So I've been geeking out about Filmation cartoons from Star Trek to Bravestarr. These cartoons are really not the best things out there, but there are some qualities to these that I just have so much love for. The backgrounds are seriously well conceived and painted. There's probably more care put into those than most of the episodes. The character and creature designs are super creative. They're not Alex Toth quality, but they can hold their own. The special effects and the voice acting are pretty special too.
Since this stuff has been swimming around in my mind, I had the desire to create my own scenes from fictional shows. I'm only going so far to be authentic though. I'm painting with gouache on 5" x 8" illustration board, I'm xeroxing the line art onto acetate and reverse coloring with gouache. So it's pretty close to an authentic animation cel and background painting.
They take a lot of work and planning, so I've only got three completed so far. I'm really excited about doing these though and I figure I can come up with millions of scenes in this format. So there will be more to come. I do a lot of illustration work on the computer and sometimes it's just too easy to make something look like something else, something hand painted or done the real way... manually. So these are really important to me because I'm really painting these and not cheating digitally.
So far I've made two homages to some of my favorite comic characters the Marvel Comics great Doctor Doom and Johnny Ryan's Cannibal Fuckface from the super inspirational Prison Pit books by Fantagraphics books.
The Prison Pit piece I based directly from a panel in book two page 27. I wanted something cool in the background to paint and also something where Cannibal Fuckface was interacting with the background. Since the original comic is black and white I had to imagine what the Prison Pit would look like in color. I imagined that it would actually take place in a huge colon, hence the pink fleshy walls and the miles and mounds of shit everywhere.
This is the panel that I based the scene on.
The other, entirely original piece..."The Uninvited Visitor"
original cel and background from Bravestarr copyright Filmation
Since this stuff has been swimming around in my mind, I had the desire to create my own scenes from fictional shows. I'm only going so far to be authentic though. I'm painting with gouache on 5" x 8" illustration board, I'm xeroxing the line art onto acetate and reverse coloring with gouache. So it's pretty close to an authentic animation cel and background painting.
They take a lot of work and planning, so I've only got three completed so far. I'm really excited about doing these though and I figure I can come up with millions of scenes in this format. So there will be more to come. I do a lot of illustration work on the computer and sometimes it's just too easy to make something look like something else, something hand painted or done the real way... manually. So these are really important to me because I'm really painting these and not cheating digitally.
So far I've made two homages to some of my favorite comic characters the Marvel Comics great Doctor Doom and Johnny Ryan's Cannibal Fuckface from the super inspirational Prison Pit books by Fantagraphics books.
The Prison Pit piece I based directly from a panel in book two page 27. I wanted something cool in the background to paint and also something where Cannibal Fuckface was interacting with the background. Since the original comic is black and white I had to imagine what the Prison Pit would look like in color. I imagined that it would actually take place in a huge colon, hence the pink fleshy walls and the miles and mounds of shit everywhere.
This is the panel that I based the scene on.
The other, entirely original piece..."The Uninvited Visitor"
