Sketchbook: Eisenhower Junior High Generals '11

Brian's sister Jenny is a history teacher at Eisenhower Junior High in Taylorsville, Utah.  She's also in charge of the Student Body Officers and she wanted me to design a t-shirt logo for them.  The school mascot is a General, and they wanted him flexing and looking really tough.  A five-star World War II helmet was a must.  I came up with a logo that I was really proud of, but the kids were a little less than impressed.  They had a list of changes they wished to be made.  For starters, his big strong chest (which in my opinion is totally proportional to the size of his massive arm) looked like "man boobs" in their eyes.  They also thought he didn't look mean enough, and they didn't think his shirt looked army enough.  They wanted maybe a tie or some patches or something to help him look like a general.

I made the changes, and although I still think the old one is really good, the new one is pretty awesome!  I trimmed down his chest quite a bit and added a tie.  The tie made it impossible to do the chest pockets anymore without looking really busy, so I added the epaulet to the shoulder instead.  I toyed around with various patches that all looked stupid.  In fear of picking something that would turn out to be historically inaccurate, I decided to follow a student's suggestion of incorporating the EJH of their school name.  So that became the patch on his sleeve.  In order to make him look meaner than the first one, I accentuated the angry brows and added some facial lines.  The result is an older and gruffer general, as opposed to a young and innocent one.  Much more fitting of Eisenhower if I do say so myself!

The students all love it now.  One of them said, "He no longer has boobs!  His surgeon did a good reduction!"

Sketchbook: Sack o' Flour '08

One of the assignments of BYU's pre-animation course was to animate a sack of flour.  Unfortunately, I don't have a copy of the rough animation.  Sad day!  But I do have some sketches of the sack of flour in various poses.  It's pretty adorable, isn't it?

Sketchbook: More People Watching!

Here are some more people-watching sketches from yesteryear!  I haven't done this little exercise in a while.  It was fun and great practice... so I definitely think I should start this habit up again!

Sketchbook: People Watching!

Sometimes I like to sit in a public place and just observe people.  Don't you?  It's kind of fun to see the way different people walk and dress and interact with each other.  And sometimes, if I'm feeling particularly adventurous, I'll sketch them!!  Although, I will admit I often take the easier route of drawing people once they have stopped moving!  Ha ha.  So loungers, beware!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sketchbook: Work Doodles '11

This sketch wasn't actually done in my sketchbook, but on a torn off piece of brown paper towel!  You see, today at work I was on the register for the first time.  It was actually kind of fun, but during the long stretches while people were in movies I had nothing to do.  The cashier is set apart from everyone else in a little box, so I was all alone and couldn't even talk to my coworkers really.  So what did I do to kill the time?  I doodled!!

It's kind of hard to see what the speech and thought bubbles say, so I'll tell you.  I'm just saying, "Welcome to Cinemark!  Enjoy your show!" while thinking, "This uniform makes me look ridiculous..."  It's true.

Sketchbook: Human Nude '09

Here are just a few sketches that I've unearthed recently while going through the boxes we had stored here at the Kesler home.  These are from the summer of 2009, and I apologize to anyone who may be offended by nudity.  I assure you it's not pornographic!  The sketches of the male and female respectively were drawn from models, and my instructor at the time specifically asked us to roughly sketch using straight lines.  The last drawing is a lot more detailed, and is of our statue friend Veronica (who by the way, is very happy we are home).

Sketchbook: The Head '09

Here are some other drawings I did during my one semester of online study at the Academy of Art University.  Everyone had the same head sculpture to set up, light, and draw from.  The first sketch is in the beginning stages, and the one following is a lot more complete with shading and whatnot.  I don't like how the eyes turned out, but otherwise it's pretty good I guess.  The instructor also had us draw a head from a photograph, and I chose the one of President Obama.  The last picture isn't head-related, but I included it anyway!  I like the shading and stuff!

Sketchbook: Basic Shapes '09

These are some drawings I did during the summer of 2009 when I took an online drawing class through The Academy of Art University based in San Francisco, California.  I had to purchase a kit which included the cone, sphere, cube, and cylinder and we used those objects for a variety of assignments.  Although they offered an entire animation degree program online, I never did more than a semester with them because I didn't like the online approach.  Art class is so much better in person.  Besides, since I couldn't use the labs on campus, I would have had to purchase my own software and whatnot, which I never could have afforded on my own.  Those shapes were too costly even!

 

 

Sketchbook: My Feet '08

Here are some more sketches from the old sketchbook I kept while attending Brigham Young University in the fall of 2008.  These ones are of feet, which I know are really gross to look at.  Sorry.  It's even grosser because they are my feet!  But I had to do it!  My instructor Kelly Loosli made me do it!  Maybe he has a foot fetish?

Sketchbook: My Hands '08

Here are some photos from my sketchbook.  I thought maybe it would be fun to share some of these every once in a while.  I drew these while I was a pre-animation student at Brigham Young University in 2008.  Kelly Loosli was my instructor, and he had assigned us to draw seven sketches of our hands (one for every day of the week).  Here are the seven I drew: