Melissa McCarthy and More

In April, I took an amazing gesture drawing class taught by the incomparable Glenn Harmon at DreamWorks. Glenn covered a ton of ground each week, giving us specific tips and tricks...and then immediately had us put those lessons into action with quick gestures drawings of a live model. Below are a couple of my lightning round sketches.

We were also given a sketchbook, which we were supposed to fill up each week with as many gesture drawings as possible. The first week, I was on a big Melissa McCarthy kick (when am I not?) because she was on a massive press tour for her movie The Boss. I basically DVR-ed every single talk show appearance that she made that week, then paused them a bunch to do quick gestures of her. It also doubled as research for my character Lilinoe...which Melissa McCarthy is a blatant inspiration for.

A lot of the sketchbook pages are of Melissa making her entrances, walking over to greet James Corden, Ellen DeGeneres, etc. BUT THEN she did the most epic Lip Sync Battle with Jimmy Fallon of all time! That was the most fun to gesture for sure! She killed it doing DMX...and then slayed "Colors of the Wind" with an industrial fan that nearly blew her backwards. Awe-inspiring!

Do yourself a favor and watch the Lip Sync Battle below...if you haven't already! Pocahontas would be proud!

        

The Muses are coming...y'all ready?

Very soon, I'll be posting the epic story of how I met my Post Modern Muses. It was a life-altering occasion, so it'll most likely be posted in multiple parts. Cause one post just ain't enough to witness the divine assembling of: Nicki Minaj, Britney Spears, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and Beyonce. Here's a sneak peek, starring the one and only Nicki Minaj.

I thought I'd show a bit of my storyboarding process while I'm at it. Let's work our way backwards, starting with the clean-up panels. These are the final versions all inked and shaded.

Now here are the roughs. This is where I begin using the Cintiq, working in the best software in the world, Photoshop. I like to use blue ink and keep it loose. This is mainly to find the composition and staging...while also beginning to explore potential character poses/acting. I try to really solidify the timing and panel count here as well.

Lastly (well actually, firstly), are the thumbnails. I like to keep this super sketchy...at times so much so, it's undecipherable (thanks past self). But I find this part very freeing, it's the time where I can scribble and explore potential ideas in my sketchbook. Though they are often doctor-hand-writing-level scribbly, I try to thumbnail out the entire sequence from start to finish to work out the story as much as possible from the very beginning.

Before all of this, I write out the script/dialogue...usually in my sketchbook, because like thumbnails, there's something untethered about pen and paper rather than the finality I feel from working in the computer. The computer comes when I feel like the boards are in a good place to dive in. The dialogue of course evolves as the drawings evolve, but I like to have a blueprint from the start.