Sketch o’the Week

Here’s something completely different.

In the last 6 months I’ve been asked to do quite a bit of illustration for animation… stuff like iPad Apps, movie character design, character design for advertising and now of course the stuff for the MAD Show. The thing is I have never done anything like that before, and am flying mostly blind when it comes to doing things like turnarounds, style sheets… basically all the fundamentals that make animation character design work.

So, I am taking my pal Steve Silver‘s highly recommended on-line “Character Design” course through Schoolism.com. Steve is one of the best animation character designers working today, and I am sure his class will teach me how to do a better job on all these projects that I’ve been getting.

Anyway, today’s “Sketch o’the Week” is from the introduction lesson of the course. The “assignment” was to do a character design based on a description of “Jerry Loomy”, a greasy, middle aged used car salesmen from New York City. Stuff like the eye patch and missing finger were part of the specifics on the character’s look. This was supposed to be a quick, basic sketch as an introduction of the student’s work for Steve. No grade as of yet… I expect an “F-“.

I’ll give updates on my course experience now and again…