Day 5 of the art challenge bestowed upon me by my esteemed friend and colleague, Prentis Rollins. Technically, this is the last day of the challenge, but I may have a little bonus round tomorrow, if things go well. Once more, this is a REALLY long one, so please bear with me... For todays three pieces, I saved some of my color work for last. I do a lot of color work in the comics I create, and am the main colorist for Roboy Red, as well as a relatively active colorist on Buzzboy, with John Gallagher. However, I also do a lot of digital coloring in my illustration work for clients. I intend to get back to doing hand coloring on original art, mainly in my automotive work, in the near future, possibly with colored pencil, or even (gasp!) actual paint, but for the past decade or so, Ive been coloring virtually everything in Photoshop. I find coloring to be very relaxing. Its one of my favorite aspects of my work flow, and I like to do a lot of experimentation. The following three (well, actually, its four, but the fourth is related, as youll see) were practically required to entail experimentation. The first piece is one I did for WWE (World Wrestling & Entertainment) Kids Magazine. Although Im not a wrestling guy, this is among my favorite pieces Ive ever done. The art director specifically sought me out, because he was looking for someone who specialized in drawing cars, and someone with a background doing comic books. Kind of a good fit for me, Id say! I was hired to do an illustration that represented the WWEs professional wrestlers, as though theyd been drawn as characters similar to the ones in the Pixar movie, Cars. Now Cars is actually one of my favorite movies, for obvious reasons, so I jumped at the opportunity. While Ive drawn many cars in my time, this was a huge challenge, because I had to familiarize myself with the many wrestlers represented in the drawing, as well as their specific characteristics, gestures, and their gimmicks, and match them to a vehicle that totally fit their personalities. I could write paragraphs on how I matched the car types to the wrestlers, but Ill skip that, and focus on the work itself. I was given a rough sketch layout of where the art director wanted the “wrestlers” positioned, and given a bit of an idea of what sort of car he wanted to represent the wrestlers, but the rest was up to me. I pored through about a hundred photos of the group of wrestlers, got familiar with their shticks, mannerisms, and their colors that they wear, and then went about using the AD’s guidelines to select the cars I wanted to use. I first did a pencil rough from the provided layout, which showed the AD the cars and trucks. Once he approved, I went about the task of drawing the penciled versions of the wrestlers as “Cars” type vehicles. Man, it was such a fun job! I had an awesome AD, who gave me lots of great feedback, and whose notes were always on point, which really helped to make the piece come together well. Trust me, that isn’t always the case. Sometimes, the notes from above can be confusing, contradicting, and counterproductive, but this guy was an artist himself, and knew what he was doing! Anyway, once the pencils were completed and approved, I inked them, similarly to the way Id ink any comic book art, with brush, pen and ink. I then scanned the inks, brought them into Photoshop, and began the monumental task of coloring. I say “monumental,” because this was no straightforward coloring job. I had to create textures, like fire, asphalt, smoke, grass, camouflage, and a huge crowd scene! The crowd scene alone was a big bear! It all looks pretty well put together in the finish, but my working file had about twenty different layers, all with different textures. some of which were doe two or three times, before I got it right. I’m sure there are easier ways to do it, but as I said, I was experimenting, and learning on the job, so I did what I could. The art director really liked the final illustration, and I’m happy to say that it ran in WWE Kids Magazine with very few revisions to my original submission! I loved working on it, and if there were more opportunities like this, I’d jump on them. I worked on a few more projects for the AD and WWE Kids, but he eventually moved on, and so did I. Still, it was a fun time, and again, one of my favorite assignments! Another favorite of mine was for an agency client in the Philly area. I’d done a few projects for this agency, and one fall, after I’d worked on a few of their projects, I was asked by the creative director to do their company holiday card. The basic parameters were to place their logo on the cover, with an elf bringing in material (lights, holly, gingerbread cookies, etc.) to decorate it. Then on the inside, to have it decorated (think of the Google logo during a holiday) with the elf looking at it, admiring his work. I thought this was a really cool idea, and it sparked an idea of my own. I had been experimenting so much with textures in Photoshop, and I thought it would be fun to do something a bit more 3D looking. I felt it would be really cool to try to emulate the style of the Rankin Bass Christmas Specials (Rudolph, Frosty, etc.) and create characters that were similar, both in looks and in feel. I wanted to do a sort of tribute. The clients loved the idea, and I was given the green light. The trouble was, I had zero experience creating 3D animated characters! Of course, the Rankin Bass characters were all basically fully articulated maquettes (sort of like puppets) that were filmed in stop-motion, one movement at a time, so they WERE actually three dimensional, but I was working with a 2D surface, and it wasnt possible to teach myself how to create 3D images digitally in just a few short weeks! So, I did the next best thing (for me, anyway); I drew the characters on paper, scanned them, and then used Photoshop brushes (which are basically digital selections of textures that can be used with brush tools to draw or paint different types of lines with those textures), and rendered (not to be confused with “Reindeer!” Sorry...) the textures to make the forms appear to be three dimensional. I had some prior experience adding dimensionality to drawings with coloring, having done some color modeling on Roboy Red, as well as some of my own drawings, but this was another ambitious one for me. I’m sure if I knew how to use any sort of 3D rendering software, I probably could have done this more quickly, but again, I was learning on the job, and this was a GREAT learning experience. I spent a lot of time building the tones and textures, and trying to get the lighting just right, so that it would fool someone into believing they were looking at something with actual form. I’m not going to try to kid anyone though; clearly, I was heavily influenced by the original Rankin Bass characters, and I WANTED them to look a lot like the original characters. I know I didn’t break any new ground, creating a new look, but they were supposed to evoke the original characters. Happily, I think I achieved the goal, and the client was really happy with the end result. And boy, this was one of the more labor intensive projects I ever worked on. I had to create so much from scratch, and render a lot of things with correct lighting, shadows, and textures. I put in a lot more hours on this than my actual pay probably reflected, but it was worth it to me. I felt that I really nailed the look and feel, and it’s a piece I’m very proud of. I’ve shown the front and inside of the card below, but I also wanted to include larger shots of the elf character, as the original drawings of these were about 8 inches tall, very detailed, and the Photoshop files were very large. I thought it would be neat to show them at a larger size, so you could see the textures I created. I’m no animator, never mind a 3D guy, but I think I accomplished what I set out to do, so I’ll leave it here for you to judge. I hope they’re as much fun for you to see, as they were for me to work on! Thanks everyone. I hope you’ve enjoyed these art postings as much as I’ve enjoyed the trip through my artistic past. Hopefully, you’ll be joining me in my future art travels too!
Posted on: Sun, 25 Jan 2015 07:01:16 +0000
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