Totally at odds with Halloween season I'd like to show you some concept art from a big project DRAW has been working on with the theme of Love.
Over the last couple of months we've been developing a viral animation for New York Bagels called Spread the Love. The love theme was chosen due to the existing 'I Love NY Bagels' tagline for the TV and press adverts. At first we were brought on board to design the characters and sets and draw a storyboard but we soon got involved with every stage. We ended up directing the animation (rendered and animated by the fine folks at The Neighbourhood) and designing the whole website (built by Sonassi).
Through numerous revisions of the main character I ended up with a lot of drawings which I like so I thought I'd share them with you here.
I started with the Cherubs, the cheeky little imps intended to guide you through the site and appear in the animation itself. They had to look cute but not twee and have the capacity for mischief.
I wanted a plasticy feel for the characters, partly because I felt it fit the cartoonier proportions better than skin texture would and partly due to my own fascination with toys, and this render by The Neighbourhood captures that really well, especially how the curl of hair looks painted.
Then I had to tackle the main character who would introduce the animation and the message of love. Early on there was two routes, the first was a Frenchman.
This evolved into a less stereotypical character and more of a hopeless romantic having a sexy bath by himself.
The second route was an international Casanova. After a few doodles a certain loverman slipped into my mind and wouldn't leave until I had drawn him in the bath and also posing naked (100 points if who know who he is).
A more believable Casanova was needed so I turned to everyone's favourite crooners Engelbert Humperdink and Tom Jones for a bit of inspiration. Googling the pair of these brought me much joy.
We couldn't explore this theme fully without taking a look at the Walrus of Love, Barry White, and the resulting character became our favourite.
The designs for Barry's Boudoir. In the more detailed design, the elephant foot lamp, 70's clock with bagel motif and statue of Bes, the Egyptian Midget God of Love, are all details I was particularly happy with.
The client wanted to see an alternate to a celebrity inspired character so Barry morphed into this Afro'ed Pimp. Around this time we'd started calling the character the Funkopotamus.
The client still preferred the Barry White character but was cautious about using an over weight character inspired by a dead singer to advertise their healthy food product. Looking for alternatives, Isaac Hayes came to mind and these little lovermen were born.
Then Isaac Hayes died. We felt that the character was far enough from the man himself not to appear in bad taste and knew that the site wouldn't launch for a couple of months. The client was happy with the new, slimmer Funkopotamus and we sent him to the Neighbourhood to get rendered.
And here's an early render of the man himself.
And that's the bulk of it. Thanks for reading if you've got this far. There was a lot more involved in getting the project finished after the characters were designed, but this is the part where I got to draw the most, and therefore the most fun. I hope you enjoyed looking at it too.
See the full animation at the microsite, Spread the Love.
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