So here’s a commercial I worked on back in April. I usually like to wait a while before I consider it “safe” to discuss a project on this blog, because, well, it’s not a good thing to release production artwork before the commercial airs! And even though I didn’t see this one air, I know its fair game after so many months if my own clients are posting the finished commercial on their website reel. So, here we go.
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Here we see a Caveman, clutching the original hand-held device, a stone wheel. He’s amazed with his creation and sets it to roll … ah, the beauty of it. As it rolls, we track along with it, until it bumps into a wooden wheel, which takes off in turn. And as it goes we see the “evolution” of the wheel, as it were, from stone, to wood, to iron, to rubber, to… what else? The digital scroll wheel of the new Superpages app! Naturally.
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And now I’ll discuss some of my artwork- First off, cavemen are fun to draw, and very forgiving, since they need to look all scraggly and ugly anyway. And I loved drawing that brief glimpse of his facial expression- like watching his baby take his first steps. But you know what are challenging to draw, and you wouldn’t suspect it necessarily, are wheels! Wheels are tricky to draw because they are so regular and round and perfectly geometric. A wheel consists of no less that one perfect circle nestle concentrically within a larger perfect circle- and if there’s a spoke or hubcap involved, you must add even more circles.
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Most artists would either just draw a crappy circle, or use a “shape” tool to make an absolutely perfect circle and substitute that for a drawing. Using shape or pen tools is useful but I personally feel that they look too computer generated (since they are) and are therefore unsuitable in a otherwise hand-drawn image. So that’s no good. Luckily Painter (the program I use) has a nifty “align-to-path” stroke feature that allows me to essentially trace the circle shape in a single stroke – kind of like using a compass or protractor to trace circles in geometry class. It gives me the perfect roundness and also the variation in line weight and stoke feel that I need in my drawings. So that’s how I make my wheels look so good.
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You’ll also notice that the spokes of the wooden and iron wheels are blurred when they are spinning. That’s super important and a lot of artists make that mistake- if the car is moving, you don’t draw the spokes on the hubcap, nor the tire treads, since they both will blur when the wheel spins! If you can see the spokes on a wheel, that makes the wheel look like it’s stationary. Anyway you can tell when a storyboard artist just traced a picture of a car when he doesn’t bother to attend to details like that.
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It’s a goofy little commercial but my boards on it were great. I can say that because they match the final product so well. That’s usually the best indicator that I did a good job. If you watch the final video you’ll see what I mean. Click the link below to view!
For my part, I’m kinda over drawing iPhones, iPads, and Facebook this-n-that. They all feel the same to me.
Something New: I’ve decided to remove generally commenting on these posts. Just getting wayyyyy too much spam and it was discouraging me from even doing this blog. Jesus christ, over 4,000 posts advertising Ugg boots of all things. Rot in hell you spammers. I might bring back commenting someday but for now it’s gone. If you would like to contact me, you can email me (if you know my email-its not hard to guess), facebook me, or click the Contact button on the upper right , you can even leave a reply there or contact my agent.