Zombie Killer Extraordinaire

Sidge McDougal's Zombie Crisis is an original concept created by my boyfriend and his close friend.  When I started Visual Elements of Story at AAU and had the option to develop an original story I knew it would be this one. I'd previously done some character designs for the story but wanted to revise those and push the designs further. It's a fun story and who doesn't love zombies and the apocalypse?

Although, I must say, I need to do a lot more drawing of zombies in the future. I mostly focused on designing the living human characters in the story this time around. So, behold, Sidge McDougal! Our main character, anti-hero protagonist.

thumbnails exploring different designs; head explorations; and the final version on the right

turn-arounds! I had fun drawing all the spikes and accessories on Sidge initially, but man was it interesting to move them. I kept going over my checklist of spikes to ensure none were missed. Below the turn-around are several expressions. It's getting somewhere, but I think he still needs to be pushed to look even more manic and crazed.

we had to create boards at the end of class and here is my character board. I still want to revise some of the characters and finish the 3D character painting (bottom right) so once those are done I'll be sharing them in the near future.

I've had a lot of fun designing this story from characters to props to environments. I will probably continue working on it in the future. A part of me has been itching to do some animation involving this story, even if it's just some animated storyboards. We shall see what time allows....

Burn 'em All

For today's post, I bring you a production painting for Sidge McDougal's Zombie Crisis!

Over the past year, my interest and love for concept art has grown--especially in an animated style. I've posted some Sidge McDougal artwork and development in the past. Here's the blog post of Sidge's initial character design. He has since been further developed, along with some other characters. I have a lot of fun developing this world and will hopefully continue working on the project (there's SO much to do).

The entire process. L to R, initial thumbnail sketches of various scenes. Then value studies of different lighting scenarios. Of course, the dramatic lighting was the most interesting to me. Below that are the color studies. Upper left on the right is the finished drawing and below that the finished production painting.

The drawing by itself. I had a lot of fun drawing that zombie hand in the foreground. Definitely had the ol' anatomy book out for that one.

And the final production painting, colored digitally. The basic thought was he's probably luring the zombies to him and burning them inside the crypt. Because Sidge McDougal just effing loves killing zombies.

Next week I'll post some new character designs for the project. Have a great weekend!

Compositional Studies

Here are some compositional studies from my Visual Elements of Story class this semester. These are for the story "Zombie Crisis" which is an original concept being developed with the two creators into a possible future animated series. I posted some character designs on the blog awhile ago, and there will definitely be more developments to come.