Thursday, March 31, 2011

Larry Boyd Character Designs

These are some of the early character designs for Larry Boyd, where I was trying to find the right look to match his personality.
This design above was the original character that the story for the film was based on.
His name was Chuck Wood and his design was much more Loony Tunes inspired than the designs that follow.






I kept trying to simplify the design to find the style, and since Larry is the main character his design would dictate the style of the other characters and the world they occupy.

Visual Influences














Here are some images that I used as reference to help create the look of the characters and environment for Larry Boyd.

Influences


When I began developing the concept for Larry Boyd I was watching a lot of Mad Men,, and was really influenced by this period in the early 1960's.
Somehow along the way Larry Boyd became set in the 60's......
but now I couldn't imagine it any other way.
Another huge Influence was the Classic gag cartoons from the 1930's and 40's by Warner Bros and MGM by directors such as Tex Avery, Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones.
Larry Boyd is sort of my own take on this style of gag cartoon.


The original character designs for Larry Boyd were much more Loony Tunes inspired, though soon became more stylized to fit into the 60's setting. The biggest influence for the character design was Ed Benedict, the creator of the Hannah-Barberra style of the 1960's for characters such as The Flintstones and Yogi.

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Welcome to 'Larry Boyd' - The Production Blog

Well it's finally here.... my final year of University, studying for my Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in Animation.

All 3rd years have to produce a short animated narrative, and this blog will document my process and design decissions in creating my film 'Larry Boyd'.

But what is 'Larry Boyd' all about anyway?
.... well to put it simply:

"Larry Boyd is about two birds who crap on people for a living"

I'll elaborate more on this soon!

Stay Tuned