(Fogra 29) Job:11-41057 Title:Drawing club Handbook
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001-144_41057.indd 31 24/4/14 6:45 pm30 The Drawing Club(Text)
Artists who communicate through 2-D design either start
with the shape of the compositional space or the shape of
the character.
Good 2-D design creates a visual representation of an idea,
message, or observation. The beautiful posters of Cassandre,
designed in the 1930s, communicated style in everything from
the choice of typeface to the tastefully designed illustration. In
his travel posters, stylized shapes created designs that told the
story of elegant ships sailing to exotic places.The Cowboy, colored pencil on paper, Aaron PaetzThe character artists, on the other hand, are always looking
at the model like a raw ingredient that will be turned into their
own version of the character. When the model shows up in
costume and starts posing, they look at the shapes made by the
costume and character and get to work redesigning. Much like
how Cassandre redesigned the look of a cruise ship to make it
feel more glamorous and interesting, character artists redesign
shapes to make the character funnier, scarier, happier, or sad-
der. They take the pieces apart—a gangster’s hat, tie, overcoat,
drooping cigarette, and gun—and create their own version.Just as a certain type font arranged a certain way can add
meaning to the words on the page, Cassandre’s ships became
graphic symbols that communicated the grand idea of glamor-
ously sailing away on an adventure.
When you look at the drawings in this chapter, you can safely
assume that the artists were not just copying what was there,
they were also deliberately designing a message. Character, cos-
tume, texture, expression, light, shadow, music, mood, drawing
material: What we observe, feel, and intend gets filtered through
the range of marks we are making.At The Drawing Club, the design problem-solving skills the
artists bring are different, depending on the kind of work they
do. Story artists like models to do quick, daring poses because
they’re looking for gestural movement as it relates to storytelling.
Their sense of design is heavily invested in the communication
of the moment, rather than what media looks best. A big, black
Magic Marker is fine because it doesn’t have to be sharpened.
They look for lines and shapes that best describe how the char-
acter should move in that moment. The drawings can almost look
messy, with lines drawn freely, searching for just the right mark.
Which is okay because the drawings they do at work are usually
only seen in meetings or will be refined later on in the process.The Detective, colored pencil on paper,
Justin Rodrigues
Cassandre posterCatwoman, marker on paper, John Musker(Fogra 29) Job:11-41057 Title:Drawing club Handbook
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31(Text)
Chapter 2: Why Is 2-D Design So Important?The Cowboy, colored pencil on paper, Aaron PaetzThe character artists, on the other hand, are always looking
at the model like a raw ingredient that will be turned into their
own version of the character. When the model shows up in
costume and starts posing, they look at the shapes made by the
costume and character and get to work redesigning. Much like
how Cassandre redesigned the look of a cruise ship to make it
feel more glamorous and interesting, character artists redesign
shapes to make the character funnier, scarier, happier, or sad-
der. They take the pieces apart—a gangster’s hat, tie, overcoat,
drooping cigarette, and gun—and create their own version.At The Drawing Club, the design problem-solving skills the
artists bring are different, depending on the kind of work they
do. Story artists like models to do quick, daring poses because
they’re looking for gestural movement as it relates to storytelling.
Their sense of design is heavily invested in the communication
of the moment, rather than what media looks best. A big, black
Magic Marker is fine because it doesn’t have to be sharpened.
They look for lines and shapes that best describe how the char-
acter should move in that moment. The drawings can almost look
messy, with lines drawn freely, searching for just the right mark.
Which is okay because the drawings they do at work are usually
only seen in meetings or will be refined later on in the process.I often see them do a variation of designing in a box. They
design a silhouette for the overall shape of the character first
and then design the smaller shapes within that shape. But just
the silhouette shape alone can communicate a distinct emotional
tone evoking scary or funny.
I can always recognize the poses, but the character in the
drawings will look completely different from artist to artist.James Bond, charcoal pencil on paper, John MuskerThe Detective, colored pencil on paper, The Flapper, colored pencil on paper, Forrest Card The Chef, colored pencil on paper, Brett Bean
Justin Rodrigues(Fogra 29) Job:11-41057 Title:Drawing club Handbook
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