Peter Rabbit Burrow Paintings

Now that Peter Rabbit has started airing on Nick Jr, I'm able to share some of the paintings that I did that are hanging up in Peter's burrow throughout the series:

Peter Rabbit

Younger versions of Mrs. Rabbit and her brother Mr. Bouncer

Mr. Bouncer and Baby Benjamin

Scenery from the Lake District (final version is burrow is in blue tone)

Scenery from the Lake District (final version in burrow is in red tone)

A drawing (by Peter) of Jemima Puddleduck

Unused - Radish Farmer Rabbits

Revised Model sheets

Some revised model sheets for my film, with Flash versions of the characters coloured.

New Forest Backgrounds

 Some Background concepts I've been working on, to get the forest looking more mystical.

Watercolours IN SPACE!

Some more background concepts for my film:

Everything sort of fell into place with this one when I realised my Photoshop watercolour brushes were dead ringers for continents ~ one was the shape of Africa, another bore an eerie resemblance to Asia and Eastern Europe, and so forth.
I made the stars by inverting some rock textures and overlaying them on the sky.

It really makes you think there just aren't enough watercolours of space, no?

This is another for the park woodlands, and is in fact nothing to do with outer space at all.
But I do like how it turned out.
Some grapey purple sneaking in there, like a Disney villain I do like my purples and greens!

Alva's Magic Wand

An atmosphere sketch for my film.  
As you can see, I wasn't lying when I said things had changed! It still features Alva, just much younger than she was originally. 

This is part of an action sequence - I drew inspiration (on the recommendation of Gemma and Craig) from the wonderfully absurd special moves from videogames and cartoons of our youth.  I was thinking of something mixing magical-girl style flashiness with over-the-top action, and we began  discussing shots of the world from space, where a flash of light soars out into the universe. 
My favourite of these was the complete ridiculousness of FFVIII's Blasting Zone: 

Apologies for the grainy quality, but it was on the PSone.

Also, here's a sketch of an angry flying panda. 

Researching for my strange critters, I came across the awesome art of Aaron Martin, aka Angry Woebot, who as it turns out, specializes in disgruntled pandas.

One of my favourite pieces by him.
Check him out here: http://fatsniper.tumblr.com/AaronWoesMartin

Panda-ing to the Audience

More concept work for my film.

Now with Pandas!

Yes, it's the same film. Only different.

Little Alva dressed as a fairy - this was based on memories of my childhood. 

As a kid,  I would dress up in home-made costumes and imagine I was off in some magical world. 

And yes, by 'as a kid' I mean 'two months ago'.

The Almighty Rattle

Phht, well this makes perfect sense.
The amount of sense that this picture makes, I can't even begin to describe it.

My God, I'm tired.

More Film Sketches

As always, I am striding purposefully forward into the abyss. I just tend to keep working until someone tells me enough already.

No one seems to believe me when I say that my newer drafts of the script have replaced a shoe with a baby, thus solving many plot holes.

So, I felt it was high time to post some more sketches, proving the shoe really is a baby now:

I have named him Bróg.

It makes me want the end credits just to be all the characters dancing to Dance Magic Dance, though thankfully copyright laws prohibit such nonsense.

Here also are my newest concepts for the forest, combining digital painting and overlays of my photographs from Bushy Park:

Background Concept Sketches

Some rough colour sketches of possible backgrounds for my film:

I've always found creating backgrounds quite difficult, so I tried out a lot of stuff here. 

Personally, I like the purple one at the bottom.

Also, here's another sketch of the Queen, this time from the front:

More Fairy Concept Sketches

Some sketches that sprung out of my adventures in colour:

Another sketch of the fairy Queen, finally she's looking how I imagined her.
I was really inspired by the artwork of Elric of Melnibone, a series of fantasy novels. Yoshitaka Amano did a lot of work on this series, and his artwork from this period is very sharp; set in dark fantasy landscapes with figures shrouded in or emerging from the shadows.

I still have to figure out which fairy Queen she is: Titania seems too overdone.  So will she be a Gloriana, Meabh or Lorelai? Decisions, decisions.

Here's another sketch of Alva, now in sepia tones.

Alva Colour Tests

A test of possible colour schemes for Alva.
Originally, the character was going to be totally monochrome, but I thought that choosing a bold, simple colourscheme would create more visual punch.
I love working with colour, especially rich, vibrant colour combinations.

Film Concept Art

I've been doing some more early sketches for my 4th year film:

I am getting closer to the look I want for the film, and nailing down how the main players will look.

Designs of trees:

These trees are based on the art nouveau style to fit with the general period of the piece. 

Some sketches of my main character, Alva:

Alva is a kind of goofy character, not very elegant, with big expressions. 

Test designs of supporting characters

"The Fairy Queene":

The Queen of the fairies needed to be a contrast to Alva, very refined and regal.

Since earlier sketches, I've pared her features down, giving her less wild expressions than other characters.

A pixie/imp:

This character is very small, but I didn't want him to be too cutesy, because that wouldn't fit with his cheeky, somewhat abrasive demeanor. I think he came out looking a tad like a scruffier cousin of the Rice Krispies elves...

More Movie Concept art

Here is some more concept artwork for my upcoming film, some visual tests:

This is a test render of a background I've been working on - a forest. It's a very a different setting to the Art Deco city, but I'm trying to keep some visual cohesiveness by taking inspiration from Art Nouveau, Deco's more flowery cousin. The trees were designed to be stylised, using real trees as a basis then simplifying their shapes.

These are some quick character sketches of another character (and small fairy).  She is based on Cate Blanchette (as Galadriel, naturally), and a little of Julia Roberts too. Her colour scheme was inspired by artwork of Elric of Melniboné, the main character in a series of novels by Michael Moorcock.

Early background test

Here is a render of a test background, that I've been working on for a while for my film:

I like using Maya to plot out a background, as it feels like I'm building something in three dimensions. It helps me to get a better feel of the world I'm building.
This is just a rough version blocking in the main architecture - for the city scenes, I decided to go for a Art Deco design, as it works really well in CG.

I overlayed a few textures over it, to get the feel I want for the finished film ~ a sepia-toned city.

Early Concept Artwork

So, I've been dreaming up ideas for my fourth year film - the big one, as they say.
I won't reveal too much yet (not least because so much is subject to change), but I thought I'd give you a sneak peek at some early concept artwork:

This was me trying to get the style of the setting down. It's a mock magazine cover, based on the covers of Vogue from the 1920's. 
I plan on making several of these for use in a background, where they'll be stuck onto a wall.

Here are some sketches of flapper girls - kind of rough colour tests. (Old-white features quite a bit in the colour palettes).
For these, I looked at lots of Hollywood starlets from the pre-colour era - (these girls were mainly inspired by Clara Bow and a young Angela Lansbury).

Hopefully I'll have some more early concepts to show soon.