I’ve gone through the PDF versions of all my portfolios, weeded out some old work and put in some fresh. I’ve also updated the “About me” page. You can download them at my website or with these links:
Character Design Portfolio 2011
Toy Design Portfolio 2011
Illustration Portfolio 2011
Comp Art Portfolio 2011
Enjoy!
I’ve been trying to beef up my character design portfolio to get ready for the CTN Animation Expo next month. The other night I was up late noodling around on my Cintiq and this sheriff popped out. I liked how it was going so I thought I’d throw in some color.
Incidentally, if you are planning to go to the Expo I’ll be giving a talk on Freelancing called “Be Your Own Boss: Freelancing Tips and Tricks“. My presentation will be Saturday, Nov. 19. at 4:30pm in the Exec Boardroom. More info here.
Copyright © Cedric Hohnstadt 2011. All rights reserved.
Recently I’ve been trying to brush up on my character design skills. I’m planning to attend the CTN Animation Expo in Burbank this November and I’d like to walk through the doors with a beefed-up portfolio under my arm.
To get ready I’ve recently taken a character design workshop from Nate Wragg at the new CGMW online school, I’ve attended a lecture by character designer Chris Ayers, and I’ve been reviewing past critiques of my work from industry professionals. Over and over I keep hearing that in the animation industry it’s not enough to create a well-designed character if all you do is sketch him standing around in stiff and boring poses. Everything about your drawings – the pose, the costumes, the props and situations – needs to say clear things about who the character is and, ideally, tell a mini-story. As my friend Tom Bancroft says in his excellent book on character design, every pose should have a clear reason behind it. Animation studios don’t want someone who can just design a person or animal, they want someone who can create a character.
Chris Ayers has a really great trick that he uses to help him practice his character design skills. At his drawing table he has a ziploc bag full of little slips of paper. Written on each piece is a character type, a prop, an animal, or an attitude/expression. After he cracks open his sketchbook he reaches in and pulls out a few slips of paper and then challenges himself to create a character using that combination. For example, combining “rhino”, “lederhosen”, and “ready to fight” would probably result in a burly German rhino looking like he’ll knock your block off if you dare to snicker at his silly green outfit. If you purchase My Daily Zoo, Chris’s excellent drawing/activity book for children, he even has a batch of tear-off tabs in the back to get you started on your own ziploc bag of character ideas.
I loved that idea so much that I brainstormed my own list and now keep a similar bag near my desk. The other day I reached in and pulled out slips of paper reading “shark”, “charming”, and “southern gentleman”. I put those together to create the above sketch.
If all goes as planned I’ll be posting more sketches like this as the CTN Animation Expo gets closer.
I should have posted this earlier this week but over the last few days I was slammed with deadlines. Better late than never.
Chris Ayers is a Minnesota native currently working as a character designer and concept artist in Hollywood. He’s done work on Men in Black II, Star Trek and The Fantastic Four and is currently designing characters for an upcoming Dreamworks animation project.
Chris is probably most well-known for his Daily Zoo books. In 2005 he was diagnosed with leukemia and as part of his recovery he challenged himself to draw an animal a day. He kept it up for over two years. The sketches were compiled into two books with a third in the works, plus a fun children’s drawing/activity book called My Daily Zoo. As for the leukemia there’s good news: Chris has been in remission now for over five years.
An art show of Chris’s work recently opened at the Owatonna Arts Center. Chris will be there in person later today (Saturday, Sept. 10) from 1:00-4:00pm. At 2:00 he’ll be giving a slideshow presentation to discuss his work followed by a book signing. The exhibit runs through Sept. 25. If you live in or near the Twin Cities I’d encourage you to check it out.
If you’re looking for any last-minute Christmas ideas you might want to browse through my Amazon.com store, Cedric Hohnstadt Recommends. It’s a collection of books, DVDs, and other resources related to art, animation, and freelancing. Each item is something I have personally owned, used, and found to be especially helpful and/or inspirational.
Full disclosure: If you order any of the items from Amazon after clicking through my store I’ll receive a tiny percentage of the sale as a kickback (you won’t pay any extra). So you’ll not only be filling someone’s stocking but you’ll be helping me support my iPhone app addiciton.
Recently I was hired to design a mascot/logo for a new tuna supply company for the restaurant industry. Bigeye Tuna Guys is a new venture that will be launching soon. I was asked to design a mascot/icon based on a “bigeye”, which is a breed of tuna.
Being a cartoonist, my first round of sketches explored various ways to caricature a tuna fish:
All sketches copyright © Cedric Hohnstadt. All rights reserved.
The client liked them but wanted to try something more graphic and iconic. So, after studying a book of logos from LogoLounge for inspiration, I came up with the following ideas:
All sketches copyright © Cedric Hohnstadt. All rights reserved.
Eventually we went back to the cartoon version and developed it further. Here’s the final design:
If you work in the restaurant biz, keep an eye out for Bigeye Tuna Guys. Their site will be launching soon.
Last year I did some concept development work for an animated motion picture currently being developed in Hollywood. I was brought on board to help design some animal characters. The catch was that I had to try to match the style of another artist who had already done quite a bit of their visual development.
I did some sketches of an ostrich and a near-sighted rhino. Ultimately it was decided that I wasn’t quite capturing the look they were after and so we shook hands and parted ways. Oh well, you can’t win them all. But they were great people to work with, they paid me for my work, and we parted on good terms.
I can’t say too much about the project because as far as I know it is still in development. But I did retain the rights to my unused sketches and can show them to you. I posted some ostrich samples a while back. Today I came across some of the rhino drawings in my files and thought I would post them as well:
Copyright © Cedric Hohnstadt. All rights reserved.
JellyTelly.com is a fun website project from Phil Vischer, creator of VeggieTales. He’s partnered with Focus on the Family to create online daily episodes combining animation, puppetry, and live action to present Biblical concepts to kids in fun and entertaining ways. Sort of like a Christian Sesame Street. It’s really fun stuff!
Much of the site’s content is populated by puppet characters. Recently Phil hired me to create a new monkey puppet for a bit he was working up for the show. He sent me some rough thumbnail doodles and photos of the two puppet characters the monkey would be interacting with. My job was to work up a final design for the puppet, one that would look good next to the other two puppets and feel like it came from the same “puppet world” that they inhabit.
I started with a round of rough thumbnails, playing with various shapes and proportions without deviating too far from the rough design I was given:
Phil picked a design he liked and I sent him some possible color choices. After a few emails back and forth I worked up this final turnaroud for the puppeteer:
Phil recently sent me a photo of the final puppet, and with his permission I’m posting it here:
I don’t know when the episode will go live. When it does it will likely only be available to Jelly Telly subscribers. But if I can get permission I’ll post a screen shot or two.
Dan Haskett is an animation veteran and one of the top character designers in the business. He’s contributed to classic feature films including The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Prince of Egypt, Mulan, and Toy Story. Dan helped translate Matt Groening’s early sketches for The Simpsons into the look we know today and was rewarded with an Emmy for his work. He’s also worked on numerous commercials and created animated bits for Sesame Street.
I first met Dan Haskett at the Motion ’08 animation conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he gave a fascinating presentation on designing ethnic characters (read my blog post about it here). After his presentation he was kind enough to review my portfolio. The following year I was invited back to the Motion conference as a speaker where I again had the chance to visit with Dan. He’s a brilliant and versatile artist, a likable guy with strong opinions that he shares in a soft-spoken and thoughtful manner.
In January 2010 Dan was kind enough to give me a phone interview from his desk at Warner Brothers where he is currently designing characters for two Scooby Doo projects. He shared some observations on the industry, offered some advice, and gave his thoughts on The Princess and the Frog from his perspective as an African American in the animation industry.
(Full interview after the break.)
(The above artwork is copyright © Dan Haskett. All rights reserved.)
I was digging through some old artwork and found some alien concept sketches I did way back in 2006. These were some “villain” designs from an educational project for kids that was to take place in outer space. As far as I know things never went much further than this before the project came to a stand still, for reasons I’m not privy too. (I did get paid for my work.) The client has asked that I not reveal any specific info about what they had in the works, so here you go….some silly aliens from the studio archives.
Any time I look back at old sketches like these I notice things I’d like to improve or do differently to make the designs stronger. That just means that with each passing year my skills are improving and I’m developing a keener eye. At least, that’s what I like to think.
