Character Design / Orthographic Turnarounds For 3D Modeling: THE BOOK OF ESTHER 3D-Animated Feature

Oh well, nice try...

Greengrass Studios contacted me one day, telling me they had a shot at becoming the primary production company for a 3D-animated feature film based upon The Book Of Esther.  They felt very good about their chances, so they hired me to produce a character design for the main character of Esther.

I had literally a day to come up with the character design, and then to produce a color presentation piece, which you see above.  The Greengrass guys were very pleased with what I did.  I offered to do a set of orthographic turnarounds to show what the 3D model would look like (see below), which I completed soon after.

As with many of these pitches, nothing happened.  In this case, apparently the people who owned the rights to this particular adaptation just couldn't ultimately come up with the capital to get the project off the ground.  We all waited and waited, and there were adjustments here and there to scheduling and budget in hopes of wedging all the elements into the right place at the right time, but to no avail.

These things happen.  You just have to do your best, and hope that all the stars and the moons align properly to allow the project to become real.  When it doesn't, you get a good night's sleep, and move on to the next 18 projects you're working toward.

If it had become a 'go' project, that would have taken me out of the freelance arena for at least six months.  That would have been nice.  The goal of any long-term freelancer is to land those bigger and more permanent jobs.

Hey, regular paychecks are a good thing!

Previs Concept / Character Design: DREAMWORKS PICTURES - SMALL SOLDIERS

A while back in my life, I got a call out of the blue from the toy company Hasbro.  I was told that someone had recommended me to do some concept work for some kind of movie, which was a nice surprise.  I wasn't told much about the project because Hasbro wanted to be as secretive as possible.  I didn't even see a script or story outline.  I was just told that there were some monsters and a lead character that had to fight these monsters.  Oh, and the characters were toy action figures.  Living action figures.  

The person (whose name I cannot remember) told me that Hasbro was trying to explore various approaches to the characters they were assigning me to work on.  "Go wild", I remember hearing.  I was clued into the notion that the characters were soldiers of some sort.

This was a helpful hint, as the project it turns out I was working on was Dreamworks Studio's movie Small Soldiers.

I did a number of sketches of various kinds of characters, none of which were being received so well.  I kept hearing comments about how things were generally "not what we're looking for".  This was frustrating, as I wasn't getting a whole lot of direction.  The development team at Hasbro literally was in the initial phase of exploration, and they quite literally didn't know what they were looking for until they saw it.

I ended up taking one of the scribbly sketches that were faxed to me, and I concentrated on developing that.  I went with a more futuristic soldier theme, and added some tech to his body armor.  I basically started designing what I hoped would be a cool-looking action figure that I would have liked to play with when I was a kid.  Okay, or even then at my age...

I had sent this one in, and I got a huge reaction out of it!  I was told that this design (the first one posted above) captured the essence of what this character was all about.  I was very happy I had achieved this for my clients, and was looking forward to doing more design work.

A few years later when I was working on GI Joe: Spytroops at Reel FX Creative Studios, there was a huge initial project meeting where bigwigs from Hasbro flew down to Dallas from Rhode Island, along with original & longtime GI Joe scribe Larry Hama (who gave me my first mainstream comic book assignment while editor at Marvel Comics) who flew in from New York City.

I sat in on the meetings for the whole day, and when there was a lunch break, I walked up to Steve Drucker, (Vice President of IP Development at Hasbro) and introduced myself.  I asked him if he was involved with developing Small Soldiers, and he said he was.  I showed him the illustration designs I did for the movie.  His face lit up with a smile and he said, "Wow, it's really nice to meet you!"  He told me how my soldier design was pivotal to the development to the lead toy character (voiced by Tommy Lee Jones).

I was stoked!  It's really great to hear that kind of stuff being said about my work from someone like that.  I had a great time working for and with Steve Drucker on GI Joe: Spytroops, and GI Joe: Valor vs. Venom.  Steve is one of those people that if you're able to be around him for even a short time, you learn a lot from him about how things work in the toy & film industries.  It doesn't hurt that he's a very nice person, too.

Unfortunately, after I had done the soldier design that got such a great reaction, I was assigned to work on the monster characters.  After what I had designed (in the second picture posted above), they again said things like it was "not what we're looking for".

But abruptly, my assignment ended.  Just like that.  No explanation.  I was told this happens a lot, and since then I've discovered that it truly does.  Just one of the really annoying aspects of this kind of business. 

It was a very short and wild ride.  But at least I was able to get confirmation that my soldier design had a significant effect on the development of the lead toy character.

Previsualization / Concept Art / Environment Design / Comic Book Pencil Art: FUTURISTIC CITY

In this post and this post also, I wrote about illustrating samples for a supposed video game company that ultimately expected the work I did to be done on 'spec'.  This is the last of the designs I had done to try to get the job that turned out not to be the kind of job you get paid for.

At the time of the job posting I saw, I didn't have anything formal in my portfolio that would serve to demonstrate my abilities for designing environments.  So when I saw this ad, I illustrated these pieces as fast as I could, but I was afraid I had taken too long and missed any opportunity for this 'job'.  I contacted this 'client' to let him know I was completing things for him, and I then sent him what I had already done.

In the description of this 'job' ad, the 'client' was looking for a futuristic city to be designed, along with roller coasters and an armored warrior woman.  I had continued my theme of placing all of these designs in the form of a comic book page (or in this case, a double-page spread).  

After I sent the initial pieces I finished, that is when I got a very positive reaction from the 'client' who asked me to send the piece you see above, even though it wasn't finished.  When I sent this to him, the 'client' slathered me with compliments, and told me all about his project, and then that's when he told me he wanted me to work for 'back-end' pay.

It's such a sucker-punch when you do all the hard work you can to get a job, only to get the carpet yanked out from under you.  It's an education on what is real, and when you should develop a sense of when it isn't.

One day, I'm going to carve out time and take this piece to finish.  I'd love to see how the roller coasters will turn out.

Previs Concept / Environment Design / Character Design / Comic Book Pencil Art

Back in this post, I talked about doing design work for a video game company that when I showed my design work, I was told that the company expected me to do work on 'spec' for them.

A number of designs I had decided to put into a comic book page format, which included character design, the futuristic city environment design & robot design.  Again, I had a very positive response from the supposed client, right before they told me that I would be working for free.

I declined.

Character Design / Product Branding: EXOTIC GARDENS

I was assigned a task to come up with some charming mascots for a friend's mail-order plant business called Exotic Gardens.  I've lost touch with this guy, but the last time I knew anything about his business, it was going gangbusters.

Penciled & inked, then scanned & colored in Photoshop.

Concept Art / Previsualization: CREATURE DESIGN

I'm always in the middle of some sort of 'pitch', doing character designs for film or animation projects, designing various things for people in the hopes that something gets picked up along the way, becoming an actual 'live' project.  When that happens, then we've literally created work for ourselves.

This pitch is a good example.  Francisco Castro, a talented writer and good friend of Reel FX Creative Studios Creative Director Kevin Althans, wrote a horror movie screenplay called Desolate.  That screenplay was optioned by the Stan Winston Studio!  Very exciting!  I and others were asked if we all were interested in taking a go at designing the creatures for this movie project, in hopes that these visualizations would somehow jump-start the entertainment company's desire to place his screenplay at the top of the 'active' pile.

What you see above is my contribution to the effort.

As with many of these pitches, this one didn't go anywhere.  But it sure was fun to work on!

Penciled, then scanned & colored (with other tonalities) done in Photoshop.

Character Design / Orthographic Turnarounds For 3D Modeling: BLUE STOP ARTHRITIS OINTMENT

Working for Green Grass Studios, I was called upon to design a mascot character for Blue Stop arthritis pain relief ointment.

After a whole lot of variations on the design, we settled on this one.  The big boots were used from a previous design version I did.  I did the orthographic turnarounds, and I think the 3D modeling results turned out pretty darned well.  I'm guessing they left the mustache & goatee off his face, as he maybe looked too much like Tony Stark in the Iron Man movies.

Penciled, then scanned and colored in Photoshop.