THE SIMPSONS NEWS

I’ve been moved into an office now.  I share it with a long time veteran board artist.  I have the office to myself most of the time though, since he works mostly from home and comes into work maybe one or twice a week.

The one thing I’m most happy about is that there is a TV in the office and it gets cable. This means that next Month I’ll be able to watch the World Cup games.

ART

I hadn’t really been in the mood to work on my project. I thought perhaps I wasn’t making it fun enough for myself. It also felt I had a lot to do. I needed to design all the characters and the look of the cartoon, as well as start breaking up the story into “beats”. This just seemed like such a chore.  I had to find a way to NOT make it a chore. I mean, I’m doing this for fun right? This shouldn’t feel like work.

The other day I watched an animated movie called DRAGON HUNTERS.

It’s a CG movie with fantastic designs and a great looking world. It annoyed me that it was CG, mostly because I kinda wanted 2D inspiration.  Well, in the credits, there are some drawings of a character that was spoken about in the movie.  I really liked them so I screen captured the images.

It almost has a stain glass yet art deco look.  I became curious of what that would look like in a contemporary setting.  I’ll have to experiment with the look to see if I want it (or can even pull it off).

Below is the beginning of my thought process to get to that point. I began to redesigning my characters using the shapes I thought where reflected in the screen captures. I don’t know why I decided to use a ballpoint pen.  I guess it was just mood.

The one thing I hadn’t done yet with my designs is work out the contrasting shapes of my character’s silhouettes. Because of this, it made the feel of my characters fairly generic and dull. So in the lower three drawings of the page above, I did it a little bit. Later this week I’m going to do more. Part of the problem I’m having, I think, is that I haven’t done something that basic.

I was hoping that by really pushing the design it would become more fun to draw.  So far it’s working.

I did have fun drawing these.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around what I want the Sorcerers to look like.  I know that I want two guys and one gal. I’ve been looking at some photos of  character types for inspiration.  For the protagonist Rob, I was used Tom Welling as a jumping off point for his type.

I’m still trying to decide who I will use for the Sorcerers. I also kinda want them to look like rejects from The Matrix. I’m not married to that idea though. It depends whether it’s fun or not. I’m also considering making that Sorcerers look like a grown up version of Harry, Ron, and Hermoine if they were trying real hard to look cool. Another thought for the Sorcerers I had was that, if they weren’t Sorcerers they would just be nerds. The thing about all these ideas which makes me unsure is that, it might not be fun drawing weak looking enemies.  I kinda want to make them to look challenging and intimidating.

Any suggestions on actors or models that might fit the “types” would be appreciated.  Also, if you think you have good suggestions for interesting clothes that might look magical yet contemporary, cool but not out of The Matrix, I’m willing to take a look. At this point, things are still up in the air.

 GHETTOMATION

And speaking of cartoons, if you haven’t seen Jim Lujan‘s newest cartoon, NEW WAVE DENTIST, you’re missing out:

BLOGS

Also, over at the MAN VS. ART blog, Raul Aguirre‘s latest podcast episode on the history of animation is just darn right awesome. Check it out by CLICKING HERE.

For more comic and stories written by me, CLICK HERE.

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