And then this happened...

Dream Doctor + Dream Doctor Room

I forgot to attach this to one of the other posts

It's him working away in his burrow

Dream Doctor Room

I enjoyed this part of the project even more than I did making the character. Dream doctoring was such an abstract concept, so I really got to explore. On the bookshelf you see bottles of stuff. I put everything from tea to gum to glitter to cotton balls in them, but mostly glitter. I had to buy an ugly southwestern sweater on Etsy so I could chop it up to make the rug. The posters on the walls and the labels on the books and bottles are in an invented language made of  alchemy symbols and other symbols from nonsense sciences. In the corner is a patient's bench covered in rolled paper like you might find in a doctor's office. The lights are in the shape of a dreamcatcher, but that's a little hard to notice. He's got a dreamcatcher staff and a few cookbooks as well. I even stuffed feathers and paper into the crooks of his nest and sewed him a little pillow of sweater scraps. In my head he's a mixture of a chemist, a home chef, and a witch doctor. If I was going to make this into a bigger scale project one day,  I would add in more props that would explore the contrast between mechanical and organic, and scientific and nonsensical. Say, a tiara made of bugs that sits next to a stethoscope. 

But anyway, here are the final images.

And here's the color palette I tried to stick to:

Dream Doctor Sculpture

This project has been my baby for the better part of two months. Even though has been killing me to not post any of the preliminary work, I wanted to present it as one cohesive package instead of a bunch of disjointed parts. So finally...

This is the Dream Doctor. He lives in a mud burrow in the desert and fixes the dreams of the animals that come to see him. I approached this as if I was going to make a feature film, so he has a backstory. He runs his business as usual until a plague of nightmares strikes the desert community that correspond with a series of ugly murders. Because of his familiarity with dreams, the desert animals nominate him to go on an adventure to account for the mystery of the nightmare murders. In order to save the town, he has to overcome many obstacles, including his social awkwardness and detachment from people. It's a fun time!

This sketch was from a LONG time ago. I knew I wanted to do a bird, but I didn't know which. I investigated.

I settled on the Desert Hoopoe because of it's plumage and did some sketches. 

Next I tried to work out the design of the body with silhouettes.

I started to reach a conclusion...

And I tried out different faces...

And this is what I presented to the class.

But then somebody gave me a genius comment. I was looking for the reason I wasn't satisfied with the design, and somebody in my class summed it up perfectly:

"Your character looks like it belongs in a nicer world. Maybe not as dark of a story."

And I was like, "Time to make it ugly. Aw yes."

So this is where I went next. 

Then we had a brief Bas Relief project to show our character's face riddled with emotion:

And finally, here's how he turned out:

The sad part is that the more I think about this character, the more I want to make a movie version of it. When I'm bored and looking for a movie to watch, I itch to watch the movie of this story. Oh well... He's alive in my head. 

And go ahead and check out the Dream Doctor Room if you want to see more of him. 

Trojan Horse Drawing

The final Perspective assignment of the year was conceptual. We chose two opposing groups with one offering a Trojan Horse to the other. I chose pirate skeletons giving cursed treasure to conquistadors. The piece also had to be dyadic, or consisting of two colors only. 

Here's the final:

And here's a step by step of the process:

1. Thumbnail drawing

2. Blown up drawing of thumbnail

3. Exploring props and character design

4. Color and Value Studies

5. Line Drawing

6. Line Drawing with Value

7. Final Line Drawing with Value and Color

Piercy and Barnacle

First we went to Jungle Gardens to sketch some animals. Then we chose one and made it into a character. Then we created a human counterpart to be his or her owner. 

Character:

Barnacle the Zen Flamingo

Process Work:

We also had to write a hook statement and character profile for each character.

Character Profile Barnacle

Occupation: best friend, sobriety coach, zen master, occasional dock hand

Baseline Personality descriptors: optimistic, patient, loyal, sweet, oblivious, sincere

Situation/Conflict: He has all the poker chips and is unaware of the building tension

Emotion: excitement, surprise, confidence

Reaction: In disbelief that he’s doing so well

Basic Shape: modified tube body, slightly pear shaped, triangular wings, oval head, rail thin legs

Background: In a flock of 700, Barnacle never felt very special. But as unassuming as he seems, he’s had special adventures. Through various experience getting separated from his flock, he’s built quite a record. Barnacle travelled to a monastery and became the pet of some monks, where he learned about Zen. Another time he got separated he was blown aboard a Disney Cruise ship and took pictures with tourists. And another time, he wandered into the Miami beachside hideout of a major drug ring and escaped with his life and an accidental clumsy dusting of cocaine. Finally though, he ran into Piercy on a Florida Port dock, and he became Barnacle’s only friend and source of usefulness. Barnacle feels as if it’s his purpose to straighten Piercy out and put him on a more zen path, and he believes that if he is persistent, he will eventually prevail.

Character Profile Piercy

Occupation: Dock worker, fisherman

Baseline Personality descriptors: angry, aggressive, clumsy, reserved, resentful, smelly,

 old, dirty, crude, vulgar

Situation/Conflict: He is losing the poker game to a flamingo and he’s getting pissed off

Emotion: Smelly sailor rage

Reaction: Plotting his attack, ready to pounce either on Barnacle or just smash up

the room

Basic Shape: Like a flamingo, pear shaped with a pot belly, skinny upperarms and legs,

Fat forearms, oval face, beaklike nose

Background: Piercy had nobody in his life until Barnacle came along. Barnacle, separated from his flock, found Piercy curled up in a ball drunk by the docks. Mistaking him as a flamingo, he nestled in and when Piercy awoke he found a friend. Although Piercy at first went to great lengths to get rid of Barnacle, he stuck on relentlessly and earned his name. Piercy does not talk much about his past, but it involves growing up on the streets, getting kicked out the Navy twice, getting arrested a few dozen times for public intoxication, and no relationships lasting longer than a one night stand. 

Hook:

“Like many nights before, Piercy awoke groggily on the rough, unsmoothed wood of the dock alcove. He sat up slowly, the putrid taste of vomit still in his mouth from the night before. Like any similar morning, his head ached and his back creaked. Yet this morning, he looked down with crusty eyes to see a little pink beak nestled into his armpit. He was cuddling a flamingo.”

Final Image:

Interior Environment:

The kitchen galley of a ship

Freshman Animation Reel

Here's all my stuff from this semester.