Inspiration: An Opera Singer

I'm not the biggest fan of opera, occasionally there's a song that I fall in love with. During one of my plunges into the depths of the internet this gem came into play.

This video had me completely entranced. Not just the power of Wagner or the purity of the soprano's voice, but the expressions on the soprano. I just kept watching it repeatedly looking at her face. 

Her eyes are the first thing I noticed. The eye on the right is open a lot wider than the other, and the eye on the left looks like it wants to sag off the face. 

I think it's interesting when the lips cover teeth. 

Her face is facing one direction but her mouth is facing another!

Her bottom teeth appeared to have been quite prominant through the piece. She has an interesting set of bottom teeth, very long and narrow.

I'm not sure if it's just the aspect ratio or her, but she takes squash and stretch to a whole new meaning.

The one above is probably my favorite. The song got quite dramatic, so did her face.  

I feel that the ends justify the means. She's not there to be pretty (even though she is), she's there to make powerful, moving music. Sometimes I think it's the opposite in todays standards.  

I am working on new drawings. Be patient. 

Pinocchio Comparisons

warm-ups

I saw "Pinocchio" for the first time online, I really enjoyed it, so much so that i snatched a bunch of stills to use as references, and boy golly did i get some good'ins! I decided to start of with one of my favorite scenes where Lampwick tells Pinocchio to take a BIG drag off the cigar. Pinocchio being extremely naive does so and suffers the consequence.

Above are my drawings, I'm doing 2 per page. Below are the original frames.

haha! Ouch, that looks painful just to look at.

Okee-Do-kee! Let's analyze this, shall we? There's actually a lot wrong. The eye left to us isn't slanted upward enough, the nose needs to be down and shifted to the right slightly, that threw off the mouth which the same needs to be done. The ear needs to be up and right more along with the hairline, the back of the head is not nearly big enough. The body isn't too bad but i need to watch out for those arms.

Face wise this isn't too shabby. The base of the nose needs to be larger, the ear needs to be shifted down along with jaw line and the back of the head needs to be extended further out. The Cigar however is waay off, and so is his bow-tie.

Ohhh! Is he gunna blow chunks??

Ewww. He sallowed it, gah-rose!

The major problem with this one is that the body is way too big (or the head is too small?). Otherwise in the face the main features seem to meet up just fine with the exception of the eyebrows and ears. Again the head needs to be extended in the back, the hat is too low in the front. The cheek on the left in just a tad-bit too big but not that bothersome to me.

This would be a pretty decent drawing... IF I FUCKING MOVED THE BACK OF THE HEAD AND EARS FURTHER BACK. That seems to be a huge problem. Along with that the jaw needs to be moved down further, and the tie moved in more. More minor issues would be that the left eyebrow needs to be shifted up and to the right a tad and the brim of the hat a little but up.

I loved this part, his eyes fill all the way to the top with tears and then when he closes them a huge waterfall pours out of his eyes. But right before it pours out the tears squash down like they do below.

Awesome, I know. Kudos to whoever planned this out.

WHOA! The head and ears are allllllmoooossst where they need to be, they're still off though. The eyebrows need to be placed further down, and the mouth needs to be scaled down a bit. The neck is way off and therefore the rest of the body even then the back of the collar is not at the right angle and needs to be facing away from his body more.

First thing i notice is that the neck is too long. and like the previous drawing the collar needs to be going away from the body more. The ears are near perfect! But the back of the head... you know. The jaw line needs to shift up and the left eyebrow needs to move left more. The mouth is placed too high. As for the nose, down more and larger.

Love the above expression!

Hey! What's the first thing you notice? EAR AND BACK OF HEAD!! everything else is either where it needs to be or close. For example the nose is too long and so is the cheek. The right eyebrow is a little high as well as the hat.

I am not sure what's going on with the hat so let's ignore it. Once yet again, ear... back of head. The jaw is down too low and the nose needs to be smaller aswell as the wrinkles. The body is too big and the bow needs to be upwards and over to the left more.

PHEW! There is a lot wrong going on in these pictures. Obviously I need to watch out for the ear and width of the head. Second i need to be cautious of the size of the head or body making sure one isn't too big than the other. My next issue I would say would be watching out for the eyebrows, nose-size, and jaw. The neck is also a problem. Those are the major ones that i notice right off that bat and what i'll start working on. I'll be posting more Pinocchio stuff, i got lots of stills of the lead, Gepetto, Jiminy Cricket, Figaro the Cat, Honest John, and Lampwick.

ALSO, if you have any critiques, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE post them!

Little Project.

So while I've been improving my drawings i decided possibly tackling on a little project. It's just going to be kind of a music video to a short song that i really like. I'm still pretty early in the project to have a desire to tell you what it's all about and what will happen. But I'll share with you my main character.

The song was made back in the fifties and sung by a very sly and hip black man (he was associated with the beatniks). So I made black character in a zoot suit, i think that his overall appearance is instantly recognizable and without speaking a word we have a general idea of what kind of person he is, energetic, fun, and hip. He is based off of Prince Chawmin' from "Coal Black & da' Seben Dwarves" but the racial stereotypes will be a little toned down as to not alienate my entire audience.



Speaking of racial stereotypes, let me know about what you think about how i drew his lips I'm concerned that maybe it's a little too much, but I don't want to change it for a couple reasons. First being that they are incredibly fun to draw, not just the lips but this entire character just falls off my pencil so effortlessly. One of the reasons why it's fun to draw is that they are very expressive and i can get some good emotions out of them, I also can't wait to start animating him speaking, I'm going to have tons o' fun exaggerating the way he talks.


But another reason is that, I'm afraid that by toning it down a little he won't be as graphically recognizable, The new Disney movie that's coming out "The Princess and the Frog" which is centered around people of a darker complexion, some of the drawings just strike me as stock doodles of white people they had laying around and painted a different color. I think that if you take away the color and all you have left is the ink, most of the characters you probably wouldn't think were black unless someone told you.

I'm of course not telling anyone to draw features so exaggerated that they are offensive, but to draw something until it's universally recognizable and some of the new Disney characters they do a pretty good job at realizing this fine line, but they're human drawings also look like they are not very fun to work with.

Also, so long as your not being tasteless and just having fun, no one should be offended.