Earlier this week I shared with you some character drawings of a leopard drawn in the design process of the upcoming Zhu Zhu Pets movie, The Quest for Zhu. While those beasties snarl and growl in the jungle portion of the story, they crouch and cower at the will of another character – Mangawanga.
This is a drawing from my sheet of expressions that help the CG folks know how much pliability there is to the character’s face. Plus, it’s delightfully disgusting.
Mangawanga is our king of the jungle. He grunts, slobbers, and yells his way through the vines and branches while keeping his eye on Jane – er, Pipsqueak that is. So, since you already met the Leopard Zhus, I thought you should see some drawings that explored the primal Mangawanga.
Looks like Pipsqueak is Mangawanga’s carry-on baggage for this flight.
Here’s Mangawanga looking all tough and menacing in his spotted jungle skirt.
It was fun to do this development drawing, then several months later I actually got to storyboard it! This moment is staged slightly differently in the final movie. Let’s just say it involved more saliva, and it may come towards you. I hope you’ve had your shots.
I worked on Disney’s Tarzan, so it was a little hard to shake the image of a jungle tree surfer, though I think Mangawanga sticks to vine swinging in “The Quest for Zhu.”
This last drawing is a little extra special. It was just one of my early drawings meant to explore character personalities during the development of who these characters were. Late in the production, my director decided he wanted some illustrative images based on moments from the movie to decorate the end title sequence. He had one of the painters on our show work this up as a test image. She painted it in a semi-watercolor style and put it on a parchment paper background. Everyone seemed to like it, so this very drawing will be seen at the end of the movie, along with an additional 9 or 10 drawings he had me work up that were painted by my buddy Tom Cain. Come back next week where I’ll show you five more of those special end credit illustrations!
Feel free to click on this image to see a larger scolding!
When we set out to design characters for the Zhu Zhu Pets movie, The Quest for Zhu (coming to DVD on September 27th), we were told that all the Zhuniverse characters except the villain had to be based on the basic hamster design. So, that meant we ended up having a hamster based sasquatch, zebras, saber-tooth tigers, a skunk, and even leopards.
We had been drawing all these hamsters walking around on two legs and basically behaving like humans, but the Leopard Zhus had to behave like the jungle cat it was supposed to be. So, it was my job to come up with a few action poses of the Leopard Zhus for the model sheets. Here’s a few that popped out of my pencil. Enjoy!
As one of the character designers for the upcoming Zhu Zhu Pets movie, The Quest for Zhu, I had to get a lot of personality into my drawings so that the many storyboard artists and animators could more accurately work together to make these characters come to life as individuals. Most of the time my drawings remained completely behind-the-scenes and were only seen within the studio. This time things were different.
My director, Bob Doucette, asked for a series of photo booth style drawings of our one human character, Katie, and her pet hamster Pipsqueak that would be used directly on screen in the movie. As you know if you have spent any time at all in a photo booth, it is nigh impossible to not act a little goofy once that camera starts-a-clickin’! So, I set out to create a set of cute and goofy images as Katie and Pipsqueak would likely have done.
Say “CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE!”
I will say that I had a little help with the above. In order to draw Katie juuuuust right for a few of those poses, I recruited some folks in the studio to pose for me. The bottom two crazy faces were expertly supplied to me by our wonderful production assistant Steffi Larson. Steffi dove right in without hesitation making the best crazy faces I had ever seen while my camera clicked away. If her face had frozen in any of the contorted poses she provided, I would never have been able to forgive myself.
For the image second from the top, I had a different model. Tom Cain, a bald buddy with a decidedly different physique than that of a 12-year-old girl, was helpful in posing with that outstretched hand. Inspiration comes from the places you sometimes least expect it! I’m glad Tom could help in that way, because you see, he was the next artist to have a go at these drawings. Tom is a painter on this movie painting all the characters and props so that the foreign studio knows exactly how to create everything in a CG (computer graphics) world.
Below are Tom Cain’s paintings of my drawings. Since these are going right into the movie, Tom’s goal was to make the drawings look as if they were photographs of the CG characters, even though they are really just two-dimensional paintings. Tom is an amazing artist, and I’ll likely be showing you some more of his paintings of my drawings in future posts. (Try not to think of that outstretched-hand Katie as a self-portrait by Tom.)
Drawings by Chad Frye, paintings by Tom Cain! This past year you may have noticed Disney characters in ads for D23 in the margins of your Facebook page and on the D23 website – Tom painted those, too!
If you’d like another sneak peek at the animation from the movie, and get to see Katie and Pipsqueak in action, here is a music video that will be seen at the end of Zhu Zhu Pets: The Quest for Zhu when the movie comes out on DVD September 27 (CLICK HERE to order it on Amazon.com).
In May of 2010, I began working at an animation studio in Woodland Hills, California called Moonscoop Entertainment. I was one of two character designers hired to help turn the very popular Zhu Zhu Pets toys into living, breathing, and adorable animated characters. My partner in this endeavor was the highly esteemed Stephen Silver who had been developing the characters’ looks with director Bob Doucette. When I joined the team, it was my job to give the hamsters personality and to make them work for a CGI (computer generated imagery) animated film.
Fast forward seventeen months later, and you will be holding the results of our initial efforts in your very own hands. Amazon recently began to pre-sell our first Zhu Zhu Pets movie to be released at the end of September from Universal Studios (CLICK HERE to see it on Amazon). When I saw the video cover that the marketing folks put together, something looked strangely familiar – all the main four character poses were based on some of my early drawings!
The very first Zhu Zhu Pets movie featuring Num Nums, Pipsqueak, Mr. Squiggles and Chunk with the sneaky Stinker poking in from the corner.
I was planning to share with you some of my work for the Zhu Zhu Pets series from time to time, so why not start by showing you the sketches that led to the first video cover!
After Stephen Silver created the initial designs, I took them and drew up lots of action poses. The goal behind these drawings was to really get their personalities across, and to show the range of motion that they should be able to have when they get animated. These types of drawings help the CG artists know how to build the characters, they help the storyboard artists get a handle on how to draw the characters, the animators on how to animate them, and sometimes they help the marketing people promote the film as was the case with these four drawings.
Our story is about the adventures of four hamsters who go on their Quest for Zhu – the title doesn’t lie! There is sweet and dainty Num Nums, the adventurous Pipsqueak, the heroic Mr. Squiggles and laid-back surfing aficionado Chunk. Below are just a few of the many sketches created really early in the process of developing who these characters are. While they were early sketches, somehow these particular four poses struck a chord with others who came after me since they influenced the video cover.
The Quest for Zhu movie is just the first of three DVD films that will be sure to capture the imagination of your little ones. In fact, even now I am at work on more Zhu Zhu cartoons that will eventually make their way to the internet as webisodes. Now and again I’ll share some of my behind-the-scenes work with you from this magical series here on my blog.
Here’s a trailer showing the characters in action….
Yes, I know. It’s Monday. Our fundraising effort for TIM ends in the wee early hours (12:42am to be exact) of Tuesday morning for some of you, so I thought I’d post this week’s Tuesdays with TIM column today to give you one final look at some of my art created in the development of this short film before donation time runs out. For my Pacific coast friends, our fundraising on Kickstarter ends at 9:42pm TONIGHT!
Today I offer you an insider’s look at one of my illustrations showing Timothy Todd moping about in a cemetery dressed like his hero Tim Burton. The purpose for this development piece was to show the dichotomy of Timothy’s world. On the right, you can see the world he actually lives in. It’s a bright, cheery, and very straight-laced version of suburbia not unlike that portrayed in Burton’s Edward Scissorhands. The cemetery reflects the imagination of little Timothy Todd – an imagination that sees a dark, muted and skewed environment such as is common in a creepy Burton world.
Timothy Todd ponders his youth well spent, while sitting atop the grave of Vincent.
In looking at the evolution of this illustration, you can see that I hadn’t quite figured out the two worlds. In the first drawing below, both the world of his imagination and that of his real life were depicted as eerily creepy. In looking at Tim Burton animation projects, it is hard to find a straight line anywhere in the creepy scenes. I had my “eureka” moment when watching The Nightmare Before Christmas – in the “real life” world where Christmas is celebrated, straight lines abound!
This was the first drawing that made Timothy Todd’s home look too creepy.
Having a different look for the “real life” world is necessary for our story not only to create the separation between Timothy’s life and his imagination, but it also helps you as the viewer to relate. Even though Timothy’s real world is cartoony, by having it be more straight and suburban, it reminds us of the suburbia we all see around us. So, in this next drawing, the house is made a bit more boring, and the picket fence was changed to define the yard. The car was just in the way.
This second pass worked much better in showing the difference between the two worlds.
And then we get to the final watercolor & colored pencil illustration. Really, the only changes here are the addition of curly branches in the cemetery trees (which was always the plan), and a little dog in the yard. While it may be tough to tell in these scans, the tombstones all reflect past Tim Burton projects. Of course, little Timothy is sitting atop the tombstone for Vincent, the short animated film Burton made in the 1980s that we are parodying with TIM.
You can almost hear the voice of Christopher Lee, our wonderful narrator, speaking over this image.
This is your LAST day to lend us a hand by pledging some money to make TIM. To make this film become a reality, we need to hire professional puppet builders, miniature set builders, animators, and many other creative people. Stop-motion animated films require many different talents pooled together to make something special. You can click on any of the images above to go right to Kickstarter. Here is our promo video one last time:
Thank you so much for taking the time to look at these Tuesdays with TIM updates over the past two months. Even though our Kickstarter fundraising ends tonight, I’ll continue to have these updates periodically should we proceed with making TIM.
Welcome to another fine addition to my Tuesdays with TIM posts showing you some of the artwork created in the development of this exciting short film project I’ve been working on with my producing partner Brian Joseph Ochab!
When trying to develop the visual style of TIM in early 2010, we didn’t wish to stray from the visuals of Tim Burton’s creepy animated films. We wanted to channel the look of Burton’s 1982 short Vincent while combining it with the visual sophistication of films like Corpse Bride and Henry Selick’s Coraline. Vincent was in black and white, and had a certain economy of scenery that was inexpensive to produce yet visually compelling. The latter films incorporated color and style to their imagery that just captures the imagination.
A close-up of Timothy Todd from the development painting below.
So, with visions of the macabre dancing in my head, I grabbed my sketchbook and started to draw various scenes based on lines in the script. We chose a couple of them to illustrate, and I got to work on this particular piece.
This is the rough sketch from my sketchbook inspired by a few lines from the script where Timothy Todd can only see ghosts and ghouls when channeling his hero.
Yes, the art below is a genuine old school painting in real life. I created it primarily in watercolor, and incorporated the use of colored pencils just a tad. I really love the watercolor medium, and use it often for my development art on this film. I think the uneven nature of it helps give a certain tactile feeling to each scene, and helps give the viewer a certain uneasiness with the creepy subject matter.
The final watercolor painting of Timothy Todd lost in the world of his imagination.
If you would like to hear Christopher Lee’s narration that goes with this piece, we feature it in our promo film over on Kickstarter. If you watch it long enough, there’s even a quick shot of me working on this very painting. You can go there right now by clicking on www.TIMtheMovie.com.
If you go to Kickstarter, please consider pledging some money to us so that we can actually make this film. We are in our final month of fundraising. I know at the $100 level, one of the things you’ll receive is a special limited edition print of one of my paintings. We have a few to choose from, so the print might even be of this particular painting.
Come back again next Tuesday for more revelations about TIM the movie! And come join the TIM Facebook page by CLICKING HERE!
Well, today over on the TIM the Movie Facebook page, we have just unveiled a contest to win the original art seen here! This drawing was inspired by something in our script that I was working on this past week with my pal and Director Brian Joseph Ochab. I created the 8.5×11″ drawing over the weekend with black and purple Prismacolor pencils on some nice textured paper, and both Brian and I signed it for whichever one of you may possibly win it!
Below the art are all the rules about how you can win this art! Enjoy!
Nothing excites a young goth lad like a shrunken zombie head I always say.
Welcome to the first ever TIM the Movie spectacular contest!!
The prize? We’ve gone all out to create a very special one-of-a-kind original pencil drawing by TIM’s co-Producer/Art Director Chad Frye signed by both Chad AND Writer/Director Brian Joseph Ochab worth $350!* It’s a drawing of our lead character Timothy Todd dressed as his hero while gleefully holding a shrunken zombie head.
To be entered into a drawing to win the, ahem, drawing, all you need to do is to make a monetary pledge of $10 or more to our film through Kickstarter between now and Thursday night, 11:59pm Pacific time on February 24th! The contest is open to ANYONE who makes a NEW pledge during the contest period, so the odds of winning the drawing are up to how many of you participate!!
And the best part of it is the drawing will be sent to the lucky winner NEXT WEEK – you won’t have to wait until our fund drive is over on March 29th like you do for the other Kickstarter rewards.
Here are the only two things you need to do to enter the contest:
1. Go to http://www.TIMtheMovie.com and make a monetary pledge to our film there on Kickstarter for $10 or more. You will be eligible for whatever rewards package you choose from the list, plus be entered in this special contest.
2. After making your pledge, you must send an e-mail with “TIM CONTEST” in the subject line to: WonderMotionStudios@gmail.com and tell us:
• your name
• your Kickstarter screen name
• and an e-mail address where we can notify you if you are the winner.
Keep in mind that these are just pledges. You are not charged any money right away. When you make a pledge on Kickstarter, you are only charged at the end of the pledge drive IF we have raised our total amount by that time.
The contest ends promptly at 11:59pm Pacific time Thursday evening, February 24th after which time one winner will be randomly chosen from among all the new pledges. The winner will be contacted to see where we need to send the original art!
Last Tuesday I unveiled to you the news about a short animated film I am art directing and co-producing (with my friend Brian Joseph Ochab) called TIM. If you missed that post, you can CLICK HERE to get caught up. The short summary is that it is a parody of Tim Burton’s early stop-motion animated short Vincent in which a little boy named Vincent Malloy tries to emulate his hero, master of the macabre Vincent Price. In TIM, the young Timothy Todd wishes to be just like Tim Burton.
Today’s Tuesdays with TIM features a piece of visual development art I created of the star of my film, Timothy Todd, dressed as his hero, Tim Burton. I believe this is the first version of him in color, and he continues to go through changes as we proceed with developing the film. I painted him with watercolors, and a touch of colored pencil. And no, the website address isn’t on the actual art. We just want folks to be aware of where they can go for more information about the film. (If you click right on the image, it will take you there.)
“He was really quite normal, but longed to be odd…”
The other news since last week is that we now have a special fan page on Facebook for TIM, and it is growing strong! In just a week’s time, almost 1000 of you have “Liked” us! If you would like to get a steady stream of updates on TIM, come join the fan page! Click on www.facebook.com/Timthemovie and you’ll go right there!
And lastly, in order for us to see this film to completion, we need YOUR help! Come check us out on Kickstarter.com to see what kind of neat goodies we are offering you in thanks for your financial support. You can see our Kickstarter promo movie featuring our narrator Christopher Lee by CLICKING HERE!
Come back next Tuesday when I plan to show you more goodies!
