Sunday, March 4, 2007

Nigel Ghost Hunters: In House

Hey Dela,

Hope you had a blast at wondercon. Here are my in house drawings for the week.

The story revolves around 3 ghost hunters in 1860's. They have all aged and retired from what they love to do. Because of their Ghost hunting career, they were never able to meet any women, and now only have each other to grow old with. One day, they run across a lost girl in their neighborhood. She is a little chinese girl named mi mi. Not really knowing what to do, they teach her the only thing they know how to do, ghost hunting.

They each want to pass on their skills to the girl, and overwhelm her with home made gadgets and tools. Inspired by the little girl, the 3 old men started to practice ghost hunting again. Though a little more than slow and clumpsy at it, they manage to rediscover their passion in what they do.

I thought I would try to push the story aspect of it into something more realistic and believable, while really having fun with the shapes of the characters. I really like how this can be a very touching and funny story, picking at the different behaviors of how old people nip pick at eachother, get mad, make fun, and care so much for children. It was interesting just to see my grand parents, how they turn into children themsleves as they get older.


2 comments:

Tony Bui said...

Man, your line work and shapes are sweet. I think your ghost hunters should fight my ghost huntes.

Dela Longfish said...

Nigel,

These characters are looking great! I loving the feel as well as the story you have going.

A lot is working here, as far as the assignment they all feel tied to the time period and each other. I feel the amount of detail is working, not over done and not under done. The story telling with Mi Mi is great, it looks like she got something from each of her mentors as well as her own look.

A lot of times when people do a stlyized animated feel there's a tendency to make it gag related. Your kind of taking it to the next level, because these do feel touching. What's great about that is not only do you care about your characters, but now you're getting other people to care about them as well.

Alright man, here's what I would like you to do with the paint, even if you've already started. Just like you have with the design, push the paint style. It would be very easy to to use flat color on these guys, which would still work great, and if you've already done that bring those in for class. But check out this guys paint style and see if it inspires anything.

http://woodyart.blogspot.com/