still at the zoo!

Hi!

So yes, following on from last week's teasy teasy look at upcoming Zoo campaigns...howsabout a look at the last zoo campaign - which looked like this (before any words were added)!

It was a campaign based on the age old 'find the frog' approach (?!) - promoting awareness of the particular plight of the poor little green tree frog and it's endangeredness along the way!

So a gorilla (for Melbourne Zoo), a lion (for Werribee Open Range) and a kangaroo (for Healesville Sanctuary) were commissioned to join in the fun!

This, design-wise, also turned out to be the kind of job that pretty much gets it's 'look' straight away and doesn't really deviate too much from there - which can be quite nice and easy at times!

(mmm - note the heartbreaking emotion in the eyes - gorillas LOVE frogs. FACT.)

And on top of this - I was also asked to break the kangaroo's arm for the specific purpose of promoting the Healesville Sanctuary's world class animal hospital too...seemed a bit extreme, but whatever! Atleast there's a decent hospital to sort it out!

wild seas and bigness...

SO - a short but ever so sweet two parter this week! FIRST, examine and muse upon tantalising glimpses of an ad campaign I did my part for in the following images! I'm not sure the Melbourne Zoo would like me revealing the full artworks juuuuuust yet partly because the ads themselves aren't quite done yet, nor is the 'Python-esque' animation to be done for the cinema ad version! But I can tell you this, 'Wild Sea' is coming to the zoo - and I'd wager the animals involved are quite excited - while the other animals who aren't involved, are probably quite miffed and prone to violence. In the end, maybe when visiting the zoo, stick to Wild Sea and avoid the unique brand of hostility only jealous jungle beasts can offer elsewhere!

Or perhaps I don't have a clue what I'm on about!

Also - last week's post was meant to include embiggenable images so you could read and examine The Age newspaper pieces better - but for some reason or another (my technical cockuppery) this wasn't the case - so hopefully now, it IS!

Enjoy! (if it works!)

More magical behind the scenes type stuff!

You'll have to forgive me if this goes off the rails - I just ate an orange, am working through a cup of tea AND just got a package dropped on the doorstep thanks to the good people at Amazon - so you can understand my distractedness!

But enough about the hectic whirlwind that is my life (phew!) - I seem to be turning November into a bit of a 'behind the scenes' showing off the 'process' kinda month - so let's maintain that thrilling idea with this look into the scribbling that went into creating a cover story/centre spread for The Age newspaper recently!

FIRST - the good people at The Age were a relaxed and open bunch - there was a general concept to explore with this article BUT otherwise - kinda up to me! Exciting and daunting - but not necessarily impossible - just needed to do a bit of scribbling to figure it all out! I opted for a 'how one uses imagery to tell a story' expos'e (dunno how to do the accent thingy!)...the pictured scrawlings were my attempt to reign such a broad subject down into something manageable!

FIRST - the plan!

NOW - squeezing into some sort of vaguely logical layout - note the impressively adept preliminary character sketching

NOT TO MENTION the completely clear 'arrows' idea...how could one misinterpret what I had in mind here?!

Of course eventually - it starts to come solidly together (note the arrow plan has settled down considerably by this stage - and then suddenly ditched completely - it's a fickle industry, dear readers)...

- and then once the text was added - remarkably it all comes together - I know I was surprised and delighted!

The COVER - was a little more straight forward - 2 kids, a confusing conglomeration of genres and intentions and there you go! A perfectly clear suggestion of what I'm going to rant on about inside a national newspaper!

Note also, it's jobs like this - the ones with fairly limitless borders, that allow me to play about with things more than other jobs - hence the fun I had going with a messier, scribblier, generally looser colouring approach...coz I could!

I applaud The Age's confidence in me and look forward to being allowed to run amok within their pages some day in the future!

Shapes of things to come?

Possibly!

And welcome to GLOWvember - which will henceforth be referred to as NOvember - as there will be NO GLOWing going on...as I don't know how that would be possible...atleast in the way I'm thinking - aaaaaaaaanyway - let's never speak of my desperate attempt to follow the altogether tremendous SHOCKtober with another nifty month - that failed.

So anyways, November - and here's something that's gone on this month so far - a possible vision into the future! Here is some concept art that I've submitted as I vie for a possible future job which shall remain undisclosed until it happens - if it happens...leaving you here with tantalising visions and many questions!

But not to get ahead of myself - it started with a little girl called Ruby - whom I had to design.

But where to begin - well obviously with the only human I know of called Ruby (I know of a dog, but that was clearly useless) - hence, this Ruby!

Also, in my online wanderings I'd come across the work of Emmanuelle Walker, by way of her wondrous little short "Apres La Pluie".

http://www.emmanuellewalker.com/index.php?/animation/apres-la-pluie/

The following two designs of hers also helped me get going (note the dainty red circles I've drawn on her sketches, helping you, the reader, identify that I liked the hair on these girls! And the face on the girl in the second image).

And so here's the little path I followed to get to Ruby and her little brother - both inspired, fashion-wise, by Enid Blyton books - it's relevant to the project in a homage-y way - the project of which I can say nothing about!

And last but not least - the sample spread!

Make of it all what you will and remember - you know nothing of this...for now!

And now go watch Apres La Pluie.