Laurel & Hardy Illustration Breakdown

[largento]

Since voting for the mascot contest is over, I thought I'd do up a quick post about my Laurel & Hardy entry.

 

When I decided to do an illustration for the contest, I went looking for inspiration and came across a post on one of the cartoonist blogs I go to, Patrick Owsley's Cartoon Art, that featured this old comic book cover of Laurel and Hardy. I liked the simplicity of it and I think the animated character designs for Stan and Ollie are great.

 

 

Compositionally, I also liked them in the boat. I wasn't entirely sure if it needed to landscape or portrait and knew the boat would let me easily make it either. I thought about a straight recreation of the comic book cover, but thought the joke was a little too simple. I watched a bunch of Laurel & Hardy films last year and started thinking of them in character. They were often portrayed as down on their luck, so I liked the idea of Stanley holding the plate and fork, waiting to eat the fish. Ollie was great when he seemed proud of himself even though he was actually in trouble. I originally thought I'd do some kind of regular fish, but then it occurred to me that a swordfish can look much more menacing, since it has that sword sticking out of its face. I also liked the idea that they were out on the ocean in this boat, being tossed around (rather than the obvious fat joke that Ollie's weight would lift Stanley's side of the boat out of the water.

 

I could imagine the entire sequence of Stanley noticing the big swordfish and poking Ollie in the back and Ollie shooing him off, until finally seeing the threat and yelling "ooh!" as the sword fish stabs him in the hindquarters. Anyway, it amused me. :-)

 

 

I started off by creating Stan and Ollie. I knew from the setup that Ollie wouldn't need legs and Stan wouldn't need feet, so I didn't bother modeling those parts. I then went searching for blueprints for a rowboat and loosely used them to create the boat. Most of the props were simple to make. The swordfish was tougher. I'd done a sketch that looked very much like the final version, but when I first modeled it, I got hung up and ended up with a less appealing version. Here's the first version:

 

 

Thankfully, I chose to step away from the illustration for a day and come back to it with fresh eyes. The first thing that caught my eye was the swordfish. I'd gone away from my sketch, giving it an upper lip and it just didn't look as much like a fish anymore. I worked on refining the model and then I also repositioned it to fill up more of the vertical space. This earlier version of Stan also got some reworking. I didn't like that his nose cast so long of a shadow, so I shortened his nose and made some other changes. I also didn't like that smaller fish was overlapping the boat. I reduced him in size and lowered him to balance the composition. I also adjusted the lighting to make the larger fish brighter.

 

The final version with the changes made:

 

 

I think stepping away and coming back made a big difference. I know with me personally, I start to take short cuts as I get fatigued near the end. Coming back fresh let me make up for that.

[robcat2075]

That's a wonderful scene, Mark, with fine splinesmanship. Your A:M characters always look great!

[Dpendleton77]

I have to agree with Rob this look awesome I love the look of this.

[John Bigboote]

I loved this image and voted for it (I think...) also LOVE L&H. Just wish you had some smooth bend in the pole, and the water overlapping the boat. GREAT WORK!

[NancyGormezano]

Terrific caricatures of Stan & Ollie! I particularly liked that the image had a fun story to tell and it was obvious what it was.

[largento]

Thanks, all! You're right about the bend in the pole, Matt. I struggled with that. I initially thought I could have the pole and string as one model, rigged to bend, but found that impractical for wanting to be able to position the fish where I wanted to. In the end, the fish, the string and the pole were three different models.

 

As to the boat, my intention was that it was rough seas and it was fully out of the water (like old cartoon cars in stills are often not touching the road.)

[itsjustme]

Great stuff, Mark!

[KJ'd Beast]

Did you repurpose the Marlin as the fish? The models look similar in splinesmanship.

[largento]

Thanks, David!

 

Did you repurpose the Marlin as the fish? The models look similar in splinesmanship.

 

Nope, they were modeled separately. The only thing that was repurposed is the side fins. they all came from copying the top half of the tail fin of the smaller fish.

 

One thing I did differently this time out was to use distortion mode on the bigger fish's teeth. This served not only to help them fit into the mouth better, but to make them seem less uniform.

[johnl3d]

Nicely done you have talent that I'll never have

[ludo_si]

superb job. simple and effective. high quality!

[largento]

Thanks, guys!

[Xtaz]

Amazing composition and splines Mark... topnotch. The characters are a heavy opponent in the mascot's contest... mainly Laurel

[thefreshestever]

superb modeling as always! i love that it´s got a story to it. wouldn´t hurt a bit to see this one win instead of mine.

[largento]

Thanks, guys!

 

A part of me was hoping I'd get the ball rolling for you others to show us some behind-the-scenes of your entries. Marcos took the bait, how about the rest?

[zandoriastudios]

Here is a break down of mine:

http://zandoria.wordpress.com/2013/07/21/v...-at-ninja-pass/

[thefreshestever]

Thanks, guys!

 

A part of me was hoping I'd get the ball rolling for you others to show us some behind-the-scenes of your entries. Marcos took the bait, how about the rest?

 

 

i´d like to, but there´s not much to show. i don´t draw my characters first or make any concept, i just start modeling and see where it goes.