Sketch Studies - "Batman" (1966 version)

BAM! BIFF! POW!!! That's right, folks -- you're looking at gestures from the old campy Batman TV show from the 1960s. Most of these were drawn from fight sequences, one in the villains' hideout, the other on the deck of their surfaced submarine.

I'll be posting more work in the near future, kids, so tune in again...same Drawing time, same Drawing channel!!!

Sketch Studies - "Raiders of the Lost Ark"

Some more sketch studies! Indy does a lot of punching and kicking in this film, evidently.

Sketch Studies - "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World"

Above are some sketches I did after watching the classic film "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World".  I got the idea to do this from a fellow artist and pal of mine.  She recently posted some cool sketches / gestures of characters from the "The Lucy Show" on her blog.  She was inspired by the work of Alex Woo, one of Pixar's story artists.  His sketches wonderfully capture movement, gesture, staging, expression, weight, etc...all great things animators should aim to do.  Like my friend, I didn't really have access to a model, and so I looked for some fun poses in this film instead.

Also, before I got to sketching people I became caught up in watching the death speech of Smiler Grogan (played by Jimmy Durante) in the opening scene.  He's only on camera for a couple minutes, and his character is supposed to be slowly dying; and yet he exhibits so many emotions in one short scene.  It's the mark of a great actor to show subtle inflections in character and still evoke the general mood of a given scene.  Gotta look for more moments like this!

The Hooper - Revisited!

I did this for a recent portfolio application.  Took the Hooper's design and made it into a poster, harkening back to the 1950s-style advertisements.  Since it was so much fun to work on, I may consider doing posters for other characters in the same series (though each would be stylized in probably a different genre, depending on the character).

Avast! 'Tis Air Pirates Ye See!

Here's a piece I did for a portfolio application.  The point was to make something in the same vein as the old-school Mario / Kirby characters.  I was always a fan of "Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island", so I looked at a bunch of the designs in that game for inspiration.  The main character is a young, rocket boot -wearing swashbuckler; he has just taken some loot from his arch-nemesis, the skull-masked pirate captain below.  I'm working on some additional character concepts (bad guys, bosses, etc.) that I'll post here in the future, or should I say, fut-arrrr me mateys!

OK, please don't beat me up for that last pun.

Wayfarers...Part 2!

Here's the finalized version of the duo I posted earlier.  Thanks to the advice of two friends of mine, I realized that (in the original) the guy's right forearm looked a little funky and his legs were too short.  Along with fixing those things, I've thrown some color (and a tad of texture) into the piece.  Enjoy!

"I Snore" - Lip Sync, Blocking 2

Above is the Blocking 2 pass (still in progress) of an animation I'm working on for my reel. The quote is spoken by Charles (David Ogden Stiers) from the TV show "M*A*S*H". I'll post the final piece once I get the chance. Enjoy!

Wayfarers of the Sea and Woods

Here's a sketch of two of the main characters in a story that's been floating around in my mind for many years now.  Perhaps one day I'll write it!  The image is just of the line drawings.  After I tweak a few problem areas here and there, I'll post the colored version up soon.  

For a bit of background about the pair (though not to give too much away), the young man and woman are best friends from a harbor town.  He's just returned from a right-of-passage voyage.  She helps her father keep watch over the surrounding woods nearby.

"The Last Leaf"

This piece was my most recent submission to an art blog group I'm a part of.  It's based on the theme, "In the Falling Snow".  I wanted to do something simple for this week's project, and began thinking of what would appear interesting amidst falling snow.  My first thoughts went to color and contrast: a blue backdrop, littered with white snowflakes, and contrasted by something vibrant and yellow-orange.  Then the image came of a lone leaf floating to the ground.  For the majority of the process I operated using this color scheme.  While it worked, the placement of the leaf and some mistakes I had made earlier on caused the leaf to look out of place.  I worked at it for some time, seeing what I could do to fix it.  Eventually it came down to altering all the blues and cyans (plus some other colors) in the background to earthier tones.  This changed my point-of-view to looking down on the leaf on the ground, and as a result seemed to work better.  Enjoy!

Updated Blog Info!

Like I mentioned in the last post, it's been a while since I put something on here.  I got distracted with the end of school, as well as creating a new blog for a class.  Since then, that blog has been converted into my online portfolio.  You can check it out here:

michaelkevinryan.blogspot.com

As for this blog, it's going to remain my usual spot for posting my new work / what I'm doing.   Hopefully though I'll be more regular about it from now on!   Keep your eyes peeled for new work, soon to be on the way.

"The Hooper" - Part 2

So, it's been a while since my last post!  I'll explain more in the next post.  But for now, without further delay, the long-awaited and completed version of "The Hooper"!

"The Hooper" - Part 1

This week's addition is "The Hooper"! She has the ability to hula-hoop like nobody's business. Character Design to come later!
NOTE: This has been edited since the original post. I changed the skin tone with some other cut-out paper, and then did some color editing and clean-up in Photoshop. Workin' on a logo for the character too.

Hairmonic (Part 2)

Here's the finalized character design for Hairmonic. I did the sketch in blue pencil, did some major clean-up in Photoshop, live-traced and painted it in Illustrator, then brought a rasterized version back into Photoshop for some post work. A little bit of roundabout way if you ask me! Next time I think I'll ink it by hand first before I scan it in.