Character Development

This is the mom for the same story as my recent drawings. I probably spent the most time on her than any of the other ones. All together it probably took me longer drawing the hair, shoes, and face than anything else did. This is definitely a step up for me drawing women. My attempts in the beginning of this year were not nearly as good as this.

Elizabethtown

This is a paper about the region I'm from for my Geography class.

Michael Finch wrote:

Elizabethtown

Elizabethtown, Kentucky

Michael

Finch

From all of the stereotypes people have said over the years, one might expect to meet a person from Kentucky who speaks with a Southern accent, have married his cousin, or live in a hillbilly shack and eat road kill found on the side of the road; but, then you meet me. I was born in Elizabethtown, Kentucky. It is in the central part of the state about forty miles south of Louisville, (Loo-uh-vul, for those not from around here,) and has a population of about 22,000-25,000. Upon arrival, you would be surprised to find a large city of suburbs, farms, and even some disbursement of hillbillies amongst a beautiful rolling hill landscape of foothills from the Appalachian Mountains covered with all assortments of trees from oaks, to maples, pines, beech, willow, etc.

What a lot of people don’t know is that during the Civil war, Kentucky was not considered a part of the Southern Confederacy. It considered itself neutral and caused many families strife when houses where divided with brother fighting against brother or father or their own relatives who disagreed over the conflict. This describes a lot of the people who live there today. You will find many people who have trucks, cars, or flags displayed in their homes with the Confederacy flag on it. They are still very racist and fit your typical description of a Southern Redneck. Then there are those who are much more civilized, still speak with a Southern accent, and are some of the nicest and friendliest people I have met throughout the entire country.

Speaking of accents, I’m somewhat of a special case. Most people from here speak with a Southern accent. My entire family and my relatives have it, but not me. I guess it might be because I had speech therapy from K-8 in school. It remains a mystery for me. The only thing I say that comes remotely close to a Southern accent is when I use the conjunction “Y’all,” meaning you all. That’s usually when people try and guess where I am from.

The seasons here range from hot and humid summers with 90 degree temperatures, to cold, snowy, and everything covered in and inch or more of ice. Even with those occasional extremes, the weather is absolutely beautiful come fall when all the leaves change covering the hills with an assortment of bright yellow, amber red, and searing orange. Spring is equally beautiful with many of the trees around the area having flowers that bloom extravagantly; such as Tulip Poplar trees, Magnolias, Cotton Woods, Cherry trees and the like. The parks here are dazzling this time of year, and with all of the nearby lakes, and rivers, camping is an ideal thing to do here and throughout the state.

One stereotype that probably does apply here is the religious one; namely, Southern Baptist. People here are very religious, and growing up here, I was usually the only member of the LDS faith in my school. So in an area that is part of the Bible-Belt, it was interesting to observe how people did or didn’t live their religion or what they would have to say about mine.

Elizabethtown, Kentucky is in a perfect location of the state if you like theme parks, big city life, or horse races. We have a huge Six Flags theme park, the Louisville Slugger baseball bat factory and museum and the famous Church Hill Downs all just forty miles north in Louisville, (Loo-uh-vul,) where there’s plenty more things to see and enjoy as well. So come visit a place where you’ll meet some of the friendliest people on the planet, see a remarkable landscape like no other, and enjoy everything from shopping in the city, to camping in the great outdoors.

Character Development

This is Kiley. She is the young sister of the family. The hardest part of this drawing was the face. First, I drew many many faces trying to get a young look instead of an older one, and then tried to draw a hairstyle that maintained that youthful look. I have to say that drawing girls faces are the hardest thing for me and hopefully I did a good job on this one.

Brenden and Labor day with Mom and Dad

These are some photos from the last week or so of Brenden, and this Labor day weekend. My parents came up with my uncle Bill and aunt Kathy. Brenden loved seeing his grandma that he hadn't seen since he was born! The video shows how much he would laugh when she would play with him, and the pictures of the overlook and waterfall are when my uncle Bill, dad, and me went up to Squaw lookout and Bridal veil falls. It was so beautiful and I never knew it was just down the road.

Character Development

Character Development

This is the main character's brother named Owen. This scene is a foreshadow to an event that takes place in their backyard. Later, when his brother Riley is practicing his trumpet outside, their dog is tied up to this tree and is pulling against it and shakes loose a beehive and snaps loose of the tree running away yipping. While Riley discovers that music soothes the bees, Owen shows up wondering what happened to spook their dog. He sees the bees and Riley playing and steals the trumpet thinking he can do the same thing. The bees get mad at how horrible he sounds and chase him away.

Riley

These are some concept drawings I did for the main character's face for my animated short about Riley and his unusual encounter with an old man at a market, who sells him an old trumpet with peculiar properties tied to it.
I liked the third face I did best, so I decided to take it further and complete the character head to toe. I usually put too much detail into my drawings, so reaching this simple yet complex look was really tough at first. I probably tried drawing 30 or more different faces throughout the week before I finally was successful. I really tried to focus on simplicity and use as little detail as possible, plus capture a casual look and pose throughout his body. The funny thing about the figure drawing is that all of it but the shoes were drawn and finished within 4 hours the other day. I spent about 2 and a half hours last night drawing 15-20 different pairs of shoes until I finally got the simple design I wanted, plus a look that matched his outfit and was the right perspective I wanted. Let me know what you think!