The Art of Leslie Strock

I made this to explain Astrid's Epic Universe look to a friend. Her costume is a mashup of all 3 movie's outfits, and also Toothless' harness for some reason.

I think the designers made some interesting choices and at least it doesnt look bad. It just caught me off guard the first time I saw photos of her XD

Late night scribble while thinking about how amazing a show with Dreamfinder and Figment would be.

They could journey thru the Realms of Imagination and create things to solve problems. That would be a dream-come-true project if I could work on something like that 😭🙌💕

My heart is so shattered over the news about Zombies Run. I can't even fully process it with everything else happening right now. I wish I could give everyone at Six To Start the biggest hug to thank them for everything they've done over the years.

Anyway, I think this painting from 2 years ago sums up my feelings pretty well. ;;A;;

Reunited at last~

This is a little different, but I wanted to share some love for the Yogscast. They’re an independently owned studio and gaming channel, and right now, it’s very important that we support as many smaller studios as we can. Especially ones that also support amazing charities and causes, like the Yogscast does. And they just genuinely seem like such fun folks.

I’ve been following their youtube for a few years now and its so nice to see a gaming channel that’s just about having fun with friends and not necessarily being competitive, especially when I’ve had a rough day and I just need a laugh. So shoutout to the yogscast for being amazing.

I thought it’d be fun to draw a few of their TTT player’s models in a lineup, which ended up being a good drawing exercise because they have such diverse designs! ^^

Recently I saw the cast member costumes for the new HTTYD land at Epic Universe, and I was rather disappointed to say the least.

So as someone who has experience in costume fabrication for theme parks, as well as years of experience physically working inside theme parks (and also as someone who ran around in Cali and FL in an Astrid costume for years), I decided to spend the morning doodling my own versions of what I think the staff costumes should look like to fit in better with the Berk theming.

My main focus of these designs was staff comfort, considering the Florida heat and the amount of physical labor that cast members have to do daily. Simple lightweight materials could help cool staff as well as hidden pockets under the fur fabric for ice packs. All these costumes have the same base shirt and pants to help simplify production. The shoe covers could easily be worn over any tennis shoe, so there’s no need to worry about custom footwear either.

There's much more that I can think of for the Berk costumes, including ponchos and jackets, but I've already spent more time on these than I should have.

And the best part is that these costumes don’t include a baseball cap with horns on it… -_-

Just a little 5AM cuteness ~<3

A random idea that popped into my head right after I was laid off was a story about a dragon befriending a penguin. It helped give me something to work on and to pull myself out of the burnout from my previous job. It also helped clear my mind for a bit.

I’m not sure I’ll ever do anything with them, but I’m grateful that they helped me thru such a difficult time 💕

This time it’s character studies with Peter!

I love Peter so much. He’s one of those characters that’s so expressive that there are endless possibilities when drawing him. These are only about half the drawings of him that I made this session. XD

Thank you to Peter’s voice actor and the ZR writers for giving us such an amazing and hilariously complex character.

More expression studies. This time with everyone's favorite radio operator, Sam Yao!

I love doing expression sheets! And since I can't sleep, I thought it'd be fun to do one with Five ^^

I realized the other day that all my favorite Disney leading ladies hate wearing shoes. So I thought it'd be fun to draw them enjoying a little holiday together!

Thank you! Everyone kinda has their own way to stylize art, based on how they view the world, so there's not a right or a wrong way to approach stylizing anything.

That being said, I found that learning how to draw and render things realistically really helped me to learn about shape and structure, and how they exist in different planes. Doing things like figure drawings, still lifes, and master copies helped me grow a lot as an artist.

And then taking the knowledge that I got from those realistic studies, I could simplify and stylize things in a way that still made sense to the audience.

Basically, the more you draw something and familiarize yourself with it, the easier it'll become to stylize it.

Hope that helps! ^^