Wednesday, April 22, 2009

MANNY & KHAN; WE LIKE BAD DRAWINGS!

Sum of the Manny and Khan artwork I've been workin' on. These 2 pieces I made for my mom, she's awesome.

I think our character designer Danbob Thompson ruined my life. I can't draw anything now without having all the lines overlap on top of each other... it's a really bad habit.

Below is a piece of artwork from Danbob's portfolio that both Joey and myself saw and instantly said "we need to steal that style for Manny and Khan!"

Property of Dan Thompson

The folks at Cartoon Network, specifically Craig McCracken and Rob Renzetti, really liked the youtful energy of the short and it's childish nature. So we tried to capture that "charm" in the art direction, and Danbob capitalized on the philosphy by implementing a "crude" stylistic approach to the character designs. The overlapping lines and jagged/uneven thick-and-thin linework really enhances the characters' personalites simply in design. Danbob did an incredible job capturing the energy of the short by making the characters appear they'd actually been drawn by kids. The short wouldn't have felt the same way without his masterfuly "poor" drawings. (Danbob is one of the most talented and diverse artists I've ever met, and this is in no way a stab at his abilities. In fact, it's actually harder to draw "poorly" than it is to draw "good" which is a testament to Danbob's skills!)

Everyone we brought on to help us out with the short, we always told them the same thing, that the feeling we were going for is "you should be making sound effects while you're drawings."

4 comments:

Claire said...

I really love how you draw their expressions, makes me giggle just looking at them!

Anonymous said...

Great drawings Josh!! I like how you used different colors for each Manny/Khan. By the way, do you know yet if Cartoonstitute will be airing?

Josh 'Hat' Lieberman said...

Claire- Thanks. Your stuff is soo good, seriously, you're a better artist than I am. I don't see you having any problems getting a job at a major studio.

Anonymous- Thanks. No word yet on what the studio plans to do with all the shorts.

Joseph Giardina said...

These are great! I can't wait to see the Extreme Close-ups!