THUMBNAILS AND COMPOSITION

Trust the Process. Process is the hard part-the work part. The idea is the most natural spark, but getting to the solution of what you SEE in your idea and to the RESULTS of the product, is the more involved challenge.
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Storyboards from The Woodcutter Kickstarter (game)
Thumbnails are the most crucial, personal step in getting the first notes down on paper and pencil. In the thumbnail, you'll capture the idea, the energy, the composition, and look for visual problems that may arise. From the Thumbnail, the artist needs to acquire visual references through photos or models.  Once you have your references, you can begin a more complete drawing to lead you to the final results. A value study (LMD, light, medium, dark) can help enhance the contrast and impact of your visual results. A color study can also further elaborate your desire to use cools/warms and various palettes in your deliverable.  These can also be quick and to the point; often, artists use tracing paper or digital layers to "think visually" about the results they need.
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Edward Scissorhands Keyshot with Lighting as Direction (by J.Wimmer)
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Color Script Demo (by Jime Wimmer)

NAME THAT MOVIE!

What's a Thumbnail?...and WHY??

A Thumbnail is a tiny drawing or sketch that assists the artist/designer in fast planning and layouts in composition and conception. If a Thumbnail is strong in composing/planning/designing lines/values/colors/layouts/etc---it can be helpful to do many, many thumbnails to have the visual discussion of strengths and weaknesses of each design. 

When it doubt ---try the Golden Spiral/Rectangle (ratio, fibonacci)

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Thumbnail link to killer resources by Kali Ciesemier

Flight of the Elephant First pass storyboard by Jime Wimmer

This was an interesting project. The brainchild and story behind this project were my former Chair, Amy Johnson. Using her story, the first creative task was to create storyboards for shots/beats to be displayed on a large screen for the audience while an orchestra played the music live. Should be easy, right? Well...the interesting part was that they wanted to compose the music AFTER my boards. A little different in creative order, but... but luckily I have a background in music as a pianist and compose often. I knew there was really only one way to make these first passes: FAST, while I imagined "music" playing in my head that 'told' the story with emotional beats. (I totally heard the Lion King's opening sequence in the first scene...haha! First pass was approx 140 sketches in 20 minutes using a conte crayon. 

EXAMPLES OF LMD AND DEVELOPMENT USING REFERENCES


I had two other students under my direction for the boards, and all three of us created a full set. After we were all done, we broke them apart and analyzed the best compositions for the story elements. One student helped me with a first, thick-line pass — and handed them to me while I did all the revisions, final line work, and grayscale.

FINAL ILLUSTRATION WITH TEXTURES (COLOR NON-OPTIONAL)

Last touches added: texture to create more movement in the image. At this time, I had been hired at another school, and the department was going to add color scripting to the images. Unfortunately, I think they ran out of time. Amelia never received color to her story.

COLLABORATION WITH DESIGN, MUSIC AND SCULPTOR: 

So many folks came together to make this exhibition and performance a full experience. We had sculpture, boards, books, and even a virtual 3D elephant that I had some fun with using Tiltbrush. The performance traveled and raised money for Elephants. 

Guardian of the Forest demo: Thumbs, LMD, Color, Final

Ex. Workshop feedback from Scholastic Editor for a Beatrix Potter Redeux:

I had a blast working with Giuseppe Castellano at an SCBWI online event. This image was the first one I entered and got into the Society of Illustrators in Los Angeles. Giuseppe runs a GREAT PODCAST---The Illustration Dept. You can find a link to it on my homepage.