1 Hour 15 Min Church Study

A quick study of a church. I think its really hard to paint architecture generally and doing it quickly doesn't help. However I am fairly happy with this piece and the amount I'm able to achieve in such a short space of time. I need to concentrate on spending only 1 hour though and not going over the time limit getting caught up in the details.

40 min Face Study

A quick 40 min face study. I like painting different ages I think there is a lot of things to be learned to help with character design and development.

Cadi Expressions

To create this expression sheet I used both Photoshop and Sketchbook. Since Photoshop doesn't have a smoothing tool and the only one available (lazy nezumi) doesn't work for Mac the next best option was Sketchbook. I created the drawing in Sketchbooks and added the greyscale tone in Photoshop as I find the application more familiar. I really enjoyed creating these expressions and again drew from the work of the character designers from Paranorman who have been a great inspiration for me.

Cadi Turnaround

I've always struggled with turnarounds but after four years of practice they seem to be becoming easier. This is the first time I've created 5 sides and I think it's a great idea to include the back as I often come to draw characters from behind and have no idea what they look like! I'm really happy with the pose and the way it seems to work on all sides. I took inspiration for the layout from the designs for Paranorman. David Vandervoort is a great draftsman and the way he lays out her turnarounds for stop motion is clear and easy to read. Putting a size guide next to them and using a grid really helps keep the characters in perspective to one another and the turnaround is easily created when you have lines to follow. Fantastic inspiration!

Norman turnaround by David Vandervoort. Available at: http://livlily.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/paranorman-2012-character-design.html

Colour Keys

I've been working on this for the last week and unfortunately it took a lot longer than I had hoped. I've never done a colour script before but as the story for 'The Cheese Moon of Hillsville' relies strongly on light and colour to reveal what is happening with the moon and community I thought it would be a great idea. In the film there would be a montage sequence of the moon being eaten by the villagers as the town descends into darkness the colour script below is meant to illustrate that. I found it really hard trying not to get bogged down in the details of the image and just focus on telling the story. I definitely need to work on simplifying my artwork so I can get things done quicker.

Moon Concept Composition

I really struggled to get the composition I wanted for this shot but I really enjoyed creating all the thumbnails that helped me do so. Trying to convey a sense of scale was really hard especially because in nature things can be many different sizes. I decided to include trees, because although they can be many sizes often we regard them as one similar height, any higher is abnormal and smaller would have less foliage on as it would have less branches. I also struggled to get the colour of the moon right. I wanted it to be quite hot and warm everything around it even scorching some of the land where it has crashed down.