I was talking recently with some of my friends who are currently looking for work in the animation industry and we came to the conclusion that no matter what you should never stop doing personal work. One of the biggest fights is the fight against settling. Against mediocrity. It is so easy to slide into a mindset of just doing your work and going home to relax. It is so easy to become afraid to try anything new or to push yourself. This has been a constant struggle for myself as I work personally and with Ex Machina 7.Hey everyone! Norman and myself have been working hard as we get closer to pre-production completion. We're really excited about how things are unfolding and the project seems to be growing stronger each step! I've been doing some color design for the film so I leave you guys with some test pass at the monster color.
I'll be posting more on the process after next week, until then!
Cuxo
Cheers,Ex Machina 7 Holiday Card
Hi everybody, this is Jonathan Lam the Illustrator behind the Ex Machina 7 “Unplugged” Holiday Card. The original concept behind this came from Carlton Branch, the Art Director of Ex Machina 7. In the design brief there was to be factory of Robotic elves creating toys for a disgruntled Santa.
The spin was that Santa was to appear in a huge television monitor broadcasting over the “elves” in a dictatorship fashion. When the word “dictator” was mentioned in the design brief I automatically started looking up reference pictures of Hitler, Stalin and the like. I also looked up classic pictures of Santa from those Coke ads in the 50’s and 60’s. At this point I like to do a couple roughs of composition. I start from 1 by 2 inch thumbnails with a pen. I use to draw down thumbs with pencils but I find that with pens the ink will sometimes give you happy accidents. It also forces you to work with your accidents rather than erasing , drawing, erasing and drawing all the time. Generally when I map compositions I think of a letter “C” or “S”. These shapes represent how I want the eye to follow along the image. Usually when there the focus of the image is dead in the center that’s where the eye goes first, and that’s where it goes last. It’s basically a dead image.
If you look at the following these are a few thumbnails I went through before I chose the composition I was happy with. Originally the concept was for the robots to be assembling toys in their cubicles, which was cool, but I thought I could play up the whole assembly theme by having assembly lines. I also thought it would be somewhat ironic for robots to be the ones assembling items on the conveyor belts. Sometimes I also like to imagine back story for the characters in the illustrations. I was picturing how at one point the robots themselves were built in the same factory on the very same conveyor belts, and right when they were finished being built they went straight to work. The factory and their job is all they were meant for and all they know.
After the thumbnails stage is completed, I scan it in, and make sure everything looks correct. Sometimes I will redraw a totally new Illustration based on the composition of the thumbnail, while other times if I’m feeling more spontaneous I’ll paint right over the thumbnail. I like that feeling of just painting, not having to worry about the line art. However before painting I have to make sure the painting is clear. Considering it was a very loose and spontaneous sketch I move around objects so when I start painting things there are less corrections. I move certain robots over, I also draw in a bit more details with the tablet. I also do some copying and pasting to populate the space more.
After the thumbnail looks clear enough, I start painting, while keeping Space, Form, Movement and Texture in mind. The other part of the concept was that one Robot would rise in defiance, and pulling the plug on itself. Santa, in the background would see this via his monitor and become enraged, hence the tight close up on his face.
In the design brief it was described that there would be two flags on both sides with a symbol of a Christmas tree in place. Kind of like the definitive Dictatorship Christmas. I also added in some small details like a bridge in the back small glowing heads to represent more robots in the distance. I felt that since the Robots didn’t have any facial expressions the defiant robot needed to emote emotions in some way, that is the reason I made his head glow red. There is also a 7 on his chest in the final to represent Ex Machina 7. In terms of texture for the Robots, I was thinking an old toaster which was still shiny yet imperfect with some grime on it. Sometimes I just overlay a texture into the Illustration but I felt I would have more control had I painted the grime on manually. Originally the Robots just had light bulb heads, but I felt it needed some sort of facial feature to make it apparent that they had some sort of intelligence which is why I added the single eye. These robots are not meant to talk or communicate with each other so they have no mouths just a light in their headsand an eye. As for the assembly, instead of putting in toys I made the robots gift wrappers, because I thought it was funny and super excessive to have all these robots, this huge factory just to wrap gifts. Also wrapping gifts day in and day out is repetitive and monotonous. Originally Santa was also just on one screen, but Mr. Branch pointed out that with one screen it looked more like a theatre, and he was right. Splitting the screen in sections made it feel more cold and in your face, since you cannot directly identify with Santa. Lastly, I framed the image with Gears, basically to give the feeling that you are sneaking in and taking a peek at what is happening. Also foreground elements are good framing tools.
No.7
