More Bravest Warriors designs

So, the first season of Bravest Warriors wrapped up this week. Thanks to everyone who's been following along with the show since its launch in November. And if you're only now getting acquainted with it, that's cool too! Freelance design on the show occupied the better part of my (formerly) free time last year—it was an interesting and great experience for me. While I've been sharing some of the major characters that I designed for each episode, there's a lot more drawing that goes into the show (even more than what I'm about to show here). In addition to the recurring characters like Catbug, Impossibear, and Plum, there are tons of secondary and what I might call prop or gag characters that only show up once, or briefly in a crowd.

The Cereal Master, from Episode 9 of the same name, is a good example of a secondary character who played an important role in her episode. Her turn poses and a couple special poses, below:

I'd often get character assignments once the script was mostly worked out and storyboarding was just about to begin—working closely with the show's director, co-executive producer, and writer, Breehn Burns. I'd read the script to get a sense for a character, and Breehn would get me started with: imagine her as a big head with a face on it. (Ha, something like that.)

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I love drawing characters (this is an understatement), so I'd fill up a sheet with some ideas. Breehn and I would have some back and forth to zero in on the final design. You can see how the final version of Cereal Master formed out of these early ideas.

This episode required a group of patrons to fill the seats at the Cereal Bar, shown above with their backs facing us. This was a case where their back-views were going to be pretty important. You can see a few of them in the screen-grab at the top of the post, as well. 

Again, they function more as props in a crowd than anything else, but someone has to draw what they look like. Below is a good example of a gag character.

Beth as a Walrus—A drawing designed to get a laugh.

Here are the partying mojito aliens, and the desperate aliens from the Suffer Club.

Similar to the Cereal Bar patrons, Episode 8 "Dan Before Time", required a bunch of little alien dudes named the Low Gravity Hacker Pack (who bullied on Danny when he was 6). They played a bigger role, and actually have names—most given after I drew them. In order: Hans Christian Teet-Phanters (leader), Wireframe, Slice, Dialup, and Shelia.

I had a lot of fun drawing these guys, and they turned out great in the episode. I especially like where their colors landed. Again, with an assignment like this I draw a bunch of characters, and then we narrow them down to the final picks.

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Some of these drawings were used in another episode. A few made it into the passenger seats on the bus in Memory Donk, which I did a lot of design on.

snow walk

In between all the projects that occupy my time these days, I've been trying to find the space to doodle, to play—to explore ideas. Usually these windows are brief. Lately I've been using them to play around with color. I keep coming back to color as the part of illustrating and cartooning that intrigues me the most. I rack my brain about color. I obsess over color selections. I work hard at color, way more than I do the drawing part. It can change the mood of a image—bring added life, draw attention to things. Because I stick with flat colors as a general rule, each color plays a purpose.

I overthink it for sure, but it's always a good exercise. I'm not sure if either of these are successful, but I chalk them up as interesting. The second one is from a little while ago (posted on tumblr), but it hasn't made its way over to the blog.

// mother and child // color study

Catbug and more!

It's been awhile since I've posted some of my designs over here from Bravest Warriors (I do that more regularly on Tumblr.) A full 10 Episodes have aired, which you can watch in their entirety on YouTube, over here. The Season 1 Finale, 'Catbug', airs this Thursday, so don't miss it. And it once again features this little guy, Catbug, who seems to be one of the more popular characters from the series.

What follows are a smattering of designs from a range of episodes. Starting with Plum:

She is sometimes thought of as the fifth Bravest Warrior.

Though there is some speculation as to whether or not she is evil.

(you decide.)

I helped design an important character known as the Emotion Lord. He's a kooky old crackpot who appears throughout the series. I created this firebelly armor costume for him in the 'Lavarinth' episode.

... and above, the Firebelly creature design.

The Emotion Lord pals around with his little companion known as The Concierge.

The most recent episode, 'Ultra Wankershim' featured an enlarged version of a cute little elf named Wankershim.

Impossibear is one of my favorite characters from the show. He's getting ready to grill up some soft tacos! Here he is in color (minus the apron).

And these are littler-sized designs of the Bravest Warriors as kids.

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I based Beth on Drew Barrymore from E.T.

That's plenty for one post. One final reminder to watch the Season 1 Finale, 'Catbug', this Thursday on Cartoon Hangover. Thanks!

SpongeBob Jelly Hive: Process

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I have a comic in SpongeBob Comics #17, now available on the shelves of your local comics shops. It's a great issue, with a choose-your-own adventure comic, so be sure to snatch yourself a copy.

Now for some process, for anyone who's curious. It all starts with a pitch. This time I was invited by editor Chris Duffy to pitch a 2-page spread related to jelly-fishing. I write in pictures, so below are some of my early ideas for gags and the layout of the illustration.

My thinking was to use a large jelly hive to contain cutaway-view panels—so that you could follow SpongeBob's journey room-to-room, reading left to right. Once the concept was approved, I started to block in shapes and forms, keeping in mind important restrictions like the page fold. I drew right on top of a print-out of the page guides.

And then I did an additional refined sketch on paper. I worked in enough detail to get approval on the drawing before I started inking.

At one point I was going to do it all brush-on-paper, but I'd inked a lot of my recent SpongeBob comics in Flash, and decided that would be the best route. (These days I'm doing most of my inking in Manga Studio.) I'm pretty sure I worked in Flash MX, even though this screenshot is CS3. I work on a layers for different items (separating characters from the background, just to organize things for any adjustments). I keep the sketch layer on the bottom.

And below are my final inks. (You can click this one to view large)

At this point I bring everything into Photoshop, where I do all my coloring. I archived an early color step, blocking in the characters and basic color ideas.

Then I go in and polish everything up. I used colored lines, which is an added step of work. The printed version includes dialogue panels and labels for each room of the jelly hive—added after I deliver my final file.

One of the wild things about publishing is that sometimes it can take a year for what you draw to make it to print. I started working on this comic in January of 2012, so it's great to finally see it in crisp printed form. Nothing beats it! Though, it's admittedly looking pretty old to me. Thanks for reading!

i heart you

gas powered stick

Meet Impossibear, this Thursday, on Bravest Warriors.

mushroom color study

Merry Christmas

All dressed up for the holiday season.

Biomimicry

At FableVision, I often get to work with museums, which is the best! Even better, when I'm given the chance to work with museums directly engaged in teaching the public about Science. We were recently approached by our friends across the channel, the New England Aquarium, to help develop an app on Biomimicry. The project is part of a larger initiative on Global Climate Change and Ocean Education.

The New England Aquarium, collaborating with other aquariums across the country, is leading a national effort to enable aquariums to effectively communicate the impacts of climate change and ocean acidification on marine animals, habitats and ecosystems. Our goal is to build on visitors’ emotional connection with ocean animals, connect to their deeply held values, help them understand causes and effects of climate change and motivate them to embrace effective solutions.

What is biomimicry, you ask? It's when we look to nature for inspiration, examining systems and organisms to find ways to solve challenges and improve technology. An example you've probably heard of is Velcro, the hook-and-loop fastener system inspired by the tiny hooks on sticky burrs.

The app in development will be used by staff interpeters to get people thinking about the importance of our relationship with nature. We're still doing early testing, but in this post I've included a series of illustrations I created to introduce each topic on biomimicry (in a fun way). The above image of the whale shows how wind technology is looking to the contour of humpback whale flippers to improve the energy effiency of wind turbines. Seriously, look it up!

Below are other examples...

involving solar technology inspired by trees (this one is a mangrove),

fuel efficient cars inspired by the design of the boxfish,

cement production mimicking the way coral uses CO2 to create their skeletons,

and a coating for ships which prevents barnacles from attaching—inspired by sharks!

Like I said, we're still in the testing phase, but you'll soon be able to see this activity playing on iPads on one of your upcoming visits to the aquarium. Cool, right?

Memory Donk

Okay, as promised, here are the remaining designs I created for the latest episode of Bravest Warriors, "Memory Donk", which you can watch over here. Fair warning, possible spoilers ahead. This is the hulking form of the Memory Donk. Below is the 2-step turn I designed (click on the smaller images to view large).

One of the things I like about drawing for the show is that it's forced me to really consider that back-3/4 view. When's the last time you drew the back of one of your characters when you were doodling it? In practice (say in comics), I bet you draw it all the time without even thinking. It's a pretty common angle for showing a character looking at something. I use back-3/4 way more than profile, which is probably my least favorite angle because you only get one eye and it can flatten a drawing.

But, I ramble. Below are various other memory donks that appeared at the Memory Donk Convention.

Next up, the old lady on the bus. Appearing with her purse.

We eventually gave her a floral pattern. Below is a 3-step turn. You can obtain most of what you need to know about a character from these three views. I mentioned profile, before. A proper front-view can also be hard to nail, in terms of flattening features (foreshortening) and avoiding the human tendency to get all symmetrical.

Finally, the ship's Pilot. Three eyes, three collars. Seen below, frozen. 

More drawings.

I'm realizing my blog is beginning to look like a coloring book. The colorist on the episode is normally the one responsible for adding color to the designs before they get sent off to be animated. I promise more color (and images with backgrounds!) again, soon. —Thanks!