Tom Humber Sketchbook

Doodlin' Robos

2011-02-25T11:13:00.003-05:00

Boy, am I a bad blogger or what. I haven't posted or commented on any blogs in a long time. Here are some robots I doodled while I was supposed to be taking notes.

Auction In Support of Kevin Proctor

2010-10-16T01:28:00.002-04:00

Hi everyone, a good friend of mine named Kevin Proctor has been battling cancer for more than a year. The battle is now a life and death struggle for Kevin and his family.
An auction has been put together to help create a scholarship fund for Kevin's daughter, Megan and I implore you to check it out. I donated the pencil drawing of the Mucha Space Girl that kicked this blog off.
You can find the link right at the top of the column next to this post on the blog. I worked for years with Kevin at Disney's Florida studio and he's an out-and-out great guy, not to mention a kick-ass dart player. If you met Kevin you'd know instantly that he's a good old fashioned straight forward good guy who wouldn't hesitate to help out.
I'm hoping to be of some help to my friends, the Proctors, by donating one of my favourite pencil drawings to this auction so, again, check it out.
The auction is a mix of art and sports memorabilia.
You can also scroll down in my links and find Kevin's website listed there. It has some beautiful examples of the work that he did during our Disney days.

Last Of The Messy Studio Pics

2010-09-11T13:36:00.002-04:00

That desk that you see there is my Disney layout desk. I sat at that desk for 11 years at Disney Florida. The chair is comfortable, but the piston has gone at the base so when I sit on it it goes to it's lowest position. It might be time for a new one, but it came with the desk and I don't think I'm ready to give it up yet.

More Messy Studio

2010-09-11T13:33:00.002-04:00

More Messy Studio

2010-09-11T13:30:00.001-04:00

Messy Studio

2010-09-11T13:21:00.003-04:00

Okay, so I walked down into the basement and into my much neglected little studio space and I thought I've let this go too far. So, now I'm posting these shots in hopes of guilting myself into cleaning it up a bit so that I can think straight.

Doodlin',doodlin',doodlin'...

2010-09-10T10:20:00.001-04:00

Yup,it's a cowboy.

Lunchtime Photoshop Doodling

2010-09-08T13:52:00.003-04:00

So, I was messing around at lunch hour and this warrior girl kind of occurred. Tonally, she's all over the road right now, but I might come back to her and work things out a little more. Enjoy!

Some Tiny Nip & Tuck

2010-06-15T19:02:00.004-04:00

So, I hadn't touched the Space Girl since I posted last week. I opened it yesterday and spent a few moments on it. The first thing that struck me was how clunky the wing tips felt. I tried this softer edge and I'm much happier. I've also started monkeying with the top part of the rocket pack and the little medallion thing on her chest. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, but it won't be vastly different.
Now she'll get sidelined for another few days then I will pull her out and make a few more tweaks.
Any thoughts are welcome.

Space Girl- Various Sketches

2010-06-02T08:59:00.002-04:00

These are some of the sketches and scribbles that I did when I started out on this Space Girl. The image framed in blue and red is the doodle I did a couple of years ago. I came across it when I was going through some images to post when I first started up this blog and I had wanted to do something with it ever since. The other sketches came after; I was thinking of options for the pose, but still wanted to keep it somewhat passive.
The one sketch also shows a heavy door frame with jungle outside, but I think it overpowers the figure too much. The simple oval you see on the drawings in the earlier posts is where I'm heading if I do a door at all. Right now I'm considering something that may look a bit like a door, but would be more like the decorative frame I used for the Space Girl that I kicked off the blog with.

Slight Head Revision For Space Girl

2010-06-02T08:11:00.002-04:00

Taking a look at Space Girl this morning I'm thinking that I should adjust the head forward and down a bit. I think this feels a little better now. I tend to elongate the necks on the girls I draw which sometimes causes an issue with the way the head and the neck sit on the shoulders. At the rate I'm finding things I want to fix I may have to do a new drawing or there is going to be a fair amount of photoshop touch up to this one. It pays to sort out your construction issues before you start having fun with your pencil.

Some Proposed Revisions For Space Girl

2010-06-01T16:29:00.002-04:00

After I posted earlier today I got looking at the drawing with a friend and based on that conversation here is the first wave of changes for our new space girl. Thanks for lending an eye Cleve!

New In Progress Space Girl

2010-06-01T13:53:00.002-04:00

Okay, so I've given way to impatience and I'm posting this new space girl as she is in progress. I'm really liking this drawing, but there are a ton of little things to be worked out here. The two main issues have to do with the perspective across the length of the body, her upper torso has a different perspective than her hips and the rocket pack needs sits on her back a little bit better.
There you have it. ANY constructive thoughts or critiques are welcome. Enjoy!

Brownstones to Red Dirt Postcard

2010-02-05T09:05:00.004-05:00

Wow,it's been way too long since I've posted! Here's a little drawing I did for the Brownstones to Red Dirt Postcard Art Benefit Online Auction. If you get the chance you should check out the blog for the auction, there are are some great pieces. Mine is pretty simple, but there is a wide range of styles and mediums used on the birch wood postcards that were the common canvas for all who participated. You'll find more info about the event and the documentary that set it in motion at the followng link:
http://btorpostcards.blogspot.com/

Dragon Drawings

2009-08-13T09:05:00.005-04:00

These are the initial drawings for a tattoo design for my brother. I've never drawn a dragon before so this is new territory for me. I'm trying to get something that falls between eastern style dragons that are more serpent-like and western dragons that have a more defined body. So far the drawing with the snake comes closest to what I'm thinking of, but I need to define and extend the body more. The snake is going away, it won't be in the final image because I'd like to concentrate on the dragon.
Any suggestions or guidance would be greatly appreciated. Enjoy!

Cute Girl Sketch

2009-08-09T20:47:00.003-04:00

A Couple of Robot Sketches

2009-08-09T20:41:00.004-04:00

Haven't posted in a while so here are a couple things just to get going again. Apparently bad things happen when robots are annoyed.

Father's Day From My Kids!

2009-06-21T12:00:00.004-04:00

Something a little different for the blog today. My really great amazing kids did some really nice things for me today and I just wanted to show off some of them. At the top is Katharine's card which is full of images and poetry inside (but that's just for me). Second is Ian's card with the really nice tree on it. Ian is a straight to the point kind of guy. The last image is the octahedron that my oldest boy Kyle made for me. That guy loves paper craft!

Old Batgirl Drawing

2009-06-17T09:07:00.005-04:00

Okay, so I found and incomplete Batgirl drawing I did years ago. The eyes are a bit crooked, the hair needs a re-do and I can tell that I was faking the hand by closing it, but I'm putting it out there. The original drawing was done with a bit of blue pencil and ball point pen. Yeah, ball point pen. I remember the drawing being fairly large. I'm thinking I really should go back and do this one up right.

John Henry Layouts

2009-06-06T23:03:00.003-04:00

These are a couple of layouts from the John Henry short we did at Disney, Florida. We did all our layouts with charcoal pencil and General's Charcoal powder. Then the background department did the backgrounds on scratch board then added colour. That's right, every shot on scratch board. The idea was to give the backgrounds a folk art feel without any real sense of being finessed.

Some old Vis Dev Sketches

2009-06-06T22:52:00.004-04:00

Wow, I'm finding a ton of oldies tonight. These are some old sketches that I did early on during the development for Mulan at Disney. I was on the layout crew for that film not the vis dev team, but I threw a couple drawings out there anyway. As you can see I was trying something more fantastical than what the film actually turned out to be. I think at this point I hadn't seen a script so I was just making stuff up.

Space Girl Follow Ups

2009-06-06T22:42:00.003-04:00

Okay, I'm kind of excited to find these! These are based on some older space girls that I posted some weeks back. I had totally forgotten that I had started to explore what they might look like in colour. I can't remember what was going to go into the open space behind the girl in the bottom shot. I was either playing with a rocket gantry or a couple of distant ship soaring through the sky with con-trails. I'm quite happy to find these.

Lava Robo

2009-06-06T22:23:00.005-04:00

Evil, out of control Lava Robo. I did this sometime back for another blog. It was done fairly quickly, it would be fun to go back and smooth out the rough spots. i get a kick out of this one when ever I'm scrolling through old sketches.

Renaming The Blog!!!

2009-05-29T18:11:00.003-04:00

Alright, I'm renaming the blog "The Holding Tank" because, well, that's what it is. I've been posting things for a while and wondering what form the blog might take, but what I'm finding is that I'm having fun just posting the bits and pieces, the doodles and drawings. It's nice not to have a target to have to hit or a deadline to scramble for. So I'm no longer waiting for an overall theme to present itself, oh, wait, I guess it just has, and it's called THE HOLDING TANK. Let me know what you think.

More Brother Bear Thumbnails

2009-05-20T09:25:00.004-04:00

Here are some more thumbnails.

Old Brother Bear Thumbnail

2009-05-20T08:50:00.005-04:00

I came across this old rough. It is done with prismacolour pencil on velum with marker on the back of the velum.

ROBO-10

2009-05-06T08:47:00.004-04:00

Here's another little robot. ROBO-10 is only an initial sketch, but I'm kind of liking his robot 5 o'clock shadow. I'm looking forward to working this guy up some more.

ROBO-8

2009-04-30T08:57:00.004-04:00

Wow, I haven't posted in a while. Lazy bum. Anyway, I was toying with the idea of doing a sketchbook of little robots like this guy so I figured that I would post him. He doesn't really have a function like a good robot should, but I like him. Enjoy.

Another Space Girl

2009-01-28T19:00:00.000-05:00

And one more. This is an initial drawing that will hopefully evolve to be something with a similar feel to the Mucha Space Girl that I started the blog off with.

2009-01-28T18:56:00.000-05:00

Here's another space girl that I've started. There are a lot of funky things going on with the drawing and when I say funky I mean things that I need to work out. I think that I'm preferring the red drawing more than the blue right now, but we'll see where this piece evolves to.

Some Guns

2009-01-28T18:53:00.001-05:00

This is a sketchbook page of some gun designs for a private project. I'm pretty much settled on the gun in the top right corner with the dripping blade.

2009-01-18T11:37:00.000-05:00

Well, between the holidays and work I haven't had a chance to post and I've actually felt a little guilty about it. We were in a heavy crunch on Ice Age 3 before Christmas, but things have calmed down for me now since I am onto the next project. So, just to get back in the groove of posting again I figured I'd just throw out a few silly simple doodles. Enjoy!

2008-11-07T23:57:00.000-05:00

Found another one. I'm trying to work out her rocket pack. I'm not sure if I should go simpler or add bells and whistles.

More rocket pack stuff

...and one more space girl. I think I need to push the pose. I'm noticing that the character sketches that I attempt don't have a lot of dynamic in their poses. They are very tame and I think I need to work on that.

2008-11-07T23:52:00.000-05:00

Found another Lilo & Stitch layout. I'm wishing that I would have saved copies of more of my work from those days.
Just a silly phone doodle, no real point.
This is just an old quick sketch that I like. It lead to an Illustrator line drawing that I can't find.

2008-11-07T22:38:00.000-05:00

This is an old draft of a filmography web page that uses the Space Girl that I posted a few weeks back. I forgot that I had this.
Found some more space girls.

Lilo & Stitch Layout

2008-11-07T22:14:00.000-05:00

Here's a layout I did for Lilo & Stitch.

John Henry Thumbnails

2008-11-07T21:29:00.000-05:00

I was looking through some old drawings and I came across these charcoal sketches that I did for a John Henry short that we did at Disney Florida. Although the look we went with was very stylized I had been trying to push it a little further. These were fun and simple to do and I will post some more if I find any.

2008-10-29T20:33:00.000-04:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Just a couple of ghoulish doodles

Space Girl

2008-10-23T20:17:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm kicking off my blog with a drawing I did some years back. It is a drawing that I would like to revisit and pump it up some more. Over the years I've kept looking at it and I still like it, but I keep seeing things that I want to change, fix or push just a little further. So over the next year or so I think I will do just that.
I think this is a good place to start for this blog since it will just be a place for me to post sketches, doodles and scribbles for the heck of it. There won't be any rhyme or reason for posting what I post other than the fact that I feel like it.
So, there ya go. Hope you like it!