Remake - The Bruce Timm Style

This storyboard was part of a school assignment from last year. It was called The Remake. We had to research the style of one of our heroes. We made a paper about this hero and his/ her style. We also had to make a short animation or storyboard based on the style of our hero.

I didn't have to think too long to decide which one of my heroes I wanted to imitate. I love the work of Bruce Timm and I would love to be able to draw in his style. The typical Bruce Timm style is defined by curvy lines and bold inking. His poses are often icon-like and he usually works with existing characters.

I tried real hard to get my work to look like his but at first I didn't like the results at all. There are some styles I can emulate rather well but the Timm-style is not one of 'em.The fun thing was that when I stopped trying my work suddenly started showing certain clear Timm influences.

Even though some style elements in this storyboard are clearly based on the work of Bruce timm I have to admit it isn't exactly in his style. I would love to be on his leve, his work is amazing! But I do like the style I used for this board. It was done in a short time and I think it shows in some of the panels. But there are quite a few I think work well.

I also worked with an existing character: Lara Croft. This storyboard features the leader for Tomb Raider The Animated Series, a non existing cartoon show. It was based on the legendary leader from Batman The Animated Series.

This board was based on the storyboards Bruce did for that Batman leader. I tried to find these boards online but I couldn't find even a small sample. I wanted to show you his boards because it explains why this whole thing is coloured in purple. The complete storyboard can be found in the great book Batman Animated it is coloured with markers in cool grey colours. I tried to copy these colours but my storyboard is actually way too purple. (The colours were done with a marker-brush in photshop btw)

That's all for now, I hope you like this storyboard!

Cartoon College - Part 1

Some of you might know John Kricfalusi's blog. On this blog (which is extremely interesting btw, though I have to say I don't agree with everything he says) John K is posting lessons on the old way of cartoon-drawing. A lot of these lessons come from te book by Preston Blair. Now, I've had this book for 8 or 9 years but only now am I starting to appreciate it for what it truly is: the only book you need if you want to learn to draw in the style of the old school cartoons.

Posted here are some of my drawings from the first lesson. (constructing heads) This classic way of drawing is all about making you drawings solid, and I have to say that the results surprise me. I took the first of these drawings to Daan Jippes and you can see his corrections (done in black ballpoint) on a few of them.

Now, I thought I was improving but then I read how Mr. K advises to check your drawings by copying in the original drawing, using Photoshop. I tried to put the originals over my drawings but, as you can see in this first picture here, my drawings are so far off from the original that it isn't really possible to put one exactly over the other.

The red drawings are the originals, in case you couldn't tell...

And this is what these drawings look like without Mr. Blair's originals.
But still I had a lot of fun with these and I really feel like I'm learning a lot from these exercises. So, even though it might take me quite a while before i'm a master of this classic style, i'll be training. And, though the results might not be perfect (yet) I am not ashamed to share these with you. Expect more of these exercises here in the near future! (If any of you are doing John K's lessons too, I'd love to see how you are doing.)

Internship - Part 1

This month I began my third year as an Animation student at the HKU. I can't believe that the first two years went by so fast! It's even harder to believe that after this year I have just one more year to go. The first semseter of this third year is reserved for an internship.

Those of you who know the Dutch animation industry know that there is no real industry. This is no problem if you want to work as an independent artist but if you dream of working in teams on big productions you sure are in the wrong country. It is my dream to work as a story-artist, this automaticly means that I dream of working on bigger productions; in the Netherlands you are usually story-artist, animator and director, all at the same time.

I tried to get a story-internship in the US but unfortunately I wasn't accepted. But that was no real problem (it would have been cool though!) because I already found a great internship right here in the Netherlands.

Last year we had to interview a professional in the (Dutch) field of animation. I managed to get an inteview with Daan Jippes. This was really cool because Daan Jippes is not only one of Hollands best comic artists, he also worked for years as a story-artist and head of story for studios like Disney, Amblimation and Warner Brothers! That interview was a lot of fun and during the interview I also got Daan to agree to help me with my internship!

Im not sure if the this is still a real internship (I am not working as an intern for Daan Jippes) but for lack of a better word that is the term I'll be using to describe my work the following months. The next six months I'll be working on a story. First I'll develop it as a comic and from November on I'll be making it into a storyboard. I meet Daan once a week to look at my work and to see where to go to from there. This week we had our second of those story-meetings and I already have the feeling that I'm learning quite a lot!

It is very cool and intersting to talk about my ideas for this story with Daan, he cuts to the bone of things really fast. By asking questions he makes me think about things I usually wouldn't care about, things that are actually quite important. (Where's that guy when the other guy is doing that thing? What is his agenda, why does he want that? But why would they do that? etc.)

By answering these questions I learn to think about the story in a different, more complete way. The answers also bring along answers to other questions so it really is not unlike filling out a sudoku. Although I have to add that I suck at sudoku's, I hope that it is not exactly like doing one of those things!

I'll be posting my progress here on the blog, so check back soon. At the moment all I have are some very crude sketches so I thought I'd just show you some of the great works by Mr. Daan Jippes, enjoy!

Laisse Tomber Les Filles

This is the short animation that I have mentioned in earlier preview posts. It was made by me and my friend an fellow student Arthur Gorissen. The production was pretty tough and there are a lot of things I wish we'd done different. It is hard to accept that in order to get an assigment finished in time you sometimes have to do things in a different way then you'd prefer. (btw we did not finish this thing in time, it took months longer then we expected)

But all things considered I am pretty happy with the result. This animation was meant to be a small charming tribute to the 1960's and I believe that we did get the right mood. The animation was intended to be limited but we might be pushing it just a little in this video! During some of the darker bits some of the details have disappeared because the compression I had to use to get this uploaded but the overall quality is not too bad at all.

I hope you enjoy it, this took us more then six months to make!

Dressing Up

This is me just the other day. After waking up (later then I usually get up) I showered and dressed-up real nice (that shirt was bought in Italy, sir!) I put on my best shoes and went to the art-store to get some beautiful prints and paintings framed.

Then I went back home and took off thos darn shoes, I still have blisters on my toes. I put on my oversized cargo pants and my old Nikes and went to the game-store to buy Fable 2.

That last pic is me the rest of the day and probably the rest of the week. sitting at home playing my new game. Sounds like a waste of time? Well, after locking myself up in the attic the whole summer, I finally passed the last of this years (2008/2009) school assingments this monday! So for one week don't have to do anything at all!

I try to enjoy it because next monday I'll start my internship which will be a lot of fun but also a lot of hard work! More about my internship later I have to get back to my X-box...

Digger and the Pussycats

Back in 2003 or 2004 I joined a contest to design a t-shirt for the Aussie rock-band Digger and the Pussycats and I won! I got to see the guys preform in De Diepte. De Diepte (the depth) was a dark bar, almost cave-like and impossible to find, even if you'd been there before. There were no windows and no signs, just a door in the wall with a dark arrow pointing to it. It has been gone for some years now.

It was awesome to see the guys preform. After the show I met them and they signed their cd for me. The shirt I designed was also printed and I got a couple of 'em.

I only have one left and I fear it won't last much longer.

These are some of the sketches I did back then for the shirt. That's my girlfriend Daphne in te last picture showing that last shirt, doesn't she rock?

I actually wanted to re-do the design because I think I could really do better these days. I probably will do this, but right now I am working my butt off to finish my school assignments. If all goes well I will be done next week, just one week before the start of my next school year!

If I finish the new design I will show it to you here!

My excuses for the poor quality of the photo, I took it with my phone but it has seen better days too.

Shooter

This a storyboard that I did, pausing my way through the opening sequence of Shooter. It is funny how much you can learn from exercises like this, even from not too great movies like this one. While I was sketching my way through this scene I noticed how everey new part is introduced by using a "new" shot.

During the first bit we follow the camera up a hill to find the sniper team lying there. After a POV through the scope (new shot)we see the two guys casually talking, the spotter is young and friendly, the shooter is silent and cool.

When the spotter takes out a pic of his girl (the guy obviously hasn't seen any warfilms or he would have thought twice before he made that move) we cut to an extreme close-up of the picture of the girl. (new shot) This shot introduces the next part of the sequence we now see the two guys shot from the front in, very close, close-ups. When this bit is finished we cut back to a total-shot like we saw in the first bit. After this we go to an extreme total from behind. (new shot)

We are now introduced to the guys back in the camp who are overseeing the operation using some spy-plane. The spy-plane show us the convoy. When we cut back to the sniper-team the action is about to begin. The sniper also sees the convoy through his scope and the spotter spots the first enemies.

We are now seeing the guys in close-up again, but the angle is different then the close-ups we saw earlier, the camera moves to the side a little. Showing the sniper and the spotter staring down their scopes.

It is pretty hard work to sketch while pausing through a film. I tried to make a sketch from every shot. Sitting on the couch with my dummie on a small stool in front of me. After some time this way of drawing really gives me a backache so i am afraid I didn't finish the scene, I stopped when the action began. (The action was what I intended to skecth when I started out with this, maybe some other time!)

I do hope you like this rough storyboard. I had fun with it, and was surpised that I actually learned something from this film!