Some more Concepts from El Tigre- This time concepts for Dad's (White Pantera's) room.
White Pantera is a super hero... but refuses payment for his good doing... so lives in complete squalor. I thought it would be fun to push the contrast between the sparseness of Dad's room with the opulence of super-villain Grandpa's fancy crib.
As usual I explore the bathroom area early on... to get a better handle on what sort of man lives in this space.
A number of years ago Jorge Gutierrez asked me to create concept sketches for his show El Tigre. The goal was to create a bunch of fun visual ideas that I would then feed to the crew in Los Angeles. Since I was working overseas, I would basically have to pitch my concepts to the crew with lots of written notes etc. If Jorge, co-creator Sandra Equihua, director Dave Thomas, and art director Roman Laney liked the direction of a certain rough idea, we would explore it further in additional sketches.
The Concept- Grandpa is a retired super-villain, and we wanted his room to be a little over the top. His every vice at the ready, gambling TV, exotic drinks, and lots of gold, red, and black. It was inspired in a large part by the movie Scarface.
Every once in a while I'll dig through my archives and revisit color scripts from El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera. Though it has been a handful of years since the show was cancelled on Nickelodeon, I have to say it is still probably one of my favorite TV projects. Creators Jorge Gutierrez and Sandra Equihua, art director Roman Laney, and director Dave Thomas tried to push every aspect of the show.
For Rising Son I focused on contrasting a "clean" fresh look (note the rare blue skies) against the grit and grime of Miracle City. Some of the color variations are subtle. I had a good idea of what the creative leads on the show were looking for. But since we were on a pretty tight deadline, and I was working from Asia, I thought it would be better to give those variations and let the leads choose.
To see more color scripts from the show please visit HERE.
By episode 14 of El Tigre we were over half way through the season. The color for the main locations of the show had been fairly well established... so I was able to focus more on parts of the story that were unique to the different episodes. For E 14 I wanted to play the cool exteriors off the warm interiors for maximum contrast. I wasn't allowed to change the character color over the course of the show... so I simply tipped in characters from the color model sheet to test how they would read on the backgrounds.
To see the rest of the El Tigre color scripts visit HERE!
A number of years ago I worked on a show called "El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera" created by the multi-award winning husband and wife team of Jorge Gutierrez and Sandra Equihua. My main job on the show was creating the color scripts that would help guide the art team. Though all the episodes of "El Tigre" have a similar feel... I tried to give each episode a unique pass of color that would describe the story and emotions of the characters. Often I would give a "straight" color treatment that I thought would fit the story well... then try another pass of something a bit different. That was the case of episode 013.
This episode was in fact one of the most difficult to design... just for the reason that there were LOTS of characters. I was very fortunate to have directors that were willing to let me experiment. Most of the time these experiments lead to interesting ideas... and other times... well ... looking back I often wonder what I was thinking about. :)
At the time of this post I am working with "El Tigre" creators Jorge and Sandra (as well as "El Tigre" art director Roman Laney) on Jorge's feature film "The Book of Life." It's been a joy... and we are getting to do a lot of the things that weren't possible in TV.
To see more of my color scripts from El Tigre... please go HERE!
-A while back, my good friends, Jorge Gutierrez, and Sandra Equihua asked me to help them develop the look and color styling of their new t.v. show idea, "El Tigre". Working under the guidance of Jorge, and art director, Roman Laney. I started with rough sketches of the various locations that would be used in the pilot episode.
Above: A few early exploratory sketches from "El Tigre!"
Most of my early sketches were close in value, with little or no black in the backgrounds. There was a lot of black on the characters, and I wanted them to read well. But this gave a sort of calm feeling, and Jorge wanted everything in the show to be "Super Macho!"... having more contrast, more texture, more of everything. It made designing a bit more difficult, but also gave the intensity Jorge wanted. A lot of the art styling was worked out in the pilot by Roman. By the time "El Tigre" had been picked up as a series... the look had been fully established.
Above: Art director,Roman Laney, and his team took a lot of the development art, and created a beautiful, and unique look for "El Tigre". Check out Roman's website to see more amazing art from the show.
Above: A visual structure chart for one of the episodes.
I was working overseas, away from the rest of the team, so it was essential that I knew what Jorge, Roman, and Director Dave Thomas wanted for each episode. We were under such tight deadlines that there really wasn't much wiggle room for exploration. You will notice, that all the art follows the story Arc in the visual structure. We set up themes early in the show... and then generally kept them throughout all the episodes. For example, high contrast for exciting segments, low contrast for duller moments. We also used color themes throughout the show. Evil was often symbolized by using black and red, (or the main color of the villian) and El Tigre with green.With so many episodes going on at the same time... it was important that everyone was on the same page.
Above: A small sampling of my color scripts from the show.
My pal, Dave Thomas' storyboards were the blueprint for everything I did. Dave is a real master of timing, and staging. He and Jorge had worked everything out to make the rest of the teams work as easy as possible. I would usually do a first pass on the color script based on Dave's beat boards, and sometimes keys from Roman. Then Roman, Jorge and I would talk about it... after which I would make my adjustments. From the color scripts, the rest of the team would have a feel for lighting, mood, color.
A fan video... cut together from various episodes.
As in most of the projects I am involved with, "El Tigre" was a collaboration of friends, who also happen to be some of the most talented people I know. I was saddened when I learned that "El Tigre" had been canceled. Not only is it one of the best projects I have ever worked on... it is one of my favorite shows to watch.
Thank you Sandra, and Jorge for making a place for me. -tod
