Search for a Style - Part 3 (Backgrounds)

Backgrounds have always been a bit of a trick for me.  This is a building across from a Starbucks that I frequent.  I played around with warping perspective a bit here, trying to detach from proper angles.

Searching for a Style - Part 2

The search continues.  So far, I've been liking the full-colour/no outline style vs. the monochrome/black outline style.  Here's a bit more exploration of that.

Searching for a Style

Because my portfolio and demo reel tends to be very eclectic, people sometimes ask me what my natural style is.  To be honest, I've been changing it up for so long that I don't really have a style that I could call mine.

As I'm starting to branch out into illustration work more and more, the variety that comes in really hand in animation can muddy up the illustration waters.  So a little while ago I started trying to define an illustration style that I could move forward with longer term.  It's been a really interesting (and often frustrating) experience.  Here's the sort of exercise I've been doing to start to nail down a style.

Creating an Army of the Dead

I needed to create an army of the dead for a couple of shots I was doing on a project at Tinman, which posed a bit of a problem because I didn't have too much time to do it.

What ended up making it work was that I created a skeleton soldier kit, which had several different heads, chestplates, helmets, shields, weapons and pieces of shoulder armor.  Then I went through and matched up (fairly randomly) the different elements with one another to create 20 different soldiers.

Tinman in Review - March 2012

Here's some of what I've been working on for the past month over at Tinman. My main goal early in the month was to start incorporating a lot more traditional stretch & squash animation into our work, along with more extreme poses. I watched a lot of Ren & Stimpy as reference, which you'll see reflected in the viking stuff in particular.

Next month will be great! We've got a really exciting job in that will take me back into much more of an illustrated space.

Tinman in Review - March 2012 from Tinman Creative Studios on Vimeo.

Sketch Dump

Wrapped up a sketchbook. Thought I'd show some of the highlights. My sketches are generally a little messy, but I thought these ones stood out.

More Viking stuff...

This is a work-in-progress on a looping animation I'm doing. I'll come back to it in a couple weeks...

More Vikings! WIP

Here's the viking piece a little further along. I've got the frames drawn out for him to drink his mead, and for his chesty wench to pour his mead. The others will just be blinkers, so they won't take too long. The BG is still just a sketch at this point. Not sure if I want them to be on a ship, or in a longhouse.

Viking Chewing!

Robot Apocalypse

Here's an illustration I did today. Fire is one of those things I've always avoided drawing because I was never very good at it. Same with backgrounds. I've been making an effort over the last couple of months to work on things I'm not entirely comfortable with.

Vikings!

Hey everyone, here are some designs we're currently working on.

I've been watching a lot of Ren & Stimpy, Samurai Jack and Foster's Home lately so you may see a bit of that spilling into these. I'll be sure to post the screen recordings in next month's "Tinman in Review - March 2012" video.

Red Samurai WIP

Here are some shots from a short I'm working on. Since college I've been redesigning a red samurai with a fiery sword every couple of years. This year I'm animating it. It's still pretty far off, but should be done this week.

Alien Redesign

This is a redesign of a character I did shortly after college. I always really liked it, and thought it could use a bit of a face-lift.

New Design

Original Design - April 2005

Fun Illo

Here's one that's done in a bit of a different style for me. I might do a few more like this. I also animated this, which you'll be able to see on the Tinman Creative reel when we launch at the end of this month.

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a stellar 2011! See you all next year!

Tinman Promo Art

Here's some promo art for Tinman Creative I'm working on.

Cineplex Holiday Greeting

Here's a project we worked on at Tinman. Hope you like it!

Portrait

Here's a portrait I did for a friend of mine, Cory Skaaren. He runs the Dignified Devil blog.

Tinman Animated Short - Preview

Here's a preview of one of the projects we're working on at Tinman Creative. The final will be released in January alongside our official launch.

Dignified Devil - November

Here's my November illustration for The Dignified Devil.