at my 2D drawings.
One thing in particular that has really inspired me recently is a short thesis film that was created by the artist Erica Wester which is called, 'Welcome To Hell'. As anyone who knows me well will tell you I am a complete and utter sucker for expressive character design, I just absolutely adore it, and seeing as 'Welcome To Hell' is a character centric 2D animation that is based around a apathetic teenager who becomes haunted by a cheerful demon, it was right up my street. I remember watching this animation a couple of years ago close to when it was first released and have only just recently rediscovered it and I am really happy that I did. The use of expression that Erica is able to get into her artwork is something that I would love to be able to achieve so I always love to look at her art for inspiration. I have popped a poster for the animation below as well as a link the the actual video.
(The video and image above are copyright to Erica Wester)
Doing a screenshot redraw of the character 'Sock'
So after re watching this animation a ungodly amount of times I decided that I really wanted to draw a little bit of fan art of the characters from this short. We were always told, since the beginning of our first year at university, that creating fan art is a fantastic way to help us practice our skills and improve our own artwork which I was always happy to hear as I tend to draw it quite a lot. I was honestly I little stumped on what exactly I could draw so I decided a fun little thing to try would to be having a go at redrawing one of the panels from the animation, like a screen shot redraw. This way I could have a go at drawing a particular, pose, character and expression all wrapped into one as well as practising a drawing backgrounds which is something I often try and avoid. I felt motivated to do this so I had a little go.
Overall I actually found this really fun to do. It was nice being able to draw Erica Wester's character Sock, who is one of my favourite characters of anything of all time, in my own art style whilst still keeping it close to the original image. I was able to make my own piece look quite expressive whilst looking at the screenshot for reference and was even able to add in the environment in the background which I know isn't very impressive but for me who always does a simple blank background to accompany my pieces, I was quite pleased with this small achievement. I even drew everything digitally which is something I am becoming far more comfortable with, sketching directly onto my tablet, which is great. I am happy to say I am pleased with how this has turned out. I have popped below the original image I looked at as well as my re draw below.
The original panel from the animation
My screenshot redraw completed in my own artstyle
Experimenting with expressions and colour theory
So even after finishing my screenshot redraw I was still craving done a little more welcome to hell fanart as well as thinking about how I would be able to incorporate expression into my own university work so I thought I might be fun to take the lineart of the drawing of Sock that I did and have a play around which switching his expression to fit different moods. Honestly this was just so I could have some initial experimentation with how I draw facial expressions before I started working on my own character designs for my candy based game. I really liked how I had drawn the eyes this time around and think I might want to incorporate this style of eye into my art work so I just wanted to have a play around with expressions to see how the eyes and facial features would change.
I had a little go with experimenting with expression for Sock which were actually really quick and fun to do and then after I had finished each one I paired it with a different colour which I personally thought helped portray their mood to have a bit of a practice with colour theory. I have posted a compilation of the different expressions below and hopefully they should speak for themselves. This fan art which really fun to do as a little bit of experimentation work before I start getting on with my own character designs which is the step I need to move onto next.
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