Baby Mammoth

Let's return to that series of paleo reconstructions for next month's Ranger Rick magazine.

You may have heard about that amazingly well preserved baby mammoth named Lyuba that was found two years ago in the Russian arctic.

Scientists studying her frozen tissues speculate that she was healthy before falling into a stream and drowning.

I wanted to show her with her mother near the water's edge. Her mother's trunk reaches over her to protect her, as modern elephants do. This concept sketch was drawn out of my head. It was done with water-soluble colored pencils, ink-filled water-brush, and fountain pen.

Tomorrow I'll show how I went from this sketch to the finished painting.

Gryposaurus, Part 1

Today we continue the behind the scenes look at the new paintings for the October issue of Ranger Rick magazine.

The next creature I needed to visualize was a duck-billed dinosaur called a Gryposaurus (and I misspelled the name). As you can see from my colored pencil sketch, I wasn't too sure what the forms would look like. Even though I was looking at lots of fossils, he looks lumpy and unconvincing. If I went ahead on the final painting, it would only have looked about 10% better.

I think you really learn a form through your fingers (that's why I love museums that have casts of great sculptures that you can run your hands over). By making a tiny sculpture of this particular dinosaur, using Fimo over tin foil and armature wire, I came to know my subject.

I kept checking it against the drawing. That nasal bone is not quite high enough.

I painted it with acrylic, darkening around the eyes. Many animals have dark color around their eyes for the same reason that football players smudge stuff around their eyes: to cut down on glare.

Tomorrow I'll show you how I photographed the maquette and proceeded with the painting.

Titanoboa, Part 1

For the next week or so, I’ll be sharing the story of the making of six recent paintings that will be appearing in the upcoming October issue of Ranger Rick magazine.

If it’s not on the newsstand already, it will be very soon. The article is about six of the strangest recent discoveries in fossil science.

One of the subjects is the giant snake Titanoboa, the largest snake yet discovered, known from its remarkable vertebrae, which dwarf that of a modern anaconda, shown beside it for comparison. All we really have to start with are a few bones like this.

The rest I had to conjecture by extrapolation from living snakes. How do you show it was over forty feet long? I thought it would be cool to show it in a death match with a crocodile.

There are videos of anacondas killing and swallowing crocodilians called caimans. This usually happens underwater, but I wanted to show the Titanoboa lifting part way out of the water.


So I sketched it over and over again in several pages of thumbnail sketches like these. I liked the one in the upper right, and tomorrow you’ll see that the final painting follows this mental conception fairly closely.

This was the comprehensive sketch I showed the art director. It’s about the size of a trading card, and it's made with water-soluble colored pencils and a water brush filled with black ink. Tomorrow I’ll show you how I went from this comp to the finish.

Line Drawing

We’re continuing a daily progress report on the poster for the Utopiales Festival in Nantes, France.

During the preliminary drawing stage, the studio fills with clutter.
Near the maquette of the flying machine are model horses, photos of Nantes, books about insects, coffee cups, and audio cassettes with recordings I’ve made of steam engines and street noises.

I love this photo of the square called Place Royale in Nantes. This is the period I’m trying to evoke. My dream is that a little over a hundred years ago, Nantes had strange visitors who arrived and departed by moonlight in this incredible flying machine. It flew very gently and majestically like a sailing ship, creaking and hissing steam.

Here’s the line drawing. This jpeg is a pretty large file, so if you click on it, you can see most of the details. Even though it’s just a line drawing, I’m thinking ahead to tone and color, which is coming up next.

Here’s a 40-second video showing a little about perspective and how to seal the drawing before painting.
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More about the Utopiales Festival
Previous posts on Perspective Grid, Sealing the Surface

Part 1: Initial Sketches
Part 2: Researching Insect Flight
Part 3: Maquette

Part 4: Lighting

Part 5: Pencil Drawing

Part 6: Washin

Part 7: The Painting

Utopiales Poster, Part 2

We picked sketch #2 (Décollage nocturne) from yesterday, mainly for the light, color, and mood. I liked the idea of a giant insect vehicle departing at night, but I wasn’t happy with the design of the aircraft. It looked like a cricket with wings. It was too much like a real bug and not enough like a fantastic flying machine. It needed to look both more believable and more magical.



I studied a great book called Insects in Flight by John Brackenbury. It’s loaded with super high-speed color photographs of all sorts of insects in flight postures. With these photos as a starting point I did many pages of sketches. These sketches are made in pencil, fountain pen, watercolor pencil, and water brush.

At this stage I try to absorb as many new ideas as possible, and just draw the scene over and over again, looking for unexpected variations. Some sketches show two sets of wings working in opposing pairs.



The breakthrough was learning about the unique flight mechanics of butterflies. Mr. Brackenbury explains in great detail how they use a “clap and peel” (also called "clap and fling") system for generating lift. The wings are brought up together vertically, and the leading edges pulled down, creating a cone-shaped funnel that draws in a vortex of low-pressure air.

I was surprised to learn that butterflies, along with dragonflies, are among the most adept fliers of the insect world. They’ll maneuver in high winds that will ground other insects. I had to revise my notion that butterflies are capricious or random aeronauts.

Anyway, the butterfly breakthrough also helped with the problem of appeal. Everybody loves butterflies. Who wouldn’t want to fly in a butterfly ornithopter?—(OK, it would be a pretty bumpy ride).

So now my job was to draw up plans for the maquette. I looked not only at butterflies, but also flying fish, old trolleys, and WWI aircraft.

The next task will be to build a 3D maquette.

Part 1: Initial Sketches
Part 2: Researching Insect Flight
Part 3: Maquette

Part 4: Lighting

Part 5: Pencil Drawing

Part 6: Washin

Part 7: The Painting

Utopiales Poster, Part 1

I thought it might be fun to share a job-in-progress with you. So for the next few days, I invite you into my studio to see how a picture progresses from start to finish.

The Utopiales festival in Nantes, France, will take place Oct. 28 through Nov. 1, 2009. This year they invited me to contribute the artwork for the official poster.


Utopiales is one of the largest fantasy, comics, and science fiction festivals of Europe. The city of Nantes, where it is held each year, is the birthplace of Jules Verne. It’s also the home of the Royal de Luxe theater company (scroll down to the previous post).

So somehow the image has to weave together Jules Verne, giant mechanical creatures, and steampunk-flavored science fiction.

After a little Internet research I discovered that one of the famous places in Nantes is a town square called the Place Royale. I flashed on the idea of a huge insect aircraft departing from the town square. The scene could be set in the time of Jules Verne.

From these pencil thumbnails, I worked up three color sketches in oil and stuck them into the poster graphics from last year. From left to right, the titles are:
1. Arrivée Place Royale (Arrival at Royal Square)
2. Décollage nocturne (Nighttime Liftoff)
3. Départ pour Cigaleville (Departure for Cicadaville).

Tomorrow I'll let you know which one we chose and the next design steps.

Part 1: Initial Sketches
Part 2: Researching Insect Flight

Part 3: Maquette

Part 4: Lighting

Part 5: Pencil Drawing

Part 6: Washin

Part 7: The Painting

Using Photo Reference

Yesterday’s post about “Drawing from Maquettes,” brought up some really interesting comments about the pros and cons of using reference, especially photo reference.

Some realist painters scrupulously avoid photo reference altogether, including Jacob Collins and his group of artists studying with the Hudson River Fellowship, mentioned in an earlier post yesterday. They get fine results by concentrating on purely observational work.

Other artists in the comics and fantasy field, such as Moebius and Frazetta, achieve extraordinary artwork by drawing entirely from their imaginations, creating forms from their visual memory.

And some artists use photo reference extensively and unabashedly, especially for action poses and effects that are difficult to observe, such as water effects, explosions, or action poses.

An interesting historical note is that some realist artists, including artists in the academic tradition, have been using photos for nearly a century and a half. According to art historian Ross King, forty percent of all photographs taken in Paris in the later part of the nineteenth century were commissioned by artists, usually taking photographs of nude models for “academies” or figure reference studies.

When Pascal Dagnan Bouveret painted “Breton Women at a Pardon” in 1887 (above), he took photos of women sitting outdoors. But in his final composition he clearly didn’t use the photo literally, and was in control of the design of his picture.

In this photo you can see that he drew each of the figures on a separate piece of tracing paper, a method I’ve discussed in a previous post.

My own views on this topic are moderate and pragmatic. There’s no right or wrong method: the final result is the test, and you should choose a process that will give you the results you want.

I have done some paintings without photo reference and others with it. I use photos as one kind of reference, along with traditional charcoal studies from observation, maquettes, and scrap file reference.

The caution I feel about using photos is that I’m easily lured into copying their
random details. Photos are compelling. Without conscious effort, I tend to forget what I had in my mind’s eye at the beginning of the picturemaking process. Characters based on photos of friends or neighbors sometimes have a mundane snapshot quality, rather than an otherworldly “storybook” feeling.

There’s also the danger of copying the colors and the black shadows literally from the photos.

If you want to work only from observation or only from imagination, more power to you! But if you want to use photos, let me suggest the following four safeguards:

1. Do your initial sketches purely from your imagination and develop those sketches as much as you can before going after reference. Even if those sketches don’t look that great, trust your mental image and let it guide you later.

2. Try using the photos only for the comprehensive stage, and put them away for the final painting.

3. Print your photos in black and white to avoid being influenced by the color.

4. Take lots of photos, and use more than one model or more than one costume.

I’d be very interested in your thoughts on this topic.
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I am indebted to art historian Gabriel Weisberg’s article on Dagnan’s use of photography, link.

GJ post on tone paper studies, link.
GJ post on action poses and photography, link.
GJ post on tracing paper as a compositional tool, link.

More in my book: Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter

Model to Mermaid

How do you get a mermaid to pose? Like unicorns and dragons, they are fantastical creatures, not entirely of this world. I wanted my mermaid painting to look real but not in a literal or material sense.

Although in previous posts (here, here, and here and here) I’ve suggested using photography for figure reference, when it comes to mythological or storybook beings I prefer to use life studies rather than photos because I feel freer to be guided by my imagination.


I did two studies, one in charcoal and one in paint, both directly from the model. In the charcoal study I concentrated on the basic linear gestures and on the soft lighting of the form. I also started thinking how to join the human form with a fishlike tail and how to bend the tail so that she could ride “sidesaddle” on a tamed sea creature.

I recalled from my experience snorkeling that skin tones appear cooler in water than they do in the air, and the side planes of the figure fall away to a bluish hue, lit from all directions by scattered light in the water. The color study above, made with the model in front of a blue cloth, allowed me to start exploring this unusual and magical color quality.

In both studies I took the first step toward my mental image, making changes in what I was seeing and not copying the model literally.

Translucent sketch paper

When you’re developing a preliminary drawing for a composition, it often helps to refine it with layers of semi-transparent tracing paper. Architects use a cheap, pulp-based sketch paper that comes on a roll, available in white or canary.

It has been affectionately called “bumwad,” “fodder,” “tissue,” “trash,” "onion skin," “flimsy,” and “pattern paper.”

For the illustrator, it’s especially helpful for planning a group of overlapping figures, or for flopping a drawing. I know—you can do all this in Photoshop. But working out the drawing on paper is deliciously tactile, and just as fast.
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Bienfang's line of bumwad: link.

Dinotopia Map

Treasure Island began with a map that Robert Louis Stevenson sketched for his nephew on a rainy day.

Dinotopia also began with a map—though in the first map I called the island “Panmundia.” Once I had an idea of the overall shape and the kind of physical geography I wanted for the island, I sketched the island quickly in markers. The mountain and canyon relief is accentuated by an imaginary light source from the from the upper left. The original painting, below, was rendered in oil on illustration board.

It’s a good idea to add more place names than the ones you’re planning to use in a given story. This gives the feeling that the world exists beyond the boundaries of what you have revealed so far, and it also sets the stage for sequels.

In the most recent map of Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara, drawn with a dip pen in a mid-19th century style, I added dozens of new town names. More about that process at the previous post on "Place Names."

Seven Inch Figures

How big should you make your figure drawings? When I was in art school they told us to buy 18 x 24 inch paper, and the figures were supposed to be about 21 inches tall, enough to fill the vertical page.


British academic painter Frederic, Lord Leighton (1830-1896) made the case for drawing them about one third that size.

“In drawing a whole figure from nature we should be three times its length from it, to oversee it properly. If we draw normally, we must draw on the scale on which we should trace, if our sheet of paper were a sheet of glass held up, and if, instead of pencil, we traced with a diamond on this interposed pane you will find that a five-foot figure then comes about seven inches high on your glass, or its substitute, your paper.

On this scale the comparison is direct and not proportional. On this scale, and, largely, in accordance with this law, are drawn all studies from nature by masters of all periods. Of course, I am not speaking of cartoons. The studies I speak of could be squared up and enlarged to cartoons on any scale required for decoration in fresco, or on canvases.

Now, if Rubens and Longhi and Watteau and Fragonard and Ingres and Millet and Puvis and Keene, and all the company of the blessed drew on that scale, they probably knew what they were about.”

---As recalled by Walter Sickert, quoted from The Study of Drawing, 1910, reprinted in Apollo Magazine, 1996, page 47

More on Leighton at Art Renewal Center, link.
In reference to the distance to sit from the model, see previous GJ post: "Pyramid of Vision."

Note: "Cartoons" is used by Leighton in the sense of full size preliminary line drawings, not in the sense we use the word to describe small humorous drawings.
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Addendum: Blog reader Godo, who doesn't have an account for comments, sent an email with the sketch above, as well as the following interesting discussion:

Since several weeks I am reading your blog, a real interesting publication.
Maybe you are interested in what I wanted to say, so here is my contribution:

This is a problem of elementary geometry. The intercept theorem explains the relationship between the size of the figure (A), the distance of the painter from the figure (B) and the distance of the drawing paper or canvas from the painter’s eye (D) (see picture).

Sometimes I heard my students say: I cannot draw something different from what I see. What does it mean I wondered? In fact it was the case what Erik stated above: it is natural and the easiest way to draw. Sometimes you cannot approach a subject as you want. When I asked to “zoom” the picture they felt uncomfortable as they had to draw bigger than they “saw”.

“In drawing a whole figure from nature we should be three times its length from it, to oversee it properly. …..you will find that a five-foot figure then comes about seven inches high on your glass, or its substitute, your paper.

From this statement we can easily calculate, that the painter held his drawing paper at a distance (D) of about 21 inches (54 cm); this is approximately the length of the stretched arm.
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Thanks, Godo!

Atmospheric Study

When you're planning a fantasy landscape painting, it often helps to do a quick atmospheric study. Here's one I did for the painting Waterfall City: Afternoon Light, from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara.

If you make a 3-D schematic maquette, you can do the study while looking at the model. This study uses white and black charcoal on brown Kraft paper. The goal is to study the chiaroscuro: and to consider which things are light on dark and which things are dark on light.

An atmospheric study also gives you the chance to think about the mist and atmosphere. In a scene like this, not everything should be crisply lit. Some areas should be in shadow, and others half hidden behind veils of atmosphere.

TV Spot Storyboard

In CG- or cel-animated films, every shot is planned in small sketches. Most effects-heavy live action films are also extensively boarded. The storyboards not only help plan the cinematic art, but they also serve as the director’s map for how all the separate elements will fit together.

Many films now use digitally animated storyboards or cinematics to allow the director and the effects supervisor to give a semblance of how the parts of the scene will move.

I did these storyboards in 1992 for a contemplated TV ad spot for the Dinotopia book. The ad was never produced. The idea of a skeleton rising from the earth is based on the classic story from Ezekiel of the dry bones lifting up and coming to life.

Waterfall City Concept 2

When I first designed Waterfall City (detail, above) I hadn’t dreamed up the idea of Dinotopia yet, with its partnership of humans and saurians. The logical way to travel across the chasm was by a giant pterosaur, but at the time I was thinking of hang gliders.

These design sketches imagine configurations for hang gliders a little different from the ones Otto Lilienthal and the Wright Brothers came up with.

Waterfall City Concept 1

Over the next few days, while I'm assembling some of my trip sketches, I thought I’d show you some of the early concept sketches for Waterfall City (1988). Here’s one from 1987 showing the water emerging from two big arches, like something at the edge of the world. The lighting is from below, which gives it a strange feeling, and the architecture is reminiscent of the early skyscraper architecture of Hugh Ferris.

Storyboard

This little storyboard sketch from Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara is one of many that didn’t make the cut, mainly because the idea evolved from this point. At this point I thought of having a Therizinosaurus ridden by a Chandaran border guard. As I thought about the character, I thought it would be far more interesting to have a more sympathetic character connected with the dinosaur, and the idea for the retired conductor Cornelius Mazurka developed.

Sketch to Finish

When Logsdail went from the smaller version (above) to the larger finished version (below), he added a dog and a kid to the lower left of the composition. He brought the vehicle at the left edge and the man with the newspapers closer up.

He made the street more slick and shiny, and to judge from the reproductions, he warmed up the colors from the gray of the sketch. Which is better? It’s a tough call.


(Note from Jeanette:
I am not computer literate, and I'm sorry to say that I don't have any idea how to move the pictures around on these posts that Jim has prepared. Sorry, and thanks for your patience.)

Eye Level, Part 3

In a scene that takes place on flat ground, the eye level (EL) usually intersects everything at about five feet above the ground. That’s because most of us of average standing height look out at the world from that elevation, and most photos are taken from that height as well. You can imply that the viewer is seated or that the viewer is a child by placing your eye level at a lower height.

Since the eye level line cuts through every figure at the same relative point, you can sort of “hang” the figures on the eye level line, just making sure the line runs through everyone at the same height. In the throne room scene here, for instance, the EL is exactly at the height of the top of the dais, or platform. If you carry that line across the scene, it will intersect every standing figure just below the shoulder.

I could have chosen to place the EL at ankle height, but then it would have intersected every figure at the ankle.

On this drawing, by the way, the vanishing point for the edges of all the carpets is just visible on the shoulder of the figure standing just to the left of the leftmost lion.

The drawing above was not drawn as a separate charcoal comprehensive. It is a pencil drawing made directly on the illustration board prior to painting. What you're looking at is a photocopy of that early stage of the painting, with the EL accentuated.

Eye Level, Part 2

If architecture appears in your scene, all the major vanishing points (things like eaves and sidewalks) are pegged on the eye level line. Each vanishing point should be marked with a little “X” surrounded by a circle.

In the line drawing of the archway, the vanishing point is marked on the EL just beneath the circular window of the domed building. All the lines in the ceiling inside the arch and along the waterline inside the arch vanish to this point.

If you look again at the same scene, the arch is flanked by two circular columns. At the EL, the circular cross section of the columns is seen edge-on, so the bases of the columns don’t appear as ellipses. But as you go up the columns, the ellipses become slightly fuller.

So in a sense, every part of the scene is drawn with a consciousness of the eye level, even though in this scene you don’t really see a horizon.

Eye Level, Part 1

The eye level is the height of the viewer’s eye above the ground, usually represented by a horizontal line running across the picture, even if the horizon itself is not visible in the scene.

The drawing to the above is a compositional sketch for a scene in Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara. I drew grid lines on it so that it could be enlarged to the 24x30 inch final painting.

“Eye level” is basically synonymous with “horizon.” They’re one and the same thing in the preliminary line drawing above, where the ocean is in view. But in most scenes, you don’t have such a far vista. Either you’re in a forest, or inside a room, or the view is hemmed in with buildings. But you still have to draw the imaginary line in the same place it would have been if you could see all the way to infinity.

The eye level is the very first line you put into your drawing—even a figure drawing at a sketch group. I mark it with the letters “EL” to remind me what it is. If your scene is more of an upshot, the EL is toward the bottom of the scene. Everything that you draw above the line is something you’re looking up at. In a view that’s more of a downshot, the EL is high in the composition because almost everything in the scene is below your level gaze.