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Best!

Brett

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Sketches and ideas


Sometimes and idea hits me, for a story or a character and it will take me few tries to get it down on paper. Sometimes I get things spot on with the first attempt, others... well it's one of the reasons I draw on cheap typing paper as well as 'art boards'. I had originally done a few sketches of the 'Tarzan Boy', image found here, years ago. When I had an idea I decided to revamp the entire story from the ground up, so that means now is new ideas, and new characters. Once the main guy was drawn and the basic idea was set, I need to work out the details. For some reason it helps me to do some sketches, not finished art by any means, just ideas jotted down in visual form. I guess it helps me focus.


I decided to actually draw out the central woman of the sketch. I may do something similar with the others... at least some of the main characters. But if you have a head you want and they just wear regular clothing you don't REALLY need to do a full body shot, but I wanted to see if the visual would work right. I don't think primitive humans would really care for our morals so I decided to make her topless, but put her in body paint to obscure the 'naughty parts'. I think it will do, but if I get some complaints I may have to pull an Avatar and have some sort of glued neck gizmo. Of course that will only apply if I ever get a chance to draw the damn idea. It most likely will sit in the pile of my other ideas.

On a side note, it is not OK to TRACE another persons images and then change the outfit and call it yours. It is NOT professional and NOT standard practice. But if you do something like that do NOT post it on your site and use it to make money. That's stealing and is illegal. Jess might go into this more since this is more her area of interest.

Best,

Brett

2 comments:

Cryostar said...

Since you've brought it up, i'd be interested to hear what you think about folks like Greg "lightbox" Land, who seems to have made a career out of lightboxing his pencils.

Jess Ruffner-Booth said...

When I was in school (my degree is in illustration) it was BEATEN into our heads that unless you are going to change the source material (usually a photograph) substantially, you had better take your own reference photos. And that was back before the advent of digital cameras, when you had to do the shoot and have the film developed. Copying photos was stealing unless you took them yourself.

I have always been rather soft on using photos of locations as reference, since it's expensive and difficult to pop across the world or country for a few photos.

Copying another artists work and passing it off as your own without attribution, or swiping, is stealing.