2008 January 16 | So Very Dark

You may or may not be interested in this. It is the work for the Concept Development project that has eaten my soul this past week…I personally think it’s kind of neat, ’cause it shows the process a bit, but if that’s not your bag, baby, that’s cool too.

The first part of the project was in-class. We came up with a concept and did 10 to 15 sketches of ideas…quick and simple, not detailed…just like…taking notes. Basically, it’s to brainstorm and come up with concepts (which you later develop. Ah-hah!) I thought it would be really fun to do circus performer/assassins.

The next stage of the project was to take our work home and develop a minimum of 15 of the sketches into something more polished, in a pleasing composition on 11″x17″ paper. I, personally, chose to work in my sketchbook, then scan the pictures into Photoshop and clean up mistakes, and figure out my final composition.

<–This is me working on my sketches. I stayed in that same position so long that I think my leg muscles had atrophied by the time I got up.

Upon advice from my teacher I went for a cartooney/comic-bookish style. My original mental picture and the direction I ended up going were not exactly the same, but I like the path I choose. Less Tim Burton and more Film Noir than I had planned on, but I think it works.

Some of my original sketch ideas stayed almost the same. Others were totally reworked, or one or two separate ideas were combined, or I came up with something new all together. I first drew out my pictures with a mechanical pencil and then inked them with Micron pens, which are very nice because, not only are they fine and graceful, but also because despite being felt tipped, they do not bleed through the paper, so I can use both sides!

<–this idea didn’t change much.

<–neither did this one.

<–I really need to do some animal studies. My tiger is very stylized, ’cause I don’t know how to draw animals. Although I feel that the monkey and the dog for this project came out very well…

<–I wanted some characters interacting from the get-go. Part of it was trying to get better use from my sketchpad space, but it also creates something of a dynamic between them, which ended up going into my character backstory to some extent.

<–I got the idea for making this cutie after picking up this book at work:

<–it had lots of cute gothic and Victorian inspired costumes inside and I got inspired to make a creepy little girl clown as a result.

<–after that, of course, I needed to make sure I had a classic clown. I had already decided to go with kind of an old-fashioned circus style at this point, and so I didn’t want to go too knife-wielding horror movie clown with him, but I think that what I settled on is great…he has a somewhat surreal feel to him, his clothing kind of says ‘no synthetic dyes or fabrics’ and he’s definitely not something I would want to wake up to see in the middle of the night, but he doesn’t have to have a maniacal grin or an axe dripping blood to give me the wiggins. Stephan the clown is all about subtlety.

<–I like this guy a lot…he seems like someone who does bad things to people because he enjoys it. And drawing a monocle was fun. Originally he was much skinnier, but I figured that his mustache, age and profession warranted a somewhat stockier build.

<–the dog probably changed the least from my conceptual sketches. I played with the idea of a poodle, but I feel like Cirque de Muertre is a bit more rag-tag…they don’t have fancy poodles, just a scruffy terrier. I couldn’t make him look mean. I couldn’t even give him a mean personality in my head. He’s just a dog. He likes Beggin’ Strips and Bugles.

<–and of course the Ringmaster. He didn’t come out QUITE how I wanted…he just doesn’t have that grand overlord feeling of dominion that I think he should. I compensated for this by making him a great deal taller than everyone else in my final composition, but he still needs more presence. But other than that I think he looks cool. ;P