Live Stream - Using field reference to create in the studio

[Music] everybody Aron blaze here and I'm back it's Thursday and we're going to have a good time today we've got all kinds of stuff planned today so we're gonna have fun we're going to do some big hat drawing which is going to be cool we've had a really great week yesterday we went down to Sarasota Florida down to the big cat habitat it's a three hour drive we got down we drove all the way down got some really good drawing in for about 45 minutes and then we got rained out that's the luck of the draw that's what happens when you draw on location and then we drove three hours home so six hours of driving for 45 minutes of drawing it was cool but within that 45 minutes we got some pretty cool footage and I got some sketches in and so today I want to talk to you guys about how I use that stuff bring it back into the studio and then do some studio paintings and also today I've got a very special guest so I've got James Johnson come on over James let's see if we see you in the mirror there we go or in the camera this is James Johnson he's my special guest today he's going to hang out and he's going to watch he's here with his dad Bryan Johnson say hi Bryan hello there he is and as usual I've got Dustin with me he's going to be fielding questions say hi Dustin hey guys and then over in Sarasota Florida we've got Nick my business partner and he's going to be doing links to everything and all that kind of great stuff so and he'll be answering questions as well on the keyboard so anyway why don't we just go ahead and dive in you can sit here James or you can sit wherever you want we're going to dive right in um that's okay no you hey I coughed I cough all the time and and when I get thirsty I just sit here and I drink and drink my iced tea because it's good for my heart so so anyway so we're going to go let's still let's first of all let's talk about let's talk about what we were doing yesterday so I went down and I've got these are all quick sketches that I did on location and this is something once I once again there's only a few of them because I was only you're only there for a little while but uh this is a oh it a lot of people ask you know if they need to do drawing you know life drawing that sort of thing and I'm a big advocate about life drawing I think you should go out if you want to do animals if you want to do people if you want to do environments if you want to do whatever if you want to do anything that's based on reality that I really recommend getting out drawing from life whether it's drawing plants and trees in the forest or people in the city cityscapes landscapes people animals whatever get out and try to draw them from life the more you do that one of the things I explain to people actually an example that I use is you take if you take a five year old child and tell them to draw a tree nine times out of ten they're going to sit there and they're going to draw two curved lines and big squiggle up on top and that's going to be their tree but if you take that same kid and you bring them outside and you put them in front of a tree and you say look at that and now draw it they'll sit down and they'll really look at it and then you'll see might not be a great drawing but they'll do something that they're observing and that starts filling up what I call your visual library and so so often what we do is if we don't have that that experience of going out into the field and drawing we draw what we think and not what we know and that's why I was talking about the little five-year-old drawing two squiggly lines or the two curved lines with the squiggles on top he's drawing what he thinks or she and not what they know and so the more you go out the more you fill your brain with what's really there and that's the biggest reason to go out drawing on location when you're sitting there looking at for example these big cats when I'm sitting there and looking at them they're not great drawings and then you know in a lot of times they're inaccurate this you know his head is his paws are too big is heads too small you know but I'm what I'm doing is I'm sitting there I'm looking at the form I'm I'm I'm really seeing that animal rather than just glancing at it like you would do when you're walking down you know through the zoo when you're sitting there drawing you're recording everything so that when we finally get back to the studio that's the other thing I get so many people that I ask well how do you how is it that you draw all these animals out of your head well it's because I've been doing this I go out and I do a lot of this and like I said it gets recorded into your brain you know we can remember we can get all that you know we can study the anatomy through books and everything else and we'll remember in certain ways but when you see it in life the way you know when you see the weight and you know if you look at this this cat right here the way his shoulder kind of slumps forward you know that's just you don't you can't get that unless you see it happen you know if you look at this guy this this big liger this is actually a mix between a lion and a tiger you know this pose is not something that I would have just thought of it's something that I could have only gotten through observation and then it makes its way into my brain and I can use it later on yes Dustin I understand you've already answered part of this question but any tip for when the subject you're drawing move too much yes and this is something I want to talk about so when you have a um an animal that's moving around a lot that's walking or whatever if they're moving there's two things that I do first the first thing that I do is I'll just sit and observe I won't even draw just sit there and watch the animal and just just you're recording in your brain rhythms proportions flow all of that kind of stuff and then when you're ready to draw especially if it's still moving what I'll do is I'll look I'll get it a wait till it hits suppose that I would like and then I'll look away really fast it's it's almost like you're leaving your brain with a little flash and the cool thing about animals that are in captivity like that is oftentimes they'll follow the same path and so you can wait till they hit that same pose again and look up and then look away again and your brain will be left with a freeze-frame image for a little bit and I'll record that very quickly I draw very very loose very quick and then once I get down the you know the general proportion the general rough drawing then I can look at the animal as it's moving around and pick up little details and that's what I did with these even though these guys are just laying here they're still they were still moving around they were changing poses and all that kind of stuff and so I would just really quickly lay down the the Block in the drawing and then hit the details later also with this you know I really recommend you know not just whoops not just drawing but bring your bring your camera's bring your you know via video cameras if you have still cameras bring that too all of that really contributes to having enough information when you get back into the studio you know it's it's not all just drawing from life and then I go home and I just make these drawings out of my head I don't do that I do I do the stuff from life so I can get a sense of that form in my head in three dimensions and then I go home and I pull up my my photos go ahead Dustin do you recommend visual drawing over memory drawing I have a hard time drawing from memory but I do very good at visual drawing any tips well that's what I'm talking about so visual drawing will will benefit your memory drawing the more visual drawing you do your filling up your your visual library and that will enable you to go home and draw for memory so do as much visual drawing as you can and then more you do that the better your memory drawing will be so let me um let me come to here and I'm going to show you some of these so and I picked up some these are some just some quick videos that we shot of the animals sitting there and you can see that this this one where is this well this is this is the pose of one of the sketches I did but he had moved but I like I really like this sketch I'm the sketch I like this video I like this pose I've already done the sketch I got a sense of you know look how relaxed he is look out look at that that right here look at that shoulder blade how it just sits inside very relaxed how everything just kind of slumps that I really like that pose and I like that kind of regal look to them so I think I want to use that so one of the things I've done so I've gone in and I've done a frame grab and I'm going to use that as reference I like that like that as well along with you know these sketches this is the same pose the same cat and and the memory that I have and I'm going to go ahead and do some sketching so why don't we just go ahead and dive in we'll start with a new file Oh came up here let's bring that down there we go on site do you use a pen pen and paper or do you use a tablet um i i've experimented on site using a tablet using my iPad pro in using procreate software and it works fairly well it's just you know if it's bright and sunny out it's really hard because the screen doesn't get bright enough when I'm out in the field I'm still a big advocate of using paper and pencil or pen or whatever it is that you might have yesterday I went with pastel charcoal grabbed you know a decent sized newsprint pad I like to draw big and just sat down and started drawing actually Dustin can you run over and grab those drawings that they're there in the newsprint plan right over there against the sofa and I'll show you I'll show you about the size that I sketch as Dustin takes his time and that's the wrong one that's not the one I use yesterday you were there is that it is it not there the yellow pad yes it's in the red bag there you go sorry it was in it was in my red my red bag but I'm going to one of the things I'm going to do is I'm going to I'm I don't want him to be look like he's sitting in a zoo that's the first thing I want no but don't worry about it yeah I don't know where it is so I'm going to sit here and I want to I like it I like that composition and like I said I know like those shoulder blades are here but they're kind of relaxed and I want to get I want to get that flow coming here like so I'm going to move this over hold on one second because I want to see forget it Dustin is it yeah is it leaning against the Dustin Lisi just hold it up is it leaning against the thing there no forget it come on back I moved it somewhere so oh I found it found it I found it here I had it here how do you hear the whole time this is what my son puts up with all the time so but this is this is the size that I use so it's a you know more on location and I actually I'd like to go bigger if possible and I've got a fan going right now but they're not they're not huge drawings but they're big enough that I can I can draw kind of large and that's you know that exercise for me is it's a good exercise I like I like to draw big I don't like to draw noodly some people like to bring a little sketch pad which is fine but I think you you know it's it's a little more fun to draw a little bigger so that's that's what I do here and and I really recommend it if you if you don't already do that you know get a big newsprint don't fall in love with your drawings it's really about getting out there and recording information and and then you know getting it you know in your brain and and then from there you can come back to the studio and do what we're going to do today now I want to push I want to push his attitude a little bit too I think now one of the things about big cats you know I am one of the anchor points that I look at on different animals are you know the slope of the head to the slope of the of the nose and we I'm over on Tuesday on Facebook I was talking about wolves and how to draw them and if you look at a wolf and profile the the forehead and the snout are pretty parallel you got the forehead if you looked at it and profile like so it would it would go like that what the ears coming up there's that that line like that whereas if we look at a tiger you've got let see that line and then it comes down and then you've got this line for this now just like so so those you know when you can when you remember those those types of anchor points it really helps with making the species feel like what it's supposed to be there we go I'll move this around actually I want to do something a little more let's do this I want to feel like he's a little more out of tension I'm gonna bring him up a little bit more like he's looking at something you have a question so James has a question about what kind of software I'm using to draw the picture and I actually get that question a lot this is Photoshop so I'm using Photoshop CC which is the latest Photoshop and I'm working and actually I'm glad you brought that up because I tend to I usually mention all of my equipment and I'm I'm working on the hardware that I'm using today is a Cintiq Wacom Cintiq 27 q HD so it's a 27-inch screen pen display I draw right on the screen I love it it actually got a question related to that from since you use that welcome Cintiq it every day how often do you change your pen nibs and do you use a screen protector I don't use a screen protector because I think it dulls the dulls the lights a little bit and I go through a nib I don't go through it as often as you think because I I've got kind of a light touch I don't draw really hard and I don't I don't do this kind of thing you know you see how I draw I draw you know I try to lay down the lines pretty pretty you know directly so I go through a nib probably once every three weeks and I've got Twitter are they I've got a big box on a box here has might and I've got I've got enough nibs here to last me the next 10 years so that's the one thing if you if you you know you want to make sure you've got all your supplies so here I'm thinking about Anatomy I'm you know I've been out there I've seen them I've seen that you know that shoulder blade I'm thinking about that shoulder blade under the skin coming into the shoulder here into the upper arm and then down into this paw and I'm going to imagine him like he's up on a maybe up on a Ledge a little bit and I'm going to change them I'm going to have this pot coming down I want to feel a flow like this do you have any tips for casting shadows of subjects I do have tips on on casting shadows and I'm actually going to demonstrate that when we when we color this in I you know the biggest tip I can I can I can give you as far as light and shadow and all that is to once again I know it sound like a broken record but draw from life and see how light falls on the world I'll just how light works and then when you go back into the studio you're going to be able to start doing that from life I mean I'm not so I'm sorry I'm drawing and blabbing at the same time you can started doing it out of your head sorry here and I want to I want to I want this thing to really kind of flow like this so let's get this I want to get a nice kind of designee that feels kind of cool I like that that design right there so we'll get something that's feeling kind of nice there and then it's just a matter of adjusting thinking about the four foreshortening on the leg here it's coming towards us what does this antique feel like when you're using this feel like you're drawing on actual paper um no it doesn't and um and that for some people the question is what's a Cintiq feel like does it feel like I'm drawing an actual paper and it doesn't it feels different but I use I use felt tip nibs they're these gray I don't know if you can if it's focusing or not maybe not it's a little blurry but I've got these grey nibs that I use and and they're like a felt tip and so they have a little bit of bite to them on the glass and I like that so it does you know it feels a little they've got it's got a little bit of resistance it's got its own feel and it's not but for me it's not hard to get used to I I like the feel of it actually here we go I'm going to get this happening here there's that other foot coming underneath so I just go through very quickly very quickly I want to get that overall flow feeling first and I know you know there's the latissimus muscle coming up this way which goes into the serratus muscles on the ribs and this guy's a little you know he's a captive cat so he's a little he's a little chunky so I'm gonna thin them out a little bit yeah Dustin could you name all the different anchor points in a big CAD drawing well I'll name the ones that I think about so as I'm when I when I am when I'm drawing a big cat like this whether I'm using reference or I'm drawing from my head or both in this case I break it up in my head in two different units I think of the head like we have here then I go into the neck then I think about the shoulders I think of all these separately but I'll they have to fit together then I think of the trunk of the body and then the pelvis and the back legs and then into the tail and then knowing that all of these parts need to have a flow have a rhythm that feed into the next part you know this I want some fluidity on this neck coming down into the shoulder which connects to the shoulder blade which underneath I'm not just thinking about the bones underneath because those are buried really deep I want to think about the musculature you know there's triceps right in here up into the deltoids that are up in here okay okay there we go and then we come down into the PAS so here's a pose that I'm diggin and we can we can further emphasize that that arc by adding grasses that kind of mimic that which I think it kind of be cool if we put them up you know on a little Knoll if we imagined him on the Knoll and you know in India India has a lot of termite mounds and whatnot maybe he's sitting up on a upon a termite mound an old eroded termite mound there we go so you can see here that I've stayed really rough and gestural trying to find the flow there we go and once I get that now I'm going to flop it yeah Dustin um can you tell us something about line weight after you go with your sure no no I was with line weight I am you'll see me use line weight from an aesthetic standpoint when I when I start going to my more of a finish right now when I'm searching like this when I'm trying to find you know my first passes this rough this rough pass and so it's really all about finding so I'm trying to define planes and shape you know here's the you know these extensor muscles right here that I'm trying to define that and you know big cats they have the same go we've got our extensor muscles right here big cats on the same same muscles you know rhythmically we all have the same you know muscles in our and our shoulders the remiel we've got we've got serratus muscles we've got latissimus muscles we got deltoids we got triceps we all have we have the same muscles I completely got off track there but as far as line weight goes I am once I get everything kind of defined right here I'm not worried too much about line weight I'm probably hitting the areas I've defined the most probably hitting them with the heaviest line and then I'll go in and I'll lighten everything up want to bring this around a little bit more there we go you can see how I get a little heavier I want this this overall feel right there so now let's flop it back how you doing James doing good all right so now now I want to tie this whole thing down and we're going to create a new layer I've knocked the opacity back on the original drawing I'm going to bring my the size of my brush down and now I can come in and have some fun just drawing yo if I'm starting out should I start learning human anatomy or learn animals as well it depends on what you want to draw if you want to draw humans then get in there and draw human anatomy it depends on you know they're both there for the learning so whatever it is you want to learn you get out there and draw it you know when I was a kid I just I was more interested in drawing animals than I was people and so I I just learned everything I could as far as drawing animals goes but if if you let's say you want to be a Marvel artist or something and you need to learn human anatomy then obviously get out there and earn your human anatomy so I'm coming in here now and going to define that in transformation sequences how are those coordinated between artists like where does one artist stop and the other one come in there's a weird segue the what and transformation sequences like like say a Brother Bear when when teenage turn turned to the bear uh-huh like I think what he's talking about is like how there's usually a a team for what for like the human form of Kenai there's another well I mean every there it's hard to say in transformation sequences as a unit I mean every transformation I've ever seen has always been different but in ours it you know we had we only had one character transforming so it was one animator that that did the transformation but within that there was there was animation for the you know some of the spirit animals that were coming out of the Northern Lights and so we had another animator other animators I handled that Trey Finney Trey Finney if you're watching if you guys don't know Trey Finney see I did this to Jim Jackson last week all right now I want you to I want you guys to look up Trey Finney he was the animator of a lot of those beasts that came out of the Northern Lights and a great animator but you know what he's an even better painter look up Trey Finney and go to his website I can't remember his website but he's an amazing painter it's tre why Trey fi-i-nn why Finny go check out his work he was a like I said we we all worked we went to college together actually and then and then he was he was an animator at Disney we animated together and then now he's a painter living up the Carolinas living the dream and also I wanted to give a shout out to to my buddy that was with us yesterday when we went out to the big cat habitat Rani Willeford who is another great painter if you guys are looking for you know good reference on and teachings on how to paint in color and all that looking for good artists to look at then you know you can't go wrong with these guys tre Finney and Rani Williford ro n and I II WI ll I fo Rd Willeford and I'm going to actually I'm going to do the stripes I always do the stripes later on a separate layer and I'm going to do this slightly but I'm oh so I got off track again like I always do but um it really just depends on as far as whether there's multiple animators or not it just depends on what the needs are for the shot and then you know we had different animators for all the effects we had different animators for different parts of the character animation so you know there's a lot of people that at least didn't brother bear in that version a lot of different people worked on that particular sequence that transformation sequence yeah dustin how long does a photoshop painting usually take to finish most of my one of the things I love about Photoshop is how fast you can do a you know you can do a painting if I was doing this traditionally saying oil or acrylic it would take me days or weeks whereas I can do a Photoshop sketch we'll probably have something relatively done by the end of this stream so two hours so we'll probably draw for two hours today you guys don't have to sit here for two hours if you don't want but you can but um yeah usually if I try to I try to I try to do two hours sometimes it'll if I'm really into something it'll go longer three or four yeah you had something oh sure well let's see we should time it a lot of times if I'm not talking the sketch you know depend up like this let's sketch that I'm doing if I'm doing the rough sketch and the finished sketch it's probably an hour you know just trying to get everything down oops not like that trying to get everything down you know in a very coherent way one of the things that um the reason I take my time on my sketch is my drawings this is my this is my technique and by no means is just you know I'm not telling everybody to do it this way because I know a lot of artists that kind of they go really loose and then refine as they go I like to find my drawing you know I like to really define my forms and where I'm going to go early in the process so I like to draw I always think of you know a good drawing as the like the architectural plans for a house except these are you know the architectural plans for a painting and you know if you have good plans then you know the building will go smoothly and that's kind of how I think about having a well drawn setup yeah can you recommend anything to help me learn the basics of Photoshop um I've actually got a video I've got a video on my on my youtube channel which you're watching right now on it's just an introduction to Photoshop illustration and Photoshop I'm no I don't know if you're an illustrator or if you're a photographer but if you're an illustrator then check out that video it'll it's basically just the really simple steps that I take to get a very basic illustration done we will be having a full full course of of in the in the near future exactly and so like Dustin just said also hopefully in the next month or two I'm going to have I'm planning an entire digital painting course which will focus on different software as well so it'll be Photoshop Corel Painter will look at procreate for um iPad pro a personal question if you could have worked on any Disney animated film in history which one would it be in whammy Bambi Bambi Bambi I love animals come on people no I definitely Bambi and Pinocchio I just I think those are the to me there's still the top well made films that Disney's ever done especially I think Pinocchio is just flawless and I'm there's been other ones that I think probably technically maybe a little better I think Snow White are nuts no way but a Sleeping Beauty technically was really really well done so I've done something wrong here and it was in the effort to find the flow but I want to correct it this is all soft tissue so you know the heat this is the crest right here this is the crest of the pelvis the hip bone and then it goes to the trochanter back here where the femur connects back here but here this is all soft tissue so this is going to sag off of that bone and then and then it comes up into the ribcage so I'm going to do that and see what it looks like see it looks a little look I don't like that so this is where I break Anatomy and go for the aesthetic and I want to keep this so I want to keep that flow going this way even though it should say yeah Dustin what is your favorite part of the process of making an illustration what's your favorite stage finishing it no I love I I love drawing and painting and doing enough digital illustration whatever I love I love the beginning I'm super impatient I've always been impatient and so after about two or three hours especially with a traditional piece I start getting impatient and then there's a sweet spot there's a spot where you're about two-thirds of the way through the illustration where you start going oh this is getting kind of fun because you know you can start to see where it's going then that you know that I really enjoy this is all I'm anticipating this all being in shadow I'm going to do I'm going to put this whole back end of his body in the shadow so I'm not going to get too super detailed here there we go then one more there we go there's that foot I keep feeling I got a sneeze oh I hate that feeling there we go so there's that foot thinking about I'm thinking about you know overlapping shapes down to the ankle here's a foot up into the thigh back of the thigh these strikes are going to come around into the bootie right down into his booty right there now let's get this other foot here somebody's asking which college did you go - I went to the Ringling College of Art and Design and Sarasota Florida I attended from 1986 to 1989 I have a certificate in animation I'm saying animation and illustration I never got my degree I never got my bachelor my bachelor's of Fine Arts because um at the time Ringling was not a four-year school and right after my third year I ended up getting hired at Disney and so I started at Disney when I was twenty one out of school and I've been animating ever since so that's where I went to school and that's how I got into Disney doesn't have a question here sure the favorite my favorite thing I've ever worked on for as far as animation I mean yeah well that's actually oh that's a really good question but I have several favorite movies and all for different reasons so I really liked working on the Lion King I really liked working on Beauty and the Beast because I liked animating the Beast The Lion King I got to have my own character I did Nala brother bear I got to co-direct it so that was another thing that I I really enjoyed and it was it was very very difficult it was the hardest thing I've ever done in animation but then I've you know there's paintings that I've done in the past you know any any um I love painting big and anytime I finish a big painting it's my favorite piece of art at that point but that's yeah that's kind of where I'm at as far as you know i-i-i don't fall in love with my my with my regular pin you know illustrations and paintings a ton because I do so much of it and I just I know the next one's going to be a lot of fun as well I've been doing this I'm almost 50 and I've been doing it since I was a little kid and I still get have just as much fun doing it from one drawing to the next so which is good so I hope that I continue that way up until I'm an even older man yeah so we got them getting that drawing in get those back legs into where I like them I want to continue this flow coming down I know your draw from real life at zoos from occasion but have you ever been recognized by any zoo staff I have in the past I've been recognized by a few people here and there and it's just happened it's just started to happen recently just since I've started in the last few years since I've started an online presence you know with through social media this cat's a little feeling a little bit younger so I have been recognized here and there but it's it doesn't happen very often so more often than not I'm just a dude sitting there drawing which is the way I like it that's the other thing too if you're an artist and you're drawing at the zoo get used to people coming over and want you to know what you're doing yeah question excuse me that's okay you can ask it I don't have any right now okay there we go so I've got I've got the tied down drawing there we go which is kind of fun he's a little thin I think this is you know kind of a young feeling tiger I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to knock that underdrawing back just a little bit more I like seeing the rough drawing that's just a personal preference I like seeing it gives them it gives it some life the drawing but I'm going to go ahead and just like oops that's the wrong thing sorry guys I don't mean to hit that there we go come on come on back there we go you guys we're looking at yourself I want to see well I usually start with that dominant Colleen if you remember I start with local color I think was a moose that we did last week and I always start with that local color local color is a color of an object when it's not in light and it's not in shadow it's just the color an object like this is going to be an orange tiger with some white highlights so I just go in first thing I do is just go in and start laying down color boom boom boom and then eventually we'll add a background and we're going to keep this loose today how long does it take you to study a whole new species let's say before you feel confident enough to start animating and stylizing if that makes sense it makes total sense it usually takes me a couple of weeks well maybe yeah I'd say a good solid two weeks because one of the things you got to realize is that like I was mentioning earlier most species mammals four-legged animals humans that sort of thing we all have the same parts we're just proportioned differently you know a bat a bat flying through the air has all the same finger bones and elbow and wrist and shoulder blade and scapula and rib cage and pelvis and all the same parts we have all the same muscles but they're just proportioned differently you know their fingers are really long a cat you know they're you know they've they've got all the same muscles and dogs and horses and all of that and so that being said I just really need to understand the shape of that animal the form and how all those different parts that I've memorized I've memorize the parts how those parts have changed in their proportion and and how they fit together to make that particular animal the way it is so that's what I focus on what is the difference between a visual development and character design and what do you think is the best thing I could do as a teenager to get better at that well visual development character design is visual development visual development isn't necessarily character design so visual character design falls under the under the umbrella of visual development so think of it this way visual development encompasses all of the visual development for a picture which means environments props characters all that kind of stuff so character design is an element of visual development okay and and if you want to do character design then by all means you know get in there draw from life still and I say this all the time and I always get flack for it and if you're young you might be doing this already I'm not sure but stop drawing manga doesn't use closing his eyes buts you know draw from life and you'll always come back to you can come back to other styles but draw from life too right look at other styles and then and then derive your own style and you can always come back to the Japanese animation Disney Animation South Park animation I don't care what it might be but it all starts with drawing from life and then from there you can start deriving you know abstracting caricature all that do you usually do really quick 10 30 second animal figure drawings as a warm-up before doing a more detailed one I don't as much anymore um sometimes I'll if I'm I might be watching television and I'll get bored and I'll go over to my computer and I'll sit down and I'll just do crib lis sketches or I'll grab up your sheet of paper and I'll do quick little five minute 2 minute whatever sketches and cover that up and but I don't really do it as an exercise per se it's just something I'll do just um pass the time oh yes I got a silly question sure how do you feel about wrestling a 50-pound teddy bear how do I feel about wrestling every time I wrestle you that's what it's like actually that's a 250 pound teddy bear yeah I was gonna say like hey I think I'm 200 pounds more than any bear my son is a sasquatch [Music] for who asked that that was mage burger mage mage that's a weird question but I like it so I'm getting on right now I'm just focusing on getting those the pattern between orange and white established how do you get the smooth lines in Photoshop I'm not sure what you're asking like because when you get the smooth blending yeah I'm it's one of my this is my custom brush that I've created and I've purposely made it to feel like a chalk pastel kind of feel that has that ability to you know I've got it set right here this not this one this right here has helps me it has a pressure sensitivity so the lighter the touch the less color it's putting down so as I work I'm as I as I make a brush stroke I lift up on the pressure and it fades into the color that's how you get that nice smooth transition what's your favorite course you've done so far on your website you know I like em all I I think probably the character design is one of my favorites and my animation course I just had a lot of fun creating those and I loved all the animal drawing courses because you know when I'm creating those I'm literally sitting down for weeks months just drawing animals and that's my favorite thing in the world to do so it just gives me an excuse to to do that and at the end and believe it or not you know every time I I go into drawing unto an animal drawing course knowing a fair amount but I do tons of research research to make sure that I'm giving you guys all accurate information and every single time I learned something new and so that's one of the things I love about doing my animal drawing courses is that I learned more than I thought I knew you get close oh wow my favorite video or live stream you know last week we did a moose that was pretty fun cuz everybody been here asking about the moves for weeks um but you know I I don't know I like them all and yeah everyone is so different that's a good question my personal affair of course was the UM has been the bare course because I was like my first really big project in the in the business yeah and you did a good job on that thank you yeah I mean I I did do part of the charcoal but I think that was kind of a collaboration of both of us doing that one yeah doing the charcoal that the charcoal course was fun too because that one was a my one and only non digital course and we're going to do a lot more of those by the way it was a lot of fun to create and we're going to do stuff on acrylics and watercolor and oil painting and we're going to do more charcoal as well but right now what I'm trying to do you know everything has variations even in the local color and so right now I'm going in and just kind of I've got that dominant orange laid down but now I'm going to go in and hit some of these other areas that the color changes a little bit how are layouts used in cartoon production exactly where they traced by the animator become extremes now layouts layouts for the stage or at least in the world that I worked in the layout is the stage where the acting happens so a layout artist it's their job to create the world that and you know this is I'm thinking 2d now so they it's their job to figure out the world that the character is going to be acting and they also think about what the camera angle is going to be and they draw this wherever that stage is going to be they draw it that from that angle and they also talk to me oh they they think about where the characters are going to sit and they think about the camera moves that's what layout is from a 2d standpoint and then it's up to us as the animators to work you know within the parameters that the layout artist has created so if I you know I'll get I'll get a rough scene and it tells me you know first of all what's happening in the storyboard so I know from an acting standpoint in an emotion standpoint what's supposed to happen but then there's the actual physical action you know where does the character come in where do they exit all that kind of stuff it's just like regular you know live stage a live stage play but uh but we have to do it in animation and the layout artist ISM is the person responsible for that I actually got a question to follow that of my own so what you're saying is the so so the layout person creates like the ground and the chairs and everything in the world or whatever yeah whatever whatever that the world is that that character is in yeah right um so how how would you know as an animator to work in that environment like do you get an image of like do you get a copy of the background yeah so the layout artist is an artist as well as so they draw it and then what I would and then when the layout artist is done it goes in two different directions I would get a copy of it a Xerox copy and I would know where to animate my character through the stage and then another copy goes to the background painter and they would go off and they would paint the backgrounds and so eventually they would all come back together again and get composited so that the animation was happy you know the the cleaned-up animation that's been painted which has gone down the line a little ways finally makes it back to the layout the background painting that's made it down the line and those two are compositing that time how you end up with a character that is acting within a shot does that make sense to do that yeah that's kind of it's kind of a long-winded way of saying it but yeah yeah basically it goes from layout to a very wide pipe line and then narrows back down again yeah and it's the layout artists that are responsible for all of that they initially when a sequence is first approved in the production the layout artist will do what's called a workbook and so they'll sit down and look at all the storyboards and sometimes the storyboard is already drawn in the way that it's staged it's staged in a way that it doesn't really need much more work and they just have to redraw the background and it can move on but a lot of times the layout artist will need to restage it maybe mail they want a down shot they want a long shot or something like that and so we'll do the the layout artists will do what's called workbooks and they'll figure out the entire sequence from shot to shot figuring out figuring out the flow and then from there they'll do the final backgrounds and go in those final backgrounds we'll go to the background artists and the animator all right so I'm going to come in here we're gonna is a sketchbook a month a good goal to aim oh yeah shoot I don't even do a sketchbook a month so if you if you're doing a sketchbook a month that's awesome yep but it you know it's really whatever it's whatever you feel suits you and if you feel like you're you're hitting it then that's great so Disney decided to reopen the studio you use to work at in Orlando would you consider to work for Disney again you know what I'm sitting here today in my in my studio at home with my son my friends and I'm drawing a tiger because I feel like it and I'm talking to a whole bunch of people around the world I find it really hard to give that up I love what I do now I love the creative freedom that I have now I love teaching if there is a good project that came up down the line with another studio maybe I would think about it but I got to tell you guys I I really love what I'm doing and I would find it really difficult to to walk away from what I'm doing now you know I don't have the big aspirations my aspirations are to be you know to live pretty simply and and just create and be happy and teach and be happy doing that which I am very much M and you know I don't have the big director goals I used to have when I was younger which is there's nothing wrong with I just don't have that in my blood anymore and I just love this the simple life that we have now and I get to draw whatever I want any day every day it's you know and if I feel like animating I'm gonna animate you know if I feel like doing this or whatever that's it's great so you had question oh they were they raise your hand um for animal drawing do you prefer autonomy study first or real observation first both I do both you know you got to do both at the same time you know real observation is fine but it's it's really hard to understand what's going on underneath even in real observation it's going study and it's really hard with Google now you know you can find any information that you want anywhere at any time and so there's just tons of information you know before I go out if I'm drawing if I know I'm going to be drawing something I'm not super familiar with I'll go on Google really fast and just go okay buh-buh-buh-buh-buh and just do a rundown and then I'll keep that in my head when I go and and start drawing and just that little bit of checking before I go always helps I'm just graying him out just a little bit back here you know first instant my favorite animal I love bears and big cats now I love all animals so I mean don't get me wrong but when it comes to drawing I love bears and big cats can't go wrong with those guys lions and tigers invade I know my bears who may so I'm going to I'm going to I want to go opposite I'm going to go kind of cool on this ground well if Dee feels more important in an old drawing or illustrations is it the expression or accurate Anatomy on animal drawing yeah in animal drawing your illustrations what do you think is more importantly the anatomy or the expression well it's the first of all hold on I got a drawing on the wrong layer for me there we go for me it's you can't have one without the other so it's it's a they're equal equally important and it depends on what you're trying to get across you know accurate Anatomy all isn't always absolutely necessary depends on what the stylization is that you're doing now you know I always believe in deriving your your caricature from a you know background knowledge of accurate Anatomy but you know it doesn't mean it has to be accurate in the finished product so it just really depends on what it is you're trying to get across but you know when it comes to just regular animal drawing or caricature you know they're both equally important and I'm just I don't I'm just scribbling in something right now have you handled drawing in public whoa and being approached I struggle with it and avoid it due to people approaching or watching how how do you overcome that any tips people are curious and you got to just accept the fact that you as an artist are going to draw attention and people like that and so you know it's accept it roll with it and enjoy it because if you're going to go out and draw in public you're gonna you're going to draw attention no pun intended so now I'm just created a layer on top and I'm I set it to multiply and now I'm going to start adding some shadow would you get upset if Disney ruins your design of now on the remake of Lankin no that's it's Disney's first of all I don't think they would second of all I designed Nala when I was 22 years old I'm sure it can be improved upon and no I wouldn't bother me I've got nothing I loved every moment working at Disney I loved everything about it I've got nothing bad to say I don't have any I just I loved working there it was a it was a great experience and the reason I loved it is because I was surrounded by some of the best artists in the world I thought you know and really great people we had a really good time and and we were always treated really well and you know at the end of the day we're making cartoons for a living so that's that's a pretty cool job and going back to the question I really just don't think it would happen because we you know Disney Pixar DreamWorks a hire nothing but top-quality high-caliber people so I don't think anyone would screw up any kind of designs if anything they'd improve upon my whole my whole designs when you're sketching where do you use a thick strokes most like thicker lines a lot of times if I'm if we're just if I'm just doing line work the question is where do I use the thicker lines if it's just going to be line work a lot of times I think about where the light and shadow are going to be and if it's an area that's lit it'll be a lighter lighter line work and if it's an arien shadow then I'll go heavier with the line so obviously if a character is lying down like this if I wasn't coloring it I'd go probably a little heavier on the on the line work underneath you know along the ground because that's going to be in shadow like I'm doing now that sort of thing so here you can see I'm just lightly quickly adding some shadow in here oh you have a question what was your favorite thing about working in DZ you know my favorite thing about working at Disney was all my friends and I matter of fact I had a whole bunch of great friends there I got to do it again hold on we find him Kim Jackson we got to mention Jim Jackson there he is and you guys you guys got to check out Jim Jackson the question was what was my favorite thing about working at Disney we had we had bands we played music together we drew together pulled in Jackson was always part of it Jim Jackson is an animator at blue sky and I've always got this thing I got to mention Jim this is something that I've done in every interview the have done we've done it for 25 years go check out Jim's a great animator by the way you need to go go to jy Jackson - dot-com jy Jackson - dot-com that's his website you'll see his animation he's got some amazing animation there but my the question was my favorite part and it was with my friends you know Ronnie Willeford who's my great friend now who's another guy you got to check out check them out on YouTube check them out on Facebook you know we met at Disney they're all the greatest friends that that I've got other than high school I met at Disney and and we're still we still keep in touch you still hang out and we still crack jokes on each other Jim Jackson Jim Jackson I'm just like saying his name Jim Jackson do you believe an artist that would love to work for Disney needs a degree or do you think a portfolio could speak for itself without a degree a portfolio is always always always more important than the degree now it doesn't mean I'm not saying don't get a degree some people need to go through the process of getting a degree in order to get to learn what they need to learn some people are you know don't need that I'm not here to tell you that you do or don't need a degree but when it comes to looking at who I'm going to hire I don't look at a piece of paper to say you've graduated college I look at the work that's in your portfolio so take that with a grain of salt take out the way you want and then make your own decision from there and I was on the review board for 20 years at Disney and I looked at a lot of portfolios and some people didn't have degrees and I can this I can tell you a lot more people made it into the studio that had degrees then that didn't have degrees and it's not because we weren't looking at them because they had a degree but we're looking at them because their art was better they had better training so take that with a grain of salt as well are using any reference for this drawing sorry this has been asked before before I just logged in yep so that's what the that's okay I'm glad you said that because I was about ready to go ballistic on you no I'm kidding now this is this whole this whole smack now this all this whole stream today is all about using I was ah yesterday I was at the big cat habitat in Sarasota Florida sketching and photographing and so now I'm using the photographs and sketches and we're doing this this image today so yes I'm using both sketches and photography and I'm just going kind of loose I'm talking a lot so when I talk a lot the stuff comes out a little funky but it's alright we're having fun we're having fun we've been at it for an hour so we're we're getting there I'm going to do with my highlights my highlights so now I create a new layer on top and I set it to overlay and that's going to help me hit some highlights I'm going to go nice and warm are we doing James it's already been an hour an hour time flies crazy huh if you're just joining I've got James Johnson here in the studio with me there he is James Johnson James Johnson right there and we're hanging out how many good time there we go it's getting a little too yellow for me so I want to come back on that and I'm going to I'm going to [Music] going to hit some of these areas a little bit and then we're going to add the stripes and wait till you see how the stripes really pull all this together you know it just looks like a an orange cat but those stripes are really going to pull everything together as a subscriber to your awesome website it is awesome isn't it it is sort of do you offer critiques on personal animations or maybe you could have some submissions that you can critique during a live stream you know what that's a great idea we've been I get this question a lot and we haven't figured out a way we can do it you have a lot of people that want that and so it's hard for me it's going to be hard for me to accommodate everybody so we need to figure out a way that we can do it and we're still trying to figure it out so we are thinking about it excuse me and we will come up with a solution very soon I'm gonna go ahead do the stripes now the black stripes Hey all right whoops oh come on man there we go and this is still very obviously it's very cartoony at this point because it's we're just still laying in normally I would be a lot a little bit further along but I've been yapping a lot there we go are you doing over there Bryan Johnson I'm doing great mr. blaze how are you good Bryan Johnson James's father he and I have known each other since long time long time was in middle school did we say definitely ninth grade Heist ninth grade high school at least we can't remember if we knew each other a middle school or not we're talking about this the other night we're sitting out of my front I think we decided that we did because you went to a different middle school than I did that's right so we met we met as freshman in high school of all the big cats ae-ja what does your was your favorite I love Tigers I love tigers and lions yeah I love them love them all I did I liked Tigers just because of the you know for the part that I'm doing now I like when it comes time to do the stripes and it all just it all just comes together and the stripes are always a very specific stripes on a tiger like fingerprints on people it's you know they they they're very unique each tiger has his own stripes this guy I'm just going to I'm just looking at how his stripes fall and I'm just copying him you can see I go up fairly quickly and loose there we go in which studio did James Johnson work what studio did James Johnson work in just a kid guys have you ever thought about wanting to be an animator yeah that's cool well maybe you should ask what study did my dad work in give you a good answer oh yeah what's - did you work in Bryant oh I worked at a boutique art facility in Winter Park Florida called silent planet awesome silent planet very nice what you guys print it pretty much do they do a lot of print things but we also did we did some commercial work for Disney a few times out for instance they had a local career fair so we did the local spot for TV to get people to go out and apply for jobs things like that are developmental art work for some universal attractions some of the stuff that went into a lot of just a lot of local business things for the Orlando Central Florida area awesome was a good time his Dave it's Dave Clayton how's Dave Clayton been on because we miss Dave Clayton the last couple times you mean you might only be on Facebook but if you see Dave Clayton you got to let me know I will I think I've only noticed anything um on Facebook I don't know if he has a youtube so you have noticed them and you didn't bring them up I had sort of all right so now we're coming around and have some fun what's the advantage of drawing the stripes after putting in highlights and shading well if you notice I'm doing that I'm putting and it's not showing up a ton but I'm doing the though I'm doing them underneath the shadow and highlight layers I just I wanted to find that form before I for me it's just a personal preference I wanted to find that form before I before I start adding the stretch because the stripes will actually on one hand they actually help define the form because they wrap around but on the other they kind of break it up a little bit and I want to see the form in its purity before I put the stripes on and I like to keep the stripes on their own layer that gives me complete control any animation exercises you recommend to warm up a beginners level animation exercises you know at any time you can do some short dialogue anytime you can do anything that has a change of idea you know anything that that involves expression you know emotion emoting expression any of that kind of stuff that's always good I'm going to keep all this pretty loose coming down under the neck I love drawing Tigers already animated knobbler from from The Lion King just wondering did you also design her I did she is based on my daughter her eyes are based on my daughter Austen blaze look up Austin she just had a baby I'm gonna granddad twice over now look her up on Facebook and tell her you said hi she would really be creeped out by that yeah well over 300 people just randomly going into her Facebook channel hey I know your dad [Laughter] my name is Austin blaze so here we are we're getting there stripes on the neck here a little funky with fellow animators does anyone ever get stressed out watching animated movies feeling like you're never going to get there never going to get there huh yeah ever do you ever uh you have any advice to combat that feeling I don't know what a question is like watching like like people that want to get the animation business and seeing these animated movies uh-huh like they have that feeling like like maybe or maybe not they might they might not not make it to that point well you know what it's uh I got a lot of advice on that boy I think I just open Pandora's box okay you know what and I and I'm gonna sound like this is my time to sound like the grumpy old curmudgeon man we live this generation and I'm sorry whoever asked the question but I'm just going to let you know that I'm going to let you have it don't be impatient we live I call this the the American Idol generation it's everybody's you they want instant success and you know what you're going to get there but you have to work at it everything in this generation everybody's used to instant instant gratification we've gotten you know you want something and I know I'm sounding I can't help it but they just you have to there certain things relationships jobs certain things have to build and they have to take time you have to take your time too to get there and it's just going to take time one of the number one questions I get when I go to colleges to speak is they they asked me hey what do I need to do to become a director and this is a person still in college you got to work 20 or 30 years that's what you got to do so don't be stressed out just know that it's a journey and enjoy the journey it's going to be great you're going to love it and you're going to get there if you work hard at it and if you like it enough you're going to get there I guarantee you and maybe you didn't have that intention asking the question and if you didn't I apologize but if you did I don't apologize I want you I want you I want you to enjoy yourself get out there and enjoy it and don't stress over whether or not you're going to get there if you love what you do you'll get there Austin Austin is watching this right now everybody's going hi Austin uh-huh she just reply with hey everybody oh it's awesome no that's awesome hey very funny all right so this is the other thing to notice how I'm using the stripes to really define the form you know I'm going to feel the roundness of that forearm so I don't I'm trying I'm purposely not doing the stripes straight down I'm following that form to give the illusion of roundness roundness there we go how do you stylize a character after taking nanri classes I I can draw realistic characters but I'm not able to achieve a style you know what that that's something that just takes time it's um you know and it's not something I can answer in oh you know one fell swoop but it's it just takes time and in practice there's certain principles that I follow when it comes to character design and caricature not to sell my stuff but I do have a whole course on character design where I talk about that stuff and that's why I'm saying I can't answer it in just one quick question because the course is actually over 20 hours worth of teaching but it's um it just takes time and practice like anything else and one of the best things you can do is just look at some of your favorite artists and how they've handled it and here we go and then from there you know there's fundamentals to doing character designing caricature just like there are to any kind of any kind of realistic drawing so I'm slowly making my way back along the this cat which cat see other stripes or stripes are coming together you can kind of fun now huh yeah yeah yeah I got a tough audience here folks [Laughter] [Music] Dustin that's Dustin in this chip much my my my appreciation extraordinaire my son does the best person ations yeah my my twisting my head this thing where people can donate to uh hear hear my impersonations and every once in a while people just crack up whenever whenever a donation is put in there feels like only one so it puts donation like hey wanna I want to hear Arnold Schwarzenegger like but I thank you so much we donate to I got to get that to the top on a stole cloud it's absolutely fun there we go now trying to get a little bit I'm trying to turn those and this it's shaggy or fur in here so I'm giving the illusion that I'm trying to give the illusion and I will add a little bit of fur over the top of that that we're getting some white fur overlapping the dark stripe and it's it's a little shaggy er how do you go about refining I always seem to go into details too quickly um then don't I know and that said if you know that you're doing it then really discipline yourself not to that's the best thing I can tell you I and it's I the best answer I can give you is I start broad I start with looseness and I work towards the tightness now I've been I've been doing this for a long time so then I work the same way every time and you know working keeping the process consistent really enables you to with your speed to speed up so I'm able to although this isn't super fast today I'm able to go a lot quicker because I do it the same way every time so you're gonna sure to available for purchase on the website but any chance you'd put some hats up for sale in those sighting time soon as well but these hats uh nobody wants to buy these hats who the heck wants an art of errand blaze hat seriously I didn't think anybody would I was just thinking about getting 100 well be honest really I haven't really thought about it because I didn't think anyone would want that but if it's something that people want then we'll put them up maybe we'll do some giveaways or something if you don't remember fire we got one yeah well you know I already had plenty ads yeah if it's something that people want if you know if you let us know if you if that's something you're interested in we'll we'll get some hats out upon the up on the website Nick said hats will be up next week Wow all right Nick go Nick it's your birthday no it's not really but is it but I'm just one sec that was just weird yeah I'll go without that it's just weird all right I'm almost done sorry guys I'm coming down the home stretch on these freaky deaky stripes and there's a certain pattern you know for the back legs to they kind of the way the stripes work when you were a teenager from 14 to 19 years oh how many hours did you draw daily I drew all the time I drew it in school I drew I end up going to summer school because I just drew instead of doing my homework I I drew I don't know how many hours but I drew all the time I was a creepy kid too I find roadkill I was really interested in animal Anatomy I'd find road can we lived in a little trailer out in the woods and I'd find roadkill and take it home and throw it up on the roof so our parents wouldn't see it I'd throw it up on the roof and let it decay and then I'd crawl up on the roof of the trailer and pull the bones down and study the bones and draw from them I did it all the time yeah I kept yeah I kept dead animals in the freezer and drew from them I was like a little miniature Jeffrey Dahmer it's creepy but I learned a lot and my one of my big idols was John James John James Audubon who you know back in the 1700s would take specimens he was you know he'd shoot I mean he'd hunt birds and they'd bring him back into the studio and study them and I really was fascinated by that as a kid and there we go and so I you know I never had the heart to kill anything but I did I was you know anything that was already dead that was fair game for me the stripes on the on the tail started they start to getting kind of wonky they get big and thick and there we go and so yeah so I had you know my collections were like owl pellets I I knew where there is an owl nest out near my house and so I go out and gather the owl pellets and I'd bring them home and and dissect them so I could I'd have all the little mouse skeletons that they had eaten and I'd put together little mouse skeletons and their little skulls and that was that was my that's what I collected when I was a kid and that's me there we go so he said we should have a there we go count Harry oh here we go oh yeah am I still saying it let me be notice it anymore I just want to end it brando says leonardo da vinci did that too ah he did except he did it with people have you ever stressed about your art oh of course I think we all as artists at some point or another will stress we worry about if we're good enough you know my biggest thing is I in Glen Keane talks about this - at some point someone's going to figure out I'm a fraud at some point someone's going to figure out that you know I don't know what I'm doing I'm just sitting here drawing and and it's I don't know I think it's you know sometimes you just you know I think artists are inherently insecure sometimes and you know creating an image is a very intimate thing this is coming right out of your brain through your hand onto the paper there's like Tiger yeah so far so good so yeah so yeah I do get an I do I have suffered from that but you know lately I'm it doesn't it's not something I deal with as much anymore how do you decide when to stop working on your on your artwork because when I started detailing it never ends well that I I'm lazy that way I am I don't want to keep going so I just I go until I'm tired of it or until I can where I really feel like it's okay that's good enough you know like no more I don't want to do anymore I don't wanna I wanna what this is um it's gonna get fun here in a minute we're gonna have some we're gonna have play with some light oh yes a steak so I'm going to do you still keep in touch with going keen you know what I don't keep in touch with them as much as I wish I did Glen's a very busy guy we've communicated we've emailed a couple times in the probably in the last year or so I think the lat actually has probably been longer than that the last time we communicated was right after he finished duet and and then after that we haven't really been in touch do you usually listen to music well while you're drawing I always listen to music while I'm drawing always always always I can't sit in silence and draw it drives me crazy let's go ahead I'm gonna I'm gonna add a shadow what's your question no no I don't because I'm talking I'm a luxury I'm trading anecdotes so no let's add a shadow so what I've done is I've created a layer on top and I am putting a big shadow across the sky I've gone in create a layer on top set it to multiply this is one of the reasons I like using multiply because I can do things like this where it really feels like oh wow you know I just painted a shadow over this guy let's make it feel like he's being crossed over by I can use that shadow to follow his form let's try this maybe that shadow comes underneath I'll put all this into shadow see what that looks like look at that do you think James hold on hold on before you before you say anything before you say if you don't like it or not hold on we're going to we're going to make this right yeah no don't think it not a vigor see that shadow going across his body his bug dead there we go just keeping it loose keeping it loose loose as a goose I'm going to do another layer over the top I'm going to set that to overlay I want to warm up I want to really warm up that orange see what it looks like I'm not sure it's going to work but we're going to try it anyway you're awfully quiet over there Dustin trying to pick up the best question here three main styles I see for animation are disney manga and cartoonish as someone who enjoys painting fairly realistically do you have any art style is suitable for animation aside from the mainstream um that's a good question I don't know I mean I'm I think my style if I if I were really left to my druthers I would probably go more realistic and I think snowbear which is the project that we're working on right now will end up going in that direction although it's probably more in the Disney realm as well see I'm warming this up with I did another little overlay it really kind of warms that up so yeah I mean I matter of fact I think I think we're due for something like that so there's that right there good I want to go a little dark in the background now did someone teach you how to use Photoshop my friend Andy Harkness there's another guy you guys should look up he was one of the art directors on Moana among other projects he's art-directed open season I think he directed the original open season and he used to be a layout artist at Disney that's how in Florida that's how we know each other but we're also really great friends and I was developing a project Disney before I left called the king of the elves and Andy was going to be our art director and at the time I was still working on pencil and paper but I knew because it was going to be a digital film 3d I knew that I needed to get in there and just start just start working digitally and so I asked Disney to go ahead and give me Photoshop and and a Cintiq and being Disney they were very accommodating and they did that and Andy kind of showed me the basics on what I needed to do and then from that point on I just kind of came up with my own technique that's one of the great things about Photoshop is that it's so robust anybody can adapt their own approach you know and make it work so Andy Harkness though he was the guy that really showed me the way so here we go let's rotate it around so I'm basically this is this to me now is kind of the rough we got the rough guy laid in which feels kind of nice now I like to just going to throw in a few highlights a few details and then we'll call it done so when you're painting in you're listening to music do you play music that relates to what you're painting like for exhibition and feel or do you just listen to music that you just just like I just listen to music that I like I listen to a lot of Blues lately I've been listening just to a lot of mood music like chill-out type stuff lecture swing a little bit not as much anymore I kind of got over that but some of it and there we go sorry they hit a few little details in here but uh yeah it's just music that I like that I just want to listen to now I don't listen to music when I'm just starting to animate a shot and especially if it has dialogue for some reason it uses the same part of my brain and I can't do it it's it's like I don't know it's hard to explain but I can't I can't listen to dialogue and try to figure out what I'm going to do with it and listen to music at the same time it's very very distracting for me so it's not until I have a scene completely roughed out if I'm animating that I stuck that I actually turn on the music and it's only when I get to the point where I'm just like filling and drawings doing in-betweens breakdowns that sort of thing that I uh that I do that nope is there a character you wish you animated um there's movies that I wished I worked on I wish I worked on Iron Giant I love that movie [Music] you know that that's probably about it I wish I worked on Tarzan I really loved that character as well adult Tarzan you know plus it was a chance to work with Glenn again I worked with Glenn several times I worked with him on Pocahontas and then I'm buting the beast and it's always a pleasure working with Glen Keane so if I could have done that again that would have been great so you can see I'm just hitting I'm just hitting details just a couple of just a couple places to break things up a little bit and you'll notice too that I put a little shadow in there you'll notice too that what I do when I get to an area that I want to highlight or put in the shadow I come in and I grab the color first and then I'll I'll decide to go a little darker maybe maybe I want to add some fur texture in there or I can decide okay I want to go a little lighter with it we can hit some highlights and some fur like that well I do some Disney features get cancelled in their production it might there might be just so many story issues with it that they just decide that they're better just to eat what they've done so far and take the loss than to continue with it and and losing more money that's the biggest reason but it really does not happen that much anymore if at all it just doesn't I'm just finishing up some of these details oops there we go oh I just said it again there you go there we go there we go let's get some whiskers whiskey whiskey's cool hwhip good work whip there we go if somebody mentioned about your deal with them love with listening mute like not being able listen to music while while animation yeah he says I've been taught to only listen to instrumental music when working on art maybe instrumental would be better for working on on dialogue scenes yeah you know what I've tried that too and it even instrumental music doesn't I can't do it it's I have to have absolute silence and I don't know why is its I listen to music all the time and then after that I mind I'm worried it doesn't matter what I'm just doing if I'm painting like this I listen to I can listen to anything hey because you need rage because you need to be so focused on imagining the scene to get the key frames down and then once you and so that's why you probably can't listen to music of this I think you're right because once you get the key frames down that's just about drawing in the in-betweens and you can be more relaxed with with that point so that's when you can that's when you can listen to music because you're not concentrating so hard at that point you got it Choctaw Willie you there we go so this is he I'm a doctor so there we're hitting a couple of are you doing the detailing in a normal layer yeah the detailing I'm doing in a normal layer should have said that yeah I'm doing it opaque right over the top enjoined do you ever have a that moment when your inner Disney style drawing suddenly affects your your joint layer currently doing you know it it happens occasionally you know you can't not you can't work on this stuff for 20-some odd years and not have influenced your work in some way it doesn't happen that often but um I think my my natural style nowadays does have a little bit of a caricature to it which I kind of like actually we're getting there folks this is going this is going to be a full to our stream today you thought about a name for the for the tiger your joy no what should it be who should it be well let James name them come on man okay I had a good I won't stay attire just cuz cause oh yeah you don't know about it huh well let's call him Kevin yeah that Tiger totally looks like a Kevin yeah well if you don't name him I'm naming him Kevin and if Kevin deters is watching if you guys don't know Kevin deters you gotta check out Kevin deters there we go how about Shere Khan taking a shark on it's not shark on here come hey I just named it a shark on oh it's your kind of brother yeah gotcha shut up loves your Khan's brother shark on so you can see I'm just adding a few little details to Britt to break up to not to just to break it up a bit have you watched the Emperor's New Groove documentary that followed how much the production changed oh yeah I was high I watched it change I was there I wasn't part of the movie but I watched it actually never and you know what we we all got would go through that you know it's that wasn't special to just Emperor's New Groove almost all of our films go through that much change thank you your believe Brother Bear went through that much change oh yeah we went through a lot of change Aladdin you know Aladdin was they were well on their way to making the film I was I was about ready to start and they Jeffrey Katzenberg who was at Disney at the time he halted the production and I think they went away for four or five weeks and rewrote everything so you know Aladdin used to have a mom and all kinds of stuff that was all right out of the movie so it's just that's a real common practice it just happens it just happens come in here and hit some keeping it cool keeping it cool I'm hitting some fur on top that's going to catch a little bit more light even though it's in shadow this has been fun anytime we get to draw big cats for you guys I enjoy it another thing you do let me show you this this is kind of cool where's the stripes there's the stripes if I go over to the stripes I'm going to create two of them get rid of one because just in case I ruin one you can see I've created actually if I blow this up really big I've got this brush and I grab my smear tool and I've created this dress it's just a bunch of dots dots and if you come in here or make it small enough and I hit you so if I blow this up creating fur texture just like that I can knock back knock the percentage back a little bit so it's not quite as strong yeah see how I'm doing there James see how it makes it look like fur yeah thanks man thanks brother brother man thank you now one of my favorite paintings at that dad here every day was a was a real oil painting of a close up shop of a African elephant you remember that painting I do and it was kind of like a half of the elephant's face but he it was a huge huge portrait and it was so well detailed that from afar a person s seen for the first time would think is a photograph Thanks in fact I was actual that was a real elephant that charged your mother and I in Africa sounds fun yeah but um it was actually a time when I had my white give my son my friends a tour and um and while my friend saw saw the painting and said wow that's a really nice photograph why'd he have it Franklin so big I'm like that's that's not a photograph dude that's a that's a painting you're like no way like you look look Oh walk up to look at the lines and he and when he got closer he saw all the oil oil streaks it was like holy crap started freaking out I was like that too was what I saw that Eagle Facebook which one was that uh-huh it looks so realistic that was something looks like a picture taking huh so good thank you so we're just going to just hitting up some highlights here finishing up and then you know I'm going to throw a little bit of texture in the background but once again I want to reiterate the real reason we're doing this is because I went out to big cat habitat in Sarasota and drew from life gathered reference and was able to come back here and create this image based off of all that and that's what you know that's why I really encourage everyone to get out into the field whether it's landscape painting or animal drawing get out there and and draw like this because it it really will help you there we go it really will help you in the end just want to add a little bit of extra a little bit of light on here and I I tend to stay pretty loose paint pretty direct and pretty loose there we go they're feeling like we got a good sense of light let's go ahead and up let's do this let's just add like I was talking about earlier I'm going to go warmer and I'm going to go a little bit brighter here we'll start with that how would you suggest improving the line art and coloring how do I suggest proving the line art and the coloring I don't that's too broad of a question you have to be more specific I'm not quite understanding what the question is I'm guessing just to like get the fire like improving on like the finer details and and just coming from the right coloring really strong observation you know I I'm always observing you just have to yeah it just comes from a lot of observation if I'm answering if I'm getting the gist of the question right sounds about right but um Nick says that that was a good time for you to do a pan and zoom of your of the painting okay so here we are right heel right heel no heel I'm just just adding a couple of and I'm keeping it loose keeping all of this really loose as a goose and so NASA can we see the the reference yes as well like a so that's the other thing I'm not a slave to the reference this is this is my reference right here OOP oh whoops there we go so here's my reference right heel that's the reference and then there's the painting so I you can see I changed things quite a bit I wanted him to feel more at attention I changed the slope of the forehead probably a little too much but that's that's pretty much how I you know I wanted to get that really designee flow through the tail into the body so I added that there's still I mean there's there's probably another two hours worth of work I would do on this to get it to feel you know environmentally I'm not anywhere near where I want it to be but um let me move this up and then I'm also it was it started out with this kind of inaccurate but it was a sketch that I did from life looking at the tiger less you and then I use that and the and the photograph or the that's actually a still frame from the video let me finish out some of this really want it to mimic the curve that flow that we've got I'll probably push that back here in a sec where do you find your motivation and inspiration besides photos of course you know just being out in nature I I get all of my inspiration being out there I love one of my favorite well my favorite thing to do in the world is travel to me that's the that's the biggest education the best thing you can do is travel meeting other people seeing other cultures bringing that knowledge home and you know going to foreign lands and under you know and doing all that that really that's where I get my inspiration I'm going to try let's see I'm going to try doing something over-the-top in front of him let's do this just see what this looks like nope I got to do it up here where am i up here there we go and it would need we definitely need to add some grasses this is all just one color I'd have to go in and add quite a bit of color to this have you ever used the other Wacom pens like the airbrush or art pen if so did you see a benefit from the pro pen uh I haven't actually this so sorry I'm going to do this have you ever thought about streaming on Twitch oh yes we've actually had twitch approached us wanting us being before being interested in twitch is interested in having us come on so that's something we've talked to them about so yes we have thought about it if we start if we start a twitch account I can get that or yeah yeah us Ivan I've been trying to talk and do it forever we will definitely do it at some point as we grow they're so the grass is there we go just add a little bit of I just keep it loose whoops keeping it loose baby but there there's a you know there's a nice quick sketch not quick but there's a nice sketch done based on our travels yesterday I want to break up some of these edges a little bit what I like to do when I do that oops is this I want to lose some of the edges a little bit I'm just going to experiment a little bit just to just to soften him up a little bit especially I'll upon that neck that's where it was bothering me the most one to soften that there we go that feels pretty good all right we're almost done let me come in here all right we are almost we're almost there James come on there we go just changing up some of that color they're keeping it loose it's not like a broken record done let's start one more thing I want to try this is why this when I get to this point someone is asking me when do I know when to stop this is where I really kind of play around and experiment like right now I want to see what it looks like if I darken this shadow really get some good contrast in here maybe I pull that out a little bit it's all about experimenting I like the texture there we go I like darkening that shadow just uh just a hair just a hair just a hair there we go here now you know what I haven't done I haven't saved it hmm Oh that we've been robbed let's call it a tiger demo oh that's actually perfect timing goes there's somebody that just wrote save all cats hey baby so let's do this I'm gonna go ahead and one of the things I like to do is layers I'm going to flatten it so what flattened it and then the first thing I do when I do that because I want to keep my Photoshop file with all the layers and I know there's other ways of doing it but this is the way I do it I just call it tiger demo flat um so now I think there's a couple of things I can do here I want to experiment with let's play with this saturation let's see if we want to saturate it a little bit more which I kind of like push that saturation just just a bit and then we can do one more thing yeah let's see here when I go really warm super bright and warm I come up to my airbrush I'm going to set this to color dodge I'm going to bring the percentage way down the opacity way down to like 8% and I'm going to create a new whoop so I'm going to duplicate this layer and just for just for giggles I want to brighten a couple of spots doing that with that with that color dodge tool there we go there now we got a nice sense of maybe do it right in here to get a nice sense of light so he said always saves before experimenting always I'm going to knock this back a little bit because it's a little too bright it's a small change I kind of like it there there we go so there's our tiger for the day that was fun gotta sign it me and I don't like the signature to stand way out so we'll do that and we'll do this put it back to normal a really small sign it right in here where we want to sign it there we go oh that's a signed on the wrong layer pump I should have created a new layer we're started getting up people asking for dragons dragons is a good idea that'll be fun actually would be really cool there's all different sorts of possible ideas for one so there there you go guys so that was fun today and do we we hit oh we hit two hours man so there's our there's our Tiger drawing for today get out draw from life do the drawing recording bring recording equipment camera video camera whatever bring all of the drawings all of that is to our tools to come back to the studio that where you can then create more art more finished art in the studio so I hope you guys learned something I really had a good time with James come on back over here James there he is and I'm Bryan ci Bryan hey thanks Karen it was a pleasure being here I really appreciate ya we had a blast and so um get out there and do everything I was talkin about create some beauty put it back into the world that's what we're supposed to do as artists and until next time I where's my arrow there we are oh and if you want more lessons if you want you know more lessons on animation drawing painting animal drawing character design any of that stuff check out my website creature art teacher com I've got a ton of stuff there and yeah so go out and and have some fun and create some art and make some beauty and we will talk to you next week and remember I'm a face book amount every Tuesday 1:00 p.m. back here again next Thursday I'll talk to you later bye

Channel: The Art of Aaron Blaise

Views: 22,688

Rating: 4.9711885 out of 5

Keywords: Photoshop, Adobe, Tiger, Illustration, Digital Art, Aaron's Art Tips, live stream, field sketches, lessons, tutorials

Id: p89kQ6N86Wk

Length: 124min 35sec (7475 seconds)

Published: Thu May 25 2017