BREMEN: Warren related stuff.

Here are some face studies for Warren. He's not that complicated a character, visually.



Plus a random spot of calligraphy, since I had my pens out.

BREMEN: "California Dreamin'"

digital.

Not the old The Mamas &The Papa's original, but this quick and sloppy phonetic cover by Japanese punk band Hi-STANDARD who sound like they have no idea what they're saying.

I imagine that regardless of whatever the band is actually playing, Warren hears it this way.

BREMEN: "Amateur Night at the Fireball"

digital.

Some environment design.

Dogs everywhere!

haven't been updating here so regularly, but here's some stuff!

finished the design for the dog character, named Warren, from the BREMEN stuff I'm still chewing on.



and just now this little gouache painting (about 3"x5") for my friend wyatt who likes great danes.

BREMEN: "Dock of The Bay"

digital.

featuring Miah and Gerick.

She's strumming a simple cover of the the classic by Otis Redding.

I'm starting to think more about the setting. While the city of Bremen itself is someplace impossibly glamorous and unrealized like The Emerald City of Oz, or the aura around Hollywood/NYC in the late 70's, most of the road trip setting will be strip mall suburbia hell, or some kind of run down post-industrial urban blight mill towns.

BREMEN: "Miah Faces 01"

digital.

D'oh! I forgot that I hadn't put these here.

Squishy face is squishy.

BREMEN: "Miah"

Designs for the cat character. She's supposed to be a kind of lanky midwest tomboy/tomcat who wants out of her smothering, conservative, country upbringing and into the urbane tolerance she believes she'll find in the big city of Bremen. She also wants to rock out and nobody seems to understand that back home.

She's a sphynx cat, for those who aren't familiar. Which also contributes to why she doesn't feel like she fits in among her fluffier "prettier" peers.

My research into names shows that "miau" is German for the "meow" sound that cats make. "Miah" is a name that sounds close to this, and is also both a boy's and girl's name.

BREMEN: "I Put A Spell On You"

digital. Gerik singing a cover of the Screamin' Jay Hawkins classic. I imagine him to have voice like that, or relatedly Nick Cave; a big booming voice in a relatively small body. This was done as a kind of proof of concept. If I can't draw him singing the way I see it in my head, then all the design in the world won't help. The dramatic close-up is mostly because I haven't worked out the rest of the band yet :P

BREMEN: "Gerik Faces 01"

digital.

Thinking more about how he might emote. This guy is obviously going to let me express my inner Heckle (or Jeckle, if you prefer) and (to some small degree) Ren Höek :)

I also figured out how I want to think about the wattle. I was concerned with it looking like some kind of spherical "scrotum" hanging off his face, but now I see that I can show the way they hang and move like "gauged earplugs", which is quite fitting :) Yay, process!"

BREMEN, also "Gerik"

A while ago I was doodling some initial concepts for illustrating the folktale of The Town Musicians of Bremen as recorded by The Brothers Grimm (my favorite story, as a child). I didn't get beyond these initial loose sketches, but I just now found them while looking through old sketchbooks. The donkey plays bass, the rooster sings, the cat is on guitar, and the dog is the drummer :)

I think I'll go through with it now, as it's still interesting to me to interpret the story.
I want to be better about my process for this, so there'll be stuff before the Stuff.
Here's a beginning, with character designs.



The rooster, Gerik, is the last to join the group on their way to the big city. I envision him as the washed up singer. Though not much older than the rest of the band, he is practically burned out on fast living and mild successes at an early age. He still manages to put his voice to work, though it was a sweeter sound long ago. As a veteran rocker, he's the one with the most performing experience and helps round out the group. During the design process, I learned that in German the "cock-a-doodle-doo" sound that roosters make translates to "kikeriki", and that the name "Gerik" (which has a similar feeling to my ear), is a version of the German name "Gerald" (which means "spear").

Notably, despite the title of the tale, the animals in the original story never do arrive to Bremen to make their fortune.