RISE of the GUARDIANS post 03 (Jack Frost)

When William Joyce first presented his concept to our small team, Jack Frost was already a full fledged Guardian of Childhood, right alongside Santa (North), Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, and Sandman. Jack Frost was also presented as an adult man, clad in a musketeer meets Edward Scissorhands style outfit, complete with a broad brimmed hat and an elegant wooden staff. As we started to brainstorm and discuss all of the characters and a potential story for all of them to live in, it QUICKLY became clear that Jack Frost just seemed out of place and out of his league amongst these other superstars of childhood mythology. What did Jack Frost do to earn his position as a Guardian, and what does he really do for Children anyway? So we all thought out loud “What if North, Tooth, Bunny, and Sand Man all felt the same way about Jack Frost that we do?" Maybe Jack is NOT a Guardian. What if Jack was just a neutral outsider living his own life wanting nothing to do with the Guardians or Pitch at all? What if Jack had to earn the title of “Guardian” if at all? What if THAT was our story? Jack could be our main character! We were all very excited about this angle, and it was during this time that I proposed the idea that Jack Frost might be even more of an outsider if we made him a younger character. “What if Jack was a kid amongst these adult Guardians?" And being a kid, what if he naturally understood kids…even more than the adult Guardians? From the beginning we knew that what was going to be at stake in our story was the children of the world. Children is what Pitch “the Boogey Man” needs to make himself more powerful (feeding off their fear). Children are what the Guardians are here to protect. Children are why the Guardians exist. So this became even more of a case to make Jack, the potential key to our story, a kid himself. Here is just a small sample of my extensive development work on Jack Frost for Dreamworks RISE of the GUARDIANS: -(Below are a couple examples of my earliest exploration of Jack Frost(beggining of 2008). I treated him as a younger character, but his costume here is directly inspired by William Joyce’s initial illustrations.

-Below is a very early color piece of Jack exploring a more casual but still supernatural costume, he also has a more free, fun loving attitude. His character was starting to take shape, but his design still had a long journey ahead.

-An early, rough beat image to suggest that a younger Jack Frost would hang out with kids (but not be seen).

-Now how young could we go with Jack? Below are a couple exploratory designs of a much younger Frost. Playing with a Tom Sawyer meets Lost Boy vibe. (The very first image at the top of this post would be included in this category). Emphasizing the fun loving aspect of his character here.

-The decision was made to keep Jack young, but a teenager. As our story evolved I very quiickly explored some more ranges and ethnicities (Below). Would he be American, Romanian, Icelandic…etc? At this point(mid 2008) we started imagining Jack as a more rebelious character so Alex McDowell suggested I even look at Punk legend Sid Vicious for inspiration. We were still exploring style at this point.

-In late 2008 there was a request to give Jack a more "current" look. Below are the very first images created of Jack Frost wearing a hooded sweatshirt. The idea was that since Jack has been around for many years, he would find articles of clothing from whatever time period he is living in at the moment and create his own mix match look. Here he is also sporting his more spiky fohawk hairdo for the first time. Still exploring style.

By late 2008 the film was greenlit for production, and along with continuing to develop the film, I also began storyboarding on the first pass of the production. While we were boarding we were also trying to hone all the character’s designs at the same time. A lot of debate durring that process. Much more on the development of Jack Frost and the RISE of the GUARDIANS to come!

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 01

This Thanksgiving The RISE of the GUARDIANS opens in theatres everywhere. I had a great deal to do with nearly every aspect of the development, green light, and early production of this film, wearing many hats along the way. Over the next couple of months I will be sharing much of my experience as a development artist, story artist, and designer throughout the production. Above is one of my later development pieces of the villain, “PITCH”…the“Boogey Man” . Here I was playing with the idea of Pitch having to manifest/pull himself out of the darkness to take a brief, and eerie "human" form. I pushed hard throughout the entire development process (from late 2007) to not just treat Pitch like a dude in a costume, but only have him take a somewhat "human" form when needing to coerce or deceive (more on that later). In the end I lost that battle and the Pitch in the final film ended up being very much a dude in a costume. Making films is a long process with countless twists, turns, debates, and decisions along the way. This film was quite an adventure, and I will share much more on the overall development of The RISE of the GUARDIANS in the weeks and months to come. Happy Holidays all!

RISE of the GUARDIANS post 04 (First time out)

Some more early story exploration and development work (see posts 01 through 03 for more) "FIRST TIME OUT"...If everything went smoothly for the Guardians their first time out as a team, that would be pretty un-interesting. Where would you go from there? It would be infinitely more interesting (and entertaining) if these mythological powerhouses had to learn how to work together over the course of the film... Finally overcoming their conflicts and working together smoothly when it counted, to defeat Pitch in the end. Below is a small sample of my early development work illustrating the newly formed team on their disastrous first mission, helping Tooth Fairy on her nightly rounds.

ABOVE)Santa has helped himself to some traditional milk and cookies. Sandman has a tougher time entering a room than his sand does. Bunny (pre superhero look)is not good in bedroom situations. Little Tooths (more on them below)try to wrangle everyone back on task. Jack spots some of Pitch’s Nightmare men (no Mares yet).

ABOVE) Jack chases some Nightmare men out of the house and into the woods. Tooth sets off after another group that stole a child's tooth. She tells the rest to keep collecting children’s teeth. The children have to believe! I proposed the idea that in order for Tooth Fairy to get so many places in one night, she could actually be made up of thousands of smaller fairies that would disperse and regroup as needed. The forming idea did not make it to the final film, but the idea of the “Little Tooths” did.

ABOVE)Tooth catches up with her smaller selves, and is hot on the trail of those Nightmare men. She is determined to find where they are coming from. Meanwhile, Bunny , North and Sandy do their best to do Tooth’s job. They are short on quarters, and morning comes sooner than expected (BELOW).

Much more on the development of RISE of the GUARDIANS soon!

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.

RISE of the GUARDIANS post 02 (What If ...?)

In late 2007 production designer Alex McDowell asked me to be one the first people to help develop a concept brought to the studio by author William Joyce . The concept : “Santa Clause, Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny, Sand Man, and Jack Frost unite for the first time to fight children’s worst enemy … Pitch, the “Boogey Man”. Okay, Awesome. There was no script, and no director yet. Just the concept and some cool early Joyce drawings.For many weeks the only artists were myself, Shannon Tindle , and Chris Appelhans. Our mission, to explore and develop story possibilities for this concept in a visual manor. Together we would start constructing a series of blue sky “WHAT IF” events . What if this happened, or this ? As we started we asked ourselves: What will the tone be ? Who are these characters? How will these characters meet? Do these characters know each other? Do these characters like each other? Why do they do what they do? HOW do they do what they do? What drives them to do what they do? How do children come into play? How would these characters interact with one another? Why do these characters exist? Where do they live and what would that look like? How would they work together? Would they want to work together? What would this all look like? ….. From the get go Dreamworks wanted a more serious film, with tinges of whimsy throughout. So with that in mind our small team met and brainstormed daily. As we did, each of us were inspired to create visuals that reflected our conversations and ideas. We would pin them up and start constructing a series of events visually. I was very intrigued with what the climax of this film could be, so one of the first things I started doing was creating images dealing with the third act. Below are just a few of my exploratory beat boards from that time (all work copyright Dreamworks):

ABOVE)One early idea was that because Pitch needs to work in the dark, he would harpoon the moon in order to lock it in place and block out the sun (at least on part of the earth). There would also be a literal man in the moon who Pitch would want to destroy. Well those two ideas inspired me to create this image. “What If” Jack could now run up a harpoon chain (in a very fantasy driven way)to go help the man in the moon himself?

ABOVE)An early idea that Santa (who Joyce always invisioned as an old warrior type)would try to keep Pitch at bay (on Pitch’s flying nightmare galleon. yes, Pitch had a flying ship at one point)in order for Jack to focus on making it snow in every child’s room below. Thus, inspiring the children and weakening Pitch.

ABOVE)Bunny and The little tooths (fairies)come to Jack's aid as well.

ABOVE)Here I was trying to portray Pitch as an absolute, supernatural force of nature. Growing in strength and size as the children in the town below grow more and more fearful. Pitch's "Nightmare Men" swirl and multiply to add to his horrific form.(the night"MARES" were a later invention).

ABOVE)How would Jack Frost prove he is worthy of becoming a Guardian? What would he sacrifice for the children and for the team? We were not completely sure yet, but I created this exploratory image to help inspire potential answers to that question. Much more on the development of Rise of the Guardians to come.

the CROODS post 01

A complete change of gears from Guardians, I was responsible for developing and designing a great deal of the creatures and characters you will see in the CROODS. Myself and Shannon Tindle were the first artists on the project back when Chris Sanders started at Dreamworks in 2007(before Dragons). After a quick detour onto Dragons Carter Goodrich, and Takao Noguchi joined the design team. Over the next few weeks I will show much of my development work from Croods, but I will start with one character that you will not actually see in the final film. This is a little prehistoric proto-pony that was at one time Guy's pet. She actually made it as far as an early Croods teaser poster, but in the 11th hour Belt became his pet and the pony was changed into the little reptilian guy you will see in the final film. Stay posted for much more, and enjoy.

Mr. PEABODY and SHERMAN (part 03)

The Peabody and Sherman panel at Gallery Nucleus was really fun. A lot of people turned out. Thanks for coming everyone, and thank you Gallery Nucleus for the invitation.
Now, to continue the Peabody discussion (read parts 01 and 02 to catch up)…. Back in 2006, as we started exploring the possibilities of Time Travel, and how to approach the function and look of the WABAC machine, we actually met with an expert on the theory of time travel. It was incredibly fun nerding out about the possibilities. There was MUCH discussed, but one of the most interesting concepts was the “Moving Sidewalk” theory. The idea being that time is like a “moving sidewalk” which we are all attached to and moving along with. Now, if we could lift off of this “moving sidewalk” we would no longer be bound to time as it continued to move below us. And in fact, since we are no longer bound to it, we could theoretically move around above it in either direction. Now in order to be able to lift off of this “moving sidewalk” we would need to lose all friction, or resistance. How to do this? One theory would be to “flatten” yourself, minimizing your physical mass like a piece of paper, or blade, cutting through the atmosphere (or whatever you would cut through concerning time). How might this be done? Well, by entering another dimension of course.
Again, this was just one of the amazing theories presented to us, but this “Moving Sidewalk” idea inspired me to think of a rough visual concept that might suggest how the WABAC could function (Just one of several).

Note: Rob Minkoff asked us to explore the WABAC as a vehicle, or craft that could physically take our heroes through time (Think the Delorean in Back to the Future, or HG Wells Time machine…etc). This was just one of my very early designs. This one was an attempt to retain the iconic door and technological symbols from the original show. Basically, it’s a door with a cockpit. Now moving on…
Phase 01: The WABAC lifts off of the Earth’s surface in preparation…

Phase 02: The bottom half of the craft pivots up and behind the cockpit and begins to spin faster and faster, like a generator building up energy…

Phase 03: What would it look like if a craft was attempting to create enough energy to enter another dimension? I created these thumbnail images to explore some visual possibilities…

Phase 04: How do you enter another dimension? I don’t know…lets just explode into it! And hey, maybe it would hurt when you did so. Lets make time travel feel unpredictable and dangerous...

Phase 05: After the WABAC explodes into multiple, thin plates, the pieces re-assemble into an aerodynamic grouping. From the front you would see that all of the pieces of the WABAC are thin sheets ready to cut through the dimensional atmosphere like a blade…

Phase 06: Maybe those thin WABAC pieces could move around and manipulate the cockpit; protecting it, or pushing it out of harms way. Reacting to unexpected elements…Like say a T-REX in prehistoric times...

Phase 07: What would it look like when the WABAC re-assembled, and re-entered? These were a few thumbnail images I created to explore some visual thoughts for re-entry…

So after I presented this rough series of WABAC images, we actually realized it as a fully animated sequence to eventually present to the studio (More on that in a moment).
Over the next several years of development, naturally the design of the WABAC changed, But the idea of the WABAC being made up of modular “plates” stuck, and though it is never explained in the final film, the rough concepts I presented so many years ago were the sparking point.
Now around the time we were creating that WABAC test (Early 2007 now), several more artists joined our “Look Lab” team in preparation for the big presentation to the studio. Emil Mitev created some amazing environmental designs. Scott Santoro boarded a great sequence and also created some beautiful presentation pieces. JJ Villard came up with some great concepts for the WABAC, and some very entertaining time travel vignettes as well. A couple very talented modelers and model builders helped us realize our 2D exploration in three dimensions (and animation). Then, in early 2007 it was time to present our thinking to Jeffrey Katsenberg and the Dreamworks development team.
In a nutshell, our presentation was a success. With Jeffery Katsenberg exclaiming:
“This stuff is Great! Now why isn’t any of this in the script?”

The script went back into re-writes, But because Jeffery saw the potential in our visual exploration, he decided to move forward with the further development of a Mr. Peabody and Sherman movie. So while the script was being re-worked Shannon Tindle and myself were asked to apply our efforts to other films in early development at the time. The first being a prehistoric comedy titled “Crood Awakening” (which became“the Croods”), as well as a concept that William Joyce brought to Dreamworks about the mythical figures of Childhood ("Rise of the Guardians")….and several more. Over the next 5 years I ended up touching nearly every film that Dreamworks had in production, as a development artist, Story Board artist, Character designer, and more. It was a lot of fun to explore so many varied projects while performing multiple roles. During the next 5 years, Peabody and Sherman was still being explored in script form, and eventually received the green-light for production. By that time both myself and Shannon were very busy on other projects. The film went through many more talented hands over the years, but much of the “Look Lab” team’s early work influenced the continued development and eventual production of the film.
Below is the very first image I ever created for the Mr. Peabody and Sherman movie. On the first day of work, we were asked to create a symbolic logo to represent the first ever “Look Lab”, and its first subject, Mr. Peabody and Sherman. It was the start of a long adventure.