Drawn-TOGETHER: Staines News Reporters CARTOONED

THE IDEA BEHIND THE TOON

I could have just cartooned them all with no real direction, but I find it is always better if everything has a reason for being there and it has something amusing going off aswell as a situation.

Whilst thinking of them all together reporting I had an image of them on a Scooby Doo style of story.... So I would have to create 'The Mystery Machine' in CGI and then modify the design so it was tagged up as the STAINES NEWS VAN, complete with satellite on top. This was quite fun to do, even if it would be hidden in the background of the picture.

Now I had to find a reason for them all being out of the van, otherwise I have them all sitting on the front seat and it's squashed up and messy as there are FIVE of them in total. A good idea was to have the van crashed into a tree in the background.... and why not make the tree the same tree as Spelthorne Council use as their logo.

Now I had them out the van and with a good reason I had to find some THREAT for the situation, which they would have to go to... that was easy.. a nice haunted castle.

I placed everything in a dark, moonlit hilly scene with the van on a hill in the background and added a bunch of effects, shadows and mist to create some atmosphere and defocusing to the graphic... otherwise it' all VERY harsh, which is a common irritation with CGI work.

THE CHARACTER DESIGN OF THE REPORTERS

I was lucky with the group of five reporters as they all have real character about them, but how was I going to toon them all in a Scooby Doo'esq style seeing as they are all FAR to old for doing that kind of thing.... yet again the answer was simple.

I decided to toon them all as 10-12 year olds on an adventure, kind of like those 'coming of age' style movies I grew up with in the 1980's. That was everything blended and made a lot more sense as well as adding to the picture in general. Then it was just a case of getting the design of the characters right so they all looked right together and then just figure out who is wearing what. This is followed by arranging them all so they fit into the scene properly in proportion. I didn't know how tall these reporters were, but that was solved by making them all pre-teens.... I love defuse problem solving:)

Below you will see the photo's I had to work off, the base line of the character and then a closeup of them also. These are still un-tweaked at this stage... more work goes into the eyes and some after effects before they are complete.

THE FINAL TOON

I created 2 versions of the final design, one which is classed as the line version, where you have lots of pen strokes and lines all over the place, marking out expressions, creases etc and a second one which is a PURE version, which is done with only shading and no lines... the style changes a lot when this is done.

Some people like the LINED VERSION and other the PURE VERSION... I leave it to you to decide.

You can see more of my graphics on my online folio, which is updated quite often considering it's only me doing all the work.

Feel free to commission me or better still have me as you in-house designer. I am good, fast, imaginative, know my stuff, know various styles, learn fast and make a GREAT coffee.... also I am a LOT cheaper than hiring a whole team of people :)

::RANDOM FACT::
Actually not that random... The whole illustration above was done within 24 hours from start to finnish! plus I went shopping, slept and all the general LIFE stuff that 'Humans' do.

... I didn't sleep in Tesco's before you ask!