I Wish I'd Done That! "Thought of You"

This beautiful animation was created by, storyboard artist and figure drawing instructor, Ryan Woodward. Ryan has worked in Hollywood since 1995, creating storyboards for various movie companies.

After so many years of working on commercial movie projects, Ryan had been wanting to do a side project that would include figure drawing, animation and expression through dance movements. After Ryan heard "World Spins Madly On" by The Weepies, he made up his mind that this would be the perfect song to tell a story about relationships.

Rather than creating a narrative animated piece that communicates a well defined story, this animation allows each individual who views it to experience something unique and personal that touches their own sensibilities.


It's quite simple for traditional artist to sketch a human figure. The technique calls for little detail and expressive line work, such as creating the illusion of strength drawing bold lines or making something appear delicate by making thin lines. The style and the technique are simple, but redrawing one sketch over and over again, making slight adjustments to tell a story and STILL keep that "sketch look" is pretty hard. Ryan Woodard's animation is flawless, expressive and creative.

Please visit Ryan Woodard's website to see a behinds the scenes video on the making of "Thought of You," and to view more of his figure drawings.

Pete C.
Brainwerx Design

Last minute illustration for Johnny Carino's

On Saturday afternoon (Dec. 4, 2010) I was asked to create a Christmas theme painting, for a local Johnny Carino's restaurant. The only catch was that I would have less than 48 hours to complete it. This painting had to be turned in early Monday morning (Dec. 6, 2010).

In all honesty, I was hoping to do a project just like this, but imagined that I would have a lot more time to create a different style of illustration. But when you're in a time crunch, you always go with the style you are most comfortable doing.

The image I was asked to create was simple, 3 old fashioned stockings hanging from a wooden mantel with Carino's gift cards sticking out of them over an open fire. I left plenty of room for Carino's to add text across the image at a later date.

I looked for some reference materials Saturday night and drew out the design. It was already late so I figured that I should get as much rest as possible, if I was going to finish this piece on time. In this style of painting, I normally work from back to front, and this project was no different. The next morning (Sunday) I started the project by painting a simple gradient background and added the flames at the bottom of the canvas.

My next steps were to paint the wooden mantel and put down some base colors on the stockings and add some shading to them. Next I refined the shading and added the colored stripes. In my final steps I painted the Carino's gift cards, added the orange high lights on the stockings and added a light glow to the flames.

Although I'm over simplifying the process here, this project actually took me the majority of the day to complete. Happy with the results, I turned in the painting early Monday morning.

-Pete C.
Brainwerx Design