Okay, Last Hand Post, I Promise

Here's one last page of hand sketches, along with two pages of hands I sketched while watching my Gorillaz DVD.

Are We Sick of Hands Yet?

Still More Hands

Here are some less cartoony hands, drawn from life when I was trying to get better at hand anatomy. You may notice influences ranging from Bridgman to Mort Drucker. These are also up in the life drawing section of www.mikedietz.com.

Even More Hands

You may notice a few sketched from Milt Kahl's Sword in the Stone hands. Great reference.

More Hand Sketches

Hands

I really enjoy drawing hands. Next to the eyes, they're the most expressive part of our bodies. Not only are they fun to draw, but no matter where you go you've always got reference to draw from. I used to find them intimidating and complex, but I spent several months in life drawing concentrating on hands, and after a while it started to click. I learned a lot from studying Mort Drucker, Jack Davis and Milt Kahl, three guys who have their cartoon hands grounded in solid anatomy. More recently I've been heavily inspired by Jamie Hewlett's Gorillaz (me and a lot of artists) and my pal Doug TenNapel's graphic novel work.

Squirly Town Color Model

Here's one of the color models I did for Doug TenNapel's Squirly Town short. Still no word from Nick when they're going to air the cartoon, but they released this image as part of a publicity card, so I figure it's cool to post it here.

Okay, I'm Off My Soapbox Now

Just in case my last post came off a little too serious and preachy, here's a sketch I did yesterday while waiting for a file to upload. Hopefully this will even things out.

The New Phone Book is Here! The New Phone Book is Here!

Obviously I'm not exactly what you'd call a celebrity, far from it, but I do get the occasional fan mail. Not a lot, maybe 2 or 3 a month, and to be honest, they're not my fans, but fans of projects I've worked on. Still, I do my best to answer everyone who writes -- in fact, there are several people who I now consider friends and colleagues who first contacted me as fans.
Anyhow, I've been putting in a lot of hours in the studio recently, lots of solitary late nights, and sometimes I start to wonder if it's really worth it. Well, the other day I received the following e-mail from a high school student somewhere on the other side of the country -- and yes, it is worth it:

"Hi,

My name is (name removed), I'm a senior, and I have always wanted to go to art school. This past fall it was time to register for college and I felt myself being pushed towards an engineering path and forced to let my dreams go. However when I opened my Spanish book I found some animations you had drawn for the En Espanol! series, they made me fall back in love with art and I am now going to live my dream and go to school for art. So, thank you so much for your animations."

I'm posting this here not as a gratuitous pat on the back to myself, although you could accuse me of that, but as a reminder to all of us artists and creators that even though we don't always see it, our work can have a profound effect on others, and we should always remain grateful for that opportunity.