The first Zhu Zhu Pets animated movie (The Quest for Zhu) comes out tomorrow on DVD, so I thought I’d post something from the movie each day until Friday. If you haven’t been following my blog as of late, I worked primarily as a character designer on the film last year, and even spent some time with the storyboards.
As things were wrapping up on the movie, my director, Bob Doucette, approached me about utilizing my illustration skills to create some drawings to be seen on screen during the end credits. He wanted some key moments from the movie illustrated in a watercolor vignette style with room for some of the primary credits to be seen next to the art.
I spent some time laying out images for a widescreen format with room for a name or two on the “cards” as they are called. The idea was that my pencil drawings would be digitally inserted onto old parchment paper, and my pal Tom Cain would paint them in Photoshop to replicate a watercolor look. With that in mind, I drew the illustrations by hand with a black Prismacolor pencil on large 24×18 inch pads of Strathmore watercolor paper. That particular paper has a real bumpy texture to it, which would only enhance the organic feel the art needed to have.
So, this week I will be sharing with you 5 out of the 9 or 10 pieces I drew for the end credits. To see how they looked after Tom got through with them, you’ll have to pick up a copy of the DVD!