It has happened.

After rummaging through a blog I ran across last night-a cartoon modern site that celebrates all of the fantastic art of the 50's UPA style and others influenced by it-I found my way. Finally.

I noticed the simplicity of design within the characters. Many are seemingly based on solid shapes that make up the entire character. It's an excellent way to think of character design...as if a shape was laid down and a character was derived from it. This makes the character so much more self contained as opposed to a head with arms and legs...a bunch of different parts that are almost designed separately to make up a whole. This is perfect for what I want to do. I think it will make the animation much more efficient and deliberate. And, I've always been a huge fan of this type of stuff just never thought to draw inspiration from it. Silly. I'm pretty happy about nailing this guy.

Onward.

Motivation...I still have it somehow.

So, I've begun another regular job-type job and income is--again--part of my life. It's a good show also, which makes it even better. However it will detract a bit of focus from this project but I'm keeping with it. I'm attempting to become a better time manager. Time can be so unruly, you know.

Anyway. Here a some more exploratory sketches. Still trying to get a solid sense of where I'm headed. These are some of the few that were done with a PEN on--get this--PAPER! It's a strange thing since I don't really do that anymore. Something kind of liberating about it though. Having no UNDO button frees you to just make a choice. Every mark stays so I think these are better examples of "working" drawings...proof of me finding my way around. Especially with the interior layouts and props. This king is close...particularly the face. It's simple and expressive.

Next to come will be turnarounds of the characters so I can move on with boarding.

Confusing myself.

So this was supposed to be my final design/turnaround for the KING. Obviously, didn't quite pan out. Stylistically, I'm just lost at the moment. I draw something I like aesthetically, then think "animating THIS guy will be impossible". It's like I stop myself from even getting started. Foolish. Anyway. It's good to just draw. So I started doing that and not thinking so much. I do respond to the last thing I drew here--the guy with no crown and clearly different construction overall. Maybe I'll move in this sort of direction to see what happens. Maybe I should stop forcing it.

I can't help thinking I'm going to end up with the very first KING design I came to. The triangular shaped, thick jawed wonder posted further back. There was a specific inspiration for him which makes me think maybe that's the one.

I don't know what I think about this. Back and forth. More on the side of "not feeling it". This guy needs to be simplified. Acting is going to be important to really sell his immaturity and rage so he needs to be designed with that in mind. Also needs to be simple to animate...this isn't intended to be Disney quality but it does need to connect. I gotta figure this out soon. Boarding is becoming difficult without locked characters.

Man it takes me a minute, huh?

Well, its been almost a year since I've bothered with this thing. Part of it is, I've been busy. Part of it is, I've been stressed out with work and periods lack-there-of. Mostly, it's the fact that I'm terrible at following through with things like this. Probably for fear of failure that it won't turn out how I intend. But, whatever. The story is still very relevant in my mind and actually has become a little broader in scope than it originally was intended--meaning the message may apply to a general view as well as the specific view in my head.

Anyway, onward I go into this "production". Since last posting, I've done some more design sketches as well as begun thumbing out the board. The plan now is to get an animatic locked and chat with a longtime musician friend to start thinking about music and themes. That will play a huge role in how this comes across in the end as this film will not have a large amount of dialogue. At this point there is none but there may be some required for clarity's sake; we'll see. Once the animatic is tight, I will start the challenging task of getting it animated. Grant writing will occur and friends in the biz will be approached to see if there is any interest in helping. First things first.

So here are some tidbits. More to come...for real this time.