Fuzzy Fury Rescue Friends: Character Concept Design

With the Fall Semester here at AAU quickly approaching, I'm finally taking a moment to breathe and reflect on the thesis work that I've created over the summer.  Still miles to go in the coming year, but I'm pleased with the progress I've thus far made.

Here is a collection of scanned pages from my sketchbook as I was developing the characters for my Fuzzy Fury Rescue Friends story.  The idea is that these characters would be CG in a feature length story (in the vein of Pixar, DreamWorks, modern Disney, Blue Sky, etc.).  At Sherrie Sinclair's request, I have abandoned my previous design ideas where the characters were all of similar basic shape with specific animal characteristics attached to each design.  Those designs were done with a 2D project in mind, and apparently simply won't work in a 3D environment where characters have to be rigged to move.  I've drawn a lot of influence from the work of T.S. Sullivant and classic four-legged Disney.  That having been said, I'm definitely not a character designer.  Eagle-eyed visitors may also notice that I replaced the Donkey character with a Rabbit.  This was done in an attempt to make a more visually interesting character lineup.  I'm definitely looking forward to refining these designs and beginning to flesh out the story sequence!

And I Ain't Lion!

I was messing around with SketchBookPro today as I did some research for my Fuzzy Fury Rescue Friends thesis story.  These'll be the characters used in my story:

Lion

Donkey

Rhino

Yak

Unicorn

DoDo Bird

These are just some realistic renderings from reality (and who needs that??), but I will next be designing them in the fashion of T.S. Sullivant.  I'll be sure to post those as I develop them, as well as all the rough work from the thesis story I've been working on for most of the summer, RETAILiation.  Stay tuned!

Composition Studies: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Another round of studies from a live-action movie.  With the final film (which is amazing) being released to theaters this weekend, I thought it'd be fun to revisit the third (and my favorite) of the films, Prisoner of Azkaban.

Only two pages this time.  I got really "liney"/"rendery" with this, so I really need to try a different process next time.  They just take too long.  Definitely a fine learning tool, though.

Happy Fourth of July!

Just a character I was doodling with earlier this year: Pete, the Patriotic Pickle.

Happy 4th, everyone!

Composition Studies

It was recommended by my Midpoint Review Committee that I revisit my copy of Hans Bacher's Dream Worlds (an excellent book on composition and design from a true talent) and pay particular attention to the page that lists all the movies he recommends studying compositions from.  A lot of movies on there, and they've all been added to my Netflix queue.  The basic idea is to draw small thumbnails of not only great compositions but also basic shots, paying attention to cutting, scene planning, etc.  In doing so, it should teach me more about film making and therefore make me a better storyboard artist.  Yay!

I stumbled upon some screen grabs from Hitchcock's To Catch A Thief on a blog and decided that it would be a great place to start:

Just a few simple shots.  I did these in pencil.  Then I got the new True Grit Blu-Ray combo pack in the mail--which is simply a fantastic movie, especially for cinematography--so I decided to go ahead and draw some composition studies from the entirety of that movie:

This proved to be a multi-day, too-many-hour, exhausting task!  They're each about 1.75 x 4" in size.  I decided to go with pen and marker on this one.  Black, 30% Warm Grey, 60% Warm Grey, and a dash of brush pen for emphasis.  I ended up getting too caught up in the details, so I will definitely change my methods for the next go 'round.  Still, it was very informative and actually pretty fun.

Alright, now back to my actual thesis work.  I should have some things to post soon, so stay tuned! :^)

Jack & the Lost Beanstalk

I had a lot of fun a year ago working on the classic tale of Jack & the Beanstalk for my Visual Elements of Story class.  So much fun, in fact, that I decided to keep working with it and began another composition after the class had ended.  A move and a long job hunt left me without enough time to see it through, but I was recently cleaning up my digital workspace and thought I'd share the rough comp I developed:

I will definitely be creating a few pieces like this as I develop a body of work for my Thesis projects.  Stay tuned for more on that subject this summer.

Character Design - Final Portfolio

I think I've posted most of this stuff as the weeks went by, but here is what I turned in as my final portfolio for Michael Buffington's Character Design class.

And also, here's the in-class sketches from the final class: