DVD Menu Art – Sammy J in The Forest of Dreams
Mar1
Not too long ago, dear readers, I was given the opportunity to create the art for a DVD of Sammy J and Heath McIvor’s ah-mazing show Sammy J in The Forest of Dreams. I’d previously done the poster art for the show, as well as a bunch of backdrop art that were used in the show itself, meaning a lot of the heavy lifting was already done as the look and feel of it was already there. What was left to do was to consolidate that look and feel into an attractive DVD package, that included animated DVD menus, cover art, credits and disc art. I’d never done anything like it before, but I was up for the challenge.
The menu art proved to be the most work. After a meeting with a honcho over at Control Entertainment (the DVD production house putting together the Forest DVD), the possibility of having an animated menu system on the DVD was thrown on the table. I wouldn’t be doing any of the animating myself (which is good, because I wouldn’t know how), but I would be providing the animators with the finished art, ready to stick in their animating machines. The idea was to have the “silhouette” backdrops from the show as the menu backgrounds, with each layer (sky, stars, background trees, foreground trees) on separate “planes” that would shift in a 3D environment as a virtual camera panned from menu to menu. It sounded too goshdarned awesome to be true, but I got to work putting together the art, pumped by the promise of seeing my art come to life.
We figured it would be easiest for the animators if the menu art was provided in one enormous “scene”, with each element on a separate layer, so that the animators could fly around it as they please, without worrying about any of the seams showing. Once we’d decided on the number of menu screens required, I put together a quick mock-up of the menu system:
Once this was locked off, I got to work on the final art. Whilst a bunch of the elements already existed from the backdrops I did for the show, quite a bit of it was created from scratch, including the “chapter tree” that had little chapter selection screens hanging from the branches – yeah, I thought it was a nice touch too. Here’s the final art (click for full-size):
I sent off the final art, with a bunch of notes on how I’d like to see it animated, which included leaves blowing in the wind, drifting clouds and buzzing fireflies. I knew most of this stuff probably wouldn’t make it in, but I thought we might as well ask for the moon and stars (quite literally – narf!). The animators did an amazing job to get the work done in the very tight time constraints we were working in. To their credit, they sent through video files of the work-in-progress for approval and feedback. It looked great. Unfortunately I’m unable to post any of the final animated menu here, so you’ll just have to buy the DVD to check it out!
Speaking of which – shameless plug – the DVD is now available at stores like JB Hi-Fi and online at the Laughing Stock website (the fine folks who produced Forest).
Later!
Link & Image o’ the Week for 31/01/2010
Jan0
This week’s Link o’ the Week is a great how-to blog from Rad Sechrist, a stunning cartoonist who I first came across in one of the Flight anthologies, and who now works as a storyboard artist at DreamWorks Animation. He’s got some fantastic drawing tips on his blog. Highly recommended if you want to push your cartooning a little further. Rad also has a personal blog which he updates often.
This week’s Image o’ the Week is a poster I designed for Canadian Improv Comedy group PROJECTproject (I also designed the logo that appears on their website).
Look forward to some new work I have to show off this week!
Ricketts Lane
Nov6
A while ago I got given a job to illustrate a poster for friends/professional humour-edians Sammy J and Heath McIvor. I’ve done design/illustration work for these dudes before, both individually (this and this) and collectively (this), and they’ve always been really fun jobs, mainly because they give me a lot of freedom and trust me to deliver the goods. Plus they’re also amazing collaborators, and true aficionados of the creative process.
Anyway, they’re currently developing a new stage show together called “Ricketts Lane”. The pitch given to me was basically thus: “Sammy J (a tax lawyer) and Randy (a purple puppet) live together in a house. Sitcom-style shenanigans ensue.” It was described to me as a show containing all the familiar sitcom tropes, but with a darker edge. Actually, here’s a direct quote from an e-mail:
It’s kind of a melting pot of 90’s sitcoms with a HBO twist. Darker than your average sitcom… Tony Danza meets Tony Soprano… Jerry Seinfeld doing time in OZ… Basil Fawlty running the Gem Saloon in Deadwood… Blossom smoking crack in the high rises of Baltimore and then getting fisted by officer McNolte…
The reference to The Wire hooked me and I got to work conceptualising. At first, the job was going to be mainly design-based. There would be little illustration, if any. The guys were going to get a photo-shoot done based on my concept, and I’d put the poster together.
Here are a few of the concepts I sketched up:
The “couch” concept proved a favourite, so I refined it a little and gave Randy a drinking problem:
The next step was to wait for the photo-shoot and then play with the results, but an unexpected deadline arose, and a poster needed to be completed within a couple of days. With a photo-shoot out of the question (Randy the purple puppet was in a crate being shipped from the UK to Australia), the guys decided to go for a fully illustrated poster. The couch concept was still a go, but now there was a matter of determining the style of illustration.
After a few spotty chats over Skype, Sammy pointed to the drawing I’d done of Christopher Walken not long ago as the best direction to head. I decided to sketch up a few different versions of Sammy’s face, to see which way to push it.
There was the more serious, “realistic” direction:
And the more “cartoony” direction:
I was personally pushing for the “cartoony” version, probably because it was the safer, more familiar option to me. Doing a finished illustration in the “realistic” style was a little daunting to me, especially with such a tight deadline.
I decided to rough up the couch concept in the more cartoony style in a hope to win them over to it:
But the realistic direction won them over and so I got to work putting it together.
Here’s the rough I used to base the final illustration on:
I got Sammy’s likeness down pretty well, but Randy was still a little wonky. I refined him in the linework:
Went for a some hatched shading before adding colour:
Here’s what it looked like after some colour:
After finishing the illustration, it was time to put together the poster proper. There were a few options for the title text:
And finally, here’s the finished poster. The wallpaper pattern was designed by me and based on some cool vintage patterns I found online. The carpet was made from a photograph I took of the curtains in my room. Click for a larger version:
The space down the bottom is for show/venue details. The guys are doing a the first run of Ricketts Lane at the Adelaide Fringe Festival, followed by the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Tickets aren’t on sale yet, but I’ll be sure to post links when they are. I highly recommend seeing these guys live. They’ve got an amazing chemistry on stage which is backed up by really clever writing. In short, funny.
That’s it! Was a great pleasure to work on this job. It pushed my skills further than they’d been before, which I’m very grateful for. Thanks to Sammy and Heath for trusting me to do my best!
Who is Shiggy?
Shiggy is Joe Sciglitano, Aussie illustrator & designer.