I was taking the plane to Singapore for a 13-hour journey.

Usually, I only take long distance flight at night. You can just fall asleep and wake up “fresh” ready to start a new day. But, that time round, the departure time was at noon.

Fully awake, guess what I did to get busy ? Sketching. Winking smile

I remembered an artist who liked to draw Quick sketch watching movies. He mastered that art so well that he did about 200 sketches per movie – without using [PAUSE].

It looks quite a great Movie sketching challenge to take!
So I tried. Hehe.

I watched a comedy, THE GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL, of Wes Anderson.
The story of a young groom following his mentor Gustave H. during his escape from stealing an invaluable painting.

in-the-plane-to-singapore-thebudapesthotel-theDesignSketchbook22-1Chou-Tac Chung The Grand Budapest Hotel – board 1, 2014

The story happened in a 1938, in a luxury hotel.
The movie characters showed plenty style of “moustache” !

squares[3]A movie goes fast, and you will never know how long an image will remain on the screen. It’s kind of stressful. Drawing when the movie is continuously playing is difficult.*

So you have to play smart. The aim of this game is not reproducing 100% of what you see.

It’s about catching a mood. To succeed on that, we WON’T USE THE SQUARE METHOD. It would take too long.

* You can refer to the 1st sketch of the challenge when I was sketching football players.

TIP 30
Your brain is your “Google image” library

Don’t try to remember everything! It’s just impossible.

Improve your observation skills by prioritizing what you need to remember. Analyse and identify the specific features of your subject. Most of the time, these elements are the most obvious. Here is a trick I practice personally. Think like Google image using keywords*.

See also  Palette. A Sketchbook for shoe designer |TIP118

the-grand-budapest-hotel-theDesignSketchbook-dali-moustache[2]DO NOT REMEMBER:  the mouth is 1mm lower than the moustache. The eyebrow is 5 cm long. Only computers can capture all these data in a seconds.

DO REMEMBER: 50 years British alike semi bold old men with a hooked nose, Dali’s Moustache and a sharp bow tie. His eyes seams thinking on a tricky case.

Put KEYWORDS that talk to you, such as “Dali’s moustache” when other people would think about curly moustache.

The lighting is optional. You can actually settle it later. Just look at where it come from and its intensity. You will be able to reproduce it later.

*Google became the most powerful search engine by reproducing the human brain way of thinking.

More things you get to see (pay attention on and remember), more descriptive words your language and culture will grow. Your brain will be more than happy to connect what you see to the best descriptive word and image reference stocking in your mind. Doing this, you will be able to treat much more information in a minimum of time.

It’s true that there is a lot to think about. You won’t succeed immediately. Your brain needs training, so teach him. Train you brain at memorizing more and faster. Don’t forget to do that smartly and you’ll get soon awesome results with less efforts.*

in-the-plane-to-singapore-thebudapesthotel-theDesignSketchbook21-1

Chou-Tac Chung The Grand Budapest Hotel – board 2, 2014

The idea of quick sketching is to capture the instant, and transmit it on paper with the minimum of lines.

in-the-plane-to-singapore-thebudapesthotel-theDesignSketchbook12-1

The men holding the glass of wine seams approachable, open for a discussion.

See also  How to draw arrows in perspective | Part2

in-the-plane-to-singapore-thebudapesthotel-theDesignSketchbook62-1Chou-Tac Chung The Grand Budapest Hotel – board 3, 2014

in-the-plane-to-singapore-thebudapesthotel-theDesignSketchbook52-1

in-the-plane-to-singapore-thebudapesthotel-theDesignSketchbook42_thumb-1
Movie heroes are easy to recognize. A hero need special features that other characters do not have to make them memorable. It gives to spectators a simplified DNA, a clear identity for each of them. Basically, it helps the comprehension of the story, and make it more spicy.
 

Batman_vs_Joker[11]TIP 31 Spot heroes special features


A character personality need to be spotted instantaneously.

 

Think about your favorite movie. Now try to describe in one sentence each hero and villain.

Example: Batman and the Joker didn’t came out opposite randomly.

One is calm, dark, muscular, technologic when the other one is colorful, unexpected, mad wearing an old fashion tuxedo.

José Luis García-LópezBatman vs Joker

TRY IT YOURSELF

Below the presentation of the characters of The Grand Budapest Hotel. Try to identify each personality and there special features describing them with your own keywords – without using [PAUSE].

If you can identify in few second there specific features, your quick sketch will gain in essential information.

Try to do that in the real life when you will sketch people in the street ! I used to do a similar trick when I was waiter. I remembered the orders of my customers like: the guy with with blond hair and a mole on his nose – the young women with a thin scarf… It is good to look for obvious details.

Some more sketches:

in-the-plane-to-singapore-thebudapesthotel-theDesignSketchbook82-1Chou-Tac Chung The Grand Budapest Hotel – board 4, 2014

Beginners can try this exercise. However, I highly recommend you to study the Basics Essentials first. If you are interested at studying human head proportion, let me know in the comment box below. Then I could prepare it earlier.

That’s all for today!
See you in the next sketch and tip!

4 comments

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Hello! I'm Chou-Tac, a Product Designer from France.

If the sketching methods I’ve acquired aid me in my life and in my industrial design career, I believe that they can also help you reach your dream goal as a student or professional designer.

Leave a comment in the blog or send me an email at choutac@thedesignsketchbook.com : )

Chou-Tac

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  • Faisal Atta: “1). I come from London, UK 2). I want to improve to my sketching skills 3). YouTube search – perspective…Jun 20, 14:04
  • Faisal Atta: “1). I come from London, UK 2). I want to improve to my sketching skills 3). From YouTube – perspective…Jun 20, 12:57
  • Hana: “Hello, I’m 39 from Czech Republic. I studied design but burned out and I haven’t designed or drew anything in…Jun 19, 21:41
  • IDIOTS: “im from Myanmar / age 21 / im attending technology university / im also doing digital sculpting as a freelance…Jun 19, 21:39
  • IDIOTS: “im from Myanmar / age 21 / im attending technology university / im also doing digital sculpting as a freelance…Jun 19, 21:38
  • Tshego: “1 – South Africa, 18 2 – To get better at it and into the habbit of it for animation…Jun 19, 17:13
  • Priyesh: “1 – London, 43 2 – To improved teaching skills to KS4 Product Design students 3 – Searching for Sketching…Jun 19, 15:15
  • EMMANUEL AJIBOYE: “I’m 20 and from Nigeria I want to learn how to make really good sneakers and I saw the page…Jun 18, 03:17
  • Chou-Tac: “Congrats Simona for your graduation! :DJun 18, 01:01
  • Yassin: “1. Egypt and I’m 16 years old. 2. To make my family proud because they were never proud of my…Jun 18, 00:48
  • Timo: “im from romania , im 18 years old , i want to learn to sketch to become an industrial designer…Jun 17, 19:19
  • Coto Makasar: “1,hello! I’m from Indonesia and I’m 16 years old 2, I want to proof my mom that I can draw…Jun 17, 08:55
  • Coto Makasar: “1, I’m from Indonesia and I’m 16 years old 2, I want to proof my mom that I can draw…Jun 17, 08:50
  • Coto Makasar: “1, I’m from Indonesia and I’m 16 years old 2, I want to get better with art, because I really…Jun 17, 08:46
  • Dedric: “I’m from Florida I’m 50 years of ;WhenI was young I drew amazing work. I want to get my skills…Jun 16, 18:59
  • Derry: “22, Riva, Google Search, perspective drawin problems, i want to change my mindset about sketching.Jun 15, 23:46
  • RoZ: “1. I’m from France and i’m 22 years old 2. I need to improve my drawings 3. Google search 4.…Jun 15, 22:30
  • Andrés: “1. I´m from Colombia and I´m 49 years 2. I love to learn something new allways 3. Chat GPT brought…Jun 15, 06:36
  • Simona: “Hi, I’m Czech living in Italy, I’m 42. I graduated a few months ago in product design. I would like…Jun 14, 22:06
  • Simona: “Hi, I’m Czech living in Italy, I’m 42. I graduated a few months ago in product design. I would like…Jun 14, 22:05
  • Smash Karts: “This tutorial is fantastic! I loved how you broke down the steps for drawing a cube in 2-point perspective. The…Jun 14, 03:57
  • Chou-Tac: “Love that answer. :)Jun 14, 00:32
  • Chou-Tac: “That is a beautiful goal you have Mayhiv. :)Jun 13, 13:03
  • Foxy: “I love art and sketching. It heals me.Jun 12, 11:58
  • Foxy: “I love art and sketchingJun 12, 11:57
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