Bagel With an "N": 2012

Creature Transportation Idea

In the story i'm thinking of a beastly creature that lives in the mountains and is a mix between bison, horse, and large cat with some spider thrown into it. I started with an idea, thumbnailed some silhouettes out. I really felt like some of them were cool shapes, but they were too complicated. so I sketched out my idea instead in profile and then turned it 3/4 with a stance of the merrill lynch bull coming at you. I wanted it to be a docile creature but when provoked it would be intense.

Character Design Practice

Another design for the story. This is a female character that lives in a sky city, native american influences, and relies on her mask and mastery of the wind to navigate in the world. Here are some of the thumbnails and ideas for the mask before the rough concept of the character's design. I need to design and compose finals much better. The lighting and values are WAY off.

Character Design Idea

A quick character design for a story i'm working on. The idea was a younger male with a lot of southwestern influence and at a lot of crossroads. I think that the composition could use a lot of work as it's too boring. I feel like I should shift him to the right or the left and put him into a 3 quarter view.

ha! easier said then done right?

Quick character silhouettes

I had an opportunity to take a workshop with a world class animator and winner of Cannes Film festival. It was great to hear his process and get some feedback for my small little project idea.

These are the final designs for the characters silhouettes. I wrote a brief 2 page script, spoke the dialogue out loud and captured it all using my macbook pro's audio and video editing tools.

It was a fun little bit of practice. But again, i'm finding my biggest issues within the finalizing of my drawing.

I do enjoy the simple shapes versus complex ones I see in most content. I feel there is more appeal and long lasting effect.

Various thumbnails from James Paick's Environment Class

Designing environments was tough. What I realized after a few days in this class was that I didn't know how to compose my shots. It's funny how intuitive composing is with a camera versus drawing/painting. You take for granted with a camera that you have a tool to focus your eye, you have the light of the scene you are capturing, and you click a button.

This isn't the case with design. EVER. What I realize in creating some of these is that my drawing skills need a lot of work. I know what I want to see, but executing the idea is the hard part. Just like when I was in sales. I could call someone and tell them about a great idea. but to push that idea to a final transaction where someone gives you money is the hard part. There is no difference between design and sales. The only difference is the form. It's all art.

After taking this class with a master of environment design I now see that my deficiency is in knowing what tool in photoshop to use to execute my idea. I dont know the tool well enough and at this point can only rely on the brush and value control to communicate my ideas.