Concept Art

I missed critique on Wednesday last week so I apologize for not having comments on my work up on my blog yet.  Amy has instructed me to write about something that interests me perhaps in the multimedia design field so here it goes!  I should have my drawings up soon, though, for comments and I would love to hear them!

Lately I have been interested with concept art for animated characters.  This is more interesting to me because I always thought I was never imaginative enough to create characters and so I stuck to learning the animation side of production, but now I am branching out and loving the experience.

Last semester I created a feature film 2D animation story concept and included concept art for the main characters in my presentation.  I was and am still proud of these guys and I am thinking of taking this project further this semester.  That being said, I have therefore been studying a lot of concept art and especially enjoy that of the "Disney Greats" as they are called now.  I have included an image of a concept drawing of King Louis in Disney's A Jungle Book, which I enjoy because it shows the process of creating the eventual character used in the film.  The use of mark making to create texture and form is very effective here.  The other is one of the hundreds of character drawings generated for Disney's Peter Pan.  This particular one is a concept drawing for the character of Tinker Bell for whom the most time was spent discovering her characteristics.  This one was never used, but the detail and attention to form and anatomy exercised in this quick sketch is remarkable.  There is subtle contour in value changes that create a sense of roundness to the form and space and solidity.  The drawing kind of reminds me of our quick gesture drawings in class, you can almost make out a long axis line if it weren't for the wings and outfit.  My goal this semester is to improve my concept art with these techniques and implement them also into my story boarding, which are also very quick sketches that have to invoke action, emotion and ideas very quickly to producers.

Photos:
http://www.dvdinmypants.com/news/09-07/jungle_art.php
http://www.disneydreaming.com/2009/10/23/tinker-bell-concept-art/