Evolution-Health: Lactose Intolerance

The third in the series of Evolution-Health animations (created at FableVision for the New York Hall of Science) is on Lactose Intolerance, and probably the trickiest to explain. While a lot of us can digest milk well into adulthood, some of us cannot. Basically, we're all born with the enzyme to digest the lactose in our mother's milk when we are infants, but until tens of thousands of years ago, there was no reason to retain that ability once our mothers weened us. It wasn't until some cultures began raising livestock that animal milk became a valuable source of nutrition—people who could drink the milk were at a new advantage (thus, more apt to survive and reproduce). Those who couldn't, well—didn't do so hot with cow's milk.

I actually named these kids in the Flash file as I was drawing them. From left to right: Sam, Amelia, Danielle, Jason, Nikki, and Lily.

Nikki is not pleased.

Parts of Europe, Africa, and East Asia didn't partake in the whole animal milk thing and are now more likely to have difficulty with lactose.

Mooooooooo.

But, it ends on a happy note. The kids who can't drink the milk help themselves to some orange juice. (Yes, that's an orange juice mustache.) I can't take full credit for this gag—Margie Prager from Jeff Kennedy Associates wrote in the orange juice bit. I did add the pulp flecks.

Next up: Sunburn.

Evolution-Health: Obesity

If you missed my first post on Back Pain, this week I'm sharing some of the designs and layouts I did from the Evolution-Health animation project we created at FableVision for the New York Hall of Science. The second of the 4 animations we developed is about Obesity... specifically, the idea that we evolved the ability to store fat when food was scarce, and how that's become a problem in the modern world (at least here in America), where easy access to an abundance of high-calorie fatty and sweet food combines with an inactive lifestyle.

Obesity was the first animation I started design on. Initially there was a thought to have the contemporary characters have match with prehistoric counterparts (a fun idea). It ended up clashing with the some of the story set-ups, and was probably too cute. Including in this case, where we open on a couch potato but follow a smaller runt-type when we move to the past.

Below, an early storyboard sequence of the runt, running to catch up with the food.

This one has a great 'snarly-gorging' eating sequence (above). It ends on a family, happily chomping away on various unhealthy snacks. Note the baby with the soda.

Next up: Lactose Intolerance.

Evolution-Health: Back Pain

Starting back in October of 2012, I began work on an assignment at FableVision that would quickly become my favorite project of the year. I've written before about the animation-science connection that happens often at my company—we often use film and gaming to teach educational concepts in a fun and entertaining way. I'm a big science nerd, and and even bigger animation nerd, so it's a dream when the two overlap. This was a collaboration between our studio and Jeff Kennedy Associates, who we'd previously worked with on a series of animations for the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (here and here). The exhibit, scheduled to first appear at the New York Hall of Science, discusses the relationships between evolution and modern-day health issues, such as back pain, lactose intolerance, and obesity.

Over the course of the week, I'll be posting some of my designs and layouts from the series, starting tonight with Back Pain. I went in wanting explore a cartooning style that was lighter on linework than I normally work. Another restraint: no texture. Keep it simple using flat colors. The project was drawn and animated completely in Flash (CS3, if you're curious). This short, and another one, feature ancestors like Homo erectus—so you can see why I had a lot of fun.

(I split this one up so you can see a few of the key poses.)

Next up: Obesity.

instamagram

I've been trying to post more over here lately, but other posting sites have been stealing me away. Blogging is better for writing and process, but Tumblr and Instagram are better (and more quick) for image posting and connecting to people. You know my tumblr, but I'm not sure I've shared that I'm in Instagram. Look me up! I post sketchbook drawings, and other photos of in-process artwork. (I'm sure I'm guilty of food-pics, cloud-pics, pet-pics, and nature-pics as well.) Hey, I'm also on Vine, which is pretty fun. But I'm not sure how to link to that (look me up: bobjinx).

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.)

(click to view larger image)

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.

(click to view larger image)

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.

(click to view larger image)

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

(click to view larger image)

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