Our BFA class is starting a new project and we just finished the first week.
The story is about a boy named Alexander Cold who is starting to grow up.
While his father takes Alexander's sick mother to a hospital he is sent to live
with his grandmother who promptly takes him to the Amazon where he meets
Nadia Santos. A half Native South American, half Canadian nine year old
who is one of the wisest characters in the book. Not smart, but wise. She can
talk to animals and always travels around with a monkey named Boroba.
The wisest character in the book is Walimai. an old man who can travel
to and from the spirit realm. A young lady's soul is tied to him and travels
with him until it is finally his turn to walk as a soul.
A few other characters are Doctor Torres, the nurse who is trying
to protect the indians by inoculating them with antibodies, Professor
LeBlanc, a rather annoying author who writes fantasy that masquerades
as history, and Cesar Santos, a man smitten (like all the others) with
Doctor Torres who is also leading the expedition and is Nadia's father.
We were allowed to choose an art style for our group and we chose
Disney TV. I tried to spend a lot of the first week trying to draw like it.
Playing with heads, shapes and gestures is something I haven't really done
in a while and it was fun to get back to pencils and graphite sticks.
A lot of what I tried was meant to break the drawing by starting off with
a quick sketch of buttered toast, or Frontbutt (the colored in drawing above)
with his butt in front, or his anatomically incorrect mouth. There were quite
a few times where I looked at my paper and said "That's so stupid."
but I loved that.
There are quite a few fun props to do and I haven't ever really done prop
design so I had no idea what I was doing (which was really exciting!) Her
necklace is a huge story element so I thought I'd play with that or even how
many different kinds of feathers or bottles there could be.
We decided to do the Amazonian town in the book and built it on stilts.
I played around with a few value comps and tried something more towards
the Disney TV for kids style. I might have broken it a bit, but I would have
love it as a kid.
Lastly, I enjoyed when Nadia and Alexander met Padre Valdomero, a European
priest who has actually seen the beast. This is the drawing I expected him to give them.
* * * * *
We have a fun team, and many weeks ahead so I look forward to future posts.
My visual development cohorts are:
Bridget Ore: http://sketchblerg.blogspot.com/
Jen Armstrong: http://scribblisch.blogspot.com/
Naima Sawyer-Dymski: http://naima.deviantart.com/
You should look at their stuff because it's awesome.
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