Hey, Arnold! Production Cell

The first few seasons of the Hey, Arnold! show where made the old fashioned way - with cells and film. Later the show went digital.  Craig Bartlett, the shows creator, was gracious enough to give away these cells to the crew for our birthdays. Having worked on the show for almost 5 years, I was able to collect 4 cells. Here is one of them:

I consider myself very fortunate to have worked on the Hey, Arnold! show and it remains a highlight in my animation career. So I really treasure these cells. I'll post more of them later.

Davelyman out!

LC Head Rotation ~ rough

After drawing some attitude expression drawings, I feel that I'm starting to get a good design for this character. So I attempted a head rotation:

I was a little surprised by his Micky Mouse qualities that became evident in the back view. But I'm sure when he is fully rendered, those similarities won't be evident. He isn't supposed to be anything like Mickey (there- that should put me legally in the clear!).

Davelyman out!

Expression Sheet 2 ~ Rough

A more refined approach to the expression sheet format.

I'm still learning how to draw this guy. There are some here that I like. Some others that need some more thinking through. I particularly like the second pose on the bottom row. He's like "yyyeah...". The first drawing on the middle row is the first time I've gotten a decent side view drawing of him. I've been struggling with the placement of the eyes for this view. Here the eye is slightly right of center. That looks about right to me. Overall though, he's looking pretty good.

Davelyman out!

Facial Expression Sheet ~ Preliminary Roughs

I have to act this guy, so I'm drawing some expressions to see what I can get out of him. When I tried this before I was drawing him all cartoony and he just ended up looking grotesque. So this time I drew him without any squash and stretch to his skull. All the expressions are purely from the eyes and mouth. Next, I want to try to push the expressions more by allowing a little squash and stretch. We'll see how far I can push it and still have it look like his 'ol happy self.

Davelyman out!

Skullz!

Taking a Character Design class at The Animation Academy in Burbank, I was trying to come up with a skull character:

One of these do?

Davelyman out!

The Begining of Something Good?

I met with David Williams today for lunch at Chewys and pitched him my old Laughing Chameleon storyboard . He seemed to like it good enough. He's on board with it. The start of something good I hope?

Boulderdash!

I now present to you... my third year CalArts film, Boulderdash.

Voiced by the fabulous April Crowel. the film placed 2nd at the CalArts Producers Show.

 

 Topical for its time, its a little dated now. This dramatization is loosely based on an incident that happened to my wife when she was a girl. The street she walks down is a stylized version of the street I grew up on. And the school is a stylized version of my Junior High School. I was a big fan of Tim Burton, so his influence is seen in the reoccurring use of spirals. 

Fun little film to make.

  Davelyman out!