[Music]
Stan: Hey everybody!
I got Karl Kopinski in the studio and while I had him here, I made sure he did a sketch book tour.
This is all new art that hasn't been published yet and at the end, he showed us his new art
book "The Big Kopinski".
Enjoy! Karl: So yeah, personal sketch.
This is one I've just finished, probably say I do about five or six of these a year and
then other sketches five or six whole books.
I started working in kind of prismacolor or pencil crayon but mainly because I saw - you
know Claire Wendling?
Yeah.
I was looking at her work a lot and she always works in these colored pencils.
They're quite good because they don't smudge as much, so that you know, I'm left-handed
so you can see even here I'm kind of a messy messy artist.
This is a study I did for "Journey to the West" when I was a kid, there was a Japanese
TV show that I really loved like nineteen seventies.
All about The Monkey King and I have a particularly good knowledge of sort of Asian costuming
and armor, but it's just that it gives me another theme to investigate rather than always
the sort of European influence things.
I do a lot of these sort of pages as well where usually if the drawings gone a bit wrong
or you know, I'm not so happy I'll just fill it with smaller studies.
And I quite like them.
For me, they're some of the most interesting pages because there's just a lot of ideas
and I can really work through things very quickly and play with heavier tone.
Again, another pencil crayon.
Little pig and unicorn Teddy, Mickey Mouse belt buckle.
I like it when you kind of get soaked in- I like a little detail.
That's an Napoleonic study piece really.
I was gonna do them all kind of going up here but ran out of steam.
Again, that's quite interest sort of military history as a kids, so I'm not using any reference here.
I've spent a lot of time trying to learn how to draw the helmets right.
German and - the U.S. Helmets are really difficult to draw as well and they really circle line
you have to do but quite like that sort of thing.
And I don't draw women enough or sometimes when I draw them, they're a bit too masculine,
so trying to practice a bit more feminine but not like super pouty- oh, and like oh
yeah, holding a gun, why are you going oh.
And yeah, we talked about this a little with Stan, just to talk - we did a bit of teaching
with people and how to break it down into simple composite element.
And these were another set of studies for the water demon guy in The Monkey King story,
got nine skulls from monks.
And - no, just - I don't need to say anything about that.
And some wolf's head studies and then these were - a guy I know asked me to do a few tattoo
designs in my style as it were, so that was quite interesting to do.
And then Mecca, quite into Mecca and it's sort of Japanese influence but not really.
Again, this is that process I said of doing very quick loose lines.
So, all of these armor shapes, even down to this arm, you can see.
You know, I wouldn't normally make that decision to do an arm like that but I spent maybe an
hour doing this.
So, it's fast enough turnaround to play with these ideas and I think you can do that digitally
as well, maybe even quicker.
You know, play with those shapes and it's great for character designing computer games
as they - often they want a distinctive silhouette for each.
Especially if you're doing Animes.
Again, more sketches and doodles and trying to do sexy girls.
There are quite like astronauts as well, I don't know why.
Just like them.
Astronauts again.
And this one's no underdrawing, just straight in with pen.
But I don't know if you can see it, look I went wrong, not as good as Jung Gi, correction
fluid here.
And I do a lot of these as demos as well, how you can create authentic characters.
And again, a bit of teaching about sculls and how to light it and how to approach the various elements.
This is Asterix from those com - Obelisk from those comics I talked about, my version.
And I went over to Seville in Spain and had the best Mexican food I've ever had in Spain
and after that, I started drawing Zombie Mariachi.
Some reason, obviously as you do, you eat - you eat a taco you draw Zombie Mariachi.
Again, another head study.
I can't grow a good mustache, so I'm always jealous of a man with a good facial hair.
That's one of my sons obviously zombie with arrows and bones hanging out his mouth.
And sketching in the airport as well.
Quite happy with this girl's. Again, no one to draw in here and I just went in with
a pencil crayon.
I remember at Games Workshop I was doing the same face over and over again and either
be - either I'd put my moustache on it or it'd have no hair, would have a big beard
or - and I thought this is ridiculous.
And then you - its interesting, the more you look around, if you bit of a people watcher,
everybody's face is so different, you know?
And there was an interesting thing I read, it was all about the fact that this placement
of features is more important almost than the fine details of them.
So you can recognize someone from you know, 100 feet away but you can't see what color
their eyes are, you can't, but it's about you know, the distance here and the face shape.
And so, if you pay a bit of attention to that kind of thing, placing and changing and - and
you also, the more you travel, the more you realize that even country to country is definite
subtle changes.
Maybe everyone's Caucasian or mostly Caucasian but they'll still be something different in
the bone structure.
I quite like that, a really interests me there.
And then some kind of random pirate woman.
And then I was watching Crimes of Grindelwald, on her plane over here so that's sort of Johnny
Depp really as a pirate - was been a pirate, was a different pirate.
Batman, in like a sort of maybe First World War uniform.
Quite like the idea of something like that.
But then I drew one of him with a tommy gun and everyone was like "Batman never uses guns"
I go "OK".
He used to just shoot people.
Karl: Yeah, yeah bang!
Get out of here.
And the worst one I did was I did Hellboy and I gave him the left hand of doom.
And everyone was like "WTF!
Yeah I flipped the image it look better".
This is kind of Mobius inspired again.
Like a robot hunter salvaging robot parts.
I don't really know what's going on there.
These were studies for a bigger painting I did.
Well actually, no, that was an initial drawing and then the guy said "well, can't you do
him in a similar pose to this one?" so then I did a series of like a compositional study
there and then playing around with different characters, but there's no horses in the cover,
they just happened.
Astronauts...
I don't - don't really like that pose.
Just sort of ohh...
Don't know what she's doing there.
It seems like zero G.
Karl: Yeah yeah and he's like "of course it's zero G you idiot."
Snape and Dobby and then drawing goats cuz I was at a little place with a farm with my
kids and we were looking at how fat their stomachs were, how they're just a big ball.
I think he was wearing a jacket.
Karl: Yeah yeah, Fila jacket like a hipster goat.
And like some kind of deer hunter but not Robert De Niro obviously.
That's my son drawing on the iPad and that's Batman taking a kick in.
And then this was after a cycling trip I did in Italy and I went up this climb that was
known as one of the hardest in cycling and it was just the worst day I've had on a bike
ever, so I drew how I felt really.
Kind of space pirates.
I don't know what's going on here.
That girl.
Karl: Minibike race quite like with the guy in, the Punk
like the horse.
Karl: Yeah, she's like "are you guys finished?"
another mecha piece.
Again like I said, a lot of it is born out of those early scribbles you know?
I have an idea of the pose but I'm sort of looking for interest in shapes.
It's a lot of Giger's work really interested me and I think you know, like Moebius's approach
to that, that often the armors feel a bit more like organic shape.
So, when we worked at Games Workshop, there were definite shapes but they're all quite
rigid geometric things and I like to play with the more organic shapes a bit more.
Then Batman caught in an alleyway by the police.
A few people have proposed that maybe was a urinating in a public place and he's been
caught in flagrante or whatever the term is.
I thing after that it's probably client work that I shouldn't have show.
And you fill up 5 of these a year
Karl: Yeah yeah.
Wow!
Karl: This is the next one, so just started this one since I've been here.
I just keep Terado did me a drawing, that will be cut out and framed.
But yeah, I just keep chipping away thats it. And then obviously the demo we just did.
The Big Kopinski!
First Superani book I have done.
It's available through Superani U.S. Or my website.
So, it's quite a nice throw because it's hardcover and I didn't do a hardcover book before and
I've produced this piece specifically for the cover of the book.
And then a few of these pieces hadn't been seen before.
It's got my dog in there, Molly, and then my son's idea to put a mouse on top of the Bears head.
A lot of pages of these pencil sketches I did.
A lot of these I self-published in volume 1 and 2 but it's out of print now, so we decided
to collect them together in one volume and make a big book about dragons, samurai rabbit
hunters, got it all.
Big variety of subject matter, well, not that because this is pirates again, isn't it?
Vikings.
So it's quite interesting looking back because some of this was done for Inktober, early
days of trying my hand on ink works.
I'm still sort of learning a bit.
Quite like this one, I was always pleased with this one.
She looks like she's really doing something and you know, she's sort of sexy but she's
actually doing something.
She's got big hands though.
Big hands!
And it's interesting going back looking at this.
That was - they were studied for a poster I did for Lucca Comics & Games so they're
your initial character in there.
But yeah, there's a nice color section at the back actually.
That was a personal painting I did.
That was one of the few I've sold that I was a bit regretful about selling.
You know, I don't like the wings though, they annoy me.
Well, that one's alright but what's going on there?
I don't know.
That should be down here maybe.
I'm glad I sold it.
Karl: Yeah.
These are just playing with watercolors a little and then these are for a client called
Mini or nots which got made into little 26 mill figurines for a board game.
And again, quite nice because he just asked me to do my take on some kind of techy bits.
This are some of the last pieces I did digitally.
These are kind of fantasy Joker character there.
Yeah, I was thinking that.
Karl: Fantasy Batman you know, used for Zombicide, another game we did.
Do you ever plan on entering back into digital or do you just prefer a traditional
Karl: I can - pro - pro-create sort of appeals to me I think.
Just because it's a bit more of a natural interface, you know?
It's there on my lap.
So, I'm quite interested in that and then having seen Katsuya Terada's drawings when
- when he was over here, we we're sharing the Airbnb and he went through his iPad and
he showed me some of the playback on Procreate really cool.
So, that was - I'm gonna go and procreate.
That's my wife as a gangster from the Godfather board game I did.
More of a black and white and pretty old drawings now but it's quite nice to flick back through
them and remind myself.
So, yeah there we go.
Stan: Nice, thanks Karl!
I love the sketchbook and I even got myself The Big Kopinski with an original illustration
on the cover.
If you're liking these videos, hit me with one of those thumbs and if you want me to
bring other artists into the studio for some demos and sketchbook tours, let me know who.
I'm definitely interested in bringing as many amazing people into the studio as I can.
Alright, see you tomorrow!