Friday, April 28, 2006

3D Rabbit

A while back, I made this Rabbit character in 3D studio Max and animated him for a 10 Second Club submission. It was fun to do, and I think it turned out really well.

I thought he could use a little more personality, though, so I gave him some accessories.

Goggles and scarves will make any character look cooler. The giant wrench just seemed appropriate, somehow.


Here are some of the older images of the guy:

Poses

Concept_and_Model

Texture_and_Rig

LowPoly_Poses

LowPoly_Concept_and_Model

LowPoly_Texture_and_Rig

And also the 10 Second Club animation:

HillaBrandManure.mpg

Wednesday, April 26, 2006

Dabbling in Watercolor

Watercolor has always been my favorite painting medium. It has an elegant simplicity to it, and I like the "stained" textural quality it gives. I haven't worked with it much, however, so I'm still learning how best to use it. Here's a couple experiments of mine in watercolor:

I've found that it's easy to over-do watercolors, so it's best not to add more then two layers of color on an area. The color also starts out darker and gets lighter as the brush goes along, so starting your brush in areas that might be shaded can be helpful too.

Monday, April 17, 2006

Monsterland Sketches

Here's some sketches for my comic, Monsterland:


I think this was the best costume for Tracy. I always tried to have her wear different clothes in each comic, since it's such a cliche that cartoon characters always wear the same thing every day.





I tried to design Timber so that he could be drawn with varying levels of detail. Sometimes I would try to challenge myself by drawing him as realistically as I could do, other times I would get more creative with a simplified version.




Here's a more simplified version.








At one point, I wanted to do a story where Timber got wings. One of the inspirations for Monsterland, as a world, was Super Mario World. The funny, weird, magic, cartoony world in that game was the kind of way I wanted Monsterland to feel. I always thought it was cool when Yoshi got wings, so I wanted to see what would happen if Timber got them too.


The Phantom King was the rarely seen bad guy in Monsterland. He believed that monsters weren't scary any more and humans didn't fear them. Fear meant respect, so he was out to change all that. Tracy's ability to travel between the human world and Monsterland with her amulet was his key to bringing fear back to the human world once again.

Thursday, April 13, 2006

An Old Character

I’ve always loved designing characters, even when I was a kid doodling in my math homework. I’d come up with personalities and names for them and draw them in all the different angles and poses and expressions I could think of.

One of the first characters I ever came up with was a cartoon dog, who I never really did come up with a proper name for, though he’s been the most constant thing I’ve ever drawn in my life. Some time in late grade school I was inspired when I found out I was born in the year of the dog, so, logically, I decided to draw one. I liked the character enough to continue doodling him all throughout my middle school and high school careers, all the while refining his design as I got better at drawing. Luckily, I kept a lot of the better sketches of the guy, so you can see his eventual evolution in this handy chart:



There were two major influences on the character. One of my all-time favorite cartoons was, and still is, “Rocko’s Modern Life.” It doesn’t take a lot of effort to see the two of them have the same head. Yeah, I stole it, but I really like that head.


The other influence that came later, and was even more important in shaping how I draw in general, was Bugs Bunny. I always liked Bugs, but it wasn’t until I saw a model sheet of how he was constructed and drawn, that I was inspired to add more dimensionality, volume, detail, and anatomy to my characters. Even now, I don’t consider a character “fully” designed unless I figure out those kind of things about it.


Over the years, this character’s personality and back story have changed a bit, but here’s him in a nutshell: He grew up in the pound, and as a result, knows the whole place like the back of his hand. Ever see the show “Parker Louis Can’t Lose?” It’s kind of like that, but with a dog, and in a pound. He knows everybody there, can get out and in at any time through an elaborate series of secret tunnels, and is always operating crafty schemes without the dog-catcher’s knowledge. Also, about the name. I spent so long not giving him a name, it’s hard to come up with one now, but I have two options I’m thinking about: Jinx or Boomer. I think Jinx fits him pretty well, mostly.

In the last few years, I haven’t drawn this guy much, but I thought I’d bring him back for a new and improved finished piece:

Monday, April 03, 2006

Test in Flash

I did this quickly in Flash when I first bought the program, just to test it out. I think that since I mostly do 3D animation, my favorite things to do in 2D are the things which are so difficult in 3D, like squash&stretch, smearing, and extreme distortions.


The Mega Man

I was inspired to draw MegaMan for some reason. I did this in a couple hours with Flash and Photoshop.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

Monsterland

Monsterland is a monthly comic I did for a little over a year. The main character is Tracy, a kid who finds a magic amulet that, when she puts it on, transports her to the world of monsters. Some of those monsters are mean and scary like we know of them, but others are friendly-- like Timber, the big blue thing Tracy meets when she gets there. Each month I tried to do a different style for the comic, so those inconsistencies are intentional. Check it out:
http://www.wscottwarren.com/monsterland/

Bloggin'

Welcome, and thanks for stumbling across my blog. I'm an artist in the game industry, and I'll be posting some of my personal artwork here, other things, etcetera. Enjoy!