Blog @ Canadian Geek

Wow, oh wow!! I had the extreme pleasure of meeting Larry Hama. He was of course at the Toy Expo this last weekend.

I first walked up and talked to him to get my TP of “Nam” signed. He told me about the French version where the watercolours are done with a lot more care, and beauty. A very nice, and quite pleasant person.

I then wanted to say a little thank you to Larry Hama, and Daniel Logan, so I gave them each a copy of my “Faster Polar Bear, Kill, Kill” pic. Mr Logan thanked me, but Mr Hama was busy with someone else so I just laid it down, beside him, and walked away.

Then I decided I’d kick myself for not getting a pic of myself with our two guest. I got the one with Daniel Logan, and then the one with Larry Hama. It was this time I said “I hope you enjoy the picture, I gave you”

This is where the real “wow” came in!! :D:D

You know those lessons that you receive in life, many, many times over, until one day your ready to hear them. These were the lessons I received that day! He told me “You started drawing the bear head, first.” I smiled, and admitted the truth.

“You need to know exactly what it is that your going to draw before you draw it.” Sitting me down, he drew a very rough sketch of how he would have handled my polar bear image.

“To instill menace into a picture like this, the best way is over looming shadow.”

He continued to sketch. The polar bear was looming large and very impressively over the girl. He started to find shadows to help heighten the sense of danger.

“See how all my shapes and ‘forces’ lead the eye to the point of impact” My pic had a girl plunging a knife through a polar bear. Check out “On Gallery Walls”, and look for “Faster, Polar Bear, Kill, Kill” on the Canadian Geek forums. Anywho, the lines, and direction of all the shapes on his balanced the image, and focused my eye on the impact. The real “story” of the image.

I then asked him about finishing the image. How did he get this image to the finished stage? (I was thinking light-table, redraw) He told me he always worked straight on the board that he was handing in. Redrawing the image, your bound to lose the dynamic energy that you had in the original sketch. I was so happy to hear this because I always wanted to work this way, but always felt like I was doing wrong. Thumbnails was always beaten into my head, as the way to go. I’ve never gotten thumbs to work for me. They are too small, and I’ve not had much luck with them.

The thing I do need to do more of, is spend time, blocking the images on my pages out. Really paying attention to what “story” each images is telling. Then take a knead-able erasure , and knock the image back to the faintest of lines, and work from there.

It was too short of a time spent with the man, but extremely eye opening!!

Thank you, sir!!

Bri