#215 The Shoebill

Animalia: Day 150

The Shoebill

Went simple on this one.

Tomorrow: the shrew

#196 The Rabbit

Animalia: Day 139

The Rabbit

So this drawing and tomorrows – the raccoon (as well as the squirrel) 

– were done in 2011 and 2012 as gifts for my girlfriend at the time.

They form a series of forest animals in different ships of sorts.

Thus, they do not have the requisite "fig..." labels. But I colored them

for the purpose of putting them up for Animalia. It is also why the

animals are kind of secondary to the larger narrative of the image.

In any case, I really like how these turned out, hope you do too.

Strangely enough, they will be getting posted in the opposite order

that they were made. So the squirrel, which won't be up for months,

was actually done in early 2011, with the others done in 2012.

Tomorrow: the Raccoon.

#195 The Quetzalcoatlus

Animalia: Day 138

The Quetzalcoatlus

The quetzalcoatlus is an awesome giant-headed pterosaur.

It's also pretty cool that they're named after a feathered 

serpent God of the Aztecs. After having watched this video, 

I am realizing that I totally misunderstood the structure of

how its wings collapse when it walks. Whoops. It happens.

Tomorrow: the Rabbit.

#194 The Puffin

Animalia: Day 137

The Puffin

By request, I did the Puffin last night. It threw off the numbers

for the next few I've already done, but I removed the rat from

my list since I drew at least fifty of them for The Alchemist, as 

well as having already drawn a mouse, besides other rodents.

Done digitally, due to lack of scanner. Turned out alright tho.

Tomorrow: the Quetzalcoatlus.

#178 The Parrot

Animalia: Day 126

The Parrot

Playing with body/head ratios. Also, you can sneak peek 

tomorrow's animal drawing through the paper... whoops.

Struggled with how bright to make the colors and experimented 

with a very bright and saturated, and then a desaturated, lightened 

version. Ended up settling on a middle ground, leaning towards
more saturated. But happy with the result, regardless.

Tomorrow: the Phronima.

#172 The Oviraptor

Animalia: Day 121 

The Oviraptor

Here is the black and white unedited:

I did the big one in brush pen, and after it was finished,

I realized I had neglected the ovi- in oviraptor.

So, I drew the little sketch at the bottom right in homage of Birdo.

Also, there is a HORSE The Band song about Birdo, which at the
beginning samples a bit of Gollum from the animated Hobbit movie.

Color update will be added later, perhaps tomorrow.

EDIT:
Colors!

I wanted to add some yellows and lime greens,
but wasn't able to make it look good. Wompadoooo.

Tomorrow (maybe? might fall behind): the Pachycephalosaurus.

#170 The Ostrich

Animalia: Day 119

The Ostrich

Preliminary doodle.

I did the sketches on the left first, then wanted to exaggerate the

small head, so I did the thumbnail sketch at the bottom.

Then I tried to blow that up, which was not entirely successful.

So then I photoshopped it to be roughly the proportions I wanted.

I tried coloring too, but it was a mess, so you get the grayscale (er, silver).

I am in Paris right now in residency at the Cité Internationale Des Arts,

making drawings and what not, but more on that in another post.

I did these animal drawings a few months ago, but they are silverpoints,

which are apparently difficult to document. 

My scanner blew out the images, and photographing them yielded 

mixed results, but that is what I ended up using.

Anyways, silverpoint on Terraskin, which is paper made from stone.

Tomorrow (maybe actually?!): the Otter.

#132 Guest Artist Jenie Gao draws the Spoonbill!

Animalia: Guest Artist!

Jenie Gao - the Spoonbill

Jenie Gao is an artist living and working in Milwaukee, WI.

For as long as I have known her, she has always drawn animals,

so I figured she would be perfect at guest artisting for Animalia.

I didn't know about the spoonbill until Jenie accidentally drew this

one instead of a shoebill, which is also forthcoming for animalia.

Jenie sent me the pen and ink drawing and I colored it,

but I really think Jenie's B/W drawings work better w/o color.

(Also, I had trouble figuring out what color I should do the b/g)

Either way, shoebills are crazy colors:

flamingo pink, Big Bird yellow, and sky blue.

Anyways, thanks Jenie!

#115 The Lovebird

Animalia: Day 95

The Lovebird

BOOOORRRRIIIINGGGG

Oh well. cute at least?

Tomorrow: the Lynx

#92 The Hoatzin

Animalia: Day 75

The Hoatzin

Tomorrow: the Horned Lizard

#72 The Fly

Animalia: Day 56

The Fly

This one is late because flies are hard to draw and I wish

Nick had never requested to add it to the list.

I did a couple sketches, and a bigger one, and didn't like any of them.

So this is all you get. Sorry brohams.

The trouble with flies is that there is no angle to draw them from where you

see their face and a good view of their wings. Also, because they stand

belly down, with all legs on the ground, it's hard to get a good angle of

their face in general. This is all apart from the fact that they have

six legs all coming from the same point on their underbellies.

So I wanted to make their furriness look like a fur coat with a fur collar,

but it didn' really happen.

Basically, flies are the worst.

But at the last second, I decided to salvage the sketches

by pulling an Adriaen van de Venne a la"Fishing for Souls"

(hint: bottom left, left of boat).

Also known as a Tom Friedman a la "Untitled (1995)".

See art is good for the earth cause it's all about recycling.

Tomorrow(or hopefully later tonight): the Fox

#71 The Flamingo

Animalia: Day 55

The Flamingo

Ink. Overworked this one a bit.

Shouldn't have done so much shading in the body,

and the beak lines got too thick.

I like the legs a lot though.

Tomorrow: the Fly

#70 The Finch (Lady Gouldian Finch)

Animalia: Day 54

The Finch

Originally, we were going to do the ferret today, but I've had

enough of little furries, so we booted it and added the flamingo.

I searched finches, and the Lady Gouldian Finch came up.

It is basically the Google Chrome logo in animal form.

Tomorrow: the Flamingo

#66 The Duck

Animalia: Day 50

The Duck

Meh, ducks. A little boring.

Tomorrow: the Dugong

#63 The Dodo

Animalia: Day 46

The Dodo

This one is a bit late because while looking at dodo pics,

got distracted by how amazing looney tunes are. and from 1938.

Also, wanted to do some birds eye view,

to try and fix my inability to draw perspectives.

A couple hours (and thumbnails) later,

I had a preliminary drawing.

Finished it this morning, then decided to add a background.

Anyways, I'm happy with how this turned out,

though I wish the mouth was more frowny and froglike,

and it's a little too Toucan Sam for my liking.

Later today: the Dog.

#60 The Crow

Animalia: Day 43

The Crow

Based on the [probably offensive?] crow characters in Dumbo. 

Tomorrow: the Deer

#41 The Canary

Animalia: Day 26

The Canary

Canaries are really yellow. They also die in cages in mines.

That's about all I know about 'em.

I think Tweety was a canary.

Today was a quickie, but I still like it.

Hoping to do more like this and also do more sleeping.

Tomorrow: the Capybara

#38 The Budgerigar

Animalia: Day 23

The Budgerigar

Whats a budgerigar?

I know, it sounds like another horned quadruped, but it's not.

It's a bird? Yeah, a bird.

Tomorrow: the Bull

#33 The Bat (Wrinkle-Faced Bat)

Animalia: Day 18

The Bat

Today's drawing is kind of weak.

I really like bats, and I put them in a lot of drawings,

but they are pretty hard to draw actually.

I picked the Centurio Senex, or wrinkle-faced bat,

which have the most intense face wrinkles ever.

After finding this picture,

I kind of realized nothing I drew would be as cool as this.

I couldn't find many full body shots,

so I ended up just putting him in a big cartoon hand.

Pretty let down with today's drawing.

Tomorrow: the Bear