Monday, May 28, 2007

Dusting down a long forgotten sketchbook...

STILL unpacking.

One thing that has been rather a lot of fun while working my way through a myriad boxes has been unearthing old sketchbooks, none more so than the one whose pages I've scanned below. This particular sketchbook is only a teeny A6 affair, something one can safely stash in the jeans' back pocket. Leafing through it I discovered all the early design work from a number of my projects, published or otherwise. Below is the first design I did for Bobby from DINOSAURS AFTER DARK. Beside him you'll probably recognise my first (and possibly only) colour design of CURIOUS COW. The pages here are particularly pertinent to current work schedule, as this was the sketchbook I conceived FRANKENSTEIN'S CAT in on the train journey from Warrington to London years ago. The two pahes below show the very first Cat drawing as doodled on a bumpety-bump Virgin rail carriage, all wobbly-like and pretty much as he appears on the cover of the book. And the pages that follow show the first couple of paragraphs as I toyed with the idea on the journey, again, pretty much verbatim as they appear in the book. Got off the train and showed it to the editor @ Hodder Headline and it was commissioned off the back of it.

Below are the first designs from the MY DADDY picture book, featuring the three girls from the story. Further down the line as I looked to develop this as an animated film I revisited the look of the characters and design approach, but again these are how they appeared in the original book.
Lastly here's CHEEKY MONKEY in his earliest guise. Still cheeky but slightly different shape to his face. The accompanying words are from POCKET DOG, which I developed with Ian Carney.
So that's what I've been up to. Reminiscing. There are loads of other sketchbooks that I'll pull artwork from too, although time is at a premium at the moment with production work on the CAT taking priority.

Bada Bling!

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

How are things cousin, hope you are all keeping well. Have you managed to unpack all your boxes?

Andrew Glazebrook said...

Hey Curtis they're all great to look at,nice to see your early ideas and how they took shape !!! Really super stuff !! You should auction that book ! :)

Hughes said...

wow, real old school. nooiice

Anonymous said...

cool.
nice behind the scenes look

Anonymous said...

excellent drawings. Nice to see how things start out before they become polished master pieces!

Bristol Andy

Jo Bling said...

Cassie - the boxes remain like an impenetrable fortress, alas!

Glazey - thanks squire, this particular sketchbook seems to have been particularly fruitful. Others have sadly been a pile of pants :-D

Gus - old school? Keepin' it reeeeeal.....

Brian - thanks man

Bristol Andy - thanks fella for the nice words. You're too kind!

Joel said...

Nine basically arrived in your head fully formed! Fantastic. Good luck with the unpacking, don't be tempted to just shove everything in the loft and buy all new stuff.

jimmynock said...

Love the sketch books. Its really cool to see your thoughts on paper. You make an old nun proud!

Kerry Drumm said...

Hey chuck!

Back from Aards now waitng to start PhD with the mad Professor Wells! Inspired me to go through all of my sketchbooks, you really do forget what you've done!

Have fun at Annecy - hope for big success, shame can't make it. See you soon!

Kerry

D.TAYLOR said...

Just wanted to thank you for reminding me to look through my own old sketchbooks. What a jolly fun thing to do!
Great to see your sketches in their beautiful nakedness! Cooor!

Martyn illustration said...

Some great stuff on here mate.

Tim Bye said...

That's a great skecthbook - inspiring stuff!

dragonhead said...

Neat. I like the sketches.

Elliot Cowan said...

Hey pal - you just left a message on my blog just as I was sorting through the business cards I'd collected.
I'm not entirely sure who you might be though - email me.
elliotcowanimation@yahoo.com
I recognise your name from visits to my blog though.