morna learning to draw Usagi

morna-san · Post by **morna-san** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 15:37 -0700

I decided to start a thread for this project. I've made some progress in the couple of days I've been doing this and I thought some of you might be interested to see how I do. I started June 20 2007. A tiny bit of background: I am a professional artist but I never draw. I am a glassblower and I paint on glass so I do have some graphic skills - I just rarely rarely draw.
(Here's a link to my art thread on CBR Hellboy forum in case you're curious: http://forums.comicbookresources.com/sh ... hp?t=12234 )
I decided this is a foolish attitude for an artist and started drawing everyday at least one page - that was April first this year. For fun I started drawing some Usagi fan art and have become a bit hooked on it. It's fun!

Anyway here are many of my attempts so far. Yes they're embarrassing especially the first few but you need to start somewhere and as you can see there's only one direction to go from here! I do think there's quite an improvement already.

edit: newly unearthed very first attempts from May 9... warning really bad! avert your eyes if you're sensitive to aesthetic atrocities.

and I thought while I was in edit mode I'd drop this guy in here - he kinda got me started in all this

OK, first day page 1 - yikes - I love how I made him look like the grinch

I might've given up right there but this one happened and there are things I like about it

morna-san · Post by **morna-san** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 15:56 -0700

yesterday I went and bought a new sketchbook so I could thrash away and not have to show anyone a bunch of embarrassing fan art - I'am 50 afterall - do 50 year old adult women indulge in fan art - apparently!

all heads - this is going to be a problem

I decided to haul out the felt pen and try inking on some of them. This one (on the bottom) I like 'cause it's not so much a (bad) copy of Stan's Usagi

maybe I should study the source material some more

god I'm brave showing this stuff! Here's a discovery lying in bed drawing at 1:30 in the morning ... if you draw on a sloped surface with your head on an angle your drawings might end up looking all sloped. I like the pissed off one tho.

morna-san · Post by **morna-san** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 16:13 -0700

which brings us to today. Today I took on some bodies. I did better than I thought - some of them look like an actual artist drew them! However they are all pretty much copied from the books.
these are really faint pencils so a bit hard to scan:

this amuses me so here it is again:

copied from one of my all time favorite pages, and a pencil full body copy from the green persimmon:

a copy from the green persimmon and a half body wing-it. I have to say I am seeing improvement. Ya I know there's something definitely wrong with that hand.

SHAMSKI · Post by **SHAMSKI** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 16:53 -0700

Morna-san, coming along nicely. I spent much of high school and college years doodling away. How about an Ode to Usagi piece of glass art ? Don't know how that would be done or if you could actually get an image on glass but maybe an abstract piece would be really cool!

morna-san · Post by **morna-san** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 17:34 -0700

Thanks SHAMSKI ! I would have incorporated Usagi into at least one piece by now if I still had a studio. If I was going to put my Usagi-love into a piece I would have to find a way to encrypt it so that even a die hard fan with inside information wouldn't recognise it. Besides being abstracted. I'm pretty cagey about my subject matter because the imagery is always about pretty deeply personal stuff. This way I can deal with stuff I don't want the outside world to know about me.

SHAMSKI · Post by **SHAMSKI** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 17:50 -0700

Morna-san I completely understand my wife being an artist and all. She can be come quite attached to some of her work and even becomes emotional when she sells it. A little off topic but if you haven't heard of it already Etsy.com is a very popular site for artist to sell and chat about art. Its kind of become the EBay for artist.

Stan Sakai · Post by **Stan Sakai** » Fri Jun 22, 2007 21:03 -0700

Very nice. It looks like a very good start.

I should reprint my old Usagi drawing mini-comics when I have the time.

A bit of cultural note: The kimono is folded left over right, as in the Usagi comics. The only time it is folded right over left is after a person dies, or in a Japanese comic where is art has been flopped.

morna-san · Post by **morna-san** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 1:18 -0700

ah! I had a feeling somebody was going to call me on that. I kinda felt a wrongness when I did them right over left. People might start to think I've got it in for poor Usagi.

Thanks sensei

It strikes me how inconsistent even these few drawings are. The difference between, say the full body pencils and the 'I despise treachery' one - weird. I wouldn't necessarily even guess that they were done by the same person - what does that mean

morna-san · Post by **morna-san** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 1:27 -0700

Stan Sakai wrote:

I should reprint my old Usagi drawing mini-comics when I have the time.

um, are these available anyhow/anywhere... are they what I think they are?

Fanfan · Post by **Fanfan** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 4:05 -0700

it was my first animation...
http://usagiyojimbo.fr/animations/7ways.html

Stan Sakai · Post by **Stan Sakai** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 10:02 -0700

morna-san wrote:
Stan Sakai wrote:

I should reprint my old Usagi drawing mini-comics when I have the time.
um, are these available anyhow/anywhere... are they what I think they are?

Fanfan has an edited animated version of one of the drawing minis.

They are little 8 page mini-comics I would hand out when I used to conduct children's drawing classes at conventions. I also sold them for 50 cents each, but ran out of them awhile ago. I don't even know where the originals are any more...probably in one of the stacks of papers in my studio somewhere.

morna-san · Post by **morna-san** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 10:32 -0700

that's kool Fanfan! I have the Art Of book and I saw the page that you're referencing. It's nice to see it come to life.

edit: Oh! hi Stan I hope they turn up - I'd like to see them some day

morna-san · Post by **morna-san** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 14:55 -0700

I am attempting a full body inked Usagi. It's a favorite panel form Demon Mask (his expression just kills me) Here it is in the pencil state:

morna-san · Post by **morna-san** » Sat Jun 23, 2007 19:57 -0700

aaaaaand... I wrecked him Damn:

I know my hands need work so I did a page of them:

morna-san · Post by **morna-san** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 15:10 -0700

I'm working a non referenced piece - meaning I'm not even looking at any real Usagi to make this drawing. As you can see I'm still labouring on the hands - I think I have them now but it took me an hour of futzin' especially that pesky right hand. Ended up looking in the mirror holding my drafting brush. I perservered 'cause it's not a hand you see in usagi - probably for good reason, it doesn't look like a very strong grip - oh well. I have a ways to go with the pencils yet but I think the basic structure is there. I find I can't wing it much at all when it comes to inking. This is all completely new to me so I may improve - it would sure save time! I'm quite happy with the foreshortening on the upper sword - at one point it looked like he was about to stick himself in the head with his own weapon - bad form Usagi!

you can see some of the stick structure and the intersecting lines on the face - I've never used these tools before this project and MAN I can see why people use them. It makes things SO much easier. Even though I don't really know what I'm doing I can kinda make it work. Totally helps with proportions!

Usagi Yojimbo DojoBoard

morna learning to draw Usagi

morna learning to draw Usagi

wip