Sanity Sketches

All through working in TV, and in my first few years at Disney, I had a doodle pad (or, more often, a bit of scratch paper taped to my desk), where I'd jot down stuff that I wanted to draw later, thumbnails for visualising stuff I was listening to, character designs, random images, etc. A lot of the things posted on this blog either started on, or were scanned directly from, that doodle pad. It was a handly little release valve and kept the creative juices flowing when most of my day was spent doing technical rotations of bug monsters.

Moving to the Cintiq, and feeling guilty about how much time I was wasting online when I had a computer permanently on my desk, trained the doodle pad out of me. But I've been working incredibly long hours on this job and procrastinating really very little, so I finally brought the doodle pad back in order a)to keep sane and b)to sketch off Blackadder Goes Forth. I plan to do some acting studies off it when I have time again but don't want to be struggling with design when I should be focusing on the posing and expressions, so I'm trying to find a shorthand for them. I thought people might be interested in the behind-the-scenes work which goes into a caricature, so here is what I've done so far; the good, the bad, and the ugly:

( Images In Here, To Save You Scrolling )

I think I've more or less got a handle on Hugh Laurie, but the others will need their own pass through the series. It's good fun, though, and surprisingly doesn't detract that much from the time spent working – certainly less than the concentration gained by a little diversion, and the burden of the workload seems so much lighter. Turns out a strategy for diverting drawing compulsions is an effective coping strategy in general, and productive besides. Word to the wise!