A new Scooby Doo show began airing/streaming a few weeks ago on Boomerang – Scooby Doo and Guess Who? It features the Scooby gang with a celebrity guest or two in each episode.
Why am I mentioning this? Because two years ago, I was invited to help design characters for the very first episode they were making! Warner Bros. released a trailer promoting the series, and the green ball of flaming skulls that’s in the trailer was a “character” I designed for the show. Take a look!
Thought I’d show you my early color concept of the ‘ol screaming skulls, along with my final black and white drawing.
This was my initial color concept with an early version of the skulls.
This was my final drawing for the Screaming Skulls design.
Scooby, Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy in a still from the show trailer with the Screaming Skulls.
Nuthin’ scarier than a big ol’ ball of green skulls.
I’m cheering on series producer Chris Bailey & the crew who dutifully worked on the whole season, and hope they have a lot of success with it!
Today there will be a big beach volleyball tournament in Playa del Rey, California called King of the Jungle. I designed the T-shirts for this year’s big event!
One of the organizers of the tournament is a friend of mine, Paul Carrera, who works as an editor in the animation business. He asked me for a black and white design, and let me do whatever I wanted for it.
It was fun just doing a simple action pose of this guy wailing on the volleyball. However, I thought that it might be fun to see this in full color. So, this past week, I decided to add some hue to improve the view!
“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishments toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results“
– Andrew Carnegie (1835 – 1919)
There is no “I” in teamwork, unless you spell it incorrectly.
Here in the States, today is our Independence Day! In 1776, our country’s founding father’s sent a little ol’ letter off to our landlord, King George III of England, stating that we didn’t want to pay him rent anymore. Back then they “celebrated” with a war. Today, we celebrate with parades, barbecues, and fireworks with friends and family.
Uncle Sam knows how to have a good time on the 4th of July.
Toy Story 4 opened in theaters last weekend. The Toy Story gang and I go way back together – back to the first movie in 1995. I was a young illustrator who was not that long out of university when I got to illustrate a couple of Toy Story books that came out in conjunction with the movie. They were coloring/activity books, but were a blast to work on.
I was given lots of blurry still images from the movie, and then had to reinterpret them into drawings that kids could color. I really had no idea what the movie was truly about, nor what the significance was of all the characters, but hey howdy hey, it turned into a juggernaut of a hit, and I became a fan along with everyone else.
Buzz, Woody & RC Racer as drawn for the book in the green cover below.
Despite the date you see by my signature, the drawing above was published in 1995. All three characters have a part in the new movie which I was fortunate to see back on June 12. Toy Story 4 is funny, heart warming, and made me wish I had some tissues towards the end.
This green cover book contained drawings that I both penciled and inked, including the previous drawing of Buzz & Woody on RC Racer.This peach colored cover was a book that someone else penciled, and I inked.
This last pic is from maybe 2007 and 100 lbs ago when I was working for Disney Television Animation, and treated my folks to a trip to Disneyworld in Florida where we got to hang with the gang from Toy Story 2. My only experience with that second film was getting to spend a day on the scoring stage with Randy Newman, but that’s another story for another time. Hard to believe this all started 24 years ago!
Did they grow? Or did we shrink to the size of toys? Hmmm.
I’m sharing with you today, some actual animation character design work I created a while back. Thought it might be interesting to give you a little taste of the process.
The assignment in this case was to create a little brother character for an already designed big sister. The only stipulation is that he needed to be wearing a hoodie, jeans, and sneakers, and the script called for him to be mischievous. Hoo boy, what a task it turned out to be! You see before you about 20 or so exploratory sketches, but I did about 60 different versions in all.
Just a few of the many options explored for this character.
The client just couldn’t decide which way he wanted to go. Every time I presented a few versions, there would be comments and suggestions on how to change it whether it was the weight of the kid, his hair – whatever! Two other designers eventually got involved, too, and they experienced the same indecision from the client. It was certainly frustrating, because we wanted to please the client.
Eventually a design was chosen (one conceived by one of my colleagues), and then I created the turns (that’s the view of the character from all sides), and continued with some personality sketches, mouth charts, etc. I never would have thought a little boy would have been my toughest character design assignment, but it was.
So there you have it – some of the glitz and glamour of being an artist for hire.
It’s Father’s Day here in the States today. I created this dapper duck and mouse companion a few months ago, and when it was done, it just made me think of my dad. So, I saved it just to post today.
And remember kids, smoking kills. Especially ducks.
To all those sons out there, give your dad a warm hug today. If you aren’t huggers, give him a hearty handshake. Tell him you appreciate him. Time together is fleeting – just like this duck will eventually fly away from this mouse.
When I was a kid, I LOVED playing soccer. I played in a league in our town, and really enjoyed the game. My love for the game changed when I aged up into the next group, and found myself to be one of the youngest players in that level, and I was paired with a team that had a few bullies on it.
My own teammates soured me on the whole sport, when during practice, I had kicked the ball in a scrimmage setting, and it hit one of these bullies in the face. After practice that day, I got the stuffing knocked out of me as I was trying to unlock my bike from the bike rack. I didn’t quit the season because I don’t quit my commitments, but after that year, I never played in town leagues again.
I enjoy the nostalgia of having played, and the feeling of exhaustion at the end of a game. It sure was fun. So, I recently had some doodle time, and decided to do a little drawing more in line with what we do in storyboarding for animation – drawings full of action and interesting camera angles!
