Pics
The thing about monsters is that okay, yeah, sometimes they prowl around slavering and growling and they do strike menacing poses, but they also get itchy, roll on the ground, paw things over, stretch, investigate, and eat. I like seeing monsters doing those things as well as menacing people - it suggests that they’re actually creatures instead of props.
The same thing goes true for characters, too. Okay, yeah, characters do look appealing and play to camera and hit great poses and have dialogue carefully crafted to move the story forward. They take on a whole new dimension when they want things, though, and are the stars of their own story even if they may be only passing through someone else’s story to drop a line or two of dialogue. When they have wants and needs and some show through, it’s like seeing a rancor fussing with some dirt in the corner of his pen.
It’s all about feeding the imagination.
You can translate the behavior of dogs, cats, squirrels, any kind of animal into monster behavior. You’ve got to understand the animal’s motivation in order to give it to your creature, but it’s all there.
Some just plain wandering drawings. Not for anything in particular, just seeing where the line goes.
Liveaction short film is in the can and having its world premiere at a small local film fest on April 4th. Liveaction short film #2 is written and cast and will be gearing up in April and May to shoot in June. Short comic was supposed to get done in March, but life got in the way; new goal is by the end of April.
This is pretty much turning into a repository for gaming art. The movie is finished as of three days ago, so I’m jumping back into the comic… but in the meantime, here’s the horror that soared into view during the weekly lunchtime D&D game I run.
This creature (plus an archer on his back) responded to a cry for help from a pack of scrawny little scout-beasts who the adventuring party were mercilessly pummeling. This bat-thing Free Willy’d the terrified ranger and the less terrified rogue, who scored its belly with his knife. The cleric sapped its strength, the fighter nailed it with an arrow, and the paladin dealt the killing shot with his trusty crossbow. The only problem with killing flying beasts is that they’re bound to tumble to the ground… and the fighter is directly in the way.
Voltz is a member of the WOE, World Organization of Evil. She’s a supercriminal, but is basically a giant walking battery. Since her power isn’t the type that ever shuts off, she wears a rubber bodysuit to gain some kind of control over what she sends her electrical currents through; because wearing a rubber bodysuit all the time can be seen as odd in some circles, she lives in a three-story fetish club in the Red Light District of WOE’s base city. In this club there are always girls running around in rubber suits, so she never feels out of place.
Austin started the WOE on Friday with Mungo Man, Everett beat me with Landslide, and I’m straggling in with Voltz, aka Lady Volt, aka The Electric Girl.
Feel free to create your own WOE supercriminal. I don’t usually draw superheroes OR supervillains, but it’s going to be fun once I get into it…
Right, so thanks for all the feedback. As per overwhelming request, here are some drawings. I’m actually storyboarding a liveaction short film on the side, so I’ll post some panels from that and talk about boarding/pitching soon.
A couple more from our privateering game, starring the extremely photogenic and disagreeable Berry brothers.
Here Sean is being untruthful about the gifts God endowed him with. Finn, full of brotherly love, is ready to set him back on the path of righteousness. For more deckhand action, check out Austin’s sketches of the boys.
Sean decided to engage the resident Maori warrior pirate in some antagonistic conversation, and when the big guy happened to kind of suggest Sean was of less than average height, Sean took a swing with the butt of his pistol. Aio didn’t think that was a great idea, so he shoved the boy, sending him sprawling across the deck. Finn leapt to his brother’s aid (and also onto the back of the pirate).
Not related to gaming - related to a comic idea which is brewing.
Again, that comic idea. Trying to figure out some specific faces for girls.
Small spaces are really fascinating to me. I think my interest stems from getting stuck in a multi-level maze built into a shed when I was really little - my memory makes it feel a lot more fantastical than probably it was, but I’m sure there were a couple of trap doors and at least ONE skeleton involved.
Anyway, I’ve been really happy to find not one but TWO restaurants in Berkeley that look like they’re built into a submarine. The kitchens are tiny, everything stacked up on top of everything else. This one is Gregoire, on Shattuck & Cedar. The food is pretty good - it’s kind of gourmet, which is great for people who like cream sauce or poached lamb or whatever - I just go there to watch them MAKE the food.
The other place is Guerilla Cafe, but I haven’t had the determination to sketch it - I am usually way into the food.
I’ve been getting out to the zoo more often in the past month. There are three tiger cubs at the San Francisco zoo, and they’re active and curious and not yet fed up with their life behind bars!
I struggle with whether to draw the animals as they are, or draw them so I’ll be able to draw them again later. The one is about capturing the feeling and the weight, and the other is about figuring out how they are put together. Put-together drawings feel lifeless to me, because they’re diagrams… but they’re the necessary data to load into my head so that I can have the animal running around in there, ready to come out.
Fiddling around after work, waiting for our Dungeons and Dragons game to start.
Super jazzed for everything after Comicon - now besides wanting to make movies and comics, I also want to write short stories and paint. I guess it is all about priorities.
I finally figured out what the knees do when you’re riding. It’s a weird angle, and for whatever reason I always think of the knee as a hinge joint and not the slightly more flexible joint that you can manipulate side-to-side by dropping your hip (if that makes any sense at all).
I always find drawings of how something actually is (or feels) much more appealing than drawings that have been crafted to optimize appeal. The little quirk of truth that makes me go “that IS how it is!” always gives me a charge of inspiration.
© Emma Coats 2009, all rights reserved.
