July 21, 2010
Grover Colors
Things on the Grove front have been going well. I finished storyboards last week and I'm excited to go back to visual developement. The storyboard animatic isn't quite ready to go public quite yet, as there are some issues that need to be addressed. For starters, I had always imagined that the Grovers all looked the same. In my mind, there were three characters doing three seperate things who come together in the end. But after showing the animatic to a few trusted critics, I discovered that the seperateness of the three characters isn't so apparent to someone who hasn't been knee-deep in Groverness for the last six months. I realized that, as far as my story goes, the three Grovers could just as easily be the same Grover doing three things at different times. So it looks like the guys are going technicolor.
I'm hesitant to vary the colors too much since I don't want them to end up looking like Fruit Loops or something, plus there's the problem of keeping them all in line with the palate that I create for the Grove itself. But at the same time, the easier it is to immediatly differentiate between the three of them, the better. And with all three being exactly the same shape and size and lacking any kind of identifiable clothing, it's pretty much a done deal with the color. So I don't know. Blue Sky did a really good job of mixing up the colors of the characters in Horton Hears a Who, so I know it can be done. But it's still kind of intimidating. My initial thought was to just vary the shades of one color, like a medium orange, a lighter, yellower orange, and a darker, redder orange. My fear with that is that it could be taken as a race thing and then all of the sudden it's a "lighter skinned folks and darker skinned folks CAN be friends" thing, which limits it, I think. But, whatever. Moving on...
Here's the art. My vote for right now is "1, 2, & 3" or "1, Mi, and a darker, redder version of C". We'll see.
I'm hesitant to vary the colors too much since I don't want them to end up looking like Fruit Loops or something, plus there's the problem of keeping them all in line with the palate that I create for the Grove itself. But at the same time, the easier it is to immediatly differentiate between the three of them, the better. And with all three being exactly the same shape and size and lacking any kind of identifiable clothing, it's pretty much a done deal with the color. So I don't know. Blue Sky did a really good job of mixing up the colors of the characters in Horton Hears a Who, so I know it can be done. But it's still kind of intimidating. My initial thought was to just vary the shades of one color, like a medium orange, a lighter, yellower orange, and a darker, redder orange. My fear with that is that it could be taken as a race thing and then all of the sudden it's a "lighter skinned folks and darker skinned folks CAN be friends" thing, which limits it, I think. But, whatever. Moving on...
Here's the art. My vote for right now is "1, 2, & 3" or "1, Mi, and a darker, redder version of C". We'll see.
June 10, 2010
Working on my Hummer
Here are a few developement sketches of Hummer. I gave him a little more of a neck and took away the hangy, bulldog jowls. I'm pretty happy with how he's turning out. Through sketching I discovered how creepy he looks without pupils and I thought it would be an appropriate touch- kind of takes the soul out of him, which is exactly what I want. The one in the lower left reminds me of the Terror Dogs in Ghostbusters and that makes me a little warm and fuzzy inside. Because I love that movie, not because evil things make me happy.
May 22, 2010
May 18, 2010
The Grove
I'm calling my new film The Grove. Here is a rough promo card.
And here is a semi-rough idea of what the inhabitants of the Grove look like. I'm not sure about the color. I think it kind of makes him look like a giant Goldfish cracker...
And here is a semi-rough idea of what the inhabitants of the Grove look like. I'm not sure about the color. I think it kind of makes him look like a giant Goldfish cracker...
May 4, 2010
April 5, 2010
What the duck?
So about a week ago I noticed a duck laying dead on the side of the freeway. Unusual roadkill I thought, since whenever I see ducks they're either flying way above car level, or when they're on the ground it's next to, if not reasonably close to some sort of water source. But this was on the 91 freeway, about ten miles east of the 5. And unlike a crow or a turkey vulture or something, it's not like a duck would wander onto the road to get at a piece of food or something. So it struck me as being strange, but I didn't think much about it.
That is, not until early Sunday morning as I'm driving down the road and the car in front of me brakes suddenly and comes almost to a stop before finally veering to the left to reveal a male mallard. Yes, the same kind of duck I saw taking a nap on the shoulder of the 91 a few days earlier. So I took my turn passing the duck, making sure I was clear of him, but couldn't help cutting it really close, just to try to scare him out of the road. But the bird seemed completely oblivious to the cars speeding by it. Either oblivious or indifferent. But either way, that's weird, right?
That is, not until early Sunday morning as I'm driving down the road and the car in front of me brakes suddenly and comes almost to a stop before finally veering to the left to reveal a male mallard. Yes, the same kind of duck I saw taking a nap on the shoulder of the 91 a few days earlier. So I took my turn passing the duck, making sure I was clear of him, but couldn't help cutting it really close, just to try to scare him out of the road. But the bird seemed completely oblivious to the cars speeding by it. Either oblivious or indifferent. But either way, that's weird, right?
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