Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Daily Drawing update.







The two new birds are called King and Repartee (sin city poster style - the two immediatly above this writing) Repartee (bottom) isn't finished yet obviously.

The one above King, is THE BAD GUYS! Talon Company. Either that or the Squabs. Not sure yet. They're paramiltary police with armour based on Gears of War and SAS/Police. That's just a crude outline at the minute.

The top three are intial concept sketches for What what what what what. You may be thinking, what? Which is good.

I quite like the running guy and the stage diver. The hospital looks a bit rubbish to be honest.

I'm really getting into this Sin City style though. I'm using a mix of pen, ink, watercolour and a dash of crayon and white chalk.

King and Repartee make up an 'old timer' gang of bird with Luzon. They may look past it, but they can kick ass as well as anyone.

Then after Talon Company / Squab Squad (I just thought of that...ha..ha...nah..) There will be one en masse gang of forgien birds that will be based on the nigerian/jamacian gangs I keep hearing about in London. With hoodies and knifes and all that lark. What a bunch of Jokers. But that's what my WOW art is going to be on. A flock of the forgien gang flying into Police territory.

I think I was going to call them the Birmingham Rollers.

I was thinking of calling the Luzon, King, Repartee trio, the Bronzewings...or maybe just leave them nameless. They're working for some secret boss though (maybe that cloaked dove fellow I drew earlier) and they're bassically playing a divide and conquor thing with the Police and the Birmingham Rollers.

And it's all set in a decaying London thats a bit like Children of Men.

Make sense?

No?

Meh.

Monday, April 26, 2010

more drawings.







Just another drawing poster of Luzon. And a rough background sketch for What what what what what.
Also what I've been asked to draw by the great British public.
A bunch of people wrecking a flat, including a space hopper and a lion mask.
A Bottle
A duck.

I'm loving the randomness of it.

For the background I was doing it sort of like Fritz the Cat (by Ralph Bakshi), it needs to be a bit darker colours though I think. We'll see what the others make of it. I'll do one mixed media tomorrow.

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Animal Firm








I'm going to try and do a sort of graphic novel/sin city style of drawing for this project. Where the only colour apart from black and white is red.This guy took me about 3 hours so far, still has 1 arm and 2 thighs to do. I've based the armour on a mix of the combines from Half Life 2 and the soldiers from Gears of War 2.

He's supposed to be a bird of prey and the Police characters. I've decided to make the police the enemy. A bit like the legendary corruption of the LAPD in the 20s and 30s. I mean think about it...the police have access to almost the best of everything, from how to find people to guns and cars. Well...maybe not cars.
This guy is based on Altair of Assassins creed. And I haven't decided if he is going to be a secret police...hit man or...just a character that remains unexplained but does things crucial to the plot. A bit like the Josh Hartnett character in Sin City. He is definatly going to be an eagle. But that'll be shown by designs on his cloak and garments. You'll notice I've "been inspired" with the hood from assassins creed.

The top picture is going to be the main protagonist. He's a pigeon. Not sure what his traits and such are yet. But that is just a rough drawing of him. Obviously inspired by Sin City. He's going to be a black Rock Pigeon (bassically like the ones you see in London) and called Luzon.

All the names I've got from species of the Pigeon family. For example, I chose Luzon from the species of ground Dove called Luzon Bleeding Heart Pigeons. So I might do something with that.

Other names that I might call my characters;
The Bronzewings were a group of pigeons used in the war, called William of Orange, Paddy, GI Joe and Commando. So I might incorporate them as mercenaries or something.

All from the glories of wikipedia. =)

Friday, April 23, 2010

Animal Firm, Stranger Talk....What?

First week. Horray. It's almost panic time though. Only 6 weeks left. Man time goes fast.

So first project, the big group animation. I am with Ryan, Charlie and Sam. We decided against the Fly apocolypse one on the basis it was too depressing. I was actually quite interested in it, although after hearing the What what what what what brief, I was also interested in that, and kind of wanted to do both.

So we've settled on What. Bassically a project where the only word allowed is 'what'. So after a lot of brainstorming and thinking outloud, we've come up with an idea for a 1 minute animation (about 1 minute anyway). The Idea is, a life in 1 minute.

We had started with sort of single panel ideas, so just...what if that happens....what if this happens. Sam had the idea of putting these all together into one film. Then we devloped that and have decided to make it similar to the new Visa Card adverts. Where the whole thing flows in one movement.
So we start with a pregnant woman giving birth, (the dad is shocked so he says a what?!) the baby stumbles out of the womb turns into a toddler trying to walk, turns into a child who spins around and takes a biscuit out of the jar then turns around into a teenager taking a beer from the fridge and drunkedly stumbles out of the front door, to the mother saying what?? (where have you gone) then he runs off outside (theres more thinking to do with this stage now) and into a theatre that has female builders on the scaoffolding who leer at him (a reversed stereotype) as he runs into the building and onto the stage, plays for a bit in a band, stage dives into the crowd which turns into a skydive, and he lands in an old peoples home on an armchair and, well, dies.

The idea is that it's all one movement, as if he's running through his life.
I've taken the role of producer so I have to set deadlines and make sure everybody is getting on with it. Ryan is going to be the chief animator, Charlie is going to Supreme Tsar of Art Directions. and Sam is going to take charge of a lot of the pre-production stuff.
We're all doing a little bit of everything. I'm more interested in pre and post production so I am taking on more responsibilities there, but obviously with a project like this we're all chipping in with everything.

For the other two drawing projects. I've had some ideas already.
I'm going to do the Stranger Talk one with catheys for this week. Which means I have to ask random people in the street what I should draw for the day. I've had a few worried faces, people get so anxious when a stranger starts to talk to them.
But my first request, and I kid you not, has been, and I quote,
"draw a zombie molesting an old woman in a shopping mall where everyone is oblivious to what is going on"

So that's what I shall be drawing today.

The other one, from Derek, is Animal Firm.
Which is frankly a ridiculous and kind of hilarious idea.
My first response has been to do something similar to the London Pigeon Wars by Patrick Neate.

In that there are 2 gangs of pigeons fighting for control of London. It's an incrdibley orginal and funny book. My favourite part is how the pigeons call each other by their street name and number, so for example, Brickston 143. And how they all talk 'pigeon'...which I shan't spoil for you because it's great.
I think I want to be more adult with this, and make it a bit dark. Maybe something like the Dark Night, where the 'bad guy' is just bent on chaos and has no motive or reason. I also want to have the animals be, birds or in the sea...or mico organisms or insects...just not mammals really.

I also though of Highwaymen Snails.
I'd quite like...If its allowed, I'll have to ask, but do something thats more bandits and highwaymen or sheep rustlers.

I might have to get the films out of the library though, because I've only seen Sexy Beast. that was a great film. maybe something like that, where it's all very calm and tense...

I think I might settle on birds.