Wednesday, March 31, 2010

















To keep with the sketching theme, I am going to put up some sketches for my new book "Christian the Hugging Lion" written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell and which comes out this month.

In the 1950's there was a "Famous Artist's School" which was a correspondence school put together by Norman Rockwell, Albert Dorne, Robert Fawcett and few other fantastic illustrators from back in the day. These books are the best books on illustration out there, bar none, thats it, the end. Period.
There is a section in these books about Animal Drawing which basically compares the anatomy of humans to animals- the point being that basically the bone and muscle structure is very similar between most animals and humans. So I could go on and on about this. My point is sometimes I am asked how my animals look so "human" well the answer is that they basically are.
So, for example drawing the lion Christian pretty much ended up being my own children posing for the lion. Particularly since I don't have any Lions hanging around posing for me (Insert cheeky comment, Alex). From toddler to kid to adult it is pretty much my own family wrestling and roaring and acting like wild animals- just like any day of the week I guess.

1 comment:

  1. Very cute, and you are right, I can see a person in that little guy! Have you ever read the Tawny Scrawny Lion? I just reread that to my kids, I love the lion after he gets fat on carrot soup, his belly is so full, and his eyes are still wild.

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