Past the Sell-By-Date

***Anything I post now is technically after the hand in date, so won't count towards my mark but some of it's stuff I shouldve had on here already... and other bits tie in with the last couple of projects and research I've been posting already...***

Ok logo keyring idea... now i've finally had a bit of extra time to realise what i shouldve done... I've mocked up a keyring idea using some air-dry clay because I've used sculpey in the past and although its great for fine detail... i hate having to bake it to set it! Even so, the air-drying clay took nearly 2 days to set properly! so... maybe I should've just gone with sculpey... Rather than just relying on the one design (running with scissors), the OK logo is something I created a while ago and is something I enjoy.. it feels more personal than some of the other work ive done in the past and more like what I want to create in the future...

I'm aiming to make a fairly final prototype.. then I want to create some rough molds from it and then cast some resin prototypes from that... depending on how they work out... i may paint some but I have also picked up some Glow In The Dark (GID) spray paint... so i will definitely be testing that out!

I even got a bit carried away with the excess clay i took and made these simple characters ... (based off of the little guys i made during the Diesel brief)

I wouldnt use the clay to make anything small scale due to its poor fine detail quality.. but sculpey would work a lot better if I was to finally mock up some of these characters I keep threatening you all with!

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One thing I missed off my 'green eyed' post was about Pixar's animated shorts. It's not only their feature length films that capture my imagination and are filled with characters but some of their animated shorts are even better.. in particular... "For The Birds"... similar to Wall*E (and Tom&Jerry).. it doesnt have any speaking characters, instead the narrative, emotion, thoughts and feelings of the short and its characters are shown through subtle "facial" expressions, mannerisms, posture and of course editing and camera angles... there's a lot more that goes into something like this.. but the trick is to make it look flawless and to hide the technical side so you focus less on how its made.. but more on what its showing!

Now often, Pixar seems to be the only name in the business.. but I keep forgetting just how much success DreamWorks Animation have had... It was 'Kung Fu Panda' which stood out as one of their finest achievements but I've also recently seen 'How to Train your Dragon' which has now become another firm favourite of mine. I like seeing all of the behind the scenes work that goes into making these characters... working out how they move, how their weight sits around their frame/skeleton and all of their emotions/facial expressions...



When you look through 'The Art Of Finding Nemo'.. you see concept work from various artists, each with their own interpretation on how a character could look... but for Kung Fu Panda, Dreamworks animation were so in love with the work of Nicolas Marlet that they only used his work as a basis for their 3D character models.

"He was so unique in his solutions that I had a hard time finding other people to emulate it,"

"Some of the rules we followed were actually his, like we don't stick necks straight up out of torsos and then put animal heads on the top or it just looks like a guy in a costume. Instead, we have the neck coming forward, so the head and neck and body are really one unit."

says production designer Raymond Zibach....

All quotes stolen from Peter Deruge's interview from Variety.

Similarly, they must've have done the same for 'How to train your dragon'... taking Marlot's designs to define the general "look" of the characters...



however, I didn't realise until talking to Miss Rosie Wilman (2nd Year Illustration course) that Chris Sanders actually took control over designing one of the main cahracters 'Toothless' the dragon. Knowing this suddenly makes his particular style of illustration jump out! I started seeing similarities from his other work coming out such as the big eyes and wide mouths.. (much like Stitch from Lilo&Stitch).

I've gotta keep these things in mind as I attempt the Disney brief over these next few months.. and also have to learn After Effects! :(

Green eyed Monster

Now theres a lot of things that I'm actually jealous of.. some for various reason.. others for just one.. but Im not sure if there is just one artist and one piece of work that i truly admire and wished that I'd come up with it... some of the work I see actually fills me with dread some days becuase some of it is jus so finely polished and developed that I feel like a fraud but at the same time some of the work that is out there.. is shocking.. it makes you wonder how these illustrators get away with it.. for example.. the OFFICIAL mascot of the New Delhi commonwealth games...

here's some i like though...

Vector-d artwork.... I have always been drawn to the sleek, smooth finished look of vector artwork because it bares a resemblance to comic and cartoon illustrations but also because of its clean and crisp finish. a vectored piece of artwork looks finished and polished.. now I know I have previously said I dont like this in my own work.. but that is my own work... in other peoples work it looks fantastic. Often my sketches hold more character in the mess of lines I have drawn... when I try clean it up and simplify the design it changes.. it becomes a little bit stale. There are a few techniques I have used to try work around this.. but so far I am yet to find a harmonious balance between the two...

3D- Although I have never been taught sculpture or anything to do with 3D (digital or traditional).. I am still drawn to it. Theres an extra quality to a piece of artwork when it is made real and tangible... when you can hold a character in your hands and see around it, how its shape exists in the three dimensional world.. you start to realise extra bits about the character.. you can imagine how its build is distributed around its body when it walks.. or why a particular pose has been adopted... certain characteristics are only made apparent when a piece is turned 3D.. e.g in the Freddy Krueger maquetter below.. the first thing i notice is the elongated limbs of his.. they seem like they would envelop around the scared teen girl more than if they were just drawn.... on a flat page you can mistake the thinking behind the character design as purely aesthetic and stylized.

my Frank Kozik 'Kidmutant' figure :D

sexy ladies: call me a perv, but I appreciate the shape of beautiful women.. from the old famous cartoon erotic artists such as Dan DeCarlo and Dean Yeagle to the ones taking a more modern approach to the pin-up, like Andrew Bawadiman... the way in which they represent women through simple shapes of the bosom, hips and legs. They appear more sensual and much like the pin ups and tease artists of by gone years... nudity isnt the key but the suggestion is what draws me to these characters more.... the flowing lines appear almost liquid like and it makes you want to touch... ;)

oooh.. actually.. remembering my recent presentation.. I have just put together a few things that i really wish I had been a part of or at least seen

Stickers: Growing up as a teen I was into skateboarding and snowboarding (i still am to be hoenst, just not as much as I once was)... but part of the scene associated with snow and skate involved customisation.. the boards you buy are like plain canvases that need stickers to be placed upon their surface in order to prove/show ownership.. it was also a bit of a greed thing.. the more stickers you had then it equated to how good you were (in my head at least)...

but still, as i stated in my presentation.. stickers to me werent tiny advertisements for companies but miniature pieces of artwork that could be placed anywhere and everywhere.. their scale allowd for them to be picked up and applied to almost anything.. and depending on how the sticker was printed (with a clear background).. then they changed depending on what they were stuck to.

A lot of the stickers I collected where mainly from skateboard companies.. more specifically 'Blind' skateboards and 'World Industries'. I am jealous of their characters that they created and brought to life in a Garbage Pail kids/Punk kind of fashion.. Like Tom & Jerry, they juxtapoz the cute with evil and sinister (more adult) themes. This is what I attempted with my negotiated characters and my boy with scissors.. to some extent I feel I have succeeded but I still not fully there yet... its the mix of character, narrative/backstory and technical execution that I need to master...

Cartoon characters such as Tom & Jerry and the entire Looney Toons cast have inspired me in my work and the general theme of slapstick comedy and physical humour still keeps me laughing today some 50/60+ years on from when they were first created and brought to life on our screens! Part of bringing a character to life is bestowing human emotion and actions upon them.. by making them seem more human-like or life like.. we form a greater attachment to them as if they were real and alive.

Looney Tunes: (Warner Bros)



Tom & Jerry: (Hanna Barbera/MGM)

like a constant battle between good and evil, Tom & Jerry will eternally be trying to outsmart each other and hurt each other with sharp objects.. but this violence was never "real".. the over the top exaggeration of it some how desensytised us (as children) to it.. but so much so that we now watch shows like Jackass and Dirty Sanchez for entertainment... Schadenfreude comes to mind... we like to see people fail, but in Tom & Jerry's case.. we like to see what would happen next.. how each would retaliate rather than who would fail...

Finally though...

Pixar...




John Lasseter is accredited as saving Disney from falling into disrepair with the creation of Toy Story and he hasnt stopped there.. Pixar have released 11 of the highest grossing animated films to date... but how do they do it? I feel it through their talented character artists and writers... they create characters and stories that make us form attachments to them and genuinely care about the outcome of their adventures in the films. Also, as I mentioned about the use of human emotions and gesture to bring characters to life... they expertly demonstrate this by bringing an almost mute robot, a selection of sea life, imaginary monsters and a plethora of cars to life on screen.