Acting Assignment: Luthor Jr.

This semester had the particularity of being the most diverse when it came to assignments. Traditional Animation had assignments involving lipsync, so it became a voice acting and acting class where you had to come up with your own designs, Storyboard asked for more layout elements and character designs, Layout had a strong element of cinematography, which meant learning film appreciation and composition, the Toon Boom class was a short film production, Life Drawing focused on colors and Acting had a character development assignment.

We had to chose an animated series (existing or defunct) and come up with a character that would fit the tone of said series, while not being against the story structure of the series. It had to be a secondary character.

Our series of choice was Young Justice. A series about legacies, rebellion and breaking from the mold of our parents and mentors. What we proposed was the dark mirror to the protagonists: A group of younger villains, trying to show they’re better than the ones who preceded them.

With that in mind, I offered my take on what would be the younger mirror of one of DC Universe’s most famous villains, Lex Luthor.

Alexander Luthor II’s stat sheet:

He presents himself as Lex Jr., a younger, more laid back leader and more approachable than his dad. He wants to show that it’s time for a new wave of villains, because he feels the old ones are out of touch with the realities of the new century. He’s all that his dad was never able to be or have. He’s handsome, admired, loved by the press, stronger, smarter and thanks to some genetic modifications, he has flowing red hair. More Richard Branson than the Wall Street tycoon that Lex Luthor is portrayed as in the modern interpretations.

He wants the heroes dead and out of the picture, and the world to know it was his idea and his methods that led to their demise. Villains are the new heroes. Villains can be popular. Greed is good and all the moral codes are a thing of the past.

However, deep insecurities lie deep under his mind. Is he just being a young version of his dad? Are the “improvements” added to his genes what makes him great? Is he just being used by his dad?

The final look of Lex Jr.:

I played with the colors of the older incarnation of Lex Luthor, back when he was a mad scientist wearing robotic suits. And making the face as smug and punchable as possible. The red hair was another element from the old comics that amused me, so I threw it in.

New year, new sketches

It’s a new year. I’m already feeling older and wiser. I can see white hair growing on me and feeling a strange urge to complain about the weather for hours. Obviously there’s new sketches.

The first one is from an old project that I hope to get back into one day. If I can convince the writer and manage to cram enough time into my schedule, it’d be great.

I love drawing animals as derpy as possible.  These ones are photo-referenced, but I tried to push for the personality as much as I could.

This one is not from a picture though. I call it “Cutie“.

For the end, I give you “Derp Conan”:

My stuff in Society6

This year started a bit slower than usual, but it’s giving me time to pursue some personal projects and take some more care of myself. One of the things that I was wanting to do was to post some of my stuff in society6, which is a pretty cool website. So, without further ado:

First, from the movie Hausu, the creepy ghost cat:

From the movie Behind The Mask: The Legend of Leslie Vernon:

The little caption is because of this song:

This is from an older movie. Peter Lorre’s most intriguing villain, the fantastic Dr. Gogol from Mad Love:

I cleaned up one of the props from last semester to make the Ultimate Necronomicon Evangelist T-Shirt:

I cleaned up these caricatures I did with copics:

Clark Gable:

Greta Garbo:

Clint Eastwood:

And last, but not least, the baboon from Digital Painting makes for an amazing iPhone case:

Character Design: The Sculpture!

The rest of the process is here.

Here’s the process for the final part of Character’s Design assignment for this semester:

The rotation:

And a color test (I’ll be traditionally painting this soon):

Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!

Character Design: Cthulhu the Has-Been

This has been the big commitment of this semester. It’ll end with a full character pack and my first sculpted character (this time for real, no ZBrush). I struggled a bit to convince Graves to let me do this humorous take on Cthulhu (“Cthulhu has been done to death”). Thankfully, my pitch of making it along the lines of a Monty Python sketch directed by Alex De La Iglesia worked.

The Pitch

Return to R’lyeh

In the late 1960s the cult of Cthulhu was on the top of its popularity. Also were LSD, heroin and mushroom consumption. That meant that during the invocation of Cthulhu, things went wrong and when the tentacled god was awaken, he was brought to a world that not only didn’t fear him, but that offered him to corrupt himself beyond his wildest dreams. Without respect, power or wealth (all the money was wasted in wild parties and the cult ended in decline because of competing cults that don’t promise to bring horror and death), so… Cthulhu fell through harsh times.

Now, the end of the world is coming. He’s supposed to be the harbinger of doom and his remaining cult members are mostly nerds and malcontent office drones. His cult is not fit for what’s coming, and he definitely isn’t fit either.

Devouring pizzas and souls alike, he has gained lots of weight, which leads him to a vicious circle of self-loathing. He dreams of being on top of this plane of existence, of filling this void in his soul with, well, souls. He wishes someone else could take his place in this “whole end of the world affair thing”, because he’s started to believe what others say about him… that he’s a has-been, old, a one-note joke about tentacles.

The Reference

My first task before creating the character was to imagine it being played by the appropriate actor. I chose Santiago Segura, because I loved him in both Torrente and El Día De la Bestia. He has this ability to play charming scumbags which fits perfectly with the tone I’m aiming for.

For the texture and style of the character, I studied (stared in awe) some artists who have this kind of irreverent approach to monsters for inspiration.

To make it “feel real” I used some abyssal creatures for reference.

The Roughs

The first sketches begin with his pretty face, where I discarded some interesting ones that could’ve been a nightmare to assemble.

Then I get to the body. I checked lots of “People Of Walmart” for reference.

And here’s our champion:

Now, we play dress up:

And here’s the sidekick:

The Cleaned-Up Design

For the final design, I handed in the pack with Cthulhu in all his glory.

Coming soon: The sculpted character.