The Sketchbook Series - Crash McCreery

this is my favorite part of the sketchbook I buy sketchbooks just to leave them blank because there's they're gorgeous right I see this like the opportunity and I don't know if it's potential or if it's just that it's like smell OOP - do you know how some people have how some people have a theme song I've talked to somebody who said that you had like I'll be doing the dishes and I'm like done thinner than that I know they know the rocky theme song don't clean that go ahead it has to be they look at life and mine is just like doodoo that's my song no I want to go big I've never done big yeah like my fingers you know it's funny because um I haven't lived in these sketchbooks in a long time and these are the first sketch books that I really started since I was a kid because yeah I never I never joined sketchbooks because when I was younger everything was about drawing for someone else when I was a real little kid it was for me and it was me learning and all that stuff but I was always envious of people that sketched in sketchbooks because I just I didn't have that thing in me to do it for myself and so these sketch books are really notebooks for when I was working on a film and the first one I did was for a Rango and we sat in a ton of meetings and I found myself doodling so this really this is my Rango sketchbook so we worked a lot with ILM and and I would just it would be like I'm really a media thing because I really fast kind of conversations and know like this like what if the fly looked like that or so it's just chicken scratch that only the director hope it's going on like this this is the sequence but I use it for notes I like if I find interesting images or something like that I'll kind of cut them out and paste him in that was for something and then I just got into just drawing for the sake of drawing which I had never done before which is weird you know I think I would be doing it all the time but I did it for work or for somebody else so much that the last thing I wanted to do is sit down keep drawing so they go surfing or I'd rather go do something else and I suddenly started to realize like what it meant to draw on a sketchbook because it was for me and no one was supposed to see any of this so it's this is a very strange experience right now because I feel very exposed and and very self-conscious and I don't do characters but that guy looks just like that's Craig he's the editor Gore Verbinski and again this is all Rango stuff so it's like the spider piano player what does he look like and how did you sit on things this is the repetitive word like 87 characters in Rango and we were sitting with ILM and they were so great but they're like we've gotta cut some creatures out we can't do more guys I know and I was like no and so these are creature cutlets like the creatures in the frying pan and I like that as I bless reconnect to do his testicles and he's like no please and it so it is a release it's kind of like this is my frustration now I'm over it supposed to be fun and I like it when you don't you start something without a purpose in mind it's just the love of drawing and then it turns into something that this guy just ended up looking like Mick Jagger with Stone lips together said he was voodoo Mick you became blue to make and then I would do think subject matter that I just loved I love you know like mythological creatures and and so I did this Minotaur and he's like holding a butterfly and I'm always trying to infuse some sort of emotional kind of impact there I don't want to just draw for the sake of drawing and if it's not there immediately or initially kind of come back in a sec ah she I should redo that so like that that became something else so I do like a full scan in Photoshop and then the butterfly became a mouse and it's like oh the Minotaur they're like in like a maze so then it became the maze the mouse in the Minotaur and then a story developed out of that and you know it just started with an initial sketch of because I like to draw horns and a bull things and and so then you start infusing well the miniatures in this maze that's too high for him to see over but the mouse has the knowledge because he's low and can see through he's pointing to the way out and I think it's a good lesson in don't you know the big picture you know you things can seem so huge sometimes that there's just no way out of it and sometimes them of a smallest solution is the key you know so things like that I I am terrified to tell people things like that or to show that process because it's you don't know if it's stupid or people don't get it or you know what are you thinking and so I that's when I really started to fall in love with drawing and sketchbooks again I mean I'm a very insecure person and that just comes from a lot of nonsense you know when I was younger and that can be troublesome because people will mistake that for arrogance you know just being shy you know and it's like no this Dutton's and so you know I'll fall into this nobody understands me and so now I can like maybe kind of this is what I really mean so this is actually really very good that I'm showing you all this stuff oh hey I am thinking what most of the sketches I do are sometimes well most of our jokes like I don't know why but I love to have like a little thing like this is the Bohemian Rhapsody is that right am i saying right believing in ab city where he's just puking up the notes little peg Anini stuff here this is stupid stuff that's so like this is like high school this is like Whitney drawing your peachy folder in high school and I thought of it but funny - you lost a ball over the neighbor's yard that's just waiting for you then and then I'm just a geek for monster stuff this is another one like I don't know and this is for a different project that Gore was doing I never draw portraits people I don't know what I have about people drawing people people to me I had a crush on a drawing high school and I drew a picture of her like as a present she didn't know and I just drew it from looking at a photograph of her and I was done I sent it to her and I never heard from her again you know after he tried to his and then I lifted the drawing like five years later and she looked like the Phantom of the Opera like it was so bad like I was so enthralled with like my emotional you know that I was trying to do it right that I wouldn't yeah and she was just tweaked and and that I think that scarred me for life like I because when you draw somebody they expect but you know because everyone has an image of themselves so animals I feel like I can put personality into an animal but to capture the personality of a person it's difficult and I respect and appreciate anyone that can do that so I you know there's something about like I was huge when I was a kid we move it around to like every couple of years my dad was in the service so you know I friends every time we moved and it got really tiresome and I just really learned to kind of just enjoy being by myself and doing my own thing and animal I love animals they just you know always a trying to dinosaurs you know or something that lives on this planet that looks like a monster and it's so awesome so I was in that world and then I got really into birds and this guy was at the airport like I was at the airport and he was sitting across from me and again I could draw him because he had features that were so unique and like I know I just got it I can draw this guy because it's not like the ideal human being you know and then I felt bad because then I think that he kind of caught on that I was drawing him and he got up and he moved because I swear waiting for a plane you know and it's like I'm never doing that again because I just feel bad it's awful god this was some frustration because they were sending a lot of work to Bangkok we were gonna make t-shirts that don't send work away and I did our King Kong I don't know because I just needed to do I was gonna draw on a guitar but it's so I had to figure it out what was I gonna draw on the guitar the simplest sketches that were just after thoughts turn into something whole like this for instance where I love to draw lighting situations like technically that's my technical thing I love to do I love I love to figure out form just in shadow and light and so I'll draw a shape just based on that and then it will kind of turn into something and then I gave him a harp for some reason I don't know why and I said well he's got to have wings and then so he turned into like an angel toad so I had I do something about it so I did this this you know painting so they died like the inspiration of just something that kind of goes you know I'd never know I don't know if you it had told me to do that you know or that I would have really come out it come out of my head if I hadn't gone through the process of it so I don't mind this is funny somebody said hey we're doing a lot of Pirates of the Caribbean ride do you have any ideas for a ride like what we could do different so I had an idea of like maybe the boat splits you put the kids in one side and the parents in the other side and then the boat like splits in half and goes in two different directions so the kids are freaking out like they can't be what they're good that that would be an experience you know and it's like that's traumatic that's not a ride that's that's torture yeah exactly totally this one I like this is funny if I only had a brain so he takes Dorothy's brain and then sometimes I like what's great about now too is if you need reference you just go to your phone and it's just like what does this is this got it it can't be just kind of like this it's got to be the Scarecrow from Wizard of Oz if this is gonna work you know so I like being able to just kind of get reference right away that way anyway I see you again these your horrible horrible drawings but this is gora and i kind of going through no it's got to do this and what about that and yeah and this and this brings back to when I think of Rango cuz you if you're on a project for a long time you think of it in big blocks of time and like kind of you know your your wins and your losses and and then I go back to this and say oh yeah I had to design a frickin bottle that was in the scene for 20 seconds if most you know that show that was incredible and something I've never experienced because everything and it needed to be designed rocks and bushes buildings and characters and I was production designer on it so then everything became important so it wasn't about going to a location where everything kind of works in that environment already you have to build that environment from the ground up so you're noticing everything how come sagebrush is grow apart from each other in you know as well because they give off poison because there's no water so they only can grow a certain distance from each other so you start learning all this really bitchin stuff about you know it makes sense because if you put them too close together it doesn't look at the desert anymore so there's all the subliminal stuff and observations that you know it's wrong we don't know why and it's your job to kind of find out why kind of search for that I think cuz I was loving the project so much and but there were a lot of times of conversation that were going on amongst you know producers and then I could just fall into an escape into things that didn't matter that had nothing to do with what I was doing and I think for me that's what I love about drawing is it takes me out of something I don't know if that's good or not I'm sure a lot of artists do with this do you work on several projects at the same time so your mind jumps around in a sketchbook is a great place to kind of organize a little bit because it's like I have an idea for that character and you can put it down and then go to the next page and then always come back to it which is good because usually in my head I have to see everything in my head before I can draw it out and this is really the only place I don't do that which is nice my son Jason he was inspired he saw these things I call wanna draw oh I turned 50 that day [Laughter] usually when I started an idea hits my head and that's when I put it down because I never like I said it's so hard for you to just sit down and I just start sketching and when it's not there I'll find myself just lazily kind of doing something and it doesn't turn into anything I think as artists we want to see it completed in a way and sketches some sketches are great the way they are shouldn't be touched right and some just kind of inspire you to like go I just want to see that go a little further that's why I don't do it to all of them there's just some that I just feel like that needs to go a little step further but yeah there are definitely some sketches that I'm really glad in touch in jurassic there were a lot of kind of quick stuff that I had done that I really liked that didn't yeah I didn't spend like you know two weeks drawing which I did a lot of time this is another example of where I just started drawing just kind of a face that I liked and creature and hair and then he turned into a story kind of developed out of him as well and it had kind of like an Asian Chinese feel to it so then there's a princess I kind of started to giant so he's giving her a whole cherry blossom tree as a gift it's got kind of a King Kong kind of thing going on but with that anyway so sometimes they're inspiring so the story comes out of it and I don't know why or where but that's why there's pictures are so important to me now they feed my imagination yeah sometimes like an idea of a banana like what if you had to eat a banana that had bones on it like we were talking about how great it is the end of an Anna like it it comes in its own little package and you take a little package up and you just bite right into it so yeah that's suck if it had bones in it like a fish this is like appreciate what you have there are no bones and bananas this is me traveling it's your life you do well we just wander through life like let things happen and kind of take it in and be in a while there alligators chomping it yeah I was really into these ugly animals for a while script pages and oh that's then I started with me into Lone Ranger and that was a very difficult show so there's a lot of just Frant you know what are the cool cars look like so I got a drama here so a lot of this a lot of my books are that and then this and they will come along where it's like oh we're getting we need some old photographs of you know a character that's it's a Western so they're kind of so then I started kind of you know I needed to I was under so much stress and so much like it's like oh just you know I want to do like a Howard and see Wyeth kind of composition and then like this like when I turned to this page I suddenly calm down because I remember that this was like kind of in the heat of it and I found a place to just kind of relax and step back and simplify things welcome to hell and then there are guys sculpting trees as like nah it's just you gotta compare oh it's how a tree but it's funny because even when you draw a tree you can tell and that's what I love about nature you know it's even in chaos there's there's order to it and you can draw a cloud long because even though it looks like something very you know spontaneous and kind of haphazard and the way it is when we were flying in in to Portugal I was looking down into the marsh and there was an order to it even though you think it was just random tributaries and all this stuff it was this beautiful tapestry that made sense and everything flowed and moved for a reason and I think that's what I love about nature because it in its simplicity in its complexity it's just it works every time and so like even in a tornado you can draw a tornado wrong when I was going to heart center there was a couple of teachers that were going you know and I was in a band at the time so that's what I really wanted to do and it was kind of bleeding over into our school and my classes were kind of you know suffering from it and I had a teacher who goes dude you could be the best in the school if you just can put your nose to the grindstone and just stuck with it and stop [ __ ] around you know you could be the pet and everyone the best at what though because I'd see these students I just so like consumed with having to do this and having to be the best and having to have the right and I hope but and maybe I did maybe I should have had a little more of that I probably could have been a little bit more you know a little bit about it but at the same time I wasn't living near the school I was living downtown and I was hanging out it these bars downtown and it were just like art yeah you know and there's this little bar called Al's bar I'd go there and to be the same guys that are insane Galison and most of them are artists and they all lived in this hotel above the bar called the American Hotel and you go there and you know two o'clock would roll around and someone says someone's happened to opening down it so you were like just kind of caught up in that the dream of ending up in someone's studio that was the coolest space you'd ever seen and looking at their artwork and it's four o'clock in the morning and and I had a class the next day that I would miss but I wouldn't trade that experience for anything you know what I mean and I think it's so important it's so important for artists to experience life and that's what I love about these books especially the lone ranger because it got me out into the environments and there's a great quote or it's just a theory a thing but that we have this primitive kind of need to see the horizon because as as primitive animals on the planet it was important to see where you were looking out for predators potential mates and just to kind of get so that horizon is really important and when you put yourself in a box or a classroom or a cubicle or a you you pace and you know how animals pace in the cage that's like a form of insanity and so you will literally go crazy unless you can't see that horizon and I love that last line and Pirates of the Caribbean or Jack's like give me that horizon you know and it's like everybody's tingles inside like okay give me the hurry you know just that endless like what's out there you know God above that there's a bad joke by polar bear somebody who's talking about bipolar and that's going well know what that's like being bipolar cuz do you realize that you're bipolar like do you think wow I was just acting one way and now I'm acting the opposite way or do you just act and then someone tells you you just freaked out a minute ago and now you're acting normal sitting screaming sorry sorry I'm sorry I just lost my head there for a minute yeah that's funny lost my head you want to go swimming just bit the seals head off oh did I I'm sorry the D know that I mean isn't that cool about the brain like all of our realities our own thing I mean read could be a completely different color to you than it is to me we would never know I wonder if that's part of the intimidation too because you feel like you putting so much of your there kind of opening your brain we put so much of a facade now you know and I love these sketchbooks cuz you can rip the pages out so if something doesn't work I could I was going through a hard time this is really good for pencil but you also intend but I don't know there's something about the size is kind of important to me I don't like drawing too small and then not too large and I just like the plain kind of cover to it so what I like about it it's informal there's nothing better than leather and this is my favorite pens I don't know I just stumbled upon it in Rango it's just you know they're all act differently you know and then this one I can actually shade like pencil with you're gonna ask me to draw something I was thinking about somebody submitted softshell crabs and then I started thinking of a softshell snail for some reason and there are so squishy on the inside already it's like how awful would that be if it wasn't optional now and I like the idea of it do - can I just start drawing did you see what happens because I have no idea No well have you ever seen a snail when it comes out of his shell they aren't they have a little soft shells that aren't developed yet in their eyes I've are the most amazing thing like if you touch their eye you can see there I go down inside the little shaft and then come back up again not to be cruel but if we did that well this feels more like an octopus I'm gonna do an octopus instead I'll do a monster octopus it's gonna be a monster like cracking this would be oh I got it I know I know what it is now Steven this is a punt but I ran out of room alright this is gonna be [ __ ] it's right in the middle of the thing I think it's gonna work how do you do it do you like when you're smoked crack like do like how you learn [Laughter] yeah so you're like this arms up here alright this is gonna be this is gonna say this is gonna be good it's like wow this is gonna be what it is but that's it's a crack in say oh man like going god dammit he's high on crack again oh this head in his hand Oh [Laughter] this is said I said the cracking cracking all right so that's there's the dumb idea so from there I can go I don't know I just I love to laugh I mean I think humor and I find that most artists have most artists have a pretty good sense of humor and I think if I can joke about something or laugh about something it just takes everything it's like a breath you know and I only do it in my sketchbooks I think because I do so much in my work I'm told kind of what the problem is and what they need so I'm always kind of you know the boat is steering down a certain path already and I like to like jump in the canoe and go down you know the stink-eye I don't know didn't they they have like a tube or something coming on the side of your head there's fire underwater and it makes no sense cause it's underwater like everybody's still lighting it somehow okay now I better start doing something that looks like hard work I also find that when that I actually care about my drawing and what I'm drawing because for so long now I've only like say Jurassic Park for instance it was about drawing dinosaurs as real as they could be the per the first drawing I had done though was a very emotional it kind of charged drawing that kind of goddess you know Stephen was like yeah that's what we're kind of going for and and then beyond that it was these very technical kind of scientific illustrations you know then I thought that was just kind of my lot in life like I'm a I'm a technical designer that is just I have you know an ability to render whatever and when I started doing the sketchbook and I started to infuse either a joke into it or some sort of emotional story it's like it was kind of like cathartic for me to go I do care about a story and it's hard not to being in the film industry because it's always based around story but it just kind of made me realize that maybe that's when I do draw something that somebody sees that in it and then see what like like I like to start a sketch and and if you can get the basic down then you can have fun with the shading and the kind of getting into it see this is what I love about this pen because you can like I don't know how much time you have but I don't want to spend a lot of time on it you're not gonna went out of film and there was one teacher that taught me how to draw in it and it was a head drawing class and it was all about shadow and light and and I just I fell in love with that idea you know the thing that everything is defined by contrast you know there are no lines really in life and I spent so much of my time getting rid of line that I forgot the gesture is kind of cool and you you know yeah there were several teachers that were capable of that if we couldn't draw a line draw the right line stop all the sketching around Darla and I could never do that and so I was like I always in searching you know I'm always doing the search thing but but I I envied people like who can just start drawing and that's just so awesome I think if I could have one wish it would be to have a photographic memory yeah to be able to just pull with images and I'm lucky if I remember what I had for lunch yesterday you know really he's really a second on the end of that thing I mean tentacles on you what do you do ten ounce they did put them everywhere especially one on crack I mean they're like doing all kinds of weird [ __ ] cuz I don't see it see this is the problem because I know other guys and girls are gonna be looking at this and so it's like that's been trashed it wait but um but you know that insecurity is like a sketchbook is the safe place to go and it's like for me it's a safe place because it's about not being wrong you know you cuz as artists and I'm sure a lot of artists there's a the Sheraton security you know I mean it's because you you want people to like what you do especially if you're presenting it and so you obviously are concerned about doing it right and doing something new and different and yeah and again it's it's kind of getting away from the norm and sometimes you're so straight-laced in what you're doing that it's good to kind of do something humorous and kind of get out of you know what I mean you got to take that edge edge off I'm going as fast as I can I swear to God can I take this back to my room and finish it no okay and the sketch is good but it's a little undeveloped scan it into Photoshop yes you're done shut up monkey [Music]

Channel: Trojan Horse Was a Unicorn

Views: 257,844

Keywords: The Sketchbook Series, Crash McCreery, Mark McCreery, Sketchbook, Sketchbook Tour, Trojan Horse was a Unicorn, Art Center College of Design, directed by Stephen Hopkins and soon after, Interview With the Vampire, Inspector Gadget, Van Helsing, Pirates of the Caribbean, Dreamworks, Tim Burton

Id: QewAnSxwjMI

Length: 30min 2sec (1802 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 14 2020