Painting - City Wolf - Tonal Study

Final Painting project of the year! I can't believe it's here already...

We were asked simply to create a character in a background. I decided to paint a wolf in an abandoned post-apocalyptic type city. Slightly inspired by wolves that live in Chernobyl, slightly by my Polish experience of being terrified of gates such as this one! ^_^ This is meant to be a vertical pan (if it were an actual animation).

For my tonal study, I used Gouache on Watercolor paper, then India ink with classic pen nib, and white dry pastel on top.

I have two color studies to go - then the final! More to come!

Pinups - Teri

More pinup fun! This is the lovely Teri - such an original! She wanted to be a sexy pirate that showcases her two toned hair, and all her tattoos! :D The rhum, gun, skull and banner were likewise special requests!

Never had this much fun! I love original pinups!

Here is the sexy Teri!

Life Drawing - The Zoo

I've been looking forward to the zoo trip all semester - turns out it was a bit of a disappointment. First of all, it was really cold!!! So most of the animals were inside, and it was crazy getting from one pavilion to the next - from a tropical rainforest, where your large coat is killing you, to suddenly having your sweat freeze to your body outside.

Next, we really didn't have enough time! The mandate was to draw 2 studies, and 12 gestures. I've never been to the Toronto Zoo before, and it's HUGE! It takes a really long time just to get from one place to another, and you never know if the animals on the map will be there, or if they will be close enough for you to draw... So in the end we had something like 2.5hours to finish everything.

Even so, I tried watercolor! The comments I got from my professor was that my studies were too "doughy". Therefore, when I got home, I decided to touch them up with dip pen and ink. I think the result is nice, and I might try this mixed technique for my next animal life studies.

So, these are the animals I found by chance!

Tigers:

Lemurs:

A Chameleon:

Some random birds, turtles and meercat babies:

And finaly, my favorite, this epic beast, called a Red River Hog!

Life Drawing - Caricatures

We had an awesome life drawing session yesterday - we got to draw caricatures of our classmates!

I had a blast! Here are some that I think turned out. All done in conte on newsprint paper.

  

Painting - Novel Interior - Ayla's Place - Final Painting

And here is my final painting of Ayla's Place! :) I like the result! Once again this is Gouache on Watercolor paper.

I wanted to depict a scene from Jean M Auel's "The Valley of Horses", set during the Ice Age.
Here is the quote which I decided to work from:

"The cave was not large but not small either. The walls angled back from the entrance, widening until they came to a fairly straight back wall. The general shape was roughly triangular, with the apex at the mouth and the east wall longer than the west."

If you want to see the rest of the process you can check out my Tonal Study:
http://tinanawrocki.blogspot.ca/2014/03/painting-novel-interior-aylas-place.html

And my Color Comps:
http://tinanawrocki.blogspot.ca/2014/03/painting-novel-interior-aylas-place_16.html

Here it is!

And if anybody is interested, here is what my lineart looked like:

Storyboard - The Ant and the Dove - Character Design

Final project for storyboard this semester! We're taking one of Aesop's Fable's - The Ant and the Dove - and making a storyboard for a short animation.

This week we had to have character designs done, as well as location design. So far I got my characters down! I like the style - I'm trying to keep it geometric and very animatable. :)

Children's Book - What Does it Mean that You Love Me?

A while back, Alan Doucet approached me and my boyfriend Kris Cowan to Illustrate a book that his brother, Jason Doucet had written for his son. The book has an adorable concept. A little boy gets tucked in by his parents every night, and they say "Good night! We love you!" and he asks, what does that mean? So every night the parents let him know what it means by giving examples, and being a kid, he images crazy scenarios for each example.

The book was a really great collaboration and is now published by Alan and available online! A great gift for any new parent!

http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-000913600/What-Does-it-Mean-That-You-Love-Me.aspx

And here is the lovely cover for the book: