Character influences

My animated characters, tentatively named Aston and Martin, will be ready to post samples of on Friday. Just s few tweaks to the texture.

But here are some epics of what inspired their look.

Influences

The short is inspired by the look and humor '40' and '50's animated shorts ...



And of course, the live action and cartoon mix borrows some from Roger Rabbit ...

Props and backgrounds

For the last week, I've been working on animating, rendering and compositing in my props and backgrounds. I was hoping to be done by yesterday, but yesterday's work schedule was tossed in turmoil, so I expect to be done by tonight or more likely tomorrow.

Still I have my first complete pre-stylize shot. It'll get a drop shadow for the character to finish it off.

More background sketches

How my background are made

The backgrounds start with a hand-drawn illustrator that is scanned into the computer.




They are then assembled in Photoshop...

Then the shading is added, using a light, medium and dark grey...

A color layer is then created...
And the color layer is turned into an overlay, which combines it and the shading underneath.

Backgrounds

I wanted the backgrounds to have that '50's style Warner Bros look. Here they are.



What, no train you say? No raging locomotion? Well, that's going to be stock footage -- even it it means me, my Lionel engine and a HD cam.