YEAR END REWIND 2010

Here's my annual look back at some of my favorite pop culture entertainment and a look behind what inspires me as well. There's still a number of movies, albums and books I want to check out but here are some of my favorites of those that I DISCOVERED in 2010 (as some of these came out before then) and in no particular order.

Enjoy!

Happy New Year!

Terry

Music

Turin Brakes Outbreak

Unthanks Here's the Tender Coming

Midlake The Trials of Van Occupanther

Midlake "Fortune"

Sleigh Bells Treats

Jack Johnson To the Sea

Crazy Heart SDTK

Mumford and Sons Sign No More

Surfer Blood Astro Coast

Beach House Teen Dream

Ray Lamontagne God Willin' & The Creek Don't Rise

Mynabirds What We Lose in the Fire

Fanfarlo Reservoir

Shelby Lynne Merry Christmas

Movies

Crazy Heart

How to Train Your Dragon

Inception

The American

The Town

Tangled

True Grit

Television

Modern Family

Selling New York

Sherlock

Boardwalk Empire

Walking Dead

The Ricky Gervais Show

Printed Matter

Daisies Affogato All'Amarena Claire Wendling

Hellboy

Arzak L'Arpenteur Moebius

Blacksad L'Enfer, Le Silence

Wednesday Comics Book

Art of Tangled

Art of Drew Struzan

Color and LIght By James Gurney

IMaginative Realism by James Gurney

Cover Run Adam Hughes

Chris Sanders SKetchbook 4

The Colors of Mary Blair

Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Sidetracked by Henning Mankell

Coraline Step by Step Stage 5

Color steps-

Step 17 - In Photoshop CS3, using a Wacom Intuos Graphics Tablet - using the orange background as an "imprimatura" - my midtone/middle value -I lay in my initial color over the top of it - this helps unify/harmonize all the colors and does half the coloring for me. I use a big (200) random texture brush set between 40-60 % Normal to lay in this initial color with. I wanted this to look like a sketch on paper, so the texture brush gave it this feel. So a little bit of color over all the figure - extremely quick initial lay in - 5 minutes.

Step 18 - Now, switching over to the Pencil Tool at about 70% Normal, I start adding darker values (and red's) and lighter values (and yellows) to Coraline's flesh. Some of the darks are simply showing volume (rounding of the form) and some like the dark by her collar and her chest are cast shadows.

Step 19 - Still with the Pencil Tool at 80% Normal, I start adding more Light values (yellows) to Coralines dress and just adding some dark values ( reds) as well. I also lay in some color on the flowers in her hair, some light values to her hair and detail to her eyes and lips and necklace.

Step 20 - Continued pushing the light white areas (with the Pencil Tool between 80-90% Normal) to really make Coraline pop/emerge from the paper background - notably on the areas of her dress closest to the light source (which is basically the reader/us) and a couple of hot whites on left chest, her forehead, tip of nose, and bottom lip.

Also, use some reflective light/rim lighting on the right side of her hair for volume.

Still haven't touched the chair or the scarf since Step 17.

Until next time-

TD

Coraline Step by Step Stage 4

Now, on to the digital half of this project.

Step 13 - I scan the drawing at 400 dpi grayscale and import into Photoshop CS3.

Step 14 - In photoshop, I've adjusted the "Levels", and cleaned up the line art using the Pencil tool at Normal 100% White and the Dodge tool at between 50 -100%.

Step 15 - Once I'm happy with the art, I go to Image>Adjustments>Threshold... and set at 131. I do this so I can help prevent losing any of the details of the pencils in the grayscale when I switch over to the bitmap version.

Then Image>Bitmap and now it's ready to go to color.

Step 16 - I "flat" the artwork ( you can read the DC Guide to Coloring Comics for the specific steps and how's and why's). I also scan in a piece of Canson Orange Pastel paper and use it for my background layer that I will later color on top of on another layer. I want this to look like a sketch so I use my standard convention drawing to do this art on ( the pastel paper). Ignore the blue swoop, that's Emma Frost's cape from the back cover - I colored both pieces together!

Coloring next step!

TD

Coraline Step by Step Stage 3

Just about done with the drawing stage! Really polishing and cleaning up from here on out - very slight stuff but since I have scans of it, I'll try to show a little more of my process!

Step 9 - Hand and arm refining (and chair). More clothes tweaking. Moved Coraline's left breast a bit. Cleaned the chair a bit.

Step 10 -Nailed the face and hair. Looked at Mucha for an idea on how to do a real stylized flower in her hair. By finalizing her right hand on her face, I nail down that side of her head. Finalizing fabric and preparing her left hand and right arm for...

Step 11 - Drawing the scarf in, I had this in mind as a design element but wanted to wait until the hands and arms were nailed so I wouldn't waste time - whatever I put down for it wouldn't need to be redrawn later. This help finishes off the composition, gives movement to the piece and will tie into the wraparound Emma cover elements.

Step 12 - Final tightening in cleaning before I go in for the master scan! The pencil is down, next the computer!

Until next time!

TD

Coraline Step by Step Stage 2

On to Stage 2 of the drawing.

Step 5 - At this point I couldn't make up my mind about what Coraline would be doing so I took out some tracing paper and drew out a couple of ideas including showing her holding an umbrella and also, I roughed in the dress because that FABRIC was going to be a HUGE part of the composition

Step 6 - And out of that, I decided on a whole new position for Coraline's right hand, which compliments the composition and focuses the viewer's eyes on her face. Also, based off that rough in of her dress on the tracing paper, I go ahead and draw her dress in AND I get the chair she is sitting nailed as I need to figure out where and how her arms are resting at!

Also, I've thinned down Coraline's face slightly, so it looks more like Coraline! Plus her right cheek is pushed out a hair to emphasize the smile muscles. AND a slight lowering of her right eyebrow to add a little more character to the expression.

Step 7 - A second thought, maybe I should move the left arm.

Step 8 - Nah! But I did figure out that the chair needed to be wider to help support her and the composition.

Also, I've a little more work on her upper body, just beginning to refine.

Until next time!

TD