Thursday, January 29, 2009

Stephen Silver draws the sexy

Stephen Silver recently dug into his old character design sheets that were never really seen. He drew sexified characters especially Shego. Drawings I haven't seen before:


Looking back at it I realized that my interpretation of Shego has drifted off from her original flowing lines to one that more subtley followed geometric shapes. Of course, I suppose that was necessary considering that I had her in some impossible poses that would not be compatible with the way he draws his lines.

He also presented his preliminary designs for Jazz Fenton:


I can see how he deliberately made her quite sultry in all 3 steps of the design process, and I'm thoroughly convinced that he knows very well how to work his way around with making a character looking sexy without having to 'cheat' like me by adding hips and curves to the body shape.
It's all in the pose people, it's all in the pose and attitude of the pic. I suppose that's the magic that makes pinups successful.

It also makes me hate Butch Hartman even more because it's obvious that he un-sexified her for the final production. Damn you Hartman!!!!! :P


Anyway, I've been listening to a few wise words from his podcasts, because I've always had the problem of motivation and general frustration of my art.

It's pretty nice he mentions that he's a fan of Jack Davis and that MAD magazine was such a big inspiration for him. Now I can see that he ate the style and added it to his own.






Stephen Silver - Getting passion back into drawing


He mentions things that are parallels mine a bit. That he reaches a point of frustration where he stops and calls himself a lousy artist and who's he fooling. He also mention phases where he moves onto one thing and then moves on to something else when he gets bored of it. I also have the same tendencies.

There's another where he talks about not getting stressed out about your art. There's a sentence that speaks to me in a way where it somehow nails my face in the bulls eye.

Stephen Silver - Stressing about your art

"I know just being an artist and going through all of the struggles, and we all go through it where we all feel down with our artwork. We belittle ourselves, we feel like we're not good enough and that we could be better, and that this person is better and we're not as good as them, and it becomes competitive and all of this becomes madness." - Stephen Silver.

"I could have gone into a frenzy, I could have got into a fit, I could have created all of this frustration, all of this anger. Just being pissed off, I could have punched holes into the walls. I could have done all of this stuff and just hate everything and everyone" - Stephen Silver.

It's surreal to know that he encounters the same pitfalls and lows that I do.

6 comments:

hasu13 said...

A lot of artists are like that (or anyone in creative fields, really). Genuinely good artists look down on their own work, apologize when they see even the slightest flaw, or just feel inadequate compared to artists they themselves like. I think part of it comes when you try to live up to the expectations of others--real or perceived--and not just live up to your own. As long as you have fun creating something you can be proud of, that should be enough.

Matt Dusza said...

Yea I read his update as well and It made me see alot of things. I just picked up his "Life" Book aswell, Makes some good points in the intro

Unknown said...

My comment really has nothing to do with the thread, but if you'd like suggestions or requests - I'd love to see what you could do with "Malina" from "Emperor's New School."

ThaMan said...

You realize what this means, don't you?

It means you're on your way to being as great an artist as Stephen.

Could you see yourself doing professional character designs? I know I could.

Baragon-Kun said...

Dude Levelord, i like this

by the way, do you have the picture of demotivational poster using penny in bikini mocking DA censorhip, i need it

Moffer said...

Can you make a wallpaper size of the Sam pic you have on the top of this site? I would really appreciate it! :D