Character Design for Animation Week 06: Searle and Jay Ward

This week's assignment was to practice working the style of another artist. Two actually. Nate was explaining that as an artist, sometimes you will be working for a studio that requires you to match a certain style. The exercise was to design/draw a dragon in the styles of Ronald Searle and Jay Ward.

Ronald Searle is mostly a pen and ink guy, with the occasional wash of color/tones. Think 101 Dalmations and Jay Ward is the mastermind behind Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Here are some samples pieces:

Searle

Jay Ward

As you can see, both artist have a very different aesthetic. Here is my stab at the design challenge. I drew a chicken dragon since birds are the descendants of the great Dinosaurs. Dragons are basically winged-dinosaurs (besides the pteradactyl). Ward on the left and Searle on the right.

Character Design for Animation: Week 5

Two Characters, One Bench. That was the theme of this week's assignment. I didn't get a chance to work on the homework this week, things at work and home got a bit nuts. When I finally sat down at the table today, my mind just hit a blank. I was scribbling and doodling for hours and nothing was hitting me. Took a break for a couple hours and I decided to try messing around in Photoshop. Then... at 11pm, about 3 hours before the assignment was due, I finally get something. However, that didn't leave me a lot of time to flesh out more details so I just touched up my rough sketch, through some random color in for some more liveliness.

Story: The Pierrot was having his usual liquid lunch. It was another sobering day in the life of a French clown. The dog just wants in on the treats.

Character Design for Animation: Week 4

This week's assignment was LIBRARIANS! Three librarians based on the circle, square, triangle concepts, but instead of full bodies, they're just heads. Nate said to focus on the personality of the character in the expression and details of the face/head. Here's what turned out! Scroll down for their backstory.

Left to Right: Agatha, Joe, and Karl

Inital marker doodles

BACKSTORY:
Karl is very eager and sociable, he loves to help people find the books/materials that they need. He also loves to talk, since he doesn't get out much, the library is where he likes to socialize. Enthusiasm is the name of his game, sometimes...too enthusiastic.

Agatha is the strict one. She expects people to follow the rules exactly how they are written, and is very cross when they are not followed. She doesn't like Karl, since he's always chattering away. Karl doesn't notice. He's too happy-go-lucky.

Joe is the quiet one, but not in a grumpy way. He's usually tired from staying up late reading, and prefers the companies of books rather than people. He sees the interaction sbetween Karl and Agatha and shrugs it off, and prefers to stay out of it.