Rad Sketch Session in Little Tokyo!

So I have to say...I feel beyond privileged to be able to attend these sketch sessions, held by super beyond amazing Dreamworks storyboard artist Rad Sechrist (on the right in below pic with the glasses). He's done storyboards for Megamind and Kung Fu Panda 2 among a bunch of other things, including being a contributor to the Flight comics, and it's just crazy to be in his presence. :) He also has a super helpful How-To blog if you're interested. ;) But yeah...he just started holding these quick sketch sessions on Saturdays. Thankfully I was able to meet him right as he was starting these, and I got to join them in Little Tokyo last Saturday. :D

That's my TA for Analytical Figure Drawing there on the left, Dan. He's SOOOO crazy talented!!! I can't believe I got to sit in between them. :D :D :D Maybe their talent will rub off on me? :D? Ha.

I CAN'T BELIEVE I GOT TO MEET SO MANY AWESOME ARTISTS!!! :D Christie Tseng is beyond amazing....I'd ben hearing so much about her and finally got to meet her that day! You MUST check out her stuff. Ian Abando is sitting there on the bottom left... he's crazy too! Tuna Bora and Yasemin Baran's are amazing artists as well! SO BEAUTIFUL! AHHH I'm so jealous of their talent!

Haha I'm always so hesitant to follow these people's blogs now... I hope they don't see mine. D:

Ivan Gonzali was nice enough to tell me about Will Weston's class at the Animation Guild, which I plan to definitely take sometime in the near future, next time they have it. :) I honestly don't have time for it right now, as much as I would wanna do it. :( Also I would feel weird just going without paying...sure they keep tabs on their students anyway. :P

DAN IS AMAZING. I AM SO GLAD HE'S MY TA!!!! He's already helped me SOOOOO much!!!! AHHHHH!!!! :D :D :D

These drawings go in order of most recent. So the ink ones above are after Rad told me that it might help to not use a pencil. He uses sharpie. I think that drove me to try using a pen... my problem is my lines aren't confident enough and I'm all sketchy. Gotta stop that! So using the pen really helped. You can see a difference I think, between the top set and the bottom set.

The bottom set is kind of I guess...my introduction to quick sketching? I tried doing it at Panera, and Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Lucille's... just did NOTTTT work! I felt so frustrated and awful...so Little Tokyo definitely helped. :)

I was hesitant to post these...but I think it'll be cool to look back on it one day when I'm awesome and remember how I started. You know? I hope I improve... geez.


I have to say too that I learned so much... I've never EVER been able to quick sketch, because it was always so FRUSTRATING! But they taught me some techniques that definitely help...it's only up from here, right? :) I thought I'd be intimidated by all the talent over there, but it was the opposite -- I was, and am, more inspired than I have ever been in my life.

I'm sooo grateful to all the awesome artists I met, especially because they take the time to answer my questions and help me out! :) Everyone is so nice!

Seriously. I hope no one wakes me up.

Dannnggg this is one long post! That's what I get for slacking off. xD