Ajax Character Art

I found some character concept from a story I came up with a few years back.

Gator Golfer told the tale of a rude and rich golf pro who decides to construct his own private 18 hole golf course in the Florida Everglades. Ajax, the head alligator of the area, decides to retaliate in order to save his home, as well as the environment for his fellow swamp neighbors. The two characters agree to a contest to see who owns the right to be in the everglades, and whoever wins at 18 holes of golf wins the swamp. As it turns out Ajax knows nothing about golfing and cheats in order to win, while the pro golfer turns out to be a dirty rotten cheat himself, hence why he is such a "pro golfer"! The story from there chronicles whose the better cheat.

Vince Fly-trap

I wanted to take a break from creating characters from animals, so I took a stab at creating a character out of a plant. Low and behold, Vince the Venus Fly-trap. Above, you can spot where I have some different head designs.

Conroy and Rosco character studies

Lucky you! I found some old Conroy and Rosco sketches, some of when Conroy had a hat, and the first designs of Rosco's newest hat.

more Hover Heeler

One of my favorite dynamic sketches of Xax in a classic speed skating pose.

Murray Monster

Meet Murray, a rejected design of a monster for a class assignment. Here I am trying to design a character that boasts the best in retro style, and alas, he doesn't make the cut. He was criticized for looking too much like a werewolf and too dog like. I personally think he was kinda hip and cute for a monster. Hang in there buddy, I'll use you at some point!

Renzo Manta

How do you make a cartoon character out of a Manta Ray? Well I tried this test, and I came up with Renzo!

Renzo Manta is my newest character I have had the pleasure to create. There's something about semi exotic animals that I like to characterize. They are familiar enough to recognize, and yet still able to stand out as a new cartoon character.

This is just some character studies to get the design right for him. I decided to have him with kite like arms and the head fins just over his eyes. Now real Mantas don't have legs obviously, so I created fin like limbs to make him able to stand. The tail is a simple line, similar to a common mouse tail.

Renzo, I figure, would be a very curious character, questing to know more about the ways surface dwellers live. A bit naive about things, but that's what would make him such an engaging character. He has a natural instinct to learn about new things and look at them in a new light. Due to lack of knowledge, he would be brave enough to front anything all for the sake of interest.

I'm still cycling through colors with Renzo. The blue version I think makes him a bit friendlier, while the traditional black makes him look more realistic. He's a fun character to draw, so there will definitely be more drawings of this new creation in the future!

Fun facts about Mantas:

-They are quite friendly and curious about human nature. They will often swim with scuba divers and approach stopped boats.

-Mantas are able to breach the surface like dolphins and whales.

-They have a "wing span" of about 25 feet, and can weigh about 5,000 pounds.

-They hang out in the tropical waters of the world.

Buffalo Gil

Some thumbnails and character studies of one of my newest characters, Buffalo Gil.

My Workspace

This desk is where it all happens. I have created a nice little nook here in Senior Studio at College for Creative Studies (Room 301). I was blessed to have a brand new animation light table made just in time for me to start my film. It looks a little messy, but it's still fairly organized! The little blue box sitting to the right of my desk is the completed animation pile, where my shots are fully in-betweened and ready for inking and coloring.

Of course I have my laptop to the left there just in case I need it, and my main star , Camel sitting right on the desk.

During the first days of animation, this wall in front of you was quite intimidating, seeing how it had 230+ storyboards of my 5 minute film. My process was to simply bring down the scenes I had animated, leaving what needs to be done still right over my desk. Now its come down to my last six shots.

The Mickey Mouse glove is my little "high five for a job well done" decoration.

Just to the right of my desk is an inspiring 3rd story view of the CCS campus. On nice days such as this, the grounds are infesting with art students enjoying the nice weather. Those are the days when its hard to work due to the the distraction of Frisbees and footballs.

Now the question is, am I working hard or hardly working??

Ebo

Is it cute? Is it ugly? I'll let you be the judge.

This little guy is Ebo, Xax's friendly little pet able to mimic any sound what so ever. Voices, accents, music, effects and so on. I wanted it to be like a parrot, but able to have a 100 trillion word vocabulary. As you can see his design is't entirely nailed down yet, but I'm aiming for a beetle, sea horse, dragon fly hybrid creature.

Hallie and Luna Roswell

Hallie Roswell is my attractive, love interest in my story Space Zoo. Hallie is the head veterinarian at the intergalactic zoo. When I came up with these alien characters, I wanted to have them look differently from my other creations, so I wanted to try and step up my anatomy drawing when making these characters.

Hallie is a single mom, and she is accompanied in these sketches by her 6 year old daughter, Luna Roswell.

For those who haven't gotten the trivia to their names:

Hallie Roswell is named after Hallie's comet and Roswell, New Mexico (the site of the 1947 UFO crash site conspiracy)

Luna Roswell is named after Earth's moon in Latin lūna.

Zerik Sketches

Zerik is my animal poaching antagonist in my Space Zoo story. When designing him, I wanted to make sure he was "sharp" looking, allowing him to look more threatening. Keeping that in mind, I also wanted to have him look sharp fashion wise. That idea quickly died, and I just wanted him to have clothes as though he was a smuggler, cause essentially that's exactly what Zerik is. Why over dress?

Xax: Hover Heeler

What is Hover Heel? Its a sport I invented for my story Space Zoo. It's pretty much off road, all terrain form of speed skating. It's a highly popular sport in the world I had created, one of which that attracts both appreciative fanatics and the underground gamblers. Xax moonlights as a Hover Heel star athlete, yet no one knows of his real identity when he races. He'd rather keep himself on the down low in order to not get mixed up in the financial fame as well as the corruption in the sport.

These are just roughs of Xax in action while competing.

Xax Model Sheet

Here's an old model sheet of the protagonist of my story Space Zoo, Xax Starclipper. He's gone through very small changes since this was drawn, such as thinner arms and legs. His head design has always been the same armadillo/cat hybrid with a beak since I created him, so there is very little chance that will change on him.

Globber-Man VS Metal-Man Prints

Back in the day I did a very large art project at another school I attended. Long story short, here is some of the art I used to decorate the walls.

These three images depict the epic fight of the main protagonist and antagonist. I wanted dynamic images to show their powers being used on one another seeing how this is the climax of my story. One of my secret joys in life is to choreograph fight scenes with my characters by drawing them in acrobatic poses, and these three images show just that.

Metal-Man and the Evil Agents

Seeing how I was on a creative streak with these characters back in the day, I wanted to make a villain team as well to do battle with my heroes.

The yellow character was the main leader, Metal Man, who was pretty much an evil robot. Going clockwise: Glass Girl, Acid Man, Plastic Woman, Paint Woman, Cement Man, Steel Man, and Digital Man.

Conroy Expression Sheet

I can't let have Rosco have all the fun. Conroy here is just as theatrical as Rosco in the emotion department. This is straight from my sketchbook, so I really had no need to label what emotion he was portraying. Hopefully they are obvious to the common eye.

More Globber-Man

Globber-Man Model Sheet

Here's my official model sheet for Globber-Man. The great thing about these are that once you show them to others, they see and understand how you draw characters in your specific style.

Globber-Mite and Globber-Man

Globber Man started out simply as this, a green glob blob with two eyes, a stubby nose, and 2 form-able two boxing glove type hands.

Globber Man's personality was the typical eager young hero wanting to see where his life would take him. Since he was made out of whatever glob was, he wondered if he would ever be a part of the Elemental Agents and thought of himself as an outsider. The time came for him to prove that his element was a practical one, and with that, saved the day and became a full fledged member of the Elemental Agents.

As the series got a bit more flushed out, I came up with a grounded philosophy for my little characters. I thought, "Well, this doesn't make him much of a man." So I came up with the idea of having him have 2 forms. A simple travel size form, and a powered up humanized form.

I came up with the idea of naming him as Globber Mite.

While in his "mite" form, was able to shoot blob globs from his mouth, stretch, and ricochet off of walls like a rubber ball. His abilities were limited while in this form, but still had it's advantages.

When in this "up-graded" form, he would be known as the true Globber Man. While in this form, he gained new abilities, but would have to sacrifice some old ones. As his "Man" form he advanced his fighting techniques with stronger arms (which are now amply loaded with blob globs to shoot from), and spawned some powerful legs enabling him to be more agile and acrobatic. He is still able to stretch in ways, but in this form he loses his defensive ability of turning into an unstoppable ball.

Globber-Man (2000)

Here's a character from the MatTOON archives: Globber Man! (The little green dude at the top) and the rest of the Element Agents.

He's green, he's squishy, he's a defender of peace! He's GLOBBER MAN!

He's a little green glob that fights along side the agents of the elements (kind of like the Justice League of Earthly matter)

Names (starting from top and left to right by each row) Globber Man, Water Man, Fire Man, Wood Man, Lava Man, Wind Woman, Rock Man, Lightning Man, Oil Man, Gold Man, Silver Woman, Ice Man, Marble Man, Crystal Girl, Snow Girl, Smoke Man, Rubber Boy, Dust Boy, Copper Man, Bronze Boy, Gem Woman, and Coal Man.

The point of this little character design experiment was to design various head shapes that would fit a texture theme to each character. For the most part, I believe that this was a fun little venture that got my head back into the thought of color design and inserting personality into what were just shapes of funny little folks.