Ben & Milhouse

Ben Schwartz - the voice of Randy Cunnignham 9th Grade Ninja, came by the studio the other day. I asked him if he wanted a printout of one of the Randy drawings I had done.  He asked to see how drawing on the computer works. It was great to see how excited he was about all our drawing for the show. Then he began geeking out when he found out myself and Shaun Cashman used to work on the Simpsons. "Can you draw Milhouse?" he asked.  After the 16 years I had worked there, if I couldn't I'd be really embarrassed in front of myself.  I wanted to give him a drawing he could take with him so I did it on PAPER! (and a prehistoric pencil) I think Milhouse's nose might be too big a smidge, but hey it works.  So I drew Ben (as a Simpsons character) with his favorite Simpsons character.

(Yeah, yeah I know one of his arms is longer than the other.  It was a quick drawing whataya want.)

Mr. Ben Schwartz

Ben's Blog

http://www.rejectedjokes.com/

FREEZE FRAME SKETCHES 06-25-12

So, I had this idea I've been meaning to do  for a long time now, and finally I stopped procrastinating and did it.  Freeze framing people on the TV talking and drawing them.  There are some great faces I kept catching when I would pause something I was watching and I'd think, "Oh I gotta draw that.  That'd be a great exercise."  So, finally the other night I did it.  A lot of the time I'd like to sketch, but I don't have anything in mind to do so.  This is great inspiration, and reference.  I have my usual "goto"s when drawing mouths, and they usually work and get the right expression I'm looking for, but I'll admit, I'm not the most knowledgeable about how those muscles work.

The drawings below aren't anything groundbreaking, and I only did it a few times as you can see, but it really gave me a good lesson.  And another thing happened.  I wasn't even trying to get a likeness.  Say what you want about the drawings below, but I'm pretty sure you can tell who two of them are.  The other guy was a guest star I didn't know.

But what happened was pretty cool.  I shut off the trying to draw something specific switch and switched on my OBSERVATION SWITCH.  I was going for the expression (not just the mouth). Drawing what I saw.  I didn't judge it.  On Baldwin though, I did say at one point "that's not quite right, why doesn't it look more like him (here or there)"  but then I LOOKED at what was different.  Like looking at a model sheet when animating.  The space between shapes & lines.  "The back of the head is this far from the ear" etc... and when I refocused to see how it worked ... it worked!

Anyhow, you be the judge.  The 1st drawing of the gal obviously isn't as on the money as the 2nd.  And she was wearing glasses, but oh well.  It was a lot of fun and I'll be doing more of it.

This drawing was one I had really ruff on the 1st page of my sketchbook for a while, I put detail on it and cleaned it up a bit that night to warm up.  That's something else I find good to do.  Sketch something really quick without intending to finish it.  Then later on, go back to it to warm up or to look at it with new eyes.