Sometimes you get to be near giants. You either get to work with them, work for them, or just witness them as they walk past you as you stand there in awe of them.
William Joyce is one of those people. As I paraphrase and lift directly from wikipedia, I can tell you he's written and illustrated so many wonderful books like George Shrinks, Santa Calls, Dinosaur Bob and his Adventures with the Family Lazardo, and Rolie Polie Olie.
He did conceptual characters for Pixar's Toy Story, A Bug's Life, and Robots (for which he was both producer and production designer). He's currently working with Blue Sky Studios on a feature based on his award winning book, The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs. Joyce is writer, producer and production designer on the film.
In 2007, Disney released Meet the Robinsons, a movie based on his book A Day with Wilbur Robinson, and he designed the opening title sequence for Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. He is currently in agreement with DreamWorks Animation to provide the source material for a 2012 film called The Guardians of Childhood, based on an upcoming series of picture books.
Joyce is also currently co-founding a Shreveport, LA animation and visual effects studio with Reel FX Creative Studios co-founder, Brandon Oldenburg, called MOONBOT Studios.
When I was working at Reel FX, I got the opportunity to produce thorough orthographic turnarounds of Joyce's character Dinosaur Bob for 3D modeling. Reel FX and William Joyce had been in a long-standing collaboration to develop entertainment properties. Tests were being made for how Dinosaur Bob would look in 3D. I was asked to not only do turnarounds of the exterior of the character, but to literally build him from within. So I did passes on his exterior, the muscles that overlaid the bones, and then the bones themselves.
I purposely drew these turnarounds with lines, and not graytones, because the specific directions of the linework gave the 3D modeler Ramahan Faulk precise direction on the dimensions of the character's face & features. Brandon Oldenburg was originally worried that I wasn't working in a 'painterly' fashion in my orthographic turnarounds, but Ramahan told Brandon that those lines gave him exactly what he needed to build an accurate 3D model, because my linework was a great guide for his 3D sculpting. The direction of the linework demonstrated very well the shape and contour of the character.
If I were given more time, I would have done some gray-tone modeling in Photoshop.
Before I began all the under-layers, I did a front-and-side pass on the exterior as accurately as I could, which was then sent to William Joyce for approval. He sent back his size and proportion correction notes on top of what I had drawn, which allowed me to proceed to the finished pieces.
One day I'll tell you about how I got to storyboard an animated short film for William Joyce called The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, which is currently being completed over at MOONBOT Studios in Louisiana.
I may never rise to the giant level of William Joyce. But I got to stand near him several times, which has made me a whole lot better at what I do. I'm just happy he didn't step on me... =P
