Hey guys! Sorry for the lack of activity, but things are getting a bit busy on my end and ...

It's Summer. Whatcha gonna do?

~Mark

Coco... in the hay.

WHAT?! Mark?? UPDATING?!

Yes, world. It's true! I've been sketching a lot lately, but haven't had the time to scan it all! But tonight! TONIGHT! I have scanned 42 images from 3 different sketchbooks of which I shall share now!

Okay, so I'm only gonna share 3 of them.

This is Coco Medley.

For those who are familiar with her, this is not her normal garb. In fact, she typically wears something along the lines of this:

But one day, I figured I'd concentrate on her traditional village dress which up til recently had remained rather... bland.

Seen here, is my redesign of her dress (on the left there). This was done after some serious research of traditional dresses of North and East Europe.

Well, Although Coco will always have that bit of adventurous life to her... I can't help but enjoy drawing her in this dress!

As a bonus, I decided to add a small picture of the overall theme of her village (a village of Sheep Herders).

Well! Goodnight everyone!
~Mark

The 53rd Butler

A little side project has been running through my head a while ago. A funny little thought about a young butler, taken into service to an eccentric (and extremely wealthy) old man, set in the mid-swing of 1950's America.

The story is simple enough, but no matter where/what/when things happen (some of which completely throwing out "Why" or "How") it all goes back to the butler, Ralph, and his point of view of the people he encounters under the old man's employment.

Designing the characters has been interesting though, as I wanted to mess with small details, hoping to use those details to define the character. Now I started this project with the traditional mass of shapes and forms, of course (might upload those later), but here I am with details.

Although he fits the "Hero" standard, I used particular shapes to create a slightly different take than I normally would; Ralph the butler is constructed using primarily rounded shapes (A wide oval for his chest, and a more rounded one for his hips, following though with ovals for the rest of the anatomy), and I try to avoid any unnecessary sharp angles.

The particular challenge I've set for myself (and have had trouble sticking to) was his sloped shoulders. Every male character I've created up to this point had straight shoulder lines (adjusting as angle/reach would require). So Ralph's unique stature made things interesting for me to re-imagine posing (not to mention adjusting arm lengths). But his sloped shoulders seemed to make him feel... stronger (to me at least), allowing for his rounded chest to take more action, or for him to "Lead" with his chest when he runs/walks and so forth, without him feeling too proud.

Now the old man (still un-named at this point), is another challenge for me as this age group has been left relatively untouched. Face shape was an important bit point in his construction, as I wanted something uncommon, but still "handsome" (at least in his younger years). Body shape also played a big role as various different types resulted in different outlooks from Ralph's point of view.

But I ended up with a short, little man, with a rounded dome and squared jaw. The difference in stature and build created a contrast of character visually that pleased me, and developed an unsuspecting aspect to the old man's character. You never know just what the little guy will do.

Other characters will arise as I develop story around these two, and I shall post more as development happens. Meantime, I shall chastise myself for not updating as often as I should, and apologize to my watchers out there!

Til' later everyone!

~Mark Thorne

Costumes Costumes Costumes!

One thing I hear a lot about my work are comments about my costume designs for my characters.
In fact, this was one reason a good friend of mine (Noah Page~) approached me for a collaboration.

So following are some quick sketches I worked on for this project of ours involving some costume work~

 

Yep! It's always interesting to dive into this stuff.

Til' later folks!

~Mark

Oh dearie dearie dearie dear!

I've been re-reading "Winnie-the-Pooh".

Anyhoots.

I've noticed a particular lack of posting from last week all together! I must apologize.
*AHEM*
Sorry.

Speaking of books tho', a while ago I read the 700+ page book "Arabian Nights" (not bad, had some interesting stories, with plenty to compare/contrast with current popular re-tellings). This inspired me to revisit a little-drawn character I created for a small group forum-RP (in truth, there were only 3 of us playing, multiple roles, but the characters were interesting).
Some of you are familiar with Peterli? He was created for this RP (twice, with different groups each time, but same gamemaster). But in the second RP, I created a best friend for him: Beldev the Ifrit.

He's the second one in this picture here>

Well, as I was reading this book, Ifrits, or the general Jinn population, were overall described as having very extended, and often tight family relations.

So what does Mark do? I draws more!

His parents, older brothers (twins) and an older sister. I had more studies of the bother's dynamics. (still need to scan those in sometime).

In the meanwhile, this family (all but Beldev needing names), will be delved into slowly, personalities, personal opinions and so forth being all sorted out. You might see another entry involving them at a later point!

Til' then folks!

~Mark Thorne

He's always... smiling...

"Gijinka". Or basically Humanized versions of characters/things that aren't normally human.  I've dabbled into this myself, but the most successful outcome of this idea had been when I took that ever-smiling creepy looking clock from Disneyland's "it's a small world" (whom I fondly call "Glockenspiel" after the type of clock he is) and made a "What if...?" human version of him. Thus from here on, I'll be referring to the clocktower as a "He".

At first this was just me trying to figure out why the original face is so... creepy. He has "dead eyes", or eyes that look straight forward unfocused at anything.  So I tried drawing what he'd look like with his eyes focusing slightly inward, giving him a much more approachable look.



I became infatuated with every new sketch, making this simple study into a slow development of a character. He developed more personality every time I drew him.

Then "Epic Mickey" came out. You know? The video game where the first boss battle you encounter is the "it's a small world" clocktower?? Yep. Loved that.


Unfortunately, my fellow students and friends found a love/hate relationship with this, as one good friend found when she returned to her desk to find this smiling at her:

 "I don't know if I should be flattered, or frightened..." was her rather uncertain response.


Eventually I found myself drawing him as a human, experimenting until a form fit well enough. And along with this came more "What if...?"s with a more... unwilling subject. Disneyland's Haunted Mansion!

I think they'd be best bros yo'.

Well this little infatuation of mine comes and goes. And as it does, more things come into play. More... characters~

Head count so far: Glockenspiel, Mansion, Castle, Matterhorn, Space, Splash, Temple, and a slight idea of pirates. There's a few more of these in the works. And they'll all find their way to my sketchbook eventually. But until then, I'll slowly work out the characters one small group at a time.


Keep sketchin' everyone!


~Mark

Things I haven't finished...

Sound familiar? I bet. Everyone has em'. Little projects they've started and never quite finished.

I've got tons.

Here's a couple of things I never completed (but who knows, I might someday)

This here was a tribute for the old parade at Disneyland Park "Parade of Dreams". It was murder trying to get all the details of each float into each section, let alone finding good reference photos of each one! As you can see it was scanned in as 2 pictures and spliced together... I don't remember where in my pile the original is so I can't say I know how big it is anymore. But it's pretty big.

Ah, for those who are familiar with my characters you might recognize my little Southern Belle: Rose Marie Briar. This was a family tree in the works, tracing back to her great grandparents and the first of the Briar clan to live in America. This project was fun to begin with because of all the costume research! And those of you who know me well, know I love to research and design costumes!
I still have much of her family tree to develop, but just knowing the line of parents, grandparents, and great grandparents already helped solidify the background and setting of Rose's life.

"Hey wait! I know them! He finished writing that story a long while ago!"
Nicholas of Main Street. Possibly the only written story I have ever finished. A 1/2 Fanfic (Disney/Disneyland) and 1/2 original story of Nicholas Baker and his misadventures in finding a peaceful life on Disneyland's Main Street USA.
I have this one on the list because, this project was one of those no-and-off again projects. Where each time I started writing it, I stopped and started all over again trying something different. I thought I'd never finish it. But I did. And after I had finished writing the first round of the story (see my DeviantArt page at: http://choco-kun.deviantart.com/ ), I found I was a better writer when I finished then when I started. So I started it all over again! And I have to say it's doing quite well. Some things have changed thus far, some stayed the same, but for the most part it's still Nicholas of Main Street.

Well, that's everything I have for you today, more to come! See you all next Monday!

~Mark Thorne