Mika gave me an assignment. Her and her friend, Maya, were in need of an ogre drawing for a class assignment.
This was terrifying to me. First off, drawing an ogre is in the realm of "fantasy" art. Fantasy art (fairies, gnomes, fairies, so on...) are generally terrible. I can't think of a single thing that can make me lose interest in an artist quicker than that artist telling me they love drawing fairies. I'm not saying that you can't be amazing at drawing fairies, or that it doesn't have it's audience, but it's like when my acting teacher in film school told me she was a professional clown...
Anyways, I was terrified. I'm not very good at drawing normal every day things, yet alone anything from the fantasy genre. I'm not WETA. WETA could knock an ogre out of the park. I'm not only being asked to draw an ogre, but I'm being asked to draw an ogre at my film school level of talent.
Reluctantly, I agreed. At least it's a challenge!
I asked Mika for the pose she wanted it in... This is what she gave me.
This is also the attitude I got with most of my sketches. Especially my first attempt.
She didn't like the skinny legs. She also asked why I was drawing in pink. HEY!, pink goes back to my days assisting Dreamworks Feature animation, I'll have you know! She also wanted wider eyes for some reason. Also, this sketch looks like he's farting or shitting a spikey rock. It was actually me just scribbling a club there in case I wanted him packing a weapon... yeah.
Anyway, I tried thickening up the legs a bit.
For those who don't get what I mean when I say I haven't improved since Film School, FOURTEEN years ago, THIS is what I'm talking about. I drew the following drawing in 1996. Have a look between the drawing below and the drawing above.
Need I say more?
Anyways, panic was setting in, Mika was hounding me on the deadline. I was terrified that these grade 4 kids would rip my drawing to shreds. I actually imagined a bunch of 9 year olds saying my ogre drawing was a worse design than SHREK. The next one was a quick wipe board sketch I did at work...
I finally got a rough drawing out in my notebook at work. The rough ink drawing seemed to capture, in a rough way, what I wanted. I thought it would literally be the best I could do.
I got home and asked Mika for the poster paper I was supposed to draw it on. It was WAY thinner and longer than I thought it would be. I didn't want to make the ogre any taller, it already looked shitty enough. I decided to put the ogre standing on a pile of skulls.
This also fulfilled my Tyler Hoolaeff drawing suggestion. (I do however plan on attempting to draw BETTER skulls then these...)
Mika approved my final design and colored it in. She blacked out one of the eyes though because, as she explained "Maya had to poke one out" (thus her needing the ogre to have big eyes)
So my first commission is complete. WAY too stressful. Mika colored the whole thing in. She colored the bottom skulls as if they were part of background thus making the pile of skulls the ogre was standing on look kinda small. Oh well - She's the art director on this one. Whattya do?
I really hate that final drawing.
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