I invested in a rather nice new hardback sketchbook for the next semester. In it, I’m going to be recording project development, concept sketches, colour experimentation, storyboards and so on. It is a nice hard-bound book which I purchased from the “Art Supplies Man” who comes and sets up shop in uni once a month. He always has such nice wares!
I’ll be updating this blog with each page as and when they are filled in. It is going to be fun seeing this project develop through to the final stages of animation. I will probably include speed-drawing videos of pages every so often to keep it interesting. I love making those, haha!
With the page below, I started from the bottom and worked upwards. This was because I had the idea for the bottom image first, and wanted to be able to fill the page completely without wasting any paper. I love how the design came out over all, the style looks very settled and comfortably executed.
The sleeping Kittypillar did not turn out as well as I had hoped the first time round. The other subsequent “Kitty-Worm” doodles worked out much better – I’m considering making some quick maquettes of them to get a sense of the physicality so that any animation tests I do have a much more whole feel about them. I haven’t really made maquettes before so that should be fun to try out.
I was quite surprised and excited to see “Fairytale: A True Story” showing on the telly a few days ago. What’s not to love about a film containing fairies and thick Yorkshire accents? It is one of my favourite films from childhood, because I used to be utterly obsessed with fairies.
About a quarter-of-the-way through watching it, I decided to put some inspiration to good use, and create some Kittypillar concept art. Also, the cat kept badgering me whilst I was watching it, so I guess the two things mixed!
I wanted to create something cute that would appeal to younger readers, just like the film did. The fairy seen in the piece below was created with a more traditional aesthetic in mind. I referenced some of the designs of the fairies used in the old Cottingley Fairy photographs (on which the film is based) and tried to pay homage to that, whilst at the same time coming up with my own design.
I made the limbs on the fairy quite long and simplistic, as I did with the facial features – only keeping them to the bare minimum. I wanted the skin to be a dull, greyish-green tone originally, but instead opted for a more earthy mix of brown and subtle green. A mix of yellow, blue, and pink were used on the base of the wings, giving it a slight stained glass effect. I attempted to make them look as though they were moving as well, so hopefully I’ve managed to put that across successfully.
Once again, Letraset ProMarkers were used to colour in this piece of concept work. Being quick and simple to use, they give off a very nice effect even when used on rough work. Plus, you know, I love bright colours and all that.
That sweet little look of happiness on the Kittypillar’s face is one which my cat pulls all the time when you stroke his ears. The antennae, tips of the ears, and paws are tinted with the same colour as the nose and bottom lip. The blending of the colours is a lot more apparent in the actual image – this scan isn’t the most flattering to my colouring, but it does the job sure enough! The rule that I sort of go by for the length and legs of the Kittypillar, is that there is one set of legs every two segments. Every segment equals a year of how old the Kittypillar is.
The Kittypillar is a happy creature, which loves collecting flowers. He is giving the daisy to the fairy who is petting him behind the ears. The sound he makes when he is happy or in love is similar to the sound a Mogwai from the film “GREMLINS” makes.
As a rule, I’m having the animation of the Kittypillar – whilst it being a nonsense creature itself – as a “realistic” documentary, so there will be no inclusion of fairies. This doesn’t mean to say that I won’t write any follow up stories of the Kittypillar and the Fairy, because I reckon that would be quite a nice little volume to include in my series (yes, I fully intend for this to be made into a series of childrens books!).
Call it a moment of either divine inspiration or boredom, but I decided to do something crafty and a bit different with some concept art. Instead of having straight forward drawn-on-paper pieces, I decided to do some experimentation. Going back to my old habit of doing little caricatures and cutting them out to display in different places, I decided to create a mock cut-out of the Kittypillar.
The idea which I had in mind whilst doing this, was that I wanted to see how the illustration style of the character would look against a photographic background. This is a potential design choice which I may opt for in the final animating stages of “The Life Cycle of the Kittypillar”. I had to use my creative license on this one in quite a liberal fashion. Really, one of the other main reasons as to why I did this practice with cut-outs, is because I don’t have access to any editing software at present. So, I thought: “Why not go a bit old school?”. Doing a small bit of research into the infamous “Cottingley Fairies” also gave inspiration for this little venture.
During some free time I did a quick drawing of my character “Bruce (rhymes with juice)” in action, for the purpose of having an image with which I can create a colour guide. Colour guides are a standard in the industry, and tend to help everyone in the design department keep to a set of colours for consistency and designs purposes. This was done using my vastly growing collection of Letraset ProMarkers, because of the uniform colour it produces, with next to no overlap-lines. This was also just a fun little exercise with which I could create something to add to my portfolio at the end of the academic year.
I coloured each segment one-by-one, adding the scribbled square of colour at the side as I went. This is usually how I tend to go about my colouring business anyway, so it was all completed easy enough. I usually start with skin-tones, working my way through the hair and then onto clothes and accessories. There was a bit of a waiting period required when colouring the characters face, as ProMarkers tend to be quite “wet” pens. I waited until it had almost dried on the skin base, before adding the blush, otherwise it would have blended in too pale and not have been as prominent. In this instance, it didn’t work quite as well as I had hoped, but it is still noticeable regardless.
In the same fashion as Windsor Mccay, I decided to have a thicker outline going around the silhouette edge of the character and the book he is carrying. This really makes the character stand out against any potential background setting, and just adds something unique to the character itself. This is a little technique that I picked up a few years ago, purely through experimentation. I didn’t realize how popular a design choice it was with a lot of artists until I started attending university!
This settled nicely into my A3 sketchbook, bit I might consider taking it out and putting it up on the wall of the animation room as a reference point, and to fill up some space in the meantime (the walls are very bare of work in there – it needs to change, haha!). Once again, I absolutely adore using ProMarkers because of the vibrancy of their colours. They really bring an image to life, even when just used as flat, block colouring devices. For presentation purposes and skills development, I highly recommend you creative types out there invest in some and have an experiment with them! You will not be disappointed, that is for sure!
Last month it was my maternal Grandfather’s birthday (He is now in his mid / late 70’s). Having only been notified on the day of the visit he was making to our house, my mum suggested that I make something for him, which we could give to him when he arrived. Knowing my Grandad, I had to incorporate something about his favorite chair into the drawing. Well, that, and the sports section of the newspaper.
Utilising the power of the Letraset Promarkers which I had recently acquired, I got to work on making something small enough to fit the frame my mother had already bought. This was drawn just after I had finished a portrait of Nicolas Cage (which will be uploaded here soon), so I had become much mor accustomed to the pens and how to blend them effectively. I did a quick blend test before I started, which you can see below.
I used a standard mechanical pencil with a 0.5 nib to sketch out the drawing. Roughly, the drawing itself only ended up being about the size of a post-it note. It was outlined using a Staedtler 0.8 nib pigment ink outliner. I had to invest in a new multipack of various nib outliners last week, as my supply was running dreadfully low. I think that the colouring went pretty well on this little drawing – it was much easier with it being on such a small-scale!
Safe to say, Grandad Malcolm enjoyed this little gift when he opened it later that afternoon, and we all had a good laugh. Doing this – like the full portraits I have been doing – has really made me enthusiastic about creating more pieces in black and white. I have never done a stylised portrait of this caliber in black and white before, so it was a nice break from the norm for me.
Please enjoy, and leave any comments / inquiries you have about it! More coming soon!
AbbieSTABBY 