The Ugly Dinosaur

Hey, guys! I'm currently working on a project with some fellow CCAD students, The Ugly Dinosaur. It's going to be an animated film, directed by the very talented Jinny Hinkle and Laura Mansfield, and the short itself has its own production blog (http://theuglydinosaur.blogspot.com/). I've been named Head of Visual Development, although I'm also working on storyboards and animation.

So over the weekend I drew up some character sketches, based on some designs Jinny and Laura already came up with. This is Oscar, the lead character of the short, who is a Torvosaurus with a jaw problem:

And this is Dot, the Stegosaurus:

I also drew a few sketches of Dot's brothers, who aren't too fond of Oscar:

And, lastly, the adult Torvosauruses, who chase after Oscar and almost kill Dot and her family:

I also drew up some thumbnails for two different scenes in the short. This is an early scene where Oscar hatches, tries to eat a leaf and runs into Dot: 

And here's a scene later in the short, when Oscar runs into the Torvosauruses:

These designs and thumbnails may go through drastic changes before the final film, but here's where we are so far. 

Project Pipeline: Dueling Wizards

My idea for a group project is to do a collaborative comic book about two wizards fighting over a magic wand. As they attempt to grab the wand from each other, they keep magically changing each other and the world around them. My idea was to have a different person draw each page - so, in other words, whenever one of the wizards casts a spell, the world of the comic book suddenly changes into another artist's style. 

I'd like to sketch out, in general, what happens in the comic book, so I think I should be the director of the project. I'm open to whoever would like to be Art Director and Head of Editorial. I thought this seemed like a good idea for a group project because people could focus on their own section of the project and incorporate their personal style into it, and yet it would still have an overall cohesive flow.

I would probably sketch out what's supposed to happen on each page rather simply, and then the other people in the group can draw the page in their own way. And they don't even have to be drawings - if you're a photography major, the wizards could become real people in wizard outfits on one of the pages. It all depends on what each person in the group would like to focus on. My initial sketches might  look something like this:

Of course, before I sketch out the actual story that would be used in the final version, I would want to talk to the other people in my group to find out what kind of artistic style they have so I could incorporate that into the comic book. Here's my Organizational Chart (we can have as many comic book artists as we need): 

And I also made out a timeline, although in a project like this, people will be working on their own sections of the project so it isn't easy to pin down what will happen when. Just so long as everybody gets their part done before the project is due.

Menagerie Project Final

At long last, I have completed my figures. Just to give you some context, I'm posting my original concepts for these designs along with the final products so that you can compare. Here is the Two-Headed Schwugglegluffin:

And then there's the Striped Whizzlepuss:

Here's the Beaked Blibberbuck:

And here we have the wise old Schwupp: 

And now the Mono-Glunk:

And lastly, there's the Vikkimilker:

Menagerie Part Three

I've decided to stay with the land fantasy creatures and go with the violet-orange-green palette. I updated my color swatches to reflect how much I intend to use each color:

I've also gone crazy designing creatures to make sure I make clay figures out of the very best ones. I drew about three pages worth of ideas, and I put check-marks next to ones I'm considering making:

I also tried to figure out where I'm going to photograph these creatures. Since the characters will be predominantly violet, I decided to emphasize either orange or green for the background and I took a few quick snapshots to get an idea of where I'm going to shoot. Green grassy areas seem to fit well with the theme of wild animals, although I threw in an orange for good measure:

Menagerie Part Two

I'm still working on the menagerie project, and I've started focusing on color schemes. My first idea was to create a bunch of fantasy creatures out of modeling clay in mostly purple colors, and I worked out a violet-green-orange triad, with violet being the dominant color. I took inspiration from this painting by animator Chris Reccardi, who has worked on Ren & Stimpy, The Powerpuff Girls and Spongebob Squarepants:

http://media.photobucket.com/image/chris+reccardi+/thejokerspuppet/show140.jpg

The blue in the picture doesn't really go with my triad, but the violet background, green alien and pink-orange face of the girl inspired these color swatches:

I created a mock-up of what these colors might look like when applied to some of my characters: 

My other idea was to create a menagerie of fantasy sea creatures, like the octopus I posted last week, which was colored in a cool green. I rethought that and came up with a blue-yellow-red triad, with blue being the dominant color. I was inspired by this vibrant painting by Dr. Seuss, titled A Unicorn Every Girl Should Have:

http://www.drseussart.com/images/secret/everygirlshould_lg.gif 

Again, the color scheme in the painting isn't exactly what I'm going for - there's a little too much orange and green -  but I used some of the other colors and made swatches:

And I also incorporated these colors into my drawings:

I think I'm leaning on the land creatures right now, but we'll see what happens.

Menagerie

I've been working on a menagerie of fantasy creatures that I'm planning to make out of modeling clay, and I thought I'd share some of my sketches. I'm thinking of using purples and pinks in all of the designs, because those colors remind me of magic and dragons and that sort of thing, but I drew a few in different colors just to see what they looked like.

Dr. Seuss is a huge inspiration in these designs. He really was the king of inventing bizarre creatures, such as this scraggle-foot Mulligatawny from the book If I Ran the Zoo:

Another big inspiration is Winsor McCay, who is possibly best known for his pioneering animated film Gertie the Dinosaur. He really came up with some amazing hybrid animals in his comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland:

I should also mention Ward Kimball, who probably had the wildest imagination out of all of the great animators working at the Disney studio in the '30s, '40s and '50s. This is a beast he came up with for an episode of the Disneyland TV show in 1955, titled Mars and Beyond:

I'll post more soon.