NONAME: project thumbnails

We'll start here.

 This is not the beginning though. This project has been in development for a while and with the help and encouragement of several people is finally getting into what can be called prototype stage or proof of concept. The idea is to produce content that is entertaining and has embedded sponsor content, all that in the form of a comic, a digital comic. The details are more for those involved, this post (and the ones to follow) is more about the process of the prototype. First step thumbnails, YEAH!

Like I mentioned, this is not the beginning, but this is where things start to really take shape.

The format, functionality and story all meet and meld for the first time in these thumbnails. I have begun to put the story the writer and I developed together with the function that is crucial to the idea of the project. You can see story notes, tech notes side by side with the art. Dialogue is not done, and word balloons and narrative boxes are indicated in red.  They may not all be used but they show where text can be placed and what for. The thumbnails are now in the hands of  the writer who will flesh out the dialogue and script. Then I can tighten up the art, adding details like facial expressions. The blank panels are "black boxed" we know what has to happen and that there may be text there but the images are yet to come. There are a few thumbnails that I have used more finished art from a previous test stage.

So, these are getting scripted. While that's happening I'll be working on a specific usability issue and how to make it look the way it has been envisioned and not too intrusive. Also I'll begin (and finish!) a style test. So we can see just what this will look like when it's all done and polished! I'll post about that next, in a couple of days. Also the Final Final look for the main character, and perhaps a peek at the circular development he took! Stay tuned!

Two Projects

I do not have multiple personalities. But, I do have a wide range of illustration, and each project gets a completely different style and treatment. 

In one hand is the re-coloring of Sunglasses After Dark, the vampire mini series I did with Nancy Collins. It will be collected and republished by IDW…as soon as I get done with the colors. I have been coloring (and at times touching up or fixing) the art for a while now. The last issue/part is being done. Lots of moody, mature themed images. Very stylized and sharp. Not to mention it is a vampire story for growed-ass adults. The original series was published, probably, over 15 years ago by Verotic Comics. Now I get to color it since we do not have the colored art. It's kind of something to work with your younger self. I look at the line art and try to remember/understand what I was thinking or trying to do at the time.

In the other hand I completed 10 background illustrations (and character sketches, icon design/creative direction and pre production drawings) for Avistakids. This is a site devoted to helping kids understand how to be energy wise. 

The project was to refresh the site and characters while adding learning activities for kids. From the estimate phase on, we were under a rush deadline. In addition to the clients schedule, I was going on a much needed three week vacation to Bali! Avista wanted a somewhat cinematic approach, so we settled on a widescreen format. A really wide screen format, about 5 by 42 inches! It also needed to be fun and bright. There was a set color palette from the existing site and graphics. All of which I was to use as I did the new backgrounds and redesigned the characters, (Wattson, a Scooby-like dog, and Edison, 

his human companion). 

I went with a sketchy style that would be fun and look fun while allowing for speedier finish. Used a pencil brush that had some texture to it to keep the sketchy vibe. The client really wanted to veer away from too clean of a look, so, I created and added an organic texture to each piece. The backgrounds are layers so they can be animated in a parallax/multiplane fashion as you scroll through them. Which is really cool! This was a key point in the process, the functionality of the backgrounds. I got excited by the process and added more layers to show views through windows and doors that moved, TV and monitors with stuff going on, and objects in the room that could change and move. On one I even aded a rainbow that could be faded in! To strengthen the depth of field, objects were added as a foreground and blurred. Those objects also served as transitions between views when needed. Textures and effects were saved as layers so they would be consistent and easy to add, remove or modify. To lighten the mood and create some magic I added sun rays (or God rays!). I even went as far as creating these or separate layers and different positions so they could be animated as well. It got to be kind of fun to making all the parts. Not all of them are used in the first iteration of the site due to the timeframe the coders were working under.  To speed the work sketches and roughs were done in the same file and emailed via Adobe Emailer. It's a plug in that allows you to email directly out of Photoshop. What a time saver, I can send of views of the image as I'm working without any extra hassle of saving, stopping or quitting. The sketch could sometimes be cleaned up and used as finished line art. The same brushes used for Sunglasses After Dark were used to color the backgrounds. Once approved the psd file was uploaded to the agency FTP and downloaded by the coder. The art was then optimized for use. This iso something I wish I had done, since some detail was lost. I think I may have been able to save detail or redraw the art so as to minimize any loss. The results look good though! The goal of making them fun to go through was achieved and the client was happy. Just before I left on vacation, they ordered another background, the basement. That background includes a few Easter Eggs that may be in additional backgrounds! Two of them!

2012 February

Isn't it nice when blogs have recent updates?

So, what have I been working on lately (or since June!) well…

Top Secrety Storyboard Stuff: Shhh…trust me it looks cool!

Mogo Charms: Two waves, (a wave being a group of charms.) The charms are for pre-teen/tween-age girls and boys. I did about 12 sets of three. Including a commemorative set for the Royal Wedding. It's the smallest art I've ever done, one quarter inch in diameter! Most people would not know I've done quite a bit of work for the tween-age girl market!

Morty G. Filtercat for Filter Talent: I was brought in to do ideation, character design and assets for Filter's Holiday website, I wound up doing the animations as well. There were nine animations each about 12 seconds long, one for each cat life, and a resurrection animation as well. Plus the cool cat skullz icon. This is the kind of stuff people think I do. Blowin' up cats, tons o'fun!!

Friendly Neighborhood DrawVatar: Worked two events drawing live for Filter! Geekwire Launch Party and the Seattle Interactive Conference. I designed and illustrated the DrawVatar logo, which got me a free lab coat! "Don't forget to tip your illustrator."

Masque of the Red Death: Added color to the black and white version of the story I adapted for Graphic Classics. Also illustrated the back cover. This adaptation was originally in black and white, so I made the black work as red and all the compositions are based on positive and negative space. It was quite a challenge to come back to it and add color, without screwing it up.

The Negro: Two page adaptation of the famous Langston Hughes poem for African American Classics. This was and experiment in completing the art as vector, textures and all. Developed this as an in-class demonstration while I was teaching Design at Pierce College. The challenge was in using this to show off various tools in Illustrator and not have it look all "vectory". I wanted to show my students how to make subtle use of some of the more overlooked and powerful vector tools. I created patterns, imported textures, and adjusted attributes to give the pages a natural African art look and feel.

Fart Proudly: Another adaptation/experiment (!) this time of Benjamin Franklins letter to the Royal Academy of Brussels. Taking into account Franklins wit and sarcasm, this was done as if he had his own daily political comedy show.  Again, I was making use of some under appreciated tools in Illustrator. Also showing how carefully setting up a file at the start can make working quick and give the art a cohesive and distinct look. This is to be published in "The Graphic Canon" from Seven Stories Press. 

Also started and completed (yeah!) a little experiment, "Trapdoors and Whores" on my Facebook page. It was quite a fun experiment using the methods from my storyboard work. Many thanks to the people who liked it. More on TDAW soon in my next post…really!

On-Model, a philosophy of line

I had a good start for this post but, well… Anyway there are few challenges more exacting for a cartoonist than staying on-model. Sure it's one thing to draw your own character consistently. That's more like getting your own signature right. But staying on-model, whole different thing. It's more than just imitating a style. Often you are tasked with creating art with the character in a new pose or setting, that doesn't yet exist.

I've had the great fortune to work on at least there cool on-model projects.  (These illustrations being one.) Cartoony characters are the toughest. You can't hide differences in a field of lines (or "hay" as the old times used to call "hatching".) like you can with comic book characters like Batman, Superman or Hay-Bale Man. There are fewer lines so each misstep is apparently out of line.

There is lots of information on breaking down characters to their basic shapes so you can get a better understanding of them and how they work in 3 dimensional space. But, I think it also helps to understand where the character comes from, it's ancestors, what the original cartoonists were trying to do, and how they worked.

Some things that help keep you on-model are mistakes made early on, short-cuts taken by previous cartoonists and just plain effects from they way they are drawn. Like the character said, "I'm not bad, I'm just drawn that way."

For me staying on model is more about getting into the head of who (years of other cartoonists,  a current cartoonist, or a model sheet) and trying to let it flow from there. Like a cartoonist profiler! This goes beyond shapes and form because you want the art to have some life.

When the drawing is done, it's fun to look at and see a favorite cartoon character, in a new pose or setting that you created and realize you made it from scratch. And it looks like the real thing. At least that's my philosophy.

Reinvent Your Commute

I love illustration, and the research as part of my job. I dig the behind the scenes stuff that sometimes matters more to me than the client or project. I like to think that all the "stuff" adds up to some rich images. Regardless, the entire process is fun-work. This assignmnet is a good example. Scott, an art and marketing director that I have worked with off and on over the years, contacted me with this project. My job was to create visuals for the WSDOT "Reinvent Your Commute" campaign. The illustrations will be used by Pierce Transit and other Washington State transit companies for advertising and promotion, in whatever media, print, transit, billboard, or web, to promote commuting alternatives. The visual concept was open ended. All Scott asked was I work in a style I used for game backgrounds. That was great, the style was vector and if the illustrations were to be as versatile as needed, vector was the way to go. Also, I was to do a type treatment for "Reinvent Your Commute".
What struck me was how sort of D.I.Y. and "home inventor" the thought of reinventing your commute was. I ran with that idea. My first sketch was of a geeky science type dude standing next to a diagram for a jet pack. Scott liked the idea and we though that each of the illustrations (four that expanded to five) would feature an inventor/commuter and a mode of commuting that would fit their personality. Cool beans! I get to create characters! I always base characters on people I know or know a fair amount about. I helps to get a handle on who I'm drawing (and pinpoint the audience.) It eaier to build a character that rings true with all the little fun touches that make, well, a "Character". How they stand, what they wear, hairstyles, accessories. Even things as small as rings and facial tics, they all ad up. Viewers take it in at a glance and get to "know" the character right away. That's my theory anyway.
So I started with a mode and a general person, then I though of someone I knew who would fit the bill, and fleshed out the character. For instance in the case of the guy with the jet pack, he actually looks like that, he stands that way and used to have a beard like that. Plus, he's the kind of guy that just might build a jet pack. I think he even has a leather Flight Jacket. To my knowledge most character designers will work this way.
Next was the transport modes! They needed to be wild, fun and easy to read. The original jet pack had way to much detail on it. It started out as just about a full blown antique espresso machine! Most of the first attempts suffered from too much detail. The other problem was coming up with outlandish transports. You have no idea what crazy contraptions some people use to get around! I thought, "robot powered rickshaw, that's unusual." Nope, there is one! There are also several kinds of jet packs. Two of the wildest are a full body roller blade suit (you really have to see it in action!) and a Volkswagen Bug with a Jet engine Booster. It's street legal! I was going to do a solid fuel booster unicycle, but, after those two, how far could I go? So we shifted a bit and made them funny visually.
A really big espresso cup, the battery for the pogo stick is a 9 volt battery on steroids. Extra large fries (because they do make bio diesel scooters.) Go figure! The green wings are the only mode that doesn't have an corresponding real life mode of transportation. Maybe Icarus?
So reinventing your commute is much easier in real life than in illustration, but not near as much fun.







Off to work we go!

Near Art 3 to 6: End of the run

What was planned to be a 12 strip run made it to 6. Enjoy 3 thru 6 here and 1 and 2 in a previous post, then read below for details.





City Arts recently changed editors. When they did, the decision was made to make changes to my strip, Near Art. They cut the pay by two thirds, cut the size by at least half, and let me know that they were not to confident that the continuity was enough for a monthly audience who may, or may not have been, regular readers. But they did like the art! I'm trying to make the best of it. I will continue with the name Near Art (which I did not come up with) doing something else, for less money that takes less time and is not a continuity.

What saddens me most is that the strip was a 12 part romance, a little valentine for my wife, and we only got to part 6. I had thought I was going to rant here about editors making visual decisions and in-decisions, magazines dumbing down, and the devaluation of visual content, but that all reads like whining. (Oddly, a fitting tie to NA #6.) The best thing to do is to complete the strip myself, on my own.
And then sell it!

Live fast, draw hard.

Near Art Part 1

I have decided to post the Near Art comics on my blog. If anyone feels like commenting on then please do. I will also be annotating them a bit. I will however refrain from posting the most current strip until after it has run in City Arts magazine. So this will be sort of like the directors cut! So, "Shall we play a game?"
In NA 1 we meet the main players all three in fact. Amanda, Stan and our Protagonist.
Some of the events in the strip are real, no lie. I do remember a panel discussion hosted by Fantagraphics that featured Robert Crumb, Burne Hogarth, and Jamie Hernandez and possibly Gilbert also. There was a party afterword somewhere. Crumb and Hogarth had very opposing views on dealing with editors and what goes into a comic. It was a lively night.
When I use the term Pop Comic, I use it in the same sense as Pop Music. Light frothy, nothing serious. Clean and well produced. I have a lot of influences in this strip but most obvious may be the Rock Hudson/Doris Day kind of romantic comedies I used to watch on afternoon TV. Man, I hope this strip is funny! Another is Serge Clerc. The colors are at this point very clean and bright, but as I get into the strip I find I want to push the limits I have set for myself in service of the story.
I felt the first strip went by to fast, to condensed. So in the next strip I expanded somewhat, to good effect I hope.
Anyway, read, enjoy and let me know what you think.

A rose is a rose.

We name everything, from our genitals to our gods. A name helps us deal with the hidden, minor or otherwise hard to explain traits of what we name. Over time I have gotten into the habit of naming illustrations. Particularly any work that requires Character Design. I tend to name them after people I know, have met, or know something about. The name helps me fill in the small bits that flesh out a character, make it fun and give it the undefinable details that, I hope make it a bit special. The characters, once named, seem to me to take on life. Ideas for hairstyles, accessories, poses and colors seem to come faster and make more sense. Oddly, even clients react to the names, responding to them like they were real people. In high school people would just stare at characters I drew without names. Now, with names, clients comment, make requests, the floodgates open up.
Rarely do I pick a person first, then base the character on them. (the exception being when I "cast" a comic book.) However, I do make exceptions, for me very rarely, and sometimes if the client has a special request.
It's always fun to create a character no matter what the use. These characters were for a McSoft project that I think never saw the light of day. Little avatars that you would be able to dress up like paper dolls and take shopping. Cute huh?

The named characters may reflect a part or perceived part of their namesake, but, as far as making a good illustration goes… "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."