The Merry Melony Production Blog

‘Nother panel exploration. Somebody tell this girl to stop checking her cell phone while encased in a frozen ceiling.

Work in progress. Still rough colors and finishing linework.

This is my 2nd “panel exploration”, an exercise at how the final product might look, including panel design and text design coming soon.

Introducing a new character…Big Kitty!

Our heroine, Melony! Learned a lot from doing this. Made a few mistakes in shading, linework, and perspective that I hopefully won’t make again. Overall I hope the shading will be a little bit more simplified than this in production images. Up next, expression sheet!

More progress…already wishing I had done some things differently but this is it…time for some forward momentum!

Back from Vacation and time to do some “final” art, starting with Melony. I may make minor adjustments to this, but probably not, as I need to quit dicking around and move forward. My time in Florida lead me to some good storywriting, but overall left me with a sense of Holy-Shit-This-Is-Going-To-Take-Way-Longer-Than-I-Anticipated. That said, the overall story arc(s) are complete, though only as rough ideas. Melony’s character bio is nailed down, and soon her look design will be as well. A fully detailed and colored turnaround is next, and then a new expression sheet! Excite!

A friend asked me what kind of reference I look at when drawing modelsheets and expression sheets, so I thought I’d post some of my favorites here. Good reference is always a must…I have many of these pasted up around my workspace. Even the great Glen Keane believes in learning to draw through “osmosis” and having inspiring works posted around you at all times. If you’re ever stuck, just search “your favorite cartoon character here” and “modelsheet” or “turnaround” in google!

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/27000000/Walt-Disney-Model-Sheets-Belle-walt-disney-characters-27056648-1466-1200.jpg

http://www.traditionalanimation.com/wp-content/gallery/the-road-to-el-dorado/roadmodelsheet2.jpg

http://meridiandream.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/chel2.jpg

http://dreamworks.animationarchive.net/Feature%20Films/The%20Road%20To%20El%20Dorado/Model%20Sheets/miguel1.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_oR7sYJzWZ1k/TNoEqWhWNSI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/ZqFcAA12Q3M/s1600/flynnFacial_02a.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_oR7sYJzWZ1k/TNoCH1vTP6I/AAAAAAAAAcI/wHIoK8ZwMZI/s1600/rapunzelFACE.jpg

http://animationarchive.net/Feature%20Films/Beauty%20and%20the%20Beast/Model%20Sheets/BELLE05.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5121/5316619470_bc56e2be71_z.jpg

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/27000000/Walt-Disney-Model-Sheets-Princess-Ariel-walt-disney-characters-27044368-1200-1172.jpg

http://animationarchive.net/Feature%20Films/The%20Little%20Mermaid/Model%20Sheets/ARIEL05.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_oR7sYJzWZ1k/TNoB5KB9JFI/AAAAAAAAAcE/4xgSX-_NriQ/s1600/rapunzelFACE_2.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ryh07DcsWoM/TN-YqAc8qtI/AAAAAAAAA78/5OTv1cWJxrc/s1600/Rapunzel_Baby.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_oR7sYJzWZ1k/TNoC4gKmxxI/AAAAAAAAAcM/UAUNbDs8PEo/s1600/rapunzelMISC_001.jpg

Some expressions. More on the way!

My vacation has started and so it’s time to buckle down and get serious on some storywriting. BRING IT ON!

Quick environment sketch. It’s still too early in the story development stage to be locking down environments, this is more of a look experiment. This particular environment may or may not appear in the final story. Just playing with ideas visually because that’s what keeps me going inbetween doing research.

The idea here is that this is Melony and her sister’s safe haven, in a (very) tiny abandoned observatory. One of the central visual themes of this story is technology. Nature plays a very important role that we don’t see towards the second half of the story. In the beginning, Melony’s world is almost scrapyard-esque filled with wires, tubes, electric parts, and other manmade structures. It should feel very dead, cold, and old. It all plays very important roles in symbolism that I hope to explore more thoroughly in the coming months.

Some creature design, finally! Rabbit takes multiple forms, this is just one of them. Will color this soon. Happy Friday! 

All this developing Melony into a well rounded character means that yes, she needs to be able to smile.

Learned a lot from this test.

1. Separate line work into FG, MG and BG layers (duhhhhhhh)
2. Spend more time on the rough sketch to really define the lighting direction and blacks (blacks feel very uneven and unconfident here)
3. Don’t deviate from original sketch where it’s already working. (I think I deviated a bit too much and either muddled things or made them less interesting)

Here’s a rough sketch of Melony’s sister. (currently nameless other than “Sis”.) I hope to give it the full inking and color treatment. I thought it was time to start exploring both environment and “panel” look.

I have become so enthralled with the way Sam Kieth (yeah it’s spelled that way) does his panels in The Maxx. They are dynamic, expressive, and anything but ordinary. Depending on the mood and environment, they change from simple to outlines to having an actual presence…being made up of sticks, leaves, or perhaps splatters and broken bits of whatever. I figured I should start experimenting with this sooner rather than later, so after several attempts my panels feel less like I am just biting off of him and have a bit of my own flavor. But for reals, the man can draw! I ordered Volume 1 of the Maxx anthology but now I am going to have to get the whole thing, as well as his other comics….

I just finished Scott McCloud’s “Reinventing Comics” and it gave me a lot to think about. I didn’t find it to be nearly as all-around educational as his first book, “Understanding Comics”, but it was still pretty good. In fact, if you can only read some of it, I would say just fast forward to the last 50 pages. There is some mind blowing speculation about how comics will be in the future — particularly digital comics. He wrote the book in 2000, so it sometimes feels dated, but other times he is right on point. I particularly loved the way he talked about abandoning the concept of “pages” in digital format. If we have the technology to make the comic one giant flowing wall mural, why not do that? Or even better, have the comic zig zag in different dimensions and bring it in through 3D planes? Still dealing with panels, still dealing with the space inbetween the panels, but there is a lot of room to revolutionize the way they come on to screen, the way they leave the screen, and so on.  It’s a little daunting, because the possibilities are endless, but I want Merry Melony to be anything but “next page” and “previous page”.

The original intention was to format the comic for Ipad resolution, and to eventually have MM on the Ipad. But now I’m rethinking it so that I could just focus formatting it to PC screens. Maybe there is a way to effectively do both. I dunno!