John wastes paper

NEAR MISS DEPT: It's so sad when an earnest effort falls short. That's the case with Krita's 2D animation feature. Krita  is a free, open-source painting and drawing application for Linux, Windows, and Mac OS. And as far as I can tell, it does a fantastic job with those toolsets . Version 3 has added some promising 2D animation tools, very similiar  to those in Sketchbook Pro 7. There is the same easy to use timeline and playback controls, multiple layering, and a robust set of brushes for drawing and painting frames. But after testing the Mac version for a week (running OSX 10.11.6) I have to give its animation tools a "Fail" because of frequent crashes and tool " lock-ups " when features such as frame advance would stop responding, forcing a restart. Tools, even free ones, need to function flawlessly so that they stay out of the way of the artist's thought process. The scratched out key drawings above were all that I could accomplish because

KICKING THE TIRES DEPT: I've been giving the free, open source painting and drawing software  Krita a test drive. It's available for Windows, Linux and Mac and has some really nice features, including an animation tool set that I'll post about in a few days after I've given it some more testing. In the meanwhile, here are a few doodles I drew using an impressive pencil-brush that's included with the program. It has a nice tilt feature that takes advantage of the angle of your stylus and mimics shading with the edge of your graphite.

OLD STUFF DEPT: 'Found this old sheet of character sketches in a forgotten drawer today. Pencil and Marker, 14" x 11"

Here's an old thing that I found in my parents garage recently. I had tossed it but for some reason they had retrieved and kept it all these years. I think I was seventeen or so when I labored over this watercolor. I'm pretty sure that I copied it from some Time-Life book advert in TV Guide. I liked its lights and darks. I post it here for self motivational purposes; proof to myself that I really haven't progressed all that much since I made it. I think I better get cracking :-) Pencil and watercolor on 140 lb. coldpress , 12 x 18 inches

SPIT 'N' ELBOW GREASE DEPT:  I was a Modonaut from version 101. Just loved that  application. But by version 301 I was tired of waiting for joints and deformations to be added. So, with a bit of guesswork and imagination, I came up with a hack that worked pretty well, even if it wasn't the most efficient thing to set up. Above is my proof-of-concept test. It used a combination of locators and blendshapes . I was pretty proud :-) (BTW- I'm a lazy bastard and didn't bother with joints at the ankles and feet :-) Below is another more elaborate test using the same system. Again, it was incredibly inefficient to setup, but I proved that it "could be done" :-)

LATE-NIGHT DOODLING DEPT : 'Just a wind-down sketch before bed. Sweet dreams :-)

NOT MY ART DEPT: So one night long ago, Robert McKinson, the famed Warner Bros. cartoon director, stopped by the Imperial Bowl lounge and (presumably after many drinks) began drawing cartoon characters on placemats. I guess he used this as a conversation starter? Anyway, he was giving them away and that's how my Mother acquired this sketch of Bugs Bunny. She asked that he sign it to my brother and I. We were only 6 and 7at the time and imagined that somehow the real Bugs Bunny had visited my Mother's workplace the night before :-)

I was nineteen and taking my first drawing class. When we were asked to do a value study from photo reference, I naturally reached for an iconic image from my favorite film of the moment: Star Wars' The Empire Strikes Back. Horrible result! 4B pencil on bond paper, 13" x 18"

BEDTIME DOODLES DEPT:  What a game last night! Looks like Skip's team came in second :-) Digital sketch in TVPaint, 1920 x 1080 pixels