So my other class this summer is Children’s Book–

*record scratch*

Wait.

Can I take a moment and just say: two studio classes during summer semester? What WAS I thinking?! This is the most stressed and overworked I have been in my entire life, and that is saying a lot. I’m the sort of person who forever overfills her plate and is moving at 100 mph. When *I* say something is too much, it’s gotta REALLY be too much. I’ve literally been physically tapping out with how much I can do in one day, and it still isn’t enough. This isn’t productive stress; it’s just too much!

Anyway, back to what I was saying.

My other class this summer semester is Children’s Book, and I have absolutely fallen in love with this method of storytelling. Our first assignment was called “The Big, Round Red” and was basically a prompt assignment (the prompt being the phrase “big, round red”). I really enjoyed it. I came up with the concept of the “big, round red” being the hot African sun. My two main characters are meerkats, and they are sweltering and need to find shade! Above are the final panels I came up with for the short.

Here is some of the concept art that I did initially while playing around with the idea. It features a few characters that didn’t show up in the final short, but are still part of the big story.

My original set of thumbnails showing the story, but based on feedback I decided it was trying to cram too much story into just five panels. I ended up cutting the five panel story down to just the elephant and the tree.

The old “final” panel 4, which had been decided was too like the others, and thus why it was redone as seen above. I don’t particularly like the new version either, but at least it was different. I need to revisit it again. I do like the story though, so perhaps I’ll eventually develop it into a full blown book featuring a whole host of characters.

>> Final line drawing for two point perspective practice.

>> Two point gridwork.

>> Some construction work on the bookshelves.

>> The full overlay showing all construction.

Then the next week I added a indoor artificial lighting. It looked pretty cool. I’ll post that later!

>>Mr. T-Rex at the Carnival with added shadows

This is the piece from last week’s post. Honestly I struggled with drawing these shadows the correct way, and don’t like how they turned out. They’re also very faint in this photo.

I intend to do more with this image when I get it back from my professor. I’m going to go with a very different approach, and hopefully will be able to make it into a full blown painting. Watercolors? Probably so!

>>Final Line Drawing of Mr. T-Rex at the Carnival (Stage 3). More development soon.

>>Grid work for one point perspective (Stage 1).

>>Construction lines for Mr. T-Rex at the Carnival (Stage 2).

This is a fun piece I’m working on for one of my classes. I’ve got another stage of development to do on it for next week, so expect to see Mr. T-Rex again. At this point there’s almost 40 hours’ worth of work on this! I’m starting to see perspective lines in my sleep.