ULTRAIST STUDIOS

I pulled this out from my sketchbook. An inside look into the creative process of the genius behind Ultraist Studios. I still like that hockey sketch, it would have made a nice little painting.

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Drawing is really hard.
There’s no other way to put it.

One of my biggest regrets is not pushing my drawing skills over my post-Sheridan years. Now I’m getting old(er). Time is moving faster.

I found while doing sketching at the Toronto Comic Book Expo, that Spy Guy is a hard character to draw. I didn’t realise that before. It’s because of the simplicity. If you get the lines wrong, it shows. There isn’t a lot of detail to hide behind. Also it’s because of that trench coat. It makes it easy to turn the character into a blob. I really have to think about the forms and mass under the trench coat. Especially around the legs. That is what I was experimenting with in these doodles:

This is a sketch I did a while back while I was looking at some Shane Glines Bob G.O.M.P. drawings. I was looking at the way Shane draws his forms, and was trying to mimic it on Spy Guy. I always thought these doodles were successful. They have an appeal:

Whenever I look at stuff by artist at the top of their game (like in the links below) I get a reality check on just how far I am from the watermark I artistically aspire to, and I get a surge of energy to just try to get better. It’s hard work, but it’s work worth doing.

Temple of the Seven Golden Camels - The art of storyboarding (and more).

Walt Stanchfield - Drawing class notes from Walt Disney Studios.

Chen Yi Chang - Animation Presentation (video).

All I can really do is keep drawing. Keep pushing. Keep learning. This is something I should have done years ago. But life has a way of doing that, setting up distractions, veering things off course.

I’ve got a lot to learn.

My brother Blair has started a new feature over at Possum Press called Captain Smith and Broccoli Boy. You should check it out. Anyway, reading those strips got me thinking about a character I created back in high school. It was sort of like the futuristic counterpoint to Spy Guy. In my sketchbook I would alternate pages, so that it would be one page Spy Guy, next page Space A.C.E. Oh, and as for the name… I found out years later that an Animator named Don Bluth had created a video game in 1983 called Space Ace. That was like 5 years before I created my character. So in my own mind, to try and avoid any sort of trademark infringement, I would keep messing around with new names I could call the character. The closest thing I could come up with was Space Agents - with the lead character being called A.C.E. If I ever decide to do something with the character, we’ll see if I get sued.

The point of all this type… after reading the latest installment of Captain Smith and Broccoli Boy I pulled out a sketch pad at work, and doodled this drawing.

There you have him; Space Agent A.C.E. Sort of my answer to Mega Man, Astro Boy, Han Solo and Captain Kirk. His sidekick is the equivalent to a robot swiss army knife. Maybe they will appear if future doodles, perhaps even as future back up features in the Spy Guy comics. That is, assuming I don’t get sued.

Stay tuned for a full report… but in the meatime: Pictures