Melvin test Digital 100% version

The image below is my first attempt to create a 100% digital version of Melvin. This is a test to learn a basic work flow and create a color palette for this book. My Style is based on my fondness to the old Pink Panther cartoons and their wonderful use of minimalistic techniques. I want to give just the right amount of information to help support the story and not over saturate the viewer with details. I want the reader to create the world with only a little help from me. The Artist
Tom O'Loughlin is responsible for the backgrounds of many pink Panther cartoons and it is in this style I wish to carry on this tradition in my stories. Click the image to get a closer look.

The image below is a variety of screen captures from the Pink Panther cartoons. In my selection I tried to find backgrounds that would be similar to my story elements and future ones. For example, pine trees and deciduous trees , a house, and the basic flora ground cover and the rendering of cityscapes. In addition, Like the way the rocks were handled as well as the jungle type environment.Click the image to get a closer look.

This study has helped me, but trying to find a way to incorporate stylistic elements without copying is challenging. In the end, I need my work to have an essence of these ideas without loosing my own individual style in the process. The point is not to copy but add to my own skills with these new ideas thus creating, within me, a new seamless, composite style of my own.

My biggest goal is to create a workflow that is efficient for me. So that means every image must:

• Provide the viewer with just the right amount of information. I really want minimalistic elements but what I keep doing is overkill, or just flat out uninspired, copying. I have to be brave to follow my own heart and be myself and not be someone else.


• Be possible to create in a reasonable amount of time. ( i.e. I would like to be able to finish one entire drawing in a day)


• It can not be riddled with technological difficulties: This does not mean I do not learn new techniques, but it does mean that the drawing does not suffer from loss of the initial impetus. Regardless of the media, the drawing must tell the story first. If it does not do so, it is unsuccessful no matter how "cool" it may look.

Study of Artists and Style

Regardless of how much I learn about 3D computer animation, I always finds myself falling back on the same artistic stylings that give comfort and make me feel happy. These styles, to me, keep the art work flowing with an energy you do not have with highly refined work.
These artists are not in any particular order.

• Moe Willems:I love his style and looseness and his simple but well written stories. he was also a PBS Sesame Street writer and animator.




• Quentin Blake: Illustrator of Roald Dahl books.
  



• Charles Schultz




• Dr. Seuss




• Betsy Lewin: Illustrator for Click, Clack, Moo, Cows that type by Doreen Cronin.
  

Update

Spring 2012: Completing my Melvin book is now incorporated into my curriculum for earning my Masters Degree in Art Education. I will be working with my Professor, Kevin Reeder, at University of Illinois and complete the book as part of my Art Education degree.
I am very excited about this as it helps me accomplish two goals at once.
I will be making additions to my illustrations and getting the story smoothed out. By May 2012 I should have it complete..

Been a while

So, it's been a while since i got to visit Melvin. However, today while at work i sketched him in a new way and I really like it.. It's a bit more square and a shorter body and longer legs. It changes his proportions a bit and I like it.. He's here with his fishing pole and no where to go..

I also created an animate Giff of Melvin hand-gliding because my son asked for a bed time story about Melvin hand-gliding ... I told the story and the next morning i created this..


While I am thinking about it here is another image I created based on another story that focuses on two scarecrows and a raven. This is a nice story and could be very cool if I can ever get it written.

Aug 1st 2010

I am still working on the text portion of the book. I managed to create a couple more images. As I write things are changing a little so some images I created earlier may not be used and others, I am finding, are needed.
I think I may cut down on the images i need and have it be a little more text based. I am not sure how it will all come out.
My biggest illustration issue right now is how detailed do I want my images to be. Part of me wants to try to have them rendered well and another part of me likes the scratchy, rough, minimalistic version. Sometimes I think that you get more energy in the scratchy, fast sketches than you do in the final polished renders. I find that you can lose the spirit of the drawing when it is over worked.
I like the idea of creating an impression of a scene and letting the viewer fill in the details with their own imagination. It allows the story to be more personal and individualized by the reader. If you put in every detail than then story can be too concrete.

Melvin in the garden:


GardenBot in Garden for the first time:

Rough draft Done!!

I am happy to say that i have completed a pretty solid rough draft today and it's all taking shape. I am going to go into some hard core revision work to get it as good as i can then have it edited by people I trust. In the mean time I have some more images to produce and I hope to have it all put together by the end of August if not sooner..

Melvin surprised me as he did some unscripted actions while I was writing. I know it sounds crazy but when you write the characters actually become alive and they do things and you just record it as fast as you can. Sometimes they do stuff you do not keep but other times they do stuff that is worth keeping and can make the story better..
It sounds weird I know.. but it's true.

7/10/2010

It's been a while since I have been able to post. However, I have been working on concepts and trying to keep at it.
Lately I have been trying to tackle some hard compositions that require more planning and thought. I have come to some pretty good solutions but they still need some tweaks.
I am posting many of the concepts I have come up with and will explain them.

The hardest portion of my story to depict is an area of the woods where the animals get banished to. It is basically like Skid Row. I had initially envisioned it as a vast place full of animals, bugs and basically any things that entered the garden and got thrown out. I researched battle fields of the Civil War and used that for inspiration. However I did not like the overall feeling of this.
I also wanted this scene to be a change of perspective for Melvin and also the reader. So the image needed to change the view point literally for both participants in the story.
These first concepts are of the battle field point of view. Obviously I would need many more "wounded" characters but i only added the key ones..

This first idea puts Melvin face to face with the outcast animals, however, none of them are wounded or injured so even though I initially liked this Idea I felt it was not useful to my story.


This image is more of a wide shot of the battlefield and shows wounded animals. I determined this was impersonal and also was more from a neutral point of view not the wounded soldiers point of view or Melvin's POV. So it was not useful either.



This image I was pleased with because it changed the POV to the animals and made Melvin enter into their world. I liked it so much I inked and rendered it but after wards I was not happy with the final result so I "trashed" it as well..However, the composition is more what I am looking for over all. What made it more successful is I huddled the injured around a single tree to make it more intimate. I dropped Melvin into the scene from a distance to minimize him and bring him into their world. In this shot he is disrupting their world and let's him see a side of life he had not seen before.




Building on the last composition I redrew it and focused on the expressions of the wounded animals. I wanted them to be aware of Melvin's intrusion into their world. I want it to be funny but also serious in nature.. I have not rendered it yet.




Injured Animals
The Garden Bot does not have any patience for pests in the garden. Anything that enters into the garden is quickly thrown out.. Here are some concepts I have for injured animals. I have the line drawing and the rendered drawing side by side:




Melvin Enters the Garden
Here is a concept of Melvin entering the garden after it has been guarded by the garden Bot.


Intruder Alert!
Garden Bot does not like intruders....


Melvin Go Home!!


Random Picture of Melvin holding the Garden Bot like a newborn baby.
Some times images just happen and this one turned out kid of special.