Superhero comics style chick

This is something I did for Hands Up studio a little while back. The semi-realistic, anatomical superhero comics style is not something I have much experience with , so I was glad (and a bit scared) of the opportunity to try it out. In the end, I think I pulled it off reasonably well.

It got canned, by the way. Turns out what the client really really wanted was an owl.  :-D

 

Dysfunctional dam - environment prep

I'm not so good at set design, but here's my rough attempt  at two POVs in the room.  This is a beaver's home, so the way to get in and out is by diving through a hole in the floor. I gave the hole a door, and placed some towels by the entrance.  I'm going to have mama beaver wash dished, and I thought it would be cute if the "sink" is just another hole in the floor. The junk food is needed for the script, and I knoe the stove is a bit strange - but what the hey, I missed a big round shape and pushed in a stove. Sue me.

His or Hen's - preperation sketches

I forgot to mention that the "His or Hen's" story was developed by me and my girlfriend together. Couldn't have done it without her.

I'm not much of a color person, somehow I get bored by very detailed color work. I threw in some colors just as an indication, but I wish I had the patience to really make a painting out of this. I can see a lot of opportunity for interesting lighting here. 

Looking for style

More design pondering for the children book I'm illustrating.

She Donkey, or: the beauty of ugly drawings

Some months ago my Dad was complaining to me about a cartoon he was trying to draw, which was giving him a hard time. The drawing involved a guy riding a lady-donkey, who obviously had the hots for him (don't look at me, it's his idea!).

I offered to help, and he agreed. So I took a bunch of papers and started doodling, just idly exploring some possibilities. Dad was puzzled; as an amateur cartoonist, he was sure his professional son is going to be able to just draw the thing right off the bat - which was what he was trying to do the whole time.

In my mind, however, being a pro means more than having more knowledge or better tools. It also (perhaps chiefly) means better problem-solving strategies. It's the ability to recognize how complex a problem really is, and finding ways of breaking it down so it can be dealt with one step at a time.

That drawing Dad was trying to make requires designing two characters, communicating the donkey's feelings (and the guy's reaction), all that while dealing with the weight and pose problems that come from one character sitting on top of the other. Add staging, donkey anatomy, composition, and the usual challenges of drawing, and it becomes clear that trying to do all that in one step, is really asking for trouble.

He got the idea pretty quickly. We sketched together for a while; below is a collection of some of the butt-ugly drawings we made. The hopefully nice she-donkey design at the top of the post, is based on these careless doodles. By allowing ourselves to explore without fear of ugliness, we were able to explore a lot of ideas before making a commitment.

Something fishy

Corny title, I know.

These are some rejected fish concepts I did for a commercial. I won't mention any names, because the production is still happening.

I've been in Israel these past couple of weeks. Glad to be back, and will continue posting at the usual rate (once or twice a week).
Cheers!

Environment concept sketches

As promised, here are some attempts of exploring environment ideas for my short. The first one was supposed to be a quick exploration sketch, but got out of hand and ended up taking a couple of hours. I still like the result though... The other 3 were done very quickly. Hope you like.

All in Photoshop.

A thumbnail suggestion for the my short film's main characters. The dog is probably going to be change a lot though.

Girl character

Thumbnail concept for one of the characters in my short.

A journey begins...

This here is the rather silly beginning of a short film I'm currently working on. It started out, as animation shorts sometimes do, with a need to beef up my portfolio. So I cooked up an idea involving a lots of different creatures: kids, grown ups, birds, 4 legged animals, huge purple aliens - it had everything! The story itself was nothing fancy, just a silly gag - but it provided a fair excuse for lots of fun animation. So, as long as I wasn't trying to sell it as the story of the century, I figured it'll do the work.

Anyway, soon after drawing the character study above, the idea kind of took off and evolved into a real story. The new story has only a few characters and, unfortunatelly, no purple aliens. On the other hand, it does have meaning and honesty and drama. Can't win 'em all, I guess...

As a lesson from past experiences, I've decided this is not going to be a "project" - it's going to be a hobby. So I'm kind of playing around with it. I don't know if and when it will be finished, and I don't care. We'll just see what happens.

This blog is probably going to become a bit of a project blog - probably more than half the posts are going to be short-related. Hope you guys enjoy the ride; I certainly do.

Snowman and bird

Some morning "free-ride" sketches. I find interesting things tend come out when I don't really try to "design" anything specific, just doodle away and see where the pencil wants to go. For me, the best time for it is early morning, before my head is buzzing with the troubles and urgencies of the day. It also makes me feel I've done something nice for me, so no matter how the day turns out, it can't possibly be a total loss. And that's quite a lot, actually.