Stage 2 inspiration - 7 deadly sins

I just gathered together some character references from existing cartoons, films and books in hope that it would help me later on with my characters that will represent the seven deadly sins. 

Mike Teavee - Charlie and the chocolate factory. Mike is a little boy who is obsessed with violent video games and television programs and refuses to come away from his spot which evidently is in front of his telly. This restricted life was encouraged by his parents as they thought that it would be easy to find him if he is always in the same place, they could also just set down his food right next to the telly, what they didn't realize was that a long exposure to the fictional violence would soon rub off on a young Mike. This little boy always has a scowl on his face and when he did eventually leave the house to go to the chocolate factory he brought with him no less than 18 fake cowboy pistols as he was clearly way too attached to some of these films.

Daffy Duck - Looney Tunes.
Daffy Duck is one of the classics from Warner Bro's cartoons, he is usually partnered up with Buggs Bunny and the pair really do make for some good comedy. Daffy is always aggressive towards Buggs and the other looney tunes, this is probably because Buggs gets all of the fame and Daffy is always left with an anvil getting dropped on his head. Despite Daffy being incredibly aggressive he would have a hard job bringing harm to anyone because he is pretty weak, also his mouth usually gets him in trouble with the stronger looney tunes in which case Daffy runs away like a little girl. 

Kevin - Ed, Edd n Eddy.
Kevin is the neighborhood bully who is always trying to impress the girls by acting like a complete and utter jackass to the three main kids of the show (Ed, Edd and Eddy).
Kevin always wears a baggy green jumper and what look like black tracksuit bottoms which to me shows that he is dedicated to sports and maybe wants to show off his athleticism to the girls. Kevin fits into the stereotypical jock character by always carrying around a football and showing a keen interest in working on his 'ride' which in this case is a chopper pedal bike. Kevin is easily annoyed and is forever after the three Ed's for scamming the other kids of the cul-de-sac and is often shown with a red face and sometimes even steam coming from his ears. 

Sid - Toy Story. This little cretin is one of the most spiteful kids throughout the fictional world. Sid is a psychopath child who likes to take apart toys, he then rebuilds them using jumbled up parts from other toys to create these deformed creatures. That's pretty creepy under normal circumstances but what makes it even worse is that Sid is from a universe where toys can talk and most probably feel what is happening to them. Sid isn't the best looking but he doesn't help by scowling all of the time; baring his braced teeth like a possessed dog. 


SLOTH 

Garfield- Garfield and friends. This cat is the epitome of lazy! all he thinks about is food and he just sits around in front of the television all day. Garfield is incredibly moody when his stomach is empty and he shudders at the thought of doing anything productive. I find Garfield's personality suiting as cats do often laze about and eat a lot of food and i think that humanizing him by allowing him to eat like a human gave him that extra level of laziness. Garfield also complains about Mondays as a normal person would on their way to their job which helped people connect with him and relate to him.   

Dwight Conrad - Futurama. This little guy is a smart and cunning child from the 31st century and is always seen playing pranks on his father Hermes. Dwight never wants to do any work because he believes he has better things to spend his time on, instead Dwight tries to think up some kind of scam or machine that would do the work for him. In one episode he is made to deliver newspapers around the galaxy, he had the genius idea of giving everyone their weeks worth of papers in one day (that way Dwight could take the rest of the week off). The idea was good until all of the papers started to stack up and cause a huge amount of waste around the galaxy.

Stinky - Hey Arnold. This guy was brought up on a farm and because of which he bares the stereotypical stupidity levels of a classic hillbilly. Stinky is tall, slim and has a massive nose which gives him a very distinct nasally voice which really drags out when he is talking. Stinky is often caught day dreaming and thinking of returning back to his farm when he should be doing other things. He lives a simple life and because of which has become lazy. 

Slowpoke Rodriguez - Looney Tunes. I remember this little guy from when i was little, Slowpoke is the cousin of Speedy Gonzalez the fastest mouse in all of Mexico. Slowpoke is always seen with a dull empty look on his face and he takes forever to do even the simplest of tasks, he speaks very slowly and always slouches.

GLUTTONY 

Eric Cartman - South Park. Eric is probably the most crudely made fat character on television today, South Park characters are made out of paper cut outs, they are then animated. Cartman has a harsh life and often gets picked on because of his weight though he is a bully himself so somewhere down the line he probably asks for it. There are several episodes that deal with Cartman's weight, one of my favorites being an episode where the four main characters get some KFC, Cartman quickly runs out before the other boys and eats only the skin of the chicken which supposedly is the best part.

Harold - Hey Arnold. This was a cartoon that i watched when i was younger, everyone in this cartoon had an oddly shaped body and head and i thought it would be interesting to look at because i like how the artist captured the mood of each character through their shape. Harold is an overweight bully, he always looks clueless and is incredibly stupid. I believe Harold bully's the other kids because of his weight, some episodes even dealt with him confronting his weight problems and going away to a fat camp, though he eventually gave into temptation and came back a whole lot fatter!. 

Humanized obese version of Bender - Futurama. Bender is a robot from the cartoon Futurama, there was one episode where Bender wanted to know what it was like to become a human, so the professor made a  machine which could do such a thing. Bender loves to gamble, drink booze, smoke a cigar and hook up with robot women or fembots as they are named in the cartoon. Bender soon realizes that his human body can't keep up with his robot like habits and he quickly becomes very fat, Bender then dies as a human. I looked at this character because of how extremely fat he is and how the artist dealt with such a thing. 

Chunk - The Goonies. This lovable lump is one of the most memorable fat kids in film history, his famous 'truffle shuffle' dance made him a favorite for most. Chunk wore some outrageous flowered shirts throughout the film which made him appear somewhat cute and clueless. It is Chunk who eventually saves the day though he does get himself caught by the Fratelli's first. Chunk befriends lovable giant; Sloth and through their shared love of pirate films end up breaking free of the fratelli's basement and saving the Goonies who by chance are trapped on a pirate ship.
Chunk differs from Augustus Gloop because it is Chunk's love for food that actually brings him and Sloth together as friends (Chunk offers Sloth a baby ruth bar!).

Augustus Gloop - Charlie and the chocolate factory. For my gluttony character i instantly thought of Augustus because of his pure greed and obsession with food. This kid literally adores food and he almost has a possessed look about him throughout Tim Burton's adaptation of the film (above image). The choice of clothing is also important here as stripes apparently make someone look wider which is a smart little way to convey that someone is large. Also his clothes are pristine and neat, meaning that he does not waste a single bite by missing his mouth and covering his clothes in food. Augustus eventually meets his end when his obsession becomes too much and he accidentally falls into a chocolate river where he then gets sucked up into a large pipe transporting him to various parts of the factory.

                                       

Sequential image making - Gregg the underpants robot.

Sequential image making! Test subject

This is Hank the office dancer, he loves to dance at all times. 

Sequential image making - ideas and resources

Just looking at some examples of zoetrope animation, this Pixar one is pretty awesome, i love the attention to detail on every character, it really brings this piece to life.

I also had a quick look at flip book animations just to see how many frames were used for a smooth picture animation, this one is based on the matrix and it is simply incredible, the amount of time it must have taken to complete is unreal. 

Just some dancing ideas for my animation - the Flutterwacken from Alice in Wonderland 

Squidward Tenticles from Spongebob - giving it beans on stage! 

Fresh prince of Bell Air dance!!!

Gangnam style 

Self promo - various artist websites

Tom Gauld 

Tom Gauld's website is pretty simple in terms of the layout, the page scrolls whilst the side bar stays the same which is pretty cool because then you have full navigation of the page and no need need to head back to the top to click something. The part that scrolls just looks like a news feed for Tom, it contains updates covering his work and any upcoming events he may be a part of, from here you can also see any new publications he has been working on. The top half of the side bar works as a portfolio for clients as it lists the names of his best work which you can then click to view on the same page, this is good because then you are not drawn away from his site by external links. The side bar also features a shop where you can buy some of Tom's publications and it also provides external links for other places to get his items should his store become out of stock. Finally at the bottom of the side bar are some external links which link to his other pages such as his Flickr, Tumblr and Twitter. Over all a really professional website and very simple to navigate though the news feed has a lot of small text and it's a little too organized for my liking.

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        MCBESS 

Mcbess has such a simple home page it's unreal, each of the icons below his name represent a different page, one goes to his blog, another goes to contact information, the pencils link to his art work, the forth links to his music video's/tracks and the last one links to his store. Nice and simple, straight to the point. Again similar to Gauld's page as most of the links remain on the site and do not take you away from the page, good technique for easy accessibility and very professional.

I clicked on his art icon and i got this really nice show reel for his work and it allows me to scroll through most of his work, i like how everything is exclusively in black and white and it helps to stylize the page.

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MICHAEL SLACK

Micheal Slack is one of the most stylized artists i know, i can tell his work a mile off and i can do the same with his webpage. I love his custom header and i also like how simple his layout is in comparison to his bright and wonderful images. Under Slack's header you can see a bunch of links which help you navigate the site, there is a gallery for viewing his general work and there is a separate illustration link which i thought was useful because it helps to refine the search. This is one of the most professional sites i have seen, there is a really good "in print" icon which shows you everything slack has published and printed. I mentioned that Slack has a very stylized page and that shows through a variety of elements, the custom header being one, and FaceSlack being another witty pun for a link to his Facebook page. There are bunch of external links to his Twitter account and his blog etc. Over all a pretty awesome page.  

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SCOTTIE YOUNG 

Scottie Young is one of my favorite artists at the moment and like Slack he has a very stylized and simplistic page, every post has it's own little square and a little description underneath. Most of the posts on the main feed are one of his daily drawings which i think is good because it shows that he is constantly working and he is always adding to his huge portfolio, it's also good because it shows he is up to date with his site. The light paper texture in the background is also a nice touch as it helps to bring out his black and white drawings. Scottie is a big Twitter user and he has a feed on the side bar specifically for the recent related Twitter posts which is pretty cool, he manages his site in a professional way. Something else that is pretty handy is the little reminder that pops up and allows you to follow his blog so you can get updates whenever he posts something. Over all this site is very social savvy and is professionally managed,  nice and simple lay out though it has to be said that because he has so many posts it gets hard to find his professional prints among the doodles.

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CHRIS RIDDELL 

Riddell has probably the simplest page out of the ones that i have looked at, the front page has this awesome animation of a fish on a bike, the only site i have looked at which has an animation on it. All of his links are at the top of the page and they all link to internal pages which show the various publications he has been involved in. Riddell does not really like technology and there does not update his page too much, He shares another page with his friend and writer Paul Stewart and that one is a little more informative but i chose this page because you get to see a lot of Riddell's earlier work and his design process which is nice to see from such an influential illustrator.  

   

Lost in Ashburton - Comic summary

 I tried really hard with the layout of this comic making sure that the panels cross over nicely and conveyed the message i was going for. I was happy with my original black and white mock up but i was informed by my tutor that i lose my character in some scenes because of the busy line work, this wasn't much of  problem because i intended to colour the image later on. I wasn't really happy with the finished product, looks a little messy and i much preferred my black and white original, the inspiration for the colouring and pen work came from Neil Gaiman's "The Dangerous Alphabet" but it just went completely wrong.

I may want to revisit this idea and make another comic in this style because the last attempt was just poor, it has to be said that this style is very simplistic and works well with minimal text and colour, not to sure if it will work in comic book form but i would like to try it again. I covered everything when making this comic, the continuation of the images, the correct angels and the consistent style but the one thing i missed; the speech bubbles. I added the speech bubbles right at the very end and after looking back through the comic, the order that i added the text was wrong and now it doesn't read well. Over all it was very fun to work to the standard comic book restrictions and i am going to enjoy the rest of the module but i need to plan exactly what is going where before i even think of rushing into the final design.

Year two!!!!!

ON WARDS INTO THE SECOND YEAR!