that's me in the red circle
Hello hello Bloggerfolk!
I'm back with some exciting news - I've just participated in my first story meeting ever :) After years of dreaming and reading about Cartoon Network story meetings where they pitch boards and hash out story details, it was fun to be in a similar kind of meeting - with my very own boards being screened in front of this handsome crowd! Still not totally sure if I'm allowed to say what I've been working on with this team, but I will say that's it's directed by Mike Nawrocki and based on his children's book series... so feel free to do more research if you just REALLY gotta know. I boarded about a third of it which is probably around 6 minutes of runtime altogether! This was my first time seeing my work alongside Naomi Bethel's and Tim Hodge's amazing boards, all with temp voices and music! And it's the first time many friends and classmates have seen my boards at all, and their kind comments have done much to reduce my imposter syndrome. (Even while the drawings remind me how much I still need to work on my draftsmanship... oh dear). I'm looking forward to seeing what my drawings look like when lovingly animated and paired with production backgrounds. Aside from GBR it will be my first time experiencing that too!
Oh and that character design that I was heavily hinting about in that last post is done! Here she is:
featuring the universal skating rink carpet
I've been listening to '80s music all summer so even though there were a few other concepts I almost chose, this one stuck! It was also a good chance to design a female animal character, which I don't often do. And honestly, I've been a little afraid to. There's such a wealth of offputting, uncanny, and flat-out-bad art of female animal characters and even icons of the genre still manage to mess it up (most notably the Blacksad comics). For this character I looked a lot at Shiyoon Kim's Gazelle designs from Zootopia - one of the few female characters that uses natural animal shapes and can still play the part of a stylish pop star.
And even I messed up - there's a fully inked drawing of this character (that you will never see :) ) where she basically looked like an animal head on a human body. Gross. Somehow this alternate pose just worked better, and allowed me to show off her animal elements more - namely that long neck and hooves. And I would be remiss not to mention John Loren, who saved the rendering and color of this piece with a crazy good paintover(s). In a period where I've become increasingly frustrated with my rendering ability, I'm thankful for someone like John who can step in and make my life a little easier and my work a lot better. It's a big reason why I, now more than ever, recommend getting into a solid art-community, whether at a school or on Discord!
In other recent news I've fallen hard for Lackadaisy, and binge-read the entire thing last weekend. Like many of my other tastes and interests I've stumbled upon it perhaps a decade too late, but I'm here for the party (which in this case means bootlegging cats in an alternate 1920s St. Louis). With all the buzz about a recent animated film coming up I figured it was finally time to test out the source material, and it did not disappoint. In particular, the dialogue is so smartly written - I don't know if it's due to jargon of the period or just the writer/artist's impressive command of vocabulary, but these cats talk GOOD. They also have great acting and expressions, especially for animal characters. And did I mention it's a story starring animal characters? So it's probably no surprise that I like it so much ;)
And this weekend I got to go on a little trip to Burgess Falls, actually my second time going there, but I don't think I've talked about it here before. Some friends and I had a lot of fun relaxing in the creek and small waterfalls, all while trying to avoid the rangers who were very much against that idea. We also explored Cookeville, which I've driven past dozens of times yet never bothered to visit. And who knew it contained this amazing neon sign!
so retro in the best way possible
As my friends Parker and Olivia can attest to, I stared at this mesmerizing sign for probably much too long on multiple occasions. And we were even blessed by a nighttime thunderstorm which when combined with this sign made me feel like I was in a noir movie. All that was missing was a trenchcoat, a haunted backstory, and a dozen egg creams...
What else have I been up to? I went to church in person for the first time since quarantine started. We had a (very small) welcome back party for a friend who got out of quarantine/isolation. And I've been going to the farmer's market every Tuesday night! Lots of nice little things amongst these lingering tides of quarantine.
I've also been catching little bits of Lightbox Online when they've fallen through the cracks of my otherwise packed schedule - Nicholas Kole's been doing some great talks and I plan on listening to the recordings over the next few weeks as I draw. And speaking of drawing... that's probably what I should be doing right now. I've got a pile of color thumbnails and the ever looming work of thesis still to tackle. But thanks for letting me share my decidedly niche interests in animal character design and tales of feline bootlegger-y with you today!
Hope you're continuing to weather these times with grace, courage, and creativity!
-dh
Music Reccomendation: Aedan recently showed me Josh Ritter's "Be of Good Heart" and it's so good I cry almost every time I hear it. Vintage, autumnal, with well placed... oboes?? anyways it's real good
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