gravity falls

About four years ago my friend Alex asked me if I'd do some rough character designs for him for a pilot he was maybe going to make at Disney TV.  It was going to be about a brother and sister who spend their summer in a weird town in Oregon with their creepy old uncle.  It never got made though.  Too bad, it was going to be really cool.

Oh wait, no!  That's not right.  It DID get made, and now it's on TV! It's called Gravity Falls! It exists!  WHat!

So, the following drawings were done before Alex even had a story for the pilot.  He gave me a written run down of what the characters were like and I just doodled out a bunch of stuff.  I'm sort of embarrassed at the sloppiness of these now that I look at them again (after four years of being rolled up with a rubber band and stashed in a drawer) but that's sort of what first passes are like, for me at least: frenetic searches for shapes and personalities.

I can't remember exactly what Alex told me about Dipper, but I do remember this: Dipper is based on Alex as a kid and he should also have a hat.  What kind of hat was still up in the air...maybe a captain's hat, or one of those Greek fisherman's hats, or a kinda too big trucker hat?

The one on the far left is still my favorite (that's why it has an asterisk).  

Mabel's prompts were something like: wears hideous sweaters, is Dipper's foil.  She was supposed to be the fun one. I could relate to the sweater thing.  I was a kid in the late 80's and early 90's when sweater factories everywhere were on an ugliness rampage and I recall, vividly, the horrors of that era...sweater-wise.  I had a pink one with heart shaped glitter balloons on it.  WHY.

Oh man, I just realized that Mabel still has a little headband like in the asterisk sketch up there!  That's pretty neat. 

I took a pass at Wendy too!  All I remember Alex saying was "Maybe she's tall? I dunno."  She was always meant to be Dipper's crush, and older and cooler but not bitchy in any way.

So I messed around with making her look tall and awkward, and sort of mellow in an indie-teenage-awkward tall girl way.  

OH yes, and I did a bunch of little Grunkle Stans.  These were fun because old men are gross.  They have weird shapes, like squiggly parts where there shouldn't be any.  

So, if I remember right (which I might not) these designs were used as a loose jumping-off point for the pilot (which is not the pilot that was on TV, but a very rough pilot that like nobody has seen), and then stowed away, and then ultimately it was decided that the show should look more like Alex's own personal style of drawing, which is how it looks now, which really is appropriate since it's his semi-autobiographical cartoon creation.  

There are a few things that remain from this first pass though, like the shape of Mabel's sweater and Dipper's slightly too-short shorts, and his trucker hat.  

I did do a few more drawings before it was decided that the style of the show would go another way.  These are more nailed down, cleaned up and such: 

I love those ringer tee shirts, with the color on the neck and the arms and rest white.  

I think those braces that are just floating rectangles were Alex's suggestion...or they were my idea in which case I take aalllllll the credit.

I thought it would be really cute if Mabel had little boots.  Did anyone else have beloved cowboy boots as a kid?  I did. 

I still do.

Also, leggings.  Girls in the 90's were all about leggings.

So fast forward a bunch to the present:

Now my husband works on Gravity Falls, as background supervisor, and amazingly succumbed to peer pressure and made a blog of his own!  He's going to be posting his background drawings n stuff on it!  

Here it is: I'm Sean Jimenez

I may have a biased opinion, but I think he is pretty cool.

Not to mention the fact that I have a bunch of buddies who also work on the show and make it look all beautiful and stuff.  It seems to already have a sort of cult-ish following even though only one episode has aired (if tumblr is any indicator at least). If you haven't seen it, I think there's a freebie episode on itunes, AND there will be new episodes every Friday on the Disney Channel until they run out of new episodes. 

Anywho, I feel sort of honored to have had first crack at designing these guys.  

city park swarovski short!

Long time no post, faithful blog followers! I can only give you excuses about how I'm really busy working on my book and stationary set, but excuses are not as interesting as stuff to look at. So here's a stuff to look at!



This is a short I worked on for Swarovski crystals. I did the backgrounds and character designs. The rest of the credit goes like this:

Directed by Courtland Lomax
Music by Brian Young
Compositing by Ethan Metzger
Backgrounds and Character Designs by Brigette Barrager

Animation:
Jennifer Hager
Jules Soto
Destiny Wood
Matt Pugnetti
Philip Vose
Courtland Lomax

Cleanup:
Esther Shin
Matt Pugnetti
Daron Nefcy
Destiny Wood

Congrats, everybody! It looks great! Now I must return to hunching over my wacom and drawing princesses.

after 100 years...

...the project that I worked on for Swarovski is FINALLY online!

I don't know why it took them so long to put it up on their site, but it's THERE, and you can watch it now!

RIGHT HERE!

Up to 2:53 is the part I worked on.



And now to answer any questions you might have, I've written a little FAQ:

You: "Wait, what did you do on this??"

Me: I designed the characters based on the crystial figures (which already existed...I had nothing to do with how they look) and did model sheets, and I also painted the backgrounds.


Y: "Wait, what is this for?"

M: It's basically a commercial for crystal figures. They don't have much personality on their own, so they needed a little help from good old animation know-how.


Y: "Did you do that whole thing???"

M: Nope. I just designed the characters and painted the backgrounds. Courtland Lomax directed/produced the whole shebang, Sean Jimenez drew the layouts and did story boards, Ethan Metzger after-effects-ted it (with help from lots of others!), and just about every animator I know animated a few seconds here and there. Unfortunately a whole lot of the folks who worked on it don't have a blog or website or any other kind of presence on the inter-webs, or else I'd link to them right now. Get with it, guys!


Y: "What did you do the backgrounds in? Is it paint?"

M: They're digital, 100%. I have like a hundred photoshop brushes.


Y: "What's Swarovski?"

M: They make crystals. Or, more appropriately, I should say that they manufacture crystals. They don't dig them out of the earth, they melt quartz and sand and colors together and then grind them down to make them amazingly shiny and pretty. They are very expensive. I've been to Austria twice and visited Swarovski HQ and stolen their markers and abused their espresso machines, and I love them for giving me the opportunity to do so.


Y: "Are you going to work with them again?"

M: Yep! I'm working on the designs for the next round of figures right now. It's fun.


Y: "Which one is your favorite?"

M: I really love how Emily turned out. Animation wise, Jen Hager hit the nail on the head with Marie and Pierre...they are PERFECT: they're on model, they move beautifully, and their acting is spot on. Camille is pretty cute too...I'm impressed with how she spins around on the lazy susan. Props to P.Vose for painting that slice of cake over and over again.

Y: "Where is this playing? On TV?"

M: No, it won't be on TV. It'll be on the website and probably in some Swarovski stores. Notice how there's no dialogue/talking/writing except for the cats' names. Swarovski is way international, so this could be playing in a store in Japan or Italy or somewhere right now for all we know.


Y: "Who did the music?? It's so charming."

M: My friend Brian! Check him out!


Okay guys, I know that the lack of images on this blog lately is way lame. I promise that NEXT TIME I post, there will be images aplenty!