Advertising Color Storyboards: POLITICAL ADS

On occasion, I have worked on storyboarding political campaign ads.  I remain neutral as to whom I work for, because I believe that everyone has their right to free speech, even when my friends on The Right or The Left frown at me for working on something they disagree with.

Posted here are samples of color storyboards I did from a number of political ads for several different campaigns.

Penciled & inked, then colored in Photoshop. 

Advertising Storyboards: TARGET

A long time ago, it was suggested that I produce storyboards for my portfolio that showcased the various ways I was able to deliver them because I apparently didn't have enough to show clients.  I had done all forms of black & white and color frames already, but I couldn't show them to clients because of the non-disclosure contracts I had signed.

Waiting for the commercials I worked on to air so I could finally show my work was preventing me from getting work!  What a catch-22.  Frustrating.

So I decided to produce a sample storyboard based upon a Target commercial that had already aired, breaking up the boards into sections:

- Black & White Pen & Ink

- Graytone Markers

- Color Markers

- Photoshop

I'm happy to say these boards did the trick.  I immediately got work from clients who could finally see that I had the capability to do whatever they needed.  These boards still hold up pretty well, so I thought I'd present them here.  They demonstrate that I can work in any kind of format the client might require.

Nowadays, I no longer work in markers.  I do all my graytones and color work in Photoshop. 

3D Animation Storyboards: ZYNGA CASTLEVILLE [3D Animated] - ONLINE COMMERCIAL SPOTS

I was contacted by Green Grass Studios, for whom I've storyboarded animation for a casino game, done concept & character design for an animated feature film, and character design for a commercial product.  I was asked to board a series of 3D-animated shorts  for the wildly successful billion-dollar social network game development company ZYNGA, to promote the individual characters for their online game Castleville.

Green Grass Studios is a great full-service animation company that provides the most amazing array of 3D animation services, who imagines, creates and animates compelling visuals with great passion and excitement.  I get to be part of the 'imagining' every now and then, as I was when they assigned me to board these 4 shorts:

SONJA & GEORGE                RAFAEL

TOM                                      YVETTE 

These were very fun spots to work on, and Zynga was also pleased with the results.  So much so that I'm currently storyboarding on Zynga's newest game called The Ville.

When I'm able to post those, I will.  Meanwhile, here are the boards I did for the above finished spots.

2012 ACADEMY AWARD WINNER! THE FANTASTIC FLYING BOOKS OF MR. MORRIS LESSMORE

I am so amazed to have been able to work on the first draft of the storyboards for The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore: 2012 ACADEMY AWARD WINNER - BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM!

CONGRATULATIONS TO DIRECTORS WILLIAM JOYCE & BRANDON OLDENBURG of Moonbot Studios for their brilliantly amazing execution of this wonderfully animated short film!


Here is the animated short film in full: 

I talked about my contribution to this amazing project in this post.

I storyboarded the first draft of the Morris Lessmore animated short.  After that, I had nothing to do with the further development of this film.  However, I was so very fortunate to be a part of this amazing project.  This is something I am so very proud of having particpated in, even in the smallest way.  What a privilege!

2D Animation Storyboards: CARTOON NETWORK [2D Animated Series] - GENERATOR REX, Episode 033: "Night Falls"

As I said previously, I had the great privilege to storyboard for Cartoon Network on episodes of Generator Rex!

This segment was a fun departure from all the action/adventure stuff, in that my challenge here was to make a 'talking heads' sequence visually interesting.  There were certainly moving parts, such as the ship flying & landing, the ladder extending and lowering, things like that.  But all still within the context of characters just talking to one another.

I am always interested to see how closely the animation keeps to the boards I did, and this episode was pretty spot on, with a couple of exceptions.  The shots of the Mayor in his office reacting to the ship arriving had been added after I turned in my boards, and there are some minor tweaks in character placement and composition that you can see if you choose to compare the final frames (linked below) to the finished animation. 

My sequence runs just over 4 minutes.  Here it is:

Episode 33, titled "Night Falls", was directed by Rick Morales.

Storyboards penciled, then formatted and notated in Photoshop. 

You can see the storyboards to my entire sequence HERE.

3D Animation Storyboards: William Joyce's THE FANTASTIC FLYING BOOKS OF MR. MORRIS LESSMORE

NOMINEE FOR BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM!
(and now the 2012 OSCAR WINNER!)

3D-Animation Storyboard selection from The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore, based upon the children's book by William Joyce.

UPDATE:  'The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore' is a 2012 ACADEMY AWARD NOMINEE for BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM!

BIGGER UPDATE: 'Morris Lessmore' WON THE OSCAR FOR BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM!

Here is the finished short film, directed by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg: 

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios.

You can see many more of my Morris Lessmore storyboards HERE. 

As I told you in this post, I got to do orthographic turnaround designs based upon William Joyce's Dinosaur Bob character for a 3D-modeling test.  It really was inspiring to work on, and it charged my batteries quite a bit.

But that was nothing compared to being asked to storyboard an animated short film for William Joyce!  The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a story of people who devote their lives to books and books who return the favor.  It's a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story.

Brandon Oldenburg came to me with one of the most incredible jobs I've ever gotten to work on: Morris Lessmore, its working title at the time.  Before that it was titled something else which I can't say, as I don't want to reveal something that Mr. Joyce may use for something else in the future.

I was assigned to work on the very first draft of storyboards for William Joyce's animated short film.  It was the biggest rush, the most amazing feeling, and it made me suddenly incredibly nervous that I was going to take on this daunting task to rise up to Mr. Joyce's standards. 

Brandon told me he saw this short as being about seven minutes in length.  Armed with only a one-page written treatment and several concept illustrations by William Joyce, I was instructed to just "see where" I could go with the project.  I was given several weeks to come up with a set of storyboard roughs to present to Mr. Joyce.  When the time came, I walked William Joyce through the visual story I was telling.

You know, I'm a nervous enough guy as it is, always trying to please people, especially people who are literally my idol, such as William Joyce.  I was worried he would be unhappy that I had somehow misinterpreted his story.  Anyone would, I think, trying to do something worthy of Mr. Joyce's standards.  However, he only had several corrections for me.  He told me he really overall liked what I had done.  

Here's the incredibly frustrating part: I couldn't show anyone these storyboards for FIVE YEARS.  To get other storyboarding work, it's a good thing to point to your resume to say "I worked on this very cool project".  However I couldn't, because the project really didn't have an established name.  All I could say is that I worked on a William Joyce project, but I couldn't show anyone my work on it, unless I was showing it to them in person.  That alone made people think I was crazy, as if I was making up a fantastic story about working on a fantastic story for this incredibly fantastically admired man in the animation industry.

No one believed me, really.  Non-disclosure documents are sometimes terribly aggravating. 

Since I live in Dallas Texas, I could not mail copies or publish my storyboards online because that would have breached the confidentiality clause I was bound to.  Nor could I walk into a Los Angeles studio in person to show the boards I had done, which is an acceptable way to get around publishing non-disclosure work, when looking for new work.  FRUSTRATING!

It is just so nice to be able to finally show everyone.

To be clear; I storyboarded the first draft of the Morris Lessmore animated short.  After that, I had nothing to do with the further development of this film.  However, I was so very fortunate to be a part of this amazing project.  This is something I am so very proud of having particpated in, even in the smallest way.  What a privilege. 

Brandon Oldenburg partnered up with William Joyce to be a founding, managing partner in Moonbot Studios in Shreveport, LA.  He and Mr. Joyce reworked and refined the storyboards and concepts, developing it into a 13-minute short film.  Employing a very novel approach to the animation, they built miniature sets for the environments, and added the 3D-animated characters within.

The results are quite beautiful.  Wonderfully done. 

Moonbot Studios has taken The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore a big technological step forward, by adapting the animated short film into an iPad app!  The award-winning short film is now an interactive narrative experience, blurring the line between picture books and animated film.

Inspired, in equal measures, by Hurricane Katrina, Buster Keaton, The Wizard of Oz, and a love for books, "Morris Lessmore" is a poignant, humorous allegory about the curative powers of story. Using a variety of techniques (miniatures, computer animation, 2D animation) award winning author/ illustrator William Joyce and Co-director Brandon Oldenburg present a new narrative experience that harkens back to silent films and M-G-M Technicolor musicals. “Morris Lessmore” is old fashioned and cutting edge, all at the same time.

Here's a preview of the app:

Even though I like what I did on these storyboards, and I have received nothing but incredibly positive feedback on them, I still look back on my first draft of storyboards and I wish I had time to do more to them.  I always have that feeling about my work.  I always churn things around in my memories, searching for the things I could improve upon for the next job.

It makes me really want to work for these gentlemen again, so I can do even more of a better job the next time!

Odd fact about my place in the credits: I was told by Brandon Oldenburg that my name was in the credits. Only when I viewed the film, did I find out that my name was in the 'special thanks' category, and not in the 'story artist/development' section.

Some places have different standards for crediting people. I have a close friend who did storyboards for the Ice Age movie, which were ultimately not used. However, his name made the credits, as he did contribute to the storyboarding and development of the project. Why I wasn't included (even at the bottom of the credits of the 'story artist/development' section) is a mystery to me.

But that's okay. Everyone who worked on that short film deserves the spotlight they're in, and I'm blitheringly happy for the few morsels of my work that made it into the final product. I feel I can still show my work proudly, and be confident that it can get me future work in the process. Not for what didn't make it into the final product, but for the good work I did to help start the project up in the first place.

Everything is a stepping stone to something better, yes? 

3D Animation Cinematic Storyboards: SPLATTERHOUSE Video Game

 
 Another assignment from Brain Zoo Studios, to storyboard the 3D-animated cinematic presentations in the Splatterhouse video game, developed by Namco Bandai Games for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

Usually, deadlines for these cinematic storyboard jobs are very tight.  I pushed myself to give more fully notated boards this time around, as opposed to some other jobs where the deadline was so incredibly tight, it wasn't possible.  It's best to do this whenever you can, because when you don't (even when your storyboards are well received) you still have to take time out of your busy schedule to go back and do complete versions that you hoped you had time for in the first place.

You have to do such things to be able to present your good work to other potential clients.  Many clients don't care how tight the deadline was, how you were able to perform mightily to do twice as much work in half the time, or that you had a death in the family, or that there was a hurricane.  Or locusts.  Or a sinkhole opening up right below your house, or that your whole apartment complex's power goes out on a regular basis.

You just need to show them solidly good and readable storyboards that are properly notated.  That gives them the confidence that you can do the same for them.   

However, there are still deadlines you cannot help but get the bare minimum finished before the already truncated deadline comes to an end.

Just one of the many various challenges one has to deal with.

3D Animation Storyboards / Orthographic Turnarounds for 3D Modeling: HASBRO STAR WARS TOYS

When I worked for Reel FX Creative Studios, I storyboarded for countless toy product commercials, mostly for Hasbro.  One of the jobs I had was to storyboard was a simple 3-5 second 'bumper' for the Star Wars toy commercials.  The approved concept I came up with was of the soldier droids from Star Wars: Phantom Menace, moving along an assmebly line with the Star Wars logo integrated into the back wall.  Just something visually cool to do for the beginning or the end of the commercials.

I was able to convey the concept in one single pan-shot frame storyboard, notated to specification.  In addition, I was given a previs design done by one of the Star Wars production designers, and assigned to produce orthographic turnarounds of it for 3D modeling, which you see below the bumper frame.  I had to take the previs design, and then extrapolate from the single representation to work up accurate views from all sides (except from the bottom, this time).

Even when I get paid to do my work, often a job goes nowhere and is abandoned.  That happened with this assignment.  I got to see a 3D test of the orthographics I worked on, and it was beautiful!  When we found out this was a no-go, there was a collective exclamation that came from all who worked on this project.

I can't repeat what a lot of us said here in this blog.  That would be just rude.

But it was fun to do!

3D Animation Cinematic Storyboards: MERCENARIES 2: WORLD IN FLAMES Video Game

My first job for Brain Zoo Studios was to storyboard the cinematic presentations for the Mercenaries 2: World in Flames video game.  I worked for the Emmy Award-winning (for The 30th Sports Emmy Awards - Outstanding Graphics Design for Sport Science / FSN/BASE Productions) Mo Davoudian, Creative Director of Brain Zoo.

This is another one of those jobs where I started out doing 'tight roughs' storyboards on a pretty restricted deadline.  Once I had gotten up to this stage, I was told this level of tightness was acceptable, and that I wouldn't have to go to the next level.  This worked out well, as the deadline for the project was only a week for this cinematic, and there were several more to be produced in as many weeks' time.

More and more, you find jobs where everyone is boiling down every stage of the animation process to its most basic workable form.  Shorter deadlines, rate reductions that restrict those deadlines to 1/3 the amount of time to complete the work... this is more and more the standard when it comes to animation companies' competitive survival.

The silver lining to this is when you get a client who likes your work, and will continue to hire you, as the super high quality Brain Zoo Studios did with me for an extended period of time.

*CLICK ABOVE TO SEE FULL STORYBOARD SEQUENCES*

 

3D Animation Storyboards: GI JOE: VALOR vs. VENOM - How To Do Motion Capture On The CHEAP

Gather around, boys and girls.  I'm going to tell you how you can do 'motion capture' without the motion capture technology!

In a previous post about the 3D-animated film GI Joe: Valor vs. Venom, produced for Hasbro by Reel FX Creative Studios, I talked about the time constraints involved in producing an 88-minute, 3D-animated film (reduced ultimately down to 77 minutes for whatever reason) in just under a year.  I showed you the 'pretty' finished storyboards of the security guard being attacked by the floating Cobra machines, and I talked about how the rest of the storyboards weren't as pretty, or finished-looking.

These storyboards here (in animatic form) demonstrate what happens when the time constraints become exponentially tighter and tighter.

Reel FX's application development team had created a proprietary production management pipeline tool called INSIGHT that manages their production pipeline in 'real time', allowing their clients visibility and transparency to production and costs at any stage of the production.  In this program, you could easily see every version of each stage of production.

As the storyboards were completed in their various rough-to-finished stages, the frames were input individually into INSIGHT.  Those frames were then made into animatics, to be synced up with sound & voice for timing.  Since we were on such an incredibly tight deadline, everyone was going at such an all-out fast pace, especially in the storyboarding.  Valor vs. Venom producer Will Meugniot pitched in to storyboard several key scenes, and the amazing Kerry Gammill worked at a deliberate pace to produce some very beautiful storyboards.

I storyboarded about 75% of the movie & served as Storyboard Supervisor, in addition to having spent a full month doing a first draft of storyboards for the whole film before full production started.  One of the biggest challenges I had in this film was to storyboard as sophisticated and exciting group of ninja fight scenes as I could present within the limited timeframe and budget that we had to work with.  I wanted to show more of the mechanics of Snake Eyes' and Storm Shadow's martial arts abilities in these scenes.

One obvious way to do this with today's animation technology is with motion capture (or motion tracking, or mocap) the process of recording movement and translating that movement on to a digital model.  This animation data is mapped to a 3D model so that the model performs the same actions as the actor.  A performer wears markers near each joint to identify the motion by the positions or angles between the markers.

What was even more obvious was that we just didn't have the budget to do this whatsoever.

But then I had an idea.  What if I was able to create a 'low-tech' version of motion capture?  I heard someone at Reel FX mention that they had a friend who was a martial arts expert, and it got me thinking about how to set this proposal up.

After I storyboarded the first draft all the ninja fight scenes, I hired an amazing martial artist & stunt man named Ilram Choi (who has gone on to do stunt work for movies such as Thor, Avatar, Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, The Last Airbender, and you may have seen his work as the leaping & bounding stunt-double for John Cho's Sulu in JJ Abrams' Star Trek).  Ilram and his other martial arts friend (whose name I cannot remember) spent the day with me at a local gymnastics center to film their live-action reenactments and interpretations of my first draft storyboards.

We had dressed both martial artists in white leotard body stockings.  I took a huge magic marker and drew circles on their chests, legs, knees, shoulders, elbows & backs.  These circles were to serve as the mapping markers to identify the motion by the positions or angles of their movements, as reference for the animators to interpret as they completed Ilram & friend's final performance in digital form.

Afterward, I took this filmed reference and used it to re-storyboard all the ninja fight scenes in as much detail as I could.  I would incorporate all of the movements that Ilram & friend interpreted for us as painstakingly as possible, in order to make sure that the animators could literally go through the animatics frame by frame for guidance for the ninja's body movements.  This is where things got very difficult in the schedule, as I was also having to process all the other storyboards from Will Meugniot & Kerry Gammill, supervise Scott Youtsey's able storyboard cleanup work (which kept me from going insane at one point during production), while still occasionally being called upon to work on some of Reel FX's commercial storyboards.

This was the stage at which the schedule was so tight, I was putting in 14+ hour days, producing at times as much as 250-300 frames a day.  This certainly sounds absurd and ridiculous, but after all the prep work I described above, I knew what needed to be done.  It was just a matter of doing the very best I could to just finish the storyboards in time to be put into animatic form, so animation assignments could be handed out to keep the production rolling along.  To accomplish this, there was no way I could have drawn the frames more detailed. 

One distinct advantage of working not only on a 3D-animated project, but certainly on an internal project like Valor vs. Venom, was that (unlike 2D storyboards) I didn't have to worry about every belt buckle and costume detail needing to being precisely drawn.  The 3D models were already built & rigged, and ready to go to animation.  All I had to do was provide good storytelling and composition.  This guerrilla-type of animation process would certainly NOT work as well in most other animation pipeline structures.  But we had a job to do in the timeframe we were given, so we had to be innovative.

It made everyone swoon with envy to think of what it would be like to work on a production such as Shrek, or Monster House, or any Pixar film, with their really big budgets and their wonderfully extended deadlines.  But with the budget, resources & timeframe we had to work with, in many ways it was like a massive group-sprint to the finished line, with everyone carrying Toyotas on their backs.

No matter what, the bottom line in productions like this one... especially in productions like this one, is you need a group of the most dedicated hard-working people who are passionate enough to do the very best they can under the most restricted, truncated schedules ever, who believed beyond reasoning that they could conquer anything in the world.

The people at Reel FX, and those others who worked on this project were those kind of people.  

3D Animation Storyboards: GI JOE: VALOR vs. VENOM

The follow-up to Reel FX Creative Studios' production of GI Joe: Spytroops (which I posted about here), was GI Joe: Valor vs. Venom.  Reel FX was progressing in their efforts to raise themselves up to the next significant level by proving they can handle a feature-length film.  However, as we had the terrible five-month killer deadline with Spytroops, that deadline was kind of repeated.  Whereas Spytroops was a 44-minute movie done in five months' time, Valor vs. Venom's deadline was basically doubled.  Still an incredibly tight deadline, we were assigned to produce an 80-minute movie in just under a year.

When Hasbro's execs were visiting Reel FX before production began on Valor vs. Venom, Director Dale Carman took a break from their meeting to come to me and ask, "How long would it take for you to do the first draft of storyboards for the whole movie?  A month?  Say a month.  Say yes to a month."

Hey, he's my boss.  Of course I said "yes"!

So I spent a month doing a rough pass at storyboarding this movie, without benefit of any previsualization or concept drawings.  As with Spytroops, we again embarked upon animating a movie with a structure that wasn't like a relay race (where chronologically, the one stage of development was handed off to the next one in line), but more like a total race to the finish by all the departments, each throwing the 'relay bar' back and forth to each other along the way.

What I mean by that is, by the time I storyboarded the first pass, some of the set design concepts were well underway.  I would then have to adjust my storytelling to any previs that was developed.  Conversely, whatever I had storyboarded before any previs had been started, usually determined what the previs would look like, to accommodate my boards.  Invariably, storyboards still had to be tweaked & redone many, many times, over and over.  It was an incredibly frenetic, yet organized kind of perpetual chaos.

Here is the opening scene from GI Joe: Valor vs. Venom, in its completed form: 

I served as Storyboard Supervisor & I storyboarded about 75% of the final movie, with additional storyboards done by Kerry Gammill and producer Will Meugniot.  I made the mistake at one point of trying to do what I call the 'pretty' finished-looking storyboards (like what you see above), but our deadline just didn't allow for that.  At one point, I was producing several hundred storyboard frames a day.  Believe me, that can put some severe pain in your hand.

3D Animation Storyboards: GI JOE: SPYTROOPS

At the time when Reel FX Creative Studios was more of a boutique animation & VFX company, they were awarded the job of producing GI Joe: Spytroops, a 44-minute 3D-animated DVD that was to be placed within & exclusively distributed inside toy packaging.

The deadline was a crusher: Reel FX had to, from the ground up, build 3D models for several dozen characters, as many vehicles and weapons, build sets, storyboard, rig, texture & animate everything in JUST OVER FIVE MONTHS.  I was flown to New York City to sit in a hotel suite with one other storyboard person (who did not nearly produce as much as I did, but was still a great help), Steve Drucker (Vice President of IP Development at Hasbro) & Larry Hama (writer & creator of a vast majority of the GI Joe universe), to get the first pass of storyboards finished.

There was only a loose outline of a story at that time, and things were quite unorganized, as this was a very truncated, unconventional process to do.  Everyone agreed with my organization, to type out "bullet points" of every action in the morning, and then we would storyboard those bullet points for the rest of the day.  In the ten days we were in that hotel suite, I'm proud to say we were able to complete the first draft of the movie, from beginning to end.  This includes the one day we had off, and the additional day where we had to present all the storyboards done so far to the Big Wigs of Hasbro.

When we got back to Reel FX in Dallas, I spent the rest of the five-month production schedule redoing storyboards until literally a week before the final animation production deadline.  Reel FX had never placed a 'final stop date' to Hasbro for when they had to give final approval for storyboarding.  So, it seemed that every other someone at Hasbro had a say in this or that, forcing us to keep changing things, well after voice recording was done.

The second video above of the sky battle sequence is a good example of how fast we all were having to go.  Several months after we had started our five month, soup-to-nuts process of producing this 44 minute 3D-animated film, the co-director of the movie (and co-founder of Reel FX) Dale Carman came to me one morning with a huge challenge.  He told me that due to all of the changes of this-or-that from all the Hasbro executives, we suddenly had a situation where we had all the GI Joes up in the air in their cargo plane, needing to get down below to the Cobra base for the final confrontation.  He needed me to come up with some kind of scene that accomplishes this by the end of the day.

Oh, and we weren't allowed to have any dialogue!  The voice talent was recorded literally months before, and would be too expensive to get someone in even for a single line or two.  So I had to come up with this whole scene, which was a very well-received by Dale Carman & Hasbro, but unfortunately due to needing to compress literally the whole movie to fit everything into the 44-minute format of the DVD, it 'sped up' the pacing of this scene, making everything looking somewhat rushed.

As you can see in the 'before & after' videos in this post, the storyboards that were drawn were not the tightest drawings.  But they were readable.  We were all going at such an incredible pace, we had to keep drawing as fast as possible all the time.  The other guy drawing storyboards with me in New York City did not like the pace that we kept right out of the starting gate in that hotel room, and he ended up quitting Reel FX a week after we got back, leaving me to primarily be the sole storyboard guy.  That is, with the exception of the amazing Jake Parker, who storyboarded the scenes of Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow's battles, and did his storyboards directly in a flash-animation format.

During this five month period of time, I also served as sole storyboard artist for Reel FX for their advertising commercial assignments (oddly enough, mostly of Hasbro products)!  Some days were a lovely circus act... spinning plates, juggling Toyotas & flaming cats, and storyboarding as fast as humanly possible.  

Hasbro's budget on this near-impossible endeavor was a paltry $600,000.00 for such an determined project.  You will never find anything as complex and ambitious as GI Joe: Spytroops done by anyone else for that low a cost.  I was told the final cost for the whole project was well over twice Hasbro's budget, for which Reel FX themselves made up the difference.

An incredible challenge!  But Reel FX Creative Studios - and myself, it felt - did the impossible.

Video Game Cinematic Storyboards: STAR WARS MUPPETS 3D-Animated Video Game Cinematic

Part of the same pitch from my previous post, Brain Zoo Studios had me also draw the most strange combination of things: Star Wars Muppets!

Whuuuuuuuhhh?!? I know, right?

I must admit, I don't remember if ever there was a separate Star Wars Muppets video game, or if there was to be a special Muppets Star Wars 3D cinematic presentation in the Knights of the Republic video game.  It's been several years since I worked on this pitch, and going back to my emails on the subject still doesn't explain it.

But I did them!  And they were awesomely fun!  C'mon, this is the quintessential Muppets In Space!  Kermit Skywalker, Qui-Gon Fozzy Bear, Piggy Amadala & Darth Animal!  I think I would have wanted to draw this stuff just for fun anyway!

Yeah, I'm a geek.  I'm Darth Dork!

3D- Animated Video Game Cinematic Storyboards: STAR WARS - KNIGHTS OF THE REPUBLIC

Sometimes it seems as if all I do is work on pitches that go nowhere.  Not true, as I do get paying jobs also!

Brain Zoo Studios contacted me to ask if I'd like to pitch storyboards for the Star Wars: Knights of the Republic video game cinematic presentations.  I've successfully pitched with Brain Zoo before, turning a spec job into a paying one.  And since Brain Zoo is an excellent studio with a top-notch reputation, it was a no-brainer to give this a try.

Star Wars video game projects are highly sought after by animation studios, so we had our work cut out for us.  I was given treatments of each storyboard concept, then I drew up my thumbnail storytelling.  I was given 3 boards to work on, and it was decided that I was only to go to finishes on 2 of them.  It was also suggested that I keep the frame count for each board to about 17, so I wouldn't do way too much on a pitch that didn't succeed.  This results in the storyboards becoming more like 'key frames' rather than the fully fleshed-out storytelling that is usually done with fully finished storyboards.  I did a few more frames anyway, to better flesh out the storytelling.

I am including the thumbnail layouts below of the one board that did not get finished, just to show you the process.

 

When I do my 'first pass' on a job, it's usually done in what are called "thumbnails", which are proportionately smaller versions of frame compositions.  It's a good way to plan a storyboard project without spending all that extra time drawing full-size, only to make mistakes that you have to correct later.  There's no sense in making your mistakes on all that 'real estate', when you can get everything right in a much smaller form, which you can enlarge later when you're ready to go to finishes.  Not all jobs require or need this approach, but it comes inpretty handy. 

As with many pitches, someone else got the job.  That's the way it goes.  Oh well, nice try.

TIME... MARCHES ON!

3D Animation Test Storyboards - JAKERS

I was asked by my friend Josh Prikryl - who runs his own virtual animation studio called Overseas Virtual - to draw up a storyboard test to show a hopeful client that his company could easily handle an animated series for kids.  He requested I use a character from the Jakers 3D-animated kids cartoon in the test, which was very fun to do. 

I was told that the potential client was suitably impressed.  We'll see if it turns out to be anything.

Storyboards done all digitally in Photoshop.

Advertising Storyboards: HASBRO NERF LAZER TAG

Another job working for Reel FX Creative Studios, who handles many of (if not most) Hasbro toy commercials at any given time, was Hasbro's Nerf Lazer Tag toys.  Hasbro commercials are fun to work on.  One day you'll be storyboarding My Little Pony, then Transformers or Zoids, Super Soakers, or anything to do with Nerf commercials.  It always keeps you on your toes.

Penciled & inked, then scanned & graytoned in Photoshop.

Advertising Storyboards: HASBRO ZOIDS

Okay, this is how you become a glutton for punishment.  It's bad enough that my hand almost falls off while drawing Transformers storyboards, but now I end up drawing something just as detailed, if not more: Zoids!

Intricately detailed work under a tight deadline.  This is the stuff that makes me have to put my hand in a bowl of ice to recover. . . ouch!  Work done for Hasbro, through Reel FX Creative Studios.

Storyboards penciled & inked.

Video Game 3D-Animation Cinematic Storyboards: ROGUE WARRIOR

Working for Brain Zoo Studios, I storyboarded the 3D cinematic presentations for the video game Rogue Warrior, published by Bethesda Softworks.

You can see all of the various Rogue Warrior video game cinematics storyboard segments by clicking onto the images above.