Richard Silvius

Just one of the things you hear when you visit Zoo Atlanta. He was talking about a tiger… it was hard not to laugh, but I have to remind myself I say things just as dumb if not worse…

Actually, one of the things I really enjoy about the zoo is how excited even adults get — and the different ways it manifests. Some, like the above, turn into little kids. Others are fascinated by watching their kids learn — asking them questions to goad them into understanding more; “What do you think he’s thinking about, Tommy?”

Still others play the docents. There are different kinds of docents: there are the ones with a need to sound knowledgeable in front of the kids — and those who just can’t help but remark about the animals and their behaviors — thinking aloud and talking to themselves as much as to their kids.

I took a fresh sketchbook with me yesterday — one with toned paper. I’ve been feeling the need to shake things up — so the toned paper gives me a chance to incorporate some highlights into my drawings, as opposed to the typical pencil or ink line drawings I would typically make. Looking back, I am definitely not taking advantage of the toned paper as much as I could. Old habits die hard, I guess… which is the reason I bought the sketchbook, so hopefully by the time I fill it up we’ll see some improvement.

I’ve been out of school for a few months now. It’s been a wonderful, healing time. I’ve had just enough freelance work to keep me busy but unstressed, and have enjoyed having time to sketch again.

So, I’ve been doing lots of character sketches — toying with designs and ideas for my next animated short. Earlier this week I did a goofy drawing of a dog eating, and thought I’d make an animation out of it. I wanted the animation to match the silliness of the original sketch, so I worked quickly, keeping it loose and just having fun. I didn’t worry much about staying on model or coloring in the lines. I like the result, and hope you will too!

Below are the sketches that inspired the animation:

Before I started animating I did a few more exploratory sketches in the computer — the dog character at the bottom right ended up being (more or less) the model. The two at top left are what happens when my brain forgets what I am doing and where I am…

I was doing some cleanup around my home studio last week, and discovered a few humongous and largely blank newsprint and pastel paper pads I had forgotten about. I took the newsprint to this week’s figure drawing session. It was refreshing to change the scale of my drawings, since I typically work in a roughly 9″x7″ sketchbook (and fit multiple drawings to a page). It took some getting used to because my drawings filled my entire field of vision — I felt like I was having trouble seeing what I was doing, oddly enough.

I’ve also enjoyed drawing with some colored woodless pencils I picked up a few weeks ago. They have the ease of mark-making of conte or charcoal, but without the damn mess.

Reflections make for fun photography!  I made this using the panorama feature of my Fuji X100.

I attended Thursday’s figure drawing session again — and I think I will try to make a “thing” out of posting my drawings every Friday. Except, this Friday I got too busy; so here they are one day late.

After figure drawing, I figure (awful pun totally intended) the next best way to improve upon one’s draftsmanship is to bare those drawings to the world… what better motivation could there be to improve?

Thursday’s model was (obviously) male, and was a veritable encyclopedia of superhero poses. He was a lot of fun to draw.

In the animation business, they always tell you to work on your figure drawing. Well — no one needs the practice more than I do! Here are my drawings from  an  ASIFA open model session last night.

I’ve been pushing myself to do more gesture drawing and on-the-spot caricature. These are some pages from the last sketchbook I filled up. I really need to start snapping photos of these people so I can put them side by side with the drawings!

It’s been quite some time since I updated my blog, and a lot has happened, so now is the time to catch up! Over the next few days I’ll be adding some character designs and a backlog of sketches from 2012.

First up, Fynn the Seahorse!

My friend Brandon Moulton needed to model a character for a rigging class, so he asked me to do some sketches of a seahorse.

Here are my sketches, along with the rig Brandon made! It’s very expressive and I’m really looking forward to doing some animation with it!

I only recently updated my demo reel, but I am at it again! This time I have added a few clips from my upcoming senior film “Crow’s Nest”.