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A while back I doodled some Facebook icons for my wife On, myself, and a dog named Rudolph. Embarrassingly I'm not sure what kind of dog Rudolph is... but he is an avid Facebook user... and quite a character.  -tod

all images copyright 2013 tod polson

Year 3

This year I made a sketch to commemorate our 3rd year anniversary, as well as On's birthday. I tried to hide a number of 3’s in the design, and chose a cockerel because of the beasts my father-in- law raises at our home in northern Thailand. We have many fond memories of them waking us up long before the crack of dawn. -tod

Historical Doll sketch

Recently I was asked to make some key-frames for a commercial based on a line of historic dolls. These key-frames were to show the client what I thought the final commercial might look like. From these the client would decide if they wanted to have us produce the commercial spot or not. These particular key-frames were art directed by me, and painted by my wife On, our friend Ton, and myself over an afternoon. Our pals at "The Monk" also did some other passes in a more cartoony style which I haven't posted here.

Above: A few variations on a theme.

I've been a huge fan of Aleksandr  Petrov for many years, and wanted to try something simple and poetic in his paint on glass style. Though we wouldn't actually be painting on glass in the commercial spot... we have been working on ways to get a similar effect digitally.

Above, An inspirational segment from Petrov's 2006 film "My Love." For those of you not familiar with Petrov's work, he paints the animation on glass with oil paint on his fingers. Much like finger painting. An incredible artist.

Prodigal Pictures launch

We are happy to announce the launch of our new company, "Prodigal Pictures."

Prodigal Pictures provides design and consulting services for a variety of projects, including animation, illustration, and space design.

The company is also focused on design education. This includes lectures at universities, and animation companies.

We will be soon holding classes in the Bangkok area, with plans for several  intensive sea-side design and animation master classes.

For more information please email us at: prodigalpictures@gmail.com

NHKL

A while back I was asked to create some location designs and color script for a T.V. show. This was an established show, so the director wanted to keep the basic feel of the series, but push things a little bit further for the special. The time frame was super short, so I recruited a few friends, including my wife On, to help me brainstorm.

Above: Evolution of a location.
Above, some rough sketches for the "Bear Castle" location.  I was asked to do something in sort of my "normal" style, but different. It took me a few sketches to "warm up" to the world I was trying to create.

Above: An overview of the valley.
The characters in the story were at war, so I tried to contrast two different kingdoms, but also tried to keep them in the same world. We had a wide variety of location designs to make in a very short, and intense period of time. After the initial locations were designed, I was asked to create the color script based on the storyboard. The final show was to be made in flash. So I recruited On again, who is a flash master, to help me put the color script together using pre-made flash symbols.

Above: Tree experiments.
Since a good part of the story took place in the forest, I played with various tree shapes. The art director wanted something "flat but dimensional."   The trees above were found to be "too flat", but lead to some other shape ideas.

I always find it a fun challenge to build a graphic world for characters to live in.

Jakata Tales

A while back, my friend Nat from Xhabition studios, approached me about helping her design a personal project based on the "Jakata" tales.

P'Nat liked the look and feel of the backgrounds on my short film "The Pumpkin of Nyefar"... and wanted something in a similar vein. I took "Pumpkin" as starting reference, then developed visual ideas that were more appropriate for "Jakata". The story takes place in India, so I wanted to use design elements from Southeast Asian art. For the background styling, my wife, On Krapook, and I would sketch the locations out in pencil... I would block the designs out in color, we would pass the designs back and forth for a while... then she would add the final finishing sparkle. It was fun to work back and forth this way on the designs.

Below: Some of my exploratory character sketches for the story. These inspirational sketches were then modeled in 3D.