A Portent of Things to Come!

UPDATE:
My teacher liked my least favorite and most last minute color study (purple) the best :p That happens a lot...once again, the tighter you hold something...
So I've done a few variations on that layout with some modifications from crit and some color schemes I'd be much more pleased to work out for the final piece. It's fun, doing these! Anyways, I'm posting these to show process and also because I need a link to refer my prof to so he can check up on my progress (I'm partial to the middle one, but that's because that's the palette I'm envisioning Kojo in, and it's a little hard for me to stray too far from that here)

Well, finals are upon us all over here! Things are starting to move towards completion and I'm prepping to say a tearful goodbye to Character Creation class :( For our final assignment we were charged with redesigning/tweaking two of our preexisting characters and doing a variety of color studies for a final piece in which the two (protagonist and antagonist) confront each other. SO: I'm doing a Kojo piece, since I seem to have stumbled across a new little world to develop.
It's been hard because the idea for Kojo kind of came in a bit of a dream (not to get too weird or pretentious) but It's hard to let go of that imagery and color palette even for the good of the piece. Anyways, the top study is my favorite to that end, but here were a few studies I put together for today. I also did some redesign sketches for Kojo and his foe (the big white element in all the sketches stands graphically for what will be the montser) but I'm still working on redesigning the two of them, so I won't post those just yet. It's been a rough week, but I think I'm coming out of the woods! It's been a lovely weekend thusfar, and I can hardly wait for Thanksgiving break! I am in need of a change of scenery and some serious stuffing!

Oh, and before I forget, part of this crazy week was having a portfolio review with Genndy Tartakovsky (creator of Dexter's Lab, Samurai Jack, Clone Wars etc.) which was WAY neat. Although I did leave the meeting feeling very vaguely that he disliked my work, aparently that was not the case. Still, he did mention a lack of readability in terms of value-range in my work and so I spent a good while of this week's process hitting the drawing board with a lot of simple value studies. I actually left the interview and immediately went to my room to work on little value studies. So that y'all can see how I think through this sort of stuff, here's those:

Also: I just snuck away with some friends to see Disney's 'Bolt'. Which (having no expectations to begin with) was pleasantly surprising. Really nice color and background painting, and excellent character design. Bolt himself was freakin' CUTE as crap. And the gestalt of the little group running around, chubby hamster in ball, emaciated cat, and huge-headed pup, was rally nice. Some really touching and sincere character animation as well. I do not regret seeing it, and would reccomend you not write it off completely if you're considering seeing it.

Well, I'm going to get some much-needed sleep...but be on the lookout: In the next two weeks I'll be finalizing a redesign on Kojo and the monster, putting together a full-sized finished piece based off of one of these studies, and finally putting together and launching my website! Fun!

Much Love and Enjoy!

-Nick