Jelly cont.

sneak peek

If you go back a few posts you'll find the old jelly test. It's for a picture book a friend and I are developing... I couldn't decide if the line version was working or not so I decided to try a different route. Fuller color, flat shapes against form etc. I like to try stuff and I'm trying to find a picture book style I guess you can say. Any who I hope you digs. I'll post some more as it comes along... slowly but surely =]

Character Demo

Here's a quick demo I did for my students in Denmark. A few of them wanted to see my process in designing a character from the idea to the finished stage. For the purposes of time I kept it pretty simple and really rough.

1. rough thumbnail 2. cleaner line drawing 3. color

1. I start with doodles, rough shapes, quick sketches to get an idea of the silhouette. They gave me the idea of a boy with glasses holding something. This stage is where I have the most fun and usually do more than one rough but again the demo was quick.

2. Then I copy the rough, scale it up, turn the opacity down and do a cleaner sketch adding all the details. The glasses, the sweater he's wearing, a pipe (to fill with candy) and of course chuck taylors.

3. Once the drawing is done I fill in different elements (the pants, the sweater, his skin, his hair etc) and create clipping mask layers above those elements to add color, textures and shadows etc. These really help with painting gradients and keeping stuff separate in case you want to do variations or need to change something quickly. I keep going from here until it's finished and viola. Pretty simple and rough. You can go as detailed as you like but I like to keep my stuff less rendered... showcasing some of the quirky lines in my work. Any who, just wanted to share it with you all =]

Denmark! (it's a wrap)

Happy New Years! Hope 2011 is good to all of you guys and gals out there =] I just wanted to post a few pics of a tremendous opportunity I have to teach a character design workshop this week with the talented Florian Satzinger all the way in Viborg, Denmark. Hosting us is the super awesome, super duper dedicated Animation Workshop which has a beautiful campus where they work and play. Can't wait to start classes on Monday... wish me luck =]

country side

my temporary desktop

mmm... cant wait to hit the sack after a long 12hrs of travel!

near the teachers' building where i'm staying. It's an old military barracks

a cemetery on the way to town

i found a small door! =]



the viborg museum


i saw this little guy on campus and loved him =]

the animation workshop inhabits an old military facility

the sunrise at 9:20am



the students hard at work

head of the class

the desktop guardian...

... and her arch nemesis.

final dialies where the students showed their finished pieces =]

and that's a wrap

florian's guest book sketch

and mine

I had a wonderful experience teaching such talented and dedicated students at the Animation Workshop. The facilities there in Viborg are top notch! The town is very charming and the Danish people are very welcoming. Thanks to everyone for their hospitality and a special thanks to Florian Satzinger for the invite, to Anja and Lana for all their help and guidance =] I wish all the students good luck with their final projects!