Stage 2 Research Continued

Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

Calvin and Hobbes is an online comic strip by Bill Watterson that features a kid going on imaginary adventures with his stuffed tiger. The light hearted narratives work as standalone with each strip having its own little joke to make you smile, but also work as a larger continuous narrarive.

Watterson uses simple black and white linework and fills to define his shapes which keeps the work simple and focused on the story. These comics are a good source of inspiration for the current direction I am taking in my stage 2 project, the imagination of children and escapism of the real world, toys with persona etc.

Watterson relies quite heavily on text to direct the narrative in his strips but i plan to use limited text as i feel this can add a more mature feeling to the work.

TOY STORY

 
My current direction has also got me thinking about toy story and how they put these small characters in a larger world. This particular scene illustrates the possible actions, problems and scenarios that can make the characters feel helpless and reliant on the luck and chance of the larger world they have no control over. I particularly like how the characters become lifeless when a human interacts with them and no matter what their fate might be they just remain lifeless to not blow their own cover. Magic.

Jason Deamer

Jason Deamer is one of the character artists behind some of the awesome pixar films, most notably ratatouille. This realism mixed with a slight sense of characterisation and characatuer style is something that im hoping to create in my nobrow sequence. When drawing up the sketches from my intitial ideas i immediately started to feel the feelings that often come with the narratives of pixar films, Slight realism mixed with cartoony 'larger than life' portrayals that really give a greater sense of character to the individuals in a story.  I think that this blend of styles and narratives is what makes Pixar's work so appealing to such a vast audience.

The incredibles 

Above is a storyboard of the entire film, 'The Incredibles', which explores the Emotion portrayed in each key scene through the use of colour. This is an important part of the design and storyboarding process that, even when the details within the characters/objects/enviornments change, is unaffected, as the broad sense of emotion and how that changes over teh course of the film is something that is almost set in stone from the beggining of a project.

The Incredibles continues the Pixar style of realism in setting with highly stylised characters that boost the storytelling of an individuals personal traits and behaviour.

Patrick Brown

 

Patrick Brown is a big inspiration for me when looking for comic book style artwork. The classical comic book style permeates his work and his well controlled linework with a tablet is something that is hard to recreate. Browns work use the similar exaggerated character styles in realistic settings that is a theme in my research and seeing the subtle and extreme ways people take it is a big help at decidign how far i want to go with my work. Patrick browns technique is one that i have been practicing from video tutorials he has uploaded onto youtube.

'Closet Monster' - Rafael Nascimento

Rafael Nascimento's Clsoet Monster illustration shows how rendering can be taken very far to create something that resembles an animated film with its form and realism mixed with heavy characterisation. If i was to take my illustrations in my narrative this far, i would have to bear in mind the timeframe as, while capable of producing work as rendered as this is in my skill set, it takes me a very long time to achieve these kind of results.