Basically, the point is to design a piece of artwork for Fraggle Rock's 30th Anniversary; if you are selected as the winner you get prize money, a tour of the Jim Henson Co., and your artwork becomes official Fraggle Rock merch. As much of a longshot as it is, good things could definitely come from it -- even if I'm not chosen as the winner. I mean, I get a cool new portfolio piece and my artwork gets seen by someone at the Jim Henson Company. No complaints here.
My basic idea was to fit as much as I could into the piece without overloading the image with information. There are three main races in Fraggle Rock, the Fraggles, the Doozers, and the Gorgs. The Fraggles and Doozers coexist together in the caves and underground tunnels of Fraggle Rock, whereas the Gorgs live above ground and proclaim themselves to be rulers of the universe. I wanted to illustrate a snapshot of a day in the life of Fraggle Rock, showcasing the symbiotic relationship of the care-free Fraggles and hard-working Doozers, as well as the Gorg's discovery of this ecosystem that has developed right under their noses.
I sketched out a couple of concepts to further realize this idea. As indicated in the top thumbnail, I was thinking of having the piece framed by a Doozer-built structure, but I thought that was drawing too much attention away from the Fraggles. I thought it would be better compositionally to have the Doozers working on a structure in the middle-ground to create a greater sense of depth to the cave.
Since the characters were layered on top of one another in my sketch to create an illusion of depth, I thought it would make it easier to draw each of them individually, and then combine them in photoshop so I could play around with position and scale much easier. I was planning on using watercolors for the piece, but I realized my watercoloring skills were pretty rusty while working on the initial washes to create the rocky texture, so I colored the figures with Prismacolor markers and colored pencils for highlights. It was also at this point that I decided to do away with the Doozer structure all together (in fear of the piece looking too clunky and crowded) and instead have a couple spare Doozers spread out throughout the image.
And...voila! After scanning it into photoshop, I created some cool-colored shadowy areas to help differentiate between the layers of the cave and fixed the eyes of the characters since they didn't come out as I wanted them to in the drawing. As always, thoughts and critiques are much appreciated. Voting ends on August 21st at 10 a.m., so if you like it and want to vote, you can do so here. It's the same as the Florence contest, you vote through Facebook or Twitter (or both if you have both).
Anyway, now that I have contest-ing out of my system (though I was almost tempted by this upcoming Pendleton Ward-judged Adventure Time t-shirt design contest THAT BRENDAN REGULINSKI SHOULD TOTALLY DO SOMETHING FOR...HINT, HINT), my website is my main focus. The end of summer is nigh, therefore I must get cracking if I want to have the update completed by then. Fingers crossed!
Anyway, now that I have contest-ing out of my system (though I was almost tempted by this upcoming Pendleton Ward-judged Adventure Time t-shirt design contest THAT BRENDAN REGULINSKI SHOULD TOTALLY DO SOMETHING FOR...HINT, HINT), my website is my main focus. The end of summer is nigh, therefore I must get cracking if I want to have the update completed by then. Fingers crossed!
Chad, this is wonderful as usual! Of course ill go over an vote for it! And holy cow patties am i gonna make something for that adventure time contest! i was looking for a project to occupy some of my time.
ReplyDeleteAs for crit, you characters are as always exquisitely rendered in fabulous detail. But I think it is a bit too much. Like each one would make a fantastic pin-up, but they are each equally important in the composition, my eyes have nowhere to settle or travel. Your strategy of creating each individually and combining them together i think is making you focus on them too one-at-a-time and not as a whole piece. I actually like the sketch because the overlapping characters and structure looks like it is leading to more atmospheric perspective and depth in the piece. Maybe check out some cave or spelunking reference get a sense of subterranean atmosphere. Of course im saying all this because ive been obsessed with atmosphere and depth in painting lately, so take that as you will.
as usual, killin it bro, your self motivation is inspiring. And get your ass to NY.
The issue you have with the focal point is something I was afraid of, actually.
ReplyDeleteWhenever I make a layered composition like this, I usually have a bold line weight on the characters or objects in the front, and then have slightly thinner line weights on the objects as they recede to create a sort of visual hierarchy.
Since the concept of the show was these three races living in harmony, I wanted to recreate this visually and not have any one character be more bold or prominent than the other, but rather have them work together to create a continuous visual flow.
I tried to achieve this by pushing the characters to the forefront by leaving the background less textural and more flat color-wise, and arranging them in such a way that their movements, body language, and the direction they were looking would lead the eye through the image in a sort of 'S' curve.
I don't know if any of that made sense, but basically tl;dr version: I tried to do something different to further the concept of the piece. I do think I could have maybe incorporated the varying line weight throughout and that might have clarified things a little better visually.
But yes yes yes! Do that Adventure Time thing! You could do something super amazing for it. And as for my ass coming to New York: Damn right! I'll be on the next flight. Paying cash, first class -- sitting next to Vanna White.