The Hope of New-Earth

Hey All! Another week and this time around it's mid-terms and do I have a post for you! It's the big group-project character design mid-term for Shanth Enjeti's Character Design class! This week we split into three groups of six and were set to the task of recrafting the design for the principal cast of Titan A.E.
Anyone remember Titan A.E?
For those not in the know, it was an animated sci-fi cartoon in the late 90's that tanked at the box office and didn't achieve it's potential for iconic character design and epic story elements. SO...we had a go! :) It was a blast and I was truly blessed with an amazing team of cohorts. We each split the workload for the week and tackled 1 character each, all of us meeting up regularly, collaborating and tweaking eachother's designs. So really no individual one of us can take full credit for any one design, but we each had our "babies".
My baby was a particularly swarthy baby named Korso. He's the ex-military captain of the Valkyrie after planet earth is decimated, and at first he helps the protagonist (Cale) to help find the Titan project (a kind of 'ark' with the potential to recreate a new Earth). But ultimately he sells out Cale and the crew to the Drej (an evil alien race made of pure energy). So his character arc is one of despair, deception, and betrayal. We wanted to play with the mythic ideas present in the preexisting plot and emphasize some of the more poignant elements. With Korso (and likewise with the Drej) we thought about the conflict of material and immaterial. It seemed that if Korso was so disillusioned as to sell out the whole human race he ought to have some compelling motivation to do so. Our proposition is that of the conflict between the spiritual and material. Crippled in his escape from earth, he is shackled to a hovering machine and dependent on it to move and to survive. In all ways, Korso desires to be free of his body...he has a certain contempt for his own flesh. What the Drej offer in this way is the promise of transcendence...of freedom from the material and unlimited power.
His hover-chair runs on Drej-power and I wanted it to reflect his personal transformation, so when he turns fully to the Drej and is forced to fight Cale and crew the side compartments of his vehicle unfold to reveal a set of deadly, electrical spider-legs. We also felt that in his despair he might have taken up drinking in an attempt to 'free' himself from...well...himself. (Bradon Cebenka is due full credit for the booze-rack/tray-table arm-rest). Other little details help to play with the themes of his character...the squareish, strong design is meant to evoke the idea of masculinity and fatherhood, though (in the vest) it is unbalanced and asymmetrical) symbolizing the kind of broken father-figure he provides for Cale. His eyebrow and unbuttoned military-style jacket serve to heighten the sense of asymmetry and allude to his military past as well as his current attitude towards his past (rolled up sleeves). The blanket works as a vain attempt to conceal or familiarize his mechanical lower half...the pattern is zig-zagged to signify the idea of inner conflict. Just a peek "behind the curtain" to see some of the extent of the thought one goes through designing these sort of characters. It was LOTS of fun :D

It took a bunch of small adjustments to find the right mixture of silhouette, form and function for his hover-chair-half. It had to look right, while still maintaining a sense of function and hold the 2d-animated/cel-shaded simplicity (and look like the character was able to fit through doors). Here's a look at some of the process sketches I did in preparation:

And I'm also going to post the rest of the characters from the project with the full understanding that while I had *something* to do with the design of all of them the majority of the credit goes to each respective artist. And they all rock. I love my teammates to death and we really had a blast. Here's the rest! There's a similar amount of thought gone into all the following, but I won't write pages and pages on each. Anyways, it's more fun if y'all figure it out yourselves! :P

Cale - Brandon Cebenka

Akima - Lisa Cunha

Stith - Dan Chang

Gune - Kirsten England

The Drej - Ben Bronstein

It was a neat week! :D
And now we have some time off and I'm going to get some sleep! I hope y'all enjoyed these. I'm doing quite well here...I get to draw aliens with friends, what more can you ask for?
In closing, I'll leave you all with some of the sketches I didn't post for last week's 'Generous Bubblewhale'. I went through a few pages of sketchbook on that one, let me tell you! But these are some highlights and you can see how my thought process works if you're interested!
Enjoy!
-Nick

Characters Aplenty!

Characters!
Characters for every disposition and sensibility! Characters with crinkly skin! Characters with glowing pustules! Characters with 'quatrifurcated' beaks!
Another week, another set of characters for your viewing pleasure. Pretty excited about this week's set! It was a very open assignment...all we are asked to do was to design a positive character in cool colors, and a negative character in warm colors! It was particularly fun because I was able to just let go and play...which I definitely how I do my best work. I tend to choke up when I'm intellectualizing the process too much. It's funny how easy it is to silence your imagination when doing these sorts of exercises and stress overly on how the characters will be received. I just tried to envision these more intuitively and less analytically...think about context and story and mood. I went through a TON of pages in my sketchbook really quickly on these...something my Pen & Ink teacher said about loosening up and letting your own idiosyncrasies really enter into the work helped me to approach this week fresh. Anyways, I had a blast (but not much sleep!) And I really hope y'all like them.

Below are some sketches from the previous week (I know, I never posted them). It's funny...for all the past alumni of this class online, I don't think I've ever seen anyone post the results of this particular assignment. It was surprisingly challenging. We had to design an appealing angular, asymmetrical character and an unappealing round, symmetrical character. So there were my solutions. They're pretty "meh" but they worked for the assignment alright...

Anyways, that's all for this week. Hope you're enjoying these! I'm definitely enjoying the work. This week is going to be a doozy! We're teaming up into groups and tackling a complete redesign of the main cast of Titan A.E. ! I'm so pumped for it!
See you next week!

-Nick

Mercy and Apathy

Mercy

Apathy

Another week is over and with it arrive two more characters from Shanth Enjeti's Character Creation class! This week we did a slightly modified version of our last assignment...we were asked to design two characters based respectively on traits we admire and don't admire in others. So (with the full realization that I went a little off the conceptual deep end with these) here are Mercy and Apathy.
Apathy was a tricky one...I ended up with a very intense version of apathy, which belies my editorial opinion on the state of apathy. I went through a number of completely different designs on this...I covered some ridiculous territory (blind, shriveled knights in baby-harvesting machines etc). But I'm happy with this design overall.
Mercy I pretty much overshot completely, in favor of a character design I was kind of in love with. I'm pleased with the outcome, but I'm not sure it communicates the concept of mercy very accurately to a wide audience. What I was thinking was this (with the definition of mercy essentially being kindess/charity despite the right to justice): the character has set aside his natural perogative to prey upon the birds, in favor of embracing them and setting aside his "right". yeah.
:p
Anyways, it's been a good week! Crits went pretty well on these (they were both assigned as cel-shaded, but I couldn't help going in and rendering Mercy after class on Friday was over). And life is otherwise good, and God is better. I've got more work to do, so I can't sit here and blog much more, but I hope you enjoy these!

-Nick

Lustful and Carefree

Lust

Carefree

Psalm 126

When the LORD brought back the captives to Zion,
we were like men who dreamed.

Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
"The LORD has done great things for them."

The LORD has done great things for us,
and we are filled with joy.

Restore our fortunes, O LORD,
like streams of the Negev.

Those who sow in tears
will reap with songs of joy.

He who goes out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves with him.

What a passage, huh? That's pretty much my favorite verse right now...it's been a real encouragement. And there's the second week of Character Creation! This week we had to design two characters...one embodying our best trait and one embodying our worst. So, here they are!
I felt it was an opportunity to be a little uncomfortably honest and open up the discussion. I'm convinced that (with the Lust piece), though the theme may be gross and most people would prefer to avoid it altogether, it should be openly addressed and so put more thoroughly to death!
So, I think the Psalm puts the two pieces in context. Only through Christ is there victory, and how!
I certainly didn't set out to make something gratuitously "dirty" or inappropriate...and I hope nobody's offended by this sort of thing. I just wanted to be honest, and it's really important to me not to make light of evil. To call sin "sin" is really vital! And to put that in context with Joy and freedom! (That's a whole 'nother conversation...but I feel like even in stories geared towards 'kids', evil should be honestly portrayed. The Bible doesn't skimp on it's accounts of sex, death, war and cruelty and neither should we!) Anyways, I hope you can enjoy and appreciate these as such. I can ramble on, but I'd hope these two stand on their own in tension. Hopefully it provokes some good thought and conversation.

Carefree just sort of came together this week for the assignment, but the Lust design I've been wanting to do since last year's seniors completed this same assignment! The actual design has changed drastically since it's original incarnation, and you'll remember the crotch-arm from a previous piece, perhaps?

Anyways, here are some of the recent sketches in progression to that final piece:

Also, I forgot to post one last little color study I did at the end of the summer...it's a palette I want very badly to revisit...I'll leave you with it:

Enjoy!
-Nick

Back to School

Hey all!

Sorry for the long silence...but I've been busy prepping to come back to school and now I am here and the Academic year has kicked off! I've just handed in my first assignment for the year and I thought I'd share it with everyone.
This year has started off pretty excitingly...there's a lot of neat work to do and a lot of cool things going on on campus, not only art related. I'm heading off this weekend for the RISD Christian Body retreat, so I'll be out of communication for a bit, but it should be fun...so even if you can't reach me you can be confident that I am having a good time despite it all ;)

Anyways, so far this year has begun very well. It's busy: I'm an RA, full-time senior, and President of the RISD Christian Body, but all those things are really exciting and I really wouldn't have it any other way! On September 7th I turned 21 years old and had my first legal stateside drink...I wanted to make sure that my experience was a memorable one, so rather than get smashed, I got some friends together and we all went to the local Renaissance Faire and I got Mead and poofy pants!
*yay!*
Also: I got to go see Sontata Arctica open for NIGHTWISH in mass two weeks ago. It was AMAZING. I'm still reconstructing my face. Man...SO cool...

So...the ART!
I'm in Character Creation this semester, which is awesome since it's with one of my absolute favorite professor's ever: Shanth Enjeti. So I've just handed in the first week's assignment. Which was, essentially, to "impress him". Yeesh.
So I took the opportunity to debut another character I've been itching to do from the Alfonse and Domingoverse. Well, three actually! Introducing: Pito, Zee'doh and Jin!

Without giving too much away: Pito's a member of a troupe of traveling performers. He lifts heavy things, lights the stage-lights, and reaches for things on the shelf that are too high up for others to grasp. He is gregarious, mute, enormous, and loyal to a fault...he is especially beloved by the troupe's pair of acrobatic twins: Zee'doh and Jin, who are often seen riding around on Pito's shoulders.

And that's all I'm sayin!
So, since this is the blog, you get some of the prep sketches! I've been tossing around the idea of Pito for a while...but these are just the recent versions. It took me FOREVER to find a face I was happy with for him!

So that's just some of the stuff I'm currently working on...Hopefully I'll get some time to show y'all the other stuff that's going on. And next week there will be two more characters to show by Friday! :) Right now, I'm off to catch a car to New Jersey!
Enjoy!

-Nick

Adventure! Mystery! Robot-Ninjas!

Alright, alright: I'm anticipating the outcry of the Piratical community: I have to admit, I had my own misgivings about the other half, but who can resist the opportunity to get paid to draw robot-ninjas facing off againts ghostly samurai? C'mon. ;)
This gig was good fun! A throwback to all the comics and movies of my pre-pubescence in a big way. This is the cover for a project I can't discuss much, but it's the job I've been hinting at for a few posts around here. Nothing HUGE, mind you, just a comic-pitch cover...but still, neat! (I think) So, I was comissioned by Paul Pierce (of Lucasarts games) to collaborate on a personal project of his and design the characters and put together a cover for this project (the name and plot details of which are strictly under-wraps at the moment). Albeit: hopefully the cover will give you a fair idea of what to expect :) And since I've resolved to show some of the process sketches on this little old blog for the people who like this sort of thing, here's some of the doodles that were tossed around before landing on some final designs and finishing the cover:

^ Just some of the character design doodles. Being unused to the Ninja aesthetic, myself, I tried to find a way to get robot-ninja without it looking too....stupid. Some ideas. I kind of wanted them to look sleek and impassive...like Ipods. Deadly ninja Ipods. I pretty much knew exactly what I wanted to do with the ghostly samurai! And for the kid...well...I think "white" was the predominant thought :)

^ The actual layout sketches for the cover (with and without background ninjas). Just to show y'all just how rough I start out. Hey, as long as it works, right?

Still in Michigan at the mo'...soon to be in California (LA) for a week of seeing the sights! And then...the school year! Can't wait. More work before that, though...maybe some stuff I can post, some that I can't. Keeping occupied, nonetheless!

Enjoy!

-Nick

A Big Ol' Post.

Hey everyone!
I am back stateside and posting this from my Aunt's home in Michigan (one of my favoritest places to be...my Aunt's house that is...not necessarily Michigan in general: we have a love/hate relationship, MI and I...). I am glad to be back "home" (one of them, anyways) and I'm slowly getting excited to kick this school year off! Anyways...I figured it was time for a proper piece...enough of this smudgy crap, eh? Well, I'm not sure if this qualifies as "proper"...it's more just a glorified doodle/game with my friend Lia.

Well, as some of you may have heard...I've been introduced to Dr. Horrible's Sing-a-Long blog and it's all Lia's fault. I love it. If you're reading this and you don't know what I'm talking about, then get y'self an education here. And if you like it, the whole thing's 4 bucks on Itunes!

It's a supervillain musical by Joss Whedon (creator of FIREFLY!!!) and it has reminded me why I love superheroes and comics in a big way. Good fun. Not because it's shiny or particularly well-produced...he made it all out-of-pocket during the writers' strike. I love it because it's sincere...because it has heart...because it's freakin' adoreable and I love musicals. I also love superheroes and this summer has been a good one for those of us that do...more on that later.

SO...we both got buzzed about Dr. Horrible and Lia started doing inspired-by pieces...so we challenged eachother to a superteam-off. This is the result. Her current submission to the grudge-match it a hapless team of evil-doers called the Doominati. So, since it's summer my sister and I (both Doc Horrible fans) put our heads together, setting out to create a truly lame team of heroes and...well...without further ado, I present: The Good Intentions Association!!!

They are (top-down, left to right):

GREEN T The Obeast
Blacksmith
Rash
Speedbump
Salma Nella
and Flambeaux

So, since this is the blog where I can bore everyone with process sketches, here are some process sketches! I did each character seperately, after getting a basic idea of how I wanted them to fit together, which wasn't a bad call per-se but I wouldn't do it again...there's just a bunch of compositional opportunities you miss when you do that. But anyways, that means I hae individual lineart for each character...I had to kill some babies along the way (for the sake of composition, babies = parts of the drawings that are precious to me...stupid stuff like Rash's shoulder and Salma's hip) But here at Happy Rock, our babies are on display!


BABIES:

And, for the first time I thought I'd try something like this out...I saved a few in-process versions of the finished piece. It wound up being pretty much entirely useless tutorial-wise...since all the important parts are the parts when I get "in the zone" :p

Basically, I block in the flats as I go along...generally I like to block in the flat colors for everything first, since it's my least favorite part. I make sure the flats are deep tones, so I can work up from them (I like painting the shiny parts :)) And as I go along I do a lot of quick layer masking and tweaking in Levels and Variations. In the end hopefully you have something coherent!
If anyone is ever interested in seeing something like this, but...y'know...more helpful...let me know!

So, that's that for the G.I.A.
Also: I went and saw The Dark Knight and Wall-E (finally!) And really enjoyed both. I think Wall-E is more instantly lovable. I had mixed feelings about the Dark Knight until I saw it twice and in IMAX. my verdict: much better the second time, MUCH better in IMAX! Still a little bleak, and IMO, frequently visually underwhelming. Does anyone else feel that way? I miss wayne manor and the narrows and the oranges and seeping sewer-vents and the slightly exaggerated sense of urban decay. It all seemed a little too normal...which i understand was all done in the name of realism, but c'mon...have a little fun! Essentially I was just bummed out by the visual lack of romance to the whole thing...and too much overhead lighting! I mean, I get it...it makes the Joker threating and spooky because he's out in daylight, but I really don't like the grim, utilitarian look. Just my opinions. Otherwise, those are really minor complaints...the film was pretty amazing. And seeing it in IMAX brought alot of the fun back into it. I recommend both...I have little to say about Wall-E besides that it was freakin' adoreable! Now I just need to see Hellboy 2....

I hope I haven't bored you to tears with this enormous post! Bless you for reading this far if you have :) Now, I still have work to do...more soon!

Enjoy!

-Nick