RISE of the GUARDIANS post 06 (Pitch, Entity or Human?)

I was brought on to Rise of the Guardians to help explore the potential of the concept as a story for feature film. But due to my character design background, I was asked to explore the look of these guys from time to time as it concerned the ever changing story. I did a great deal of development on the character of Pitch(See my previous Guardian's posts), and I had a lot of opinions on his overall character and look. Here is another small sample of some of my exploration: Below I was playing with more ghastly and ghostly forms for Pitch. Made up of strands and fumes of darkness. More of an entity than a human. A nightmare in physical form. I pushed hard to not just make Pitch a guy in a suit.

Below I was playing with a more refined and noble vibe to Pitch, while also trying to keep him feeling ancient. In fact I decided to use ancient sculpture as inspiration for these sketches. More “humanistic” here but doing what I can to not just make him a guy in a costume.

But there was a prevailing push to make Pitch more visually humanistic. So If that was going to be the case I proposed that maybe his eyes and features could look slightly more animalistic or "other worldly".

But all the while I would still explore the more supernatural aspects of Pitch. More of a force of nature. He is Nightmare, and fear. He is supposed to terrify children in order to gain strength.

I created these beat boards(below)to support the idea of Pitch truly becoming an absolute force of nature during the climax of the film. The fear of the children in the town below feeds this beastly tornado. Jack, losing his strength, hangs on to this swirling mass for dear life, as North, Sandy, and Bunny bravely charge towards the imposing tower of darkness(Via North's Sleigh):

In the final film Pitch ended up a very humanistic character. There was much debate and discussion, but I miss some of the more supernatural aspects that were explored. More from Rise of the Guardians down the road. But I will have many other things to share from other projects over the next couple of months. Stay posted.

RISE of the GUARDIANS post 05 (Jack and Pitch)

Very early on (2008)I started exploring the dynamics of the characters in the film. Here is some of my first rough exploration of Jack and Pitch in a proposed sequence where they would meet for the first time . Below) Jack sits in a tree, staring at the moon, contemplating where he belongs.

A mysterious stranger arrives. Jack plays a game of cat and mouse as he assesses the dark entities’ motives. This is Pitch, and he has a proposal for jack.

I was pushing to NOT treat Pitch like a man in a costume (Read post 01.) In our story Pitch was supposed to be weak and losing power because fewer and fewer kids believe in him. With that in mind, I proposed that Pitch should LOOK physically weak as well. Amorphous, un-whole, and ever-changing Pitch would need to gain power to become solid again. Below) a ghostly , spider-ish Pitch attempts to lure Jack to his side. Pitch could use Jack’s physical help as well as his connection to earths children. (Jack was not on anyone’s side in our early versions of the story)

A fearless jack laughs at Pitch’s proposal. I proposed that laughter might have a physical affect on Pitch, breaking up his form and causing pitch to draw back a bit in this image.

In the end, none of these visual ideas made it to the final film, but it was sure fun to explore the possibilities. More on the development of Rise of the Guardians soon.