I get excited about seeing other's dreams come to life, working with them to visualize what's inside their mind. Here are some samples of projects in the works.
I'm a huge Don Bluth fan. I've learned about shape design from great animators like him. Analyzing existing characters helps to build our own.
When I design a character or prop, I keep in mind the overall shape it will have: triangles for speed and danger, circles for beauty and calm, squares for strong and slow. Of course you can combine these shapes to get a mix of all three.
When drafting up cinematic scenes, I start with character studies first. Then I place those characters in an environment, get in the mind frame of a cinematographer, and "move" the camera around in my mind's eye, looking for the best angle for the story.
After choosing an angle, I will do value studies of the same shot, to capture the right mood.
In this example, I started with some thumbnails of my setting (backstage of a theatre). I realized I had need for an enormous armoire prop, so I got more detailed with it.
I rely on photo bashing and color & lighting work in some cases.
