The Time Machine: The Morlocks

Refining the Morlocks. This one came together quickly.

The Time Machine: Weena

Redesign of Weena using the orange skin of the Eloi. The hair now looks more like the 1960 movie.

The Time Machine: The Time Traveller

 

Redesign of The Time Traveller, ditching the tall lanky style for something more heroic and traditional.

The Time Machine: The Eloi

While still refining my sketches for THE TIME MACHINE project, I wasn't happy with the look of the characters other than the Morlocks and maybe Filby. So, when in doubt, ask yourself "What Would Disney Do?"

So after looking at some Disney animation (actually, line art coloring book drawings for TANGLED), I started to refine some of the look for Weena and the Eloi. Here, we have the basic Eloi. I pictured them being blonde, looking athletic but being somewhat frail in strength to the Morlocks and the Time Traveller. Their surroundings are like the Garden of Eden. The Time Traveller will start in England but, over the centuries, climate and continental shift will happen. Perhaps the British Isles will be part of continental Europe and now warmer.

The first image shows a blonde Eloi with a Caucasian skin color. But I wanted to play with skin color since the human species in the novel has split and evolved into the Morlocks and the Eloi. The Morlocks have some series changes so why not the Eloi?

The 2002 movie did get it right with the Eloi being a lighter brown in skin color. It's been said the future of the human species will be a combination of all today's current races. Who knows what the extreme future holds but what if the Eloi had a bronze or orange skin color? So I played with the color choices in Photoshop.

Above is the black and white art before color. The Eloi are not a very advanced race. They won't have the knowledge to work metal. So why the metal belt and bands? Well, some of what they receive from "the gods" are these metal bands. In reality, they are from the Morlocks and serve a purpose (to be revealed in a later post). Of course, this wasn't in the novel but will be part of my version of the story.

Another addition is a domesticated pet called a Perrogato. Every Disney-esque animation has to have sidekicks, right? And for those of you that know your Spanish, yes this creature is a combination of a Dog and a Cat. While the Human Species will have split, some animal species will have merged in my version. The Perrogato also serve a purpose to the Morlocks like the Eloi. (No, not as appetizers!)

The Tell-Tale Heart

Character designs for the main character in Edgar Allen Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart"

The Time Machine: The Early Stages

For this semester's intermediate animation class, the goal is to take a fairy tale or a classic yarn and develop it for a potential animation (feature film, television, or whatever). I chose H.G. Well's THE TIME MACHINE and spent this summer brushing up on my reference by re-reading the 1895 book along with seeing the 1960 and 2002 feature films. I still have to see the 1978 made for television movie which promises to be fairly terrible with the exception of a young Priscilla Barnes (pre-Three's Company).

My goals are to develop it like a feature film based mostly on the book and to stay away from the additions made in the George Pal and Simon Wells movies. The first step in animating it here is to develop some rough idea sketches before I bang them into shape. And that is what is posted here.

The main character is actually never named in the novel. H.G. Wells just refers to him as "The Time Traveller". I'm debating on if I should keep that aspect as well to set it apart from the 1960 and 2002 films which did name the character. The 1960 film alluded that the character's name as H.G. Wells and the movie TIME AFTER TIME from 1979 has the character H.G. Wells using a time machine to track down Jack the Ripper who has gone forward in time.

One of the challenges of this is to also not make it too close to DOCTOR WHO, which, IMO, was probably the best (but loosest) adaption of the Time Machine. I kind of knew that in the back of my head with the use of a time machine but many of the different incarnations of the Doctor played with a retro 1800s look. What really hammered home the Who comparisons was the novel's lack of names for many of the 1895 characters as they are referenced by their title like "the doctor" and "the mayor" or "the psychologist". DOCTOR WHO does the same with their Time Lords usually (but not always) taking up titles like "The Doctor", "The Master", or "The Monk".

Above are my early sketches for the protagonist. I had some other ones as well that were not nearly as successful. I'm thinking that another aspect that might distinguish it from other adaptions is to give it a Steam Punk look, something that is definitely "in" with some cosplayers today. I also knew I want the character to be tall and thin.

One character that did get a name in the novel was Filby, the neighbor. I pictured him as short and round. A good contrast to The Time Traveller. It is tough to get away from the 1960 version of Filby but I do want to incorporate the handlebar mustache, which was popular in 1895, but might not work well for the lead character. That is also Filby at the very top of this post.

The Time Traveller's Eloi friend in the future is Weena. From the novel, I picture her being small, frail, and blonde. I'm going to try for an elf-like quality with the eyes.

The baddies of the novel are the Morlocks. In the novel, they are short and not that strong. There is just a bunch of them always grabbing at the protagonist. I'll make them smaller but want to give them larger upper body muscle since they are laborers. The eyes will be big, sensitive to light, and almost like expanded pupils to let in what small light they have down below (unlike a certain 2002 movie). I'm still playing with designs. I do like the look of the middle one on the right but I have to keep in mind that these creatures are descended from today's human race, just as the Eloi are.

And above is how all these roughly designed characters look compared to each other. But, expect changes.

More Moleskine Sketching

More sketching from the Moleskine book. Again, loose stuff to be cleaned up and perhaps inked later.

Moleskine Sketching

It's a new semester of animation, I started a new sketchbook. But I already had this new Moleskine sketchbook that I bought last spring. It turns out I have one with some good drawing paper when I need a watercolor paper one for class. So I'll have at least three sketchbooks going (the standard one will be a spiral bound one).

After doing very little drawing during the summer other than for my teaching class, I was a little rusty so I wanted to get things moving. The opening piece below covers two pages and shows some stiff figure work.

While waiting for a doctor's appointment on Friday morning, I took the book with me and did some loose sketching. Below is one of the nicer head drawings along with the opening drawing above.

The stiff opening page drawings were not to my liking so I stayed up one night and just sketched to loosen up. Just me, a pencil, the Moleskine, and Turner Classic Movies on in the background. Many of the upcoming pencil sketches are loose and unfinished so I plan to come came later and clean them up and maybe ink some as well.

Animation 166

Summer is ending and colleges are starting up again so I signed up for the intermediate animation course to continue to learn how to animate and also to keep me drawing. Last semester was successful in that I filled up a whole sketchbook in four months. So, to start a new class, I've started a new sketchbook and a new cover page featured above.

Terri Nunn & Berlin Live at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk

Santa Cruz, California has some great music in the park programs during the summer like many cities around the country. The difference is their park is the beach right off the Beach Boardwalk. The shows are free and while many of the acts tend to be the aging rocker bands, they are almost always bands one has heard of.

I'm usually good for one show a year since the drive is about 2 hours + for me. So the show of choice this summer is one of my favorite 80s band, Terri Nunn and Berlin. I've seen them many times but realized I haven't seen them in about 10 years. Terri still looks and sounds great though.

The original band members, other than Nunn, have long moved on except for a brief MTV episode of BANDS REUNITED a few years back. What that show didn't show was Terri was still touring as Berlin but with a new younger cast of supporting musicians. But now, ten years later, even those band members have moved on for a new cast.

Terri Nunn had commented that this was the band's first gig at the Boardwalk. I think she liked the venue.

The 2nd set of two shows was after the sun had gone down and a full moon had risen behind the stage. While a little tricky with the blurry images, this did provide for some atmospheric photos.

In all, it was a great day and night of music, food, & friends picnicing at the beach. A great day!

Strange Worlds of Watercolor

More old art! Watercolor with some light colored pencils to firm up some areas. Watercolor use to be my "bread and butter".  Now, I haven't picked up a brush since 2002.

SDCC Souvenir Book Art

Another old piece for the San Diego Comic-Con Souvenir book back in 2000 when the original Flash and Green Lantern were celebrating their 60th birthday. They were not doing color back then for the book so I added it later.

All Hail the King!!

I haven't done enough drawing this summer and I've been getting the itch to do some more comic book work. Especially after Comic-Con. So I dug up this old piece from when I use to submit artwork to SDCC's Souvenir Book.

 Jon B. Cooke, then of TwoMorrow's COMIC BOOK ARTIST magazine liked the piece and asked if he could run it in his magazine (gratis except for a comp copy which I never got). Yay! I'm published! Glad I put my old e-mail in the credits. Now, Comic-Con wouldn't do that. I guess they don't want artists promoting themselves when they got all those Hollywood movies to promote instead.

Toys & Statues at Comic-Con

I'm not a sculptor. I don't think I've even tried. But I've been really enjoying sculpture for the last 10 years or so when I visit art museums. There is something about seeing it in three dimensions and from many angles, something you can't capture from a photograph at one angle. And there is something just more permanent about a work in marble.

I look at many of the toys and statues I see at the San Diego Comic-Con as sculptors working in the pop culture forum. Some are fairly basic and certainly do not rival anything close to the great master sculptors of the past. But there are some surprisingly complex busts and statues out there as well.

Here is a selection of toys and statues of various degrees of complexity.