The Big Island

This years' Hawaiian trip was to Hawaiʻi, The Big Island.  The island has very contrasting regions-rainforest, dry lava beds, active volcano craters!  The two biggest towns, Kona and Hilo, are populated by magnificent ancient banyan trees-which are all related apparently.

This giant banyan hangs over the north end of the beach at Kona on the west coast.

Of course huge hotels still dominate the shoreline.  The tourists stand out in their floral shirts.

We stayed further up the coast in Puako where the secluded beaches allow sea turtles to nest and interesting driftwood and tsunami debris form natural sculpture.

 Sea turtles are really tough to draw but endlessly fascinating-every evening I'd go down to the shore-line to sketch them resting after struggling to come ashore and drag themselves up the beach.

Flocks of wild turkeys ranged around the neighborhood. This guy was chasing them off the immaculate lawn of his beach front property one morning!

This beach house was in the shade of these twisted, sea-bleached trees and palms. Doesn't that hammock look inviting?

Aloha!

Portlandia

I got in some sketching over the Holidays up in Portland-one of my favourite American cities.

 View from the hotel window downtown

 The famous food trucks of Portland

 Cameron's Books-great for 2nd hand treasure hunting!

 Portland apparently has the highest number of strip clubs per capita!

Just visible behind The Living room cinema is 'The World's Greatest Bookstore'- Powell's Books

 The Art Museum had some impressive Greek sculpture in their 'Body Beautiful' exhibition

 The Modern Art section had a great range of sculpture; Hepworth, Moore, Rodin, Lipchitz

 And last but not least the people of Portland

Happy New Year 2013!

Happy New Year all. Here's a great sketch I received from an old animation pal in Paris, Mr Boris Jacq who spent Christmas curled up in front of the fire with my Gesture Drawing book.  I had some enquiries before the Holidays about purchasing copies so here's a reminder to email me at the address in my Blogger profile for more info.

Happy Holidays!

Storyboard Test

Almost three years ago, trying to find work at an American studio,  I did a story test for Dreamworks Animation. I was out of work at the time so I was able to devote myself to the task and threw myself into it.  I ultimately didn't get the gig but I had fun drawing those characters!

First of all I familiarized myself with the location of the sequence- Central Park Zoo.  I went through the first 'Madagascar' on dvd, freeze-framing the key locations and making layout studies & geographical notes.

Then reading through the script I start to jot down any thoughts, ideas for business and key images that strike me.

Then I thumb-nailed out the entire sequence-fleshing out the character business and camera angles

Lastly I worked it up on the 4x3 story board pads provided-I didn't get all the way through but had the end of the sequence covered in the thumbnails above.

The sequence as it exists here is not in the finished film although there is a climactic scene involving the animals being tranquilized.  (All characters are property of Dreamworks Animation.)