Thursday, February 24, 2011

LINK/ARTIST: Spongebob Character Designs

Oh hell yes. I may be a Fine Arts major but I'm also pretty huge cartoon fan and Spongebob is one of my favorites. I'm linking to Robert Ryan Cory's character design work. It's a trip.
Here are a few quotes from his comments that I found interesting:
It really doesn't matter what supplies you end up using though...as long as they feel comfortable to you. I mostly work on the cintiq now and even though my work is digital...it still has elements of this stuff just because it's how I feel comfortable creating under a deadline.
My advice try all supplies until you find one that is like an old pair of sneakers.
I kind of go through fazes , lately I've only been using technical pencils that way I don't have to sharpen and they are fairly smooth. I use a lot of old art supplies... I collect antique art supplies because I think the quality of lead is better. This one was drawn with a Dixon Thin-EX color vermilion. Those dixons are soft without losing the point that verithins usually have. Then the pencil I cleaned up with is a peacock blue verithin. I use col-erases sometimes but don't like the how muddy they can get, so mostly verithins. 
On my sketchbooks I draw with felt-tip pens specifically ebner faber boldliners and pentel flairs and if there is some color it's probably tria marker.
My character design stuff is all over the road because I go through fazes. I use a lot of verithins. I try to use old art supplies whenever I can because usually the lead is better. My favorite pencil to draw with is the Eagle Diagraph 817 sometimes switching to a dixon metropolitan for details because it has a slightly gray line.
 I'm waiting for the new show I'm working on to air on TV. It's called Secret Mountain Fort Awesome it will be on Cartoon Network in 2011. They actually don't censor my work too much. I look forward to sharing some new stuff soon.
Well all designers are not the same obviously...but what I can say is Design is Math. It's all geometry...some show it like Kellman and me I'm not so showy with my math. I'm more concerned with humor and will break every rule if I think I can get a reaction out of someone.
Here are some basics..
Whatever the most important shape is (the shape that defines that character ie a fat man's body) needs to be the largest mass. Collect the mass of all surrounding shapes and compare the two. The greater the difference...the better the design usually.
You can improve almost every design by favoring the outside line of big shapes and inside of small shapes when cleaning it up/inking.
Direct all details towards the the thing you want people to look at (usually the face).
It's cliche but just doing it everyday and being as critical about your own work and you won't realize but improvement will happen everyday.

 Good stuff. I'm really curious about Secret Mountain Fort Awesome now.

19 comments:

  1. Spongebob is great! Checked out the link too; some fantastic work. Thank you for sharing!

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  2. Ah. I'm an art major and was told to go get a "few supplies" for our new semester and I ended up paying up 400 dollars for oils and water colors.
    My life.

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  3. nice to see some original spongebob drawings

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  4. thes really interesting, thx for posting this.

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  5. Nicee, I always wondered who made those... thanks a lot

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  6. Very nice drawings.. reminds of Ren & Stimpy.

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  7. @weweregoldminegutted
    It's gonna cost a lot more in the long run :\
    I don't even want to think about how much I've spent on art supplies..

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  8. im working hard and is getting better and better

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