It's Challenge Month - PiBoIdMo - SkADaMo - Doodle Day!

The Doodlers in Doodle Day are focusing on Animals all month long. Since I am also participating in PiBoIdMo and SkADaMo through November, I am pretty much overflowing with ideas. I have come up with 14 new picture book ideas and lots of doodles.

Here are my doodles for the first 8 days of Animal Month and SkADaMo...

Day 1: CAPYBARA

 

I also did some birds on Day 1...





Day 2: RACCOON

Day 3: ELEPHANT

Day 4: JACKALOPE

 

 

 

Day 5: PRAIRIE DOG



 

 

Day 6: SHARK

 

Day 7: NEWT

Day 8: RED PANDA

Now for some COWS for Day 9. Check back next Saturday for the week in review...



 

Interview and other news...

Hey all,
I know that I haven't posted lately but I have been doodling everyday - here are some of my doodles from October:

At the beginning of this month, I attended the SCBWI conference (WiK) in Birmingham. As always, this conference was inspiring and informative. I came home motivated to revise, illustrate, do a ton of school visits, and send my postcard to Art Directors. I spent the weekend with talented writers, illustrators, agents, and editors. A wonderfully supportive group of professionals.

Today, I am featured on Joanna Marple's blog. Click here to read the interview.  There's even a tour of my studio! Check it out, leave a comment and share the link with friends. I'm hoping that my journey will inspire others to persevere.

Keep doodling! November is featuring animal prompts every day so come check it out and doodle with me! Click here to go to Doodle Day.

Character Challenge Summary

My Summary

 

 

The Character Challenge is officially over but I plan to continue working on Character Design. Here are the characters that I designed during the challenge:

 

HEAD SHAPES 

 

2-4 YEAR OLDS

 

 

 

 

5-8 YEAR OLDS



 

 

 

 

9-12 YEAR OLDS

13-17 YEAR OLDS

 

18-25 YEAR OLDS

 

26-40+ YEAR OLDS

 

 

EXPRESSIONS

 

 

 

I hope you will post a summary showing the characters that you designed during the Character Challenge.

 

-Alison

 

Character Challenge - Day 13: 26-40+ year olds

Day 13: 26-40+ year olds

Welcome to Day 13 of the Character Challenge! This is our last prompt and if you have made it this far, you should have worked on characters ranging from 2 years old to 25 years old as well as eyes, ears, noses, mouths, posture, and costumes. I have filled many pages of my sketchbook and I hope you have, too.

Here are the links to the previous posts:
Day 1: Head Shapes
Day 2: Toddlers 2-4 years old
Day 3: All About Eyes

Day 4: 5-8 year olds

Day 5: Noses and Ears

Day 6: 9-12 year olds

There was no post on Saturday or Sunday

Day 9: 13-17 year olds

Day 10: Mouths

Day 11: 18-25 year olds
Day 12: Costuming a Character

Today's prompt is 26-40+ year olds. Of course you can sketch older than 40 - that's what the + is for. The sky is the limit. This just means grown ups, adults, big people, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, people in the work force, people who entertain, people who you see every day. Remember that we are making characters here so don't worry about realism. Does that guy at the deli counter have big ears? Make them bigger in a character. Does that woman have spikey hair? Make it more spikey in a character. Take features farther.

On Monday, I will post a summary showing many of the characters that I created during this challenge on this blog. If you post a summary showing your characters, share the link in these comments so we can all see what was created. Don't feel that you have to spend the weekend inking and coloring some high quality character pieces - sketches, doodles, pencil are all fine.

Have fun and thank you for taking this challenge with me!

In January, I will be working on scenes (not focusing on the characters - just the backgrounds/locations/places) so if you want to do those with me, let me know.

Character Challenge - Day 12: Costuming a Character

Day 12: Costuming a Character

Welcome to Day 12 of the Character Challenge! You should be knee deep in doodles and sketches of 18-25 year olds. For me, designing adult characters is much more difficult than children. I don't know why - just is. In any case, at this point, we have worked on characters who are 2-4 years old, 5-8 years old, 9-12 years old, 13-17 years old and 18-25 years old. We have also worked on noses, eyes, ears, mouths and posture.

Here are the links to all of the previous Character Challenge posts if you want to check back or need to catch up:
Day 1: Head Shapes
Day 2: Toddlers 2-4 years old

Day 3: All About Eyes

Day 4: 5-8 year olds

Day 5: Noses and Ears

Day 6: 9-12 year olds

There was no post on Saturday or Sunday

Day 9: 13-17 year olds

Day 10: Mouths

Day 11: 18-25 year olds

Today, I am writing about Costuming a Character. Costumes are a lot of fun. Your character can be anything. Anything! Remember that this isn't the real world - these are your characters - your stories - your drawings. Do you want your character to get shot out of a cannon straight toward the moon? Go for it! Is your character a tiny fairy with super tall flowers surrounding her? Sure! This is fiction. Anything can happen. A good costume doesn't have to be complex, either. It can be appealing through straight forward simplicity. A pirate sword and an eye patch or a ray gun and pointy collared shirt can tell a viewer who this character is.

Take some of those young adults you are working on and add a king's crown and robe, doctors scrubs, space suit, fireman's jacket and hat, baseball pants, shirt, and hat (don't forge the cleats). Think of any job or make one up and try the outfit on your character. You don't have to do a bunch, just try one - sketch it. We're not looking for portfolio pieces in this challenge - this is a time to play.


Have fun!

Character Challenge - Day 11: 18-25 year olds

Day 11: 18-25 year olds

 

 

Welcome to Day 11 of the Character Challenge! We have sketched toddlers, kids, pre-teens, and teens. We have also worked on eyes, ears, noses, and mouths. If you have been keeping up with this challenge, great job! We are moving pretty fast and only have a few prompts to go!

 

Here are links to the past Cha-Cha Posts:

 

Day 1: Head Shapes
Day 2: Toddlers 2-4 years old

Day 3: All About Eyes

Day 4: 5-8 year olds

Day 5: Noses and Ears

Day 6: 9-12 year olds

There was no post on Saturday or Sunday

Day 9: 13-17 year olds

Day 10: Mouths

 

Today's prompt is 18-25 year olds. College students and recent grads. This age group includes young people choosing careers and entering the work force or joining the military. In books, we now refer to them as New Adult - and they have their own genre.

 

What you ever knew about figure drawing can pretty much go out the window on "characters." Your squat adult male might only be three heads tall. Your young dad character might be just 4 or 5 heads tall. What makes these characters different from the children using same number of heads in height is that their face moves up on the head to the bottom third or even closer to the center. Ears move up to be between the eyes and nose instead of down between the nose and mouth. Hands get more defined. Clothing changes - grown up style. Women may wear jewelry. Men may wear a hat (other than a baseball hat). Hairstyles become cleaner with less fly away hairs.

 

Posture - "Posture can either energize or rob it of its energy." - Chris Hart

 

You can show a characters feelings even without facial features.

 

Here are a few stances:

Forward Leaning = aggressive or eager

Backward Leaning = easy going

Neutral but swayed forward a bit = Cute and innocent

Bend the knees and lean your character back a bit  = a goofy look. Think Moose from the Archie comics.

 

Think about posture when drawing these young adults. Is he or she heading off to college or to a job at the Chicken Shack? Give him a silly work uniform and show in his posture that he is either excited to go or dreading the idea.

 

Have fun!

 

Come back tomorrow for a new post.

 

 

 



Character Challenge - Day 10: The Mouth

Day 10: The Mouth

 

Welcome to Day 10 of the Character Challenge. So far, we have worked on characters in the age ranges of 2-4, 5-8, 9-12, and currently 13-17. We have also worked on Head Shapes, Noses, and Ears. Below is a link to all of the previous Character Challenge posts:

 

Day 1: Head Shapes
Day 2: Toddlers 2-4 years old

Day 3: All About Eyes

Day 4: 5-8 year olds

Day 5: Noses and Ears

Day 6: 9-12 year olds

There was no post on Saturday or Sunday

Day 9: 13-17 year olds

 

Today, I'll share a little info about Mouths. Mouths are a lot of fun to draw because they can be soo expressive (like the eyes). You can twist mouths in funky shapes to show different emotions. A tiny dot can show a character at a loss for words. A tilted line (along with a squinty eye) can show a character who is perplexed. Mouths can also be super wide showing amazement or anger. Doodle up some blank head shapes and try different mouths - you don't even have to add the nose or eyes or anything else - just go for different emotions with mouth shapes OR add some different moods to those moody teenagers that we are working on from yesterday's post OR just try some a page of mouths showing different reactions. Have fun with it.

 

Here are some mouth reference photos:

 

 



 

 

 

Have fun!

Come back tomorrow for the next age group prompt.