The Grahams

New Artwork For A New Project

2011-03-17T13:52:00.000-07:00

I have been busy on a new project and using a Wacom Cintiq 21 UX to draw on. These were all done in Photoshop 4 and I've left out the projects name on purpose. It hasn't aired yet and I don't want to give away anything. I thought I should finally post something. Here they are.

I enjoy drawing in Photoshop. I use files at 80 dpi and use the brush tool set at 3. It gives you the feel of a pencil. However the resolution can lend itself to blurry closeups. There's always trade offs. I still prefer pencil & paper.

Development Roughs

2009-12-04T07:55:00.000-08:00

We had a short lived development sprint on a now "cold" project that may never see the light of day. So, here are some roughs I did for the show concept. It had potential.......maybe it will get dusted off later, and revisited. Have a look.

It definitely needed a lot more work. The show was intended to be CGI and On a small budget, so that limited the style quite a bit.

Ode To Ragnar

2009-12-01T12:24:00.000-08:00

I was talking with a friend who showed me the Art Of Big City book by Brandon Ragnar Johnson. I love his stuff....amazing design! So I took one of his more graphic designs of an alien ( I think) and tried to make it more 3 dimensional without losing the graphic nature of the original. I think it worked out okay.

Just to make it clear, this design is NOT mine......I just adapted it a bit. I wish it was mine but alas, the top left little illustration is Ragnar's original. I hope he doesn't mind.

Board Revisions For Bolts&Blip Show

2009-10-20T10:07:00.001-07:00

Here are some recent examples of some revisions I was asked to do on show 25. Panels for scenes 460, 461 and 465 are from the original board artist. The rest are the revision panels I did.
It's not exceptional but since there are no examples in this Blog of my story boarding capabilities, I thought that it'ld be a good idea to show something.....anything.
I put these together using Photoshop. Probably not the best piece of software for that particular task. It worked out though. I'm going to include another shorter sequence in a new post. Thank you for having a look.

Monstroville Project

2009-06-08T12:56:00.001-07:00

Here's a clean location design I recently finished for a side project called Monstroville. It's being done by O Neal Pignani (A.K.A. Viktor Von Kreep) and host of other talented people. You can check out the blog.... Monstroville !

There will be more to come in the next few months. It gives me a chance to get back to a more graphic style of design.

More From Bolts & Blip

2009-05-21T13:59:00.000-07:00

I've been hard at work, getting through this show. Here are some recent designs for locations and props. They look a little slicker now because I've started to scan and assemble my drawings in Photoshop. Have a look...........

This show should be coming to an end soon. I hope to get back to more "cartoony" stuff.

CGI Blip Project - 3D Animation

2009-01-27T14:22:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since I've posted anything. For the past 6 months or so I've been involved with a CGI project. It's been a lot of hard work and continues to be challenging. I've been designing in pencil, which get scanned and given to the modelers. Have a look at some of the designs............

Wow, is 3D hard to design for. Almost everything I draw has to be done in multiple angles with details to aid in the modeling. I would say in my limited experience with CGI production, that it's three times the work as a regular 2D show. We'll see if I survive the project.

Yin Yang Yo - Season 2 Layout/Design

2008-02-29T17:07:00.001-08:00

Here are a few examples of my work on the episodes. The drawings get painted and vectorized so that you can zoom right in to an area. It's the only way we can get the show done under the schedule we have. Have a look..................

We have only recently surpassed the half way point in the 39 half-hour spots , each containing two 11 minute episodes. It's a lot of work!!!

The Ripping Friends - Part 1

2008-02-27T14:16:00.001-08:00

I left a design job to work on this show. John Kricfalusi's "The Ripping Friends" was a promising project and I was ready for a change of venue. So off to the Red Rover Studio I went. It was also being directed by a good friend of mine, Riccardo Durante. I always enjoy working with Rick.

Here are a few poses I did for a layout. These guys weren't easy to draw. John made it look easy. His poses of the characters were unbelievably awesome. This was my attempt at Crag.....

This was a prop for a show called Frictor. I liked this episode a lot.

This was a graphic for the box lid, the above machine came in. I used an old 50's toy box lid as reference ,.......if it looks familiar.

The rough layout below was the building housing the sewing room, which of course was filled with huge, impossibly complex machines. I designed the interior as well.

Here's an example of how I like to work. I do a rough thumbnail and blow it up on the photo-copier. Then I work out some of the issues that need to be resolved in the thumbnail to create a rough layout. I was doing the designs for these locations in the layout stage so the establishing shots, and various complicated interiors were handled by me.

I'm going to down load some more artwork from the show later on. This show was a lot of hard work but fun and it forced me to draw in a style I hadn't done before. I always like to push myself out of my comfort zone. It's usually when I can do my best work.

Jim Henson's Dog City - Layouts

2008-02-06T18:21:00.001-08:00

I dusted some old layouts off from the second series I ever worked on. I think these were from the second season. It had a unique style......, though way too much detail every where. These represent the only examples I have of my work on the show. Boy it takes me back.

Unfortunately, all the details would get painted out. The backgrounds were painted at an over seas studio. I'm assuming they were pressed for time and money. Oh well, not like any one remembers the show now. I worked with a lot of great people on this project.

Total Drama Island - Location Drawings

2008-02-05T19:11:00.001-08:00

I took over the design of this show late in the game and systematically re-designed the entire look of the locations. Luckily the actual shows were not in production, just the preliminary designs given to the board artists, more fondly referred to as "Funpacks". So I treated the location design process on the episodes like actual layouts, even though the assembly was taking place in scene planning using Flash 8. I was hoping they would use them as a guide.......but it didn't always work out that way. Anyway, have a look............................

I had some fun working on this show. The schedule was a grind and deadlines were tight but I didn't want to compromise the design sense, that I had started with. All in all, the show looks good and it's doing well on Teletoon.

Grossology Development

2007-11-17T06:31:00.001-08:00

For a brief stint, between projects, I worked on some development for Nelvana in 2004. This show is now in production. The character designs, they went with, are amazing, I'm not so impressed with the locations. I think the world could've been a lot richer given the proper background design. Most productions believe that locations don't really matter. I guess that's why Hollywood scours the globe and spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on just the right setting for a movie,......but in cartoons, it doesn't really matter!?? Oh well.

Here is the lineup I designed. This is Lab Rat's pet rat. Lab Rat is in charge of analysis and information gathering using the Grossology computer and lab.

This is the exterior of Ringworm Junior Highschool. Ty and Abby, the main characters, are students here by day and Grossology operatives after school.

Here we have the Grossotorium. It houses a holographic imaging device and a large library of gross things. Just what every kid needs.

This is the secret tunnel underground for the secret Grossology complex. This is how they would access the Grossology Lab and Grossotorium.

Here's several versions of the Grossology Lab and computer. For the last version, I was asked to add things around the room to create an environment that looked as if a kid would hang out here.

This is a version of Ty's bedroom at home. I didn't get to Abby's room. I did a drawing for ther house which was a typical suburban street.

I really was involved in developing this concept because I was not sure of the premise of the show and thought that it would need strong characters and good stories to make it interesting. I had even thought of characteristics for Ty, Abby and Lab Rat. I also came up with an idea to separate their secret life with their regular daily life. Nothing I did made it to the series,......it felt like a complete waste of my time and energy. It's too bad.

Wayside School Special

2007-11-16T06:21:00.001-08:00

I was fortunate enough to be a part of the small crew who put this show together. I was in charge of location development and design. Mark Ackland created the character style. Ricardo Durante was the director and helped with both character development and locations, as well as his other duties. I had a great time working on it. I think it shows.

Here is a rough design of the school. It was used in some promotional material.

Below is Mrs. Jewel's class room, as seen from her point of view. For those of you unfamiliar with the stories by Louis Sachar, the school was original designed as a 30 class horizontal structure. The builder made a mistake and it ended up as a 30 story high structure, with a make shift look. Hence the weird design.

This is a reverse view

This is the teacher's lounge. Where they can hang out and have a soda? I was told to make sure it didn't look like a real bar. Teachers drink....never!

This is the rather confusing cafeteria.

Here are some views of the hallways,....consisting mostly of stairs.

This is Principal Kitswater's office. I never cleaned this up. The paint department proved to be capable of painting from a rough, so thats as far as it got. The painting turned out amazing.

The vertigo inducing stairs, from the main floor up.

Invite For A House Party

2007-08-03T12:52:00.001-07:00

I did this graphic of my new home for the house warming invite. Sadly, it's the only new art work I care to post. I'm off on vacation for a week and it couldn't come at a better time. I need the rest. Hopefully more new artwork will follow over the next month or so.

Yin Yang Yo- Season 2

2007-04-26T16:46:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've added anything new here. I've been busy moving to a new house and working on two shows at once. One of which is YYY. I'm doing preliminary drawings for the board artists. So far, the scripts have made me laugh out loud, several times. That's a good sign. Here's a couple of designs for Coop's house.

Sidekick - development

2007-01-09T13:50:00.000-08:00

The designs below were done for a series of short 5 min. episodes. It was a project developed by Todd Kaufman and Joey So for Nelvana's Funpack block of shows. There were 5 of them all together to make the series. I worked on the first Sidekick episode briefly. Most of what I did was merely pre-production. The series turned out quit nice.

All the shows for the Funpack block were creator driven shows. Too bad nothing came of it. Not one was picked up as a regular series despite several awesome concepts.

Can't Get Enough Of That.......

2007-01-08T15:39:00.000-08:00

I was sifting through some of my drawings the other day. I came across these rough Layouts I did for a freelance job. Take a guess as to what they were for................

In case you're still baffled........they were done for a Sugar Crisp commercial. Man,...it was sweet drawing the Sugar Bear. Unfortunately the cleans are long gone and It doesn't seem like I made any copies. I set up the front gate as a multi-plain truck in. It's too bad the finished commercial lost the flavour of these roughs.

Development - Peep And His Big Wide World

2007-01-05T13:18:00.000-08:00

This was a project brought to Red Rover Studios while I worked there. It was a quirky and sweet show. We did some development and then it just lost steam. It wound up at another studio and it looks cheap.............too bad. Here's what could've been.

I would've really liked to see how this project could've turned out. The last drawing shows the characters. They were primary colours. Peep on the far right, was yellow, the duck below the log was blue, and the bird on the left was red. It had a lot more potential than was realized.

Care Bears Movie 2

2007-01-05T12:02:00.000-08:00

I was asked to do some designs for the next Care Bears film while working on Wayside School when I was at Nelvana. Here's a couple of locations.......

The film was also CGI, so these are just rough guides for the modeling department. I have not seen the finished film, yet. These were a lot of fun to do, very soft, fluffy and happy......just like me!

Total Drama Island

2006-12-20T13:15:00.000-08:00

So, here's some examples of the new show I'm working on at the moment. The painted background is the work of our talented background supervisor, Martin Smith. For some reason the clean was loaded first, then the rough. You get the idea though.

More TDI work will follow, as soon as I have time. This show is lookin sweet!

Care Bears 3D

2006-12-15T11:21:00.000-08:00

Shortly after My Dad The Rock Star I did some design work for a CGI movie Involving the Care Bears. I was basically following a design style that they were already using. The film itself looks awful and is boring. Too bad, because a lot of great preliminary artwork was done by Dermot Walshe. I think they should've done the film in 2D artwork, using Dermot's drawings.

My Dad The Rock Star

2006-12-15T10:35:00.000-08:00

I worked on this show from 2001-2002. I was the lead location/prop designer for the entire show. When I first started this series, I was brought on a week behind schedule and asked to re-design the look of the show. I managed to do this in a week. These designs were done as " funpack" drawings for the board artists. In most cases they were used as is and went on to become painted backgrounds, saving a lot of time and money on layout. I think This is some of my best design work. I was fresh off of Clone High and still very much in that "Abstract" train of thought. I had a lot of free rein on this project. I did a lot of research on modern furniture and architecture. I took quit a bit from "Googie" style Buildings.

I think this show feels very Southern California. Gene Simmons came up with the concept.

Yin Yang Yo Preliminary Design

2006-11-24T09:17:00.000-08:00

Some of these made it to production and others didn't. This was at an early stage in production. I was trying to get the style and design Flash friendly BG's.