Sketchy Acquaintance.

A very very early doodle of Tilt's main character


When I'm making a character, I go through a lot of processes, from initial concept, profiling, design, clothing design, turn around, expressions, verbal role play... they all go to making the finished look of a character.

But I find the best way to forge a connection, to really bond with a character is to sketch. Not the formal clean sketches of concept art... but the gritty phone doodle sketches done on impulse in biro at the bottom of your work report, the back of a receipt, the corner of your worksheet at school.

such rough, impulsive art comes straight from inspiration. Sure, it's not going to get you three hundred faves on DeviantArt or be a piece to put in your folio, but it really helps nurture and evolve the muse, and strengthen your connection with your character.

I also find I can fix a lot of niggly problems through doodling. Those problems you KNOW are there but can't quite put your finger on. Usually it's something tiny, like the tilt of an eye, the placement of a mouth, an earring that needs to be there, or maybe a higher collar. Scribbling roughly without much thought can often provide the solution...

The best part is sharing them in the end. I've torn out all the scraps of paper I've sketched on and stuck them into a book. The almost voyeuristic peek into the my art at its most raw seems to appeal far much more then flicking through a folio of finished images. Maybe it's the humour, maybe it's the quirkiness, the failability of slightly wonky, half formed images. Maybe it's just more... human.

Lilly

Review- Jane and the Dragon

Modern children's cartoons tend to be an uninspiring run of copied ideas and animation styles, all geared at selling your children some horrid plastic toy to get stuck in your foot at a later date, or to “educate” using patronizing narrators to teach really basic lessons parents should teach their children themselves.

However, sometimes a gem shows up, and 'Jane and the Dragon' is an absolute diamond

A collaboration between Weta Workshops (You know them as the armorers, the CG guys and the genius behind Gollum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy) and a children's picture book writer, Martin Baynton, it's a simple series about a young girl who, through her own hard work, belief in her own abilities, and pure hard headed tenacity, befriends a dragon and becomes a female knight in training.

But more then the render, more then the talented use of colour and staging, more even then the brand new animation technique is the pure passion that's gone into it.

There are some things- books, cartoons, movies, where you can almost FEEL the passion of the creator reaching out at you. This is one of them.
Each character is meticulously detailed, each with their own careful idiosyncrasies. Dig a little on line and you find huge back stories to even the most minor of characters, their ages, their loves, hates, heck, even their various stages of puberty (most of the cast are young teens). But it doesn't stop there.
The world they live in is a fabulous blend of medieval fact and fiction. Their clothing, their food, the heirachy, everything is beautifully researched then seamlessly blended into modern ideals and realities, so their world remains true to the era it's set in, but not completely unrelatable

They even have a reasonable excuse for the fact the castle only houses six adults, six adolescent teens and two children.

There's absolute life in this cartoon. It's created for passion, for the need to tell a story, not to sell, to rate or deliberately educate. The creator is a true creator, not just a writer or conceptual artist.

I think he sums himself up best in one of his question and answer sessions:


Q: There are a lot of people who think of "Jane and the Dragon" and many other animated shows as "just a cartoon." How do you feel about that kind of thinking? Also, do you think fiction can strongly reflect reality? What do you think about the relationship between fiction and reality?

A: I feel the way a parent feels if told their child is just another child. Every child is unique and special, and we have all loved creating a very special cast of characters that we love. Since we could first tell tales 'round a campfire, stories have been the way of handing on truth and experience and lessons learnt, so yes, I think fiction reflects reality and then shapes it.

Sadly, 'Jane and the Dragon' seems to have been discontinued, despite the rumour of another season. Still the creator, so passionate about his story, is determined to finish it by writing a book.
I look forward to it immensely.

It's my firm belief that Tilt will share this same spark of life that ensnared me so well with this simple cartoon. I love what I do, and that's why I do it. There's nothing more inspirational then that.

Natalie

Ravens and Wolves and Bears - Oh my!

image from Google

In a new suburb I went a walking, as I do...with both feet and a swinging of the arms...

and I found a delightful little antique store, as I do....with a door bell of brass that announces your entry and a friendly english accent attached to a man behind the counter...

and in that antique store I found my newest little friend - Wade. Wade is a porclain polar bear no bigger than my thumb and totally white with the most charming look on his face.

Now Wade sits on my desk and watches me work, and calmly tells me when I tell him that I've 'never loved bears before' or that I'm 'More a raven fan' that I've actually been a bear fan for a while...I just never noticed. He pokes his nose meaningfully up at the art from Hidden Eloise (here) as proof.
Then his quite british voice (i imagine) tells me I'm also a fan of wolves...that the last two books I've read had wolves in them, as does many of my favorite fairytales...and to top it off?

I looked at the designs for the character of Malik... He's as large as a bear, with canine/wolf like features (and bull-esque horns...etc...he is after all a solo creature who without a pack or such has need of good defences should he be attacked and given his habitat and birth...oh there's a million reasons, all tiny references to a million ideas found and dreampt...I shan't bore you!).

I wonder where else my creatures carry inspirations from? I never really stop and think when I draw outlines...I just think "Oh it eats this - so it needs a mouth like this..."...what other favorites am I missing?


Ravens still however stop me in the street as I watch them...such clever little things. Utterly charming.

Though I imagine if I saw a bear or wolf in the street I'd be stopped in my tracks too!

~ Roslyn

True Rant - Everyone Twiharder!

Vampires are a hot topic at the moment - what with True Blood and Twilight such popular hits (personal opinions on either or both aside) it seems everyone's got a little set of fangs around their neck. I even saw a "I kissed a vampire, and I liked it" t-shirt the other day.

There's no denying they're in demand and this article here by USA today claims to compare the 'variations' between three popular media Vamps...
http://www.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2009-07-01-vampire-rules_N.htm

I am a little sad that these 'variations' only seem to point out even more how same-ish all the mainstream intepretations of vampires are.

While Tilt does have a non-major character who is in essence a vampire (with a suitably broad take on the term) I do wish someone else would do an interesting spin on them - Where are the vampires generated from poorly-respected death customs? The ones buried with bricks in their mouths or other such odd things that were commonly tried to stop bodies rising again? What of th Cat of Nabeshima (a vamp cat) or the bat-god Camazotz? Exorcism as a means of killing them? The fashionable art of shroud wearing?
There's a million different points... no way that old ideas can't be found to breath new life into a tired old villian.

They do all of course have their own little differences I can be content with - but nothing too wild.

Blade had super vampires and vampire dogs and Lost Boys did the campy 80's movie thing, Interview with a Vampire had re-growing hair and pre-couch-jumping long-haired young Tom Cruise and Brad Pit...not acutally sure what it was about...who really cares?
Buffy had Joss-Almighty behind it and Twilight....well - I've not read it, but apparently they sparkle (I would love to know WHY they sparkle - has anyone read it? WHY sparkle? Body glitter? Mica deposits under the skin?)

What do you lot think? Is the charming mysterious-looking mid-twenties vamp getting a little worn?

~ Roslyn

The TB Faeries.

Oh Wikipedia - How do I love thee....let me count the ways!


"Before the Industrial Revolution, tuberculosis may sometimes have been regarded as vampirism. When one member of a family died from it, the other members that were infected would lose their health slowly. People believed that this was caused by the original victim draining the life from the other family members.

Furthermore, people who had TB exhibited symptoms similar to what people considered to be vampire traits. People with TB often have symptoms such as red, swollen eyes (which also creates a sensitivity to bright light), pale skin, extremely low body heat, a weak heart and coughing blood, suggesting the idea that the only way for the afflicted to replenish this loss of blood was by sucking blood.

Another folk belief attributed it to being forced, nightly, to attend fairy revels, so that the victim wasted away owing to lack of rest; this belief was most common when a strong connection was seen between the fairies and the dead. Similarly, but less commonly, it was attributed to the victims being "hagridden"—being transformed into horses by witches (hags) to travel to their nightly meetings, again resulting in a lack of rest."




~Roslyn

Why I Tilt

After Natalie's amazing post I thought I should say a bit about why I took up the challange of being involved with Tilt.

Tilt was an idea before I got to it - I believe. It's so very long ago now. Two children both mad as hatters...but I remember little else about the idea, terrible of me I know.

I grew up - as far as memory serves...on a wild beach. Not the beach you go to on holiday with gold sand and blue water...no. This beach was rocks and grey waters, mangroves and the skeltons of boats.
I technically must have gone to school...but my memory of childhood is climbing trees, scaling rocks and picking my way through bushland...always bare foot.

On that beach my grandfather taught me to listen to the sea sing. "But the sea doesn't sing, grandpa"....but it did, and I learnt to hear it and spent hours collecting sea-worn treasures and catching up crabs with quick little child-fingers in it's ever-changing company.

It's strange but when I hear a good story - that's the feeling it gives me, bare-foot-windy-beach feeling. I started writing when I was young...the first story I remember writing was very highly praised (it was from the point of view of a playtpus) but rarely after that did I show my stories to anyone...I don't really write to be popular (though they seem to be becoming increasingly so, even to the point where spontanious tales are becoming something of an on-command party trick) - I write to get that beach feeling.

And since my family sold the house on the hill overlooking that grey and windy heaven? Since then the stories have doubled, tripled and...I only just realised that then. I think perhaps I should take a trip down there if for no other reason than to stop the writers cramp!

But to Tilt specifically I think the inspiration to take on the project is a little selfishly motivated. I remember a long time ago saying I didn't want to write a modern fantasy - but the more I thought of it, the more I realised that I didn't want to write a modern fantasy world...I wanted to write THIS world and really highlight the fantastical things about it with 'fantasy'.
This world, with it's gritty puddles and reflected rainbows...on my way to work today I drove past a tower - perhaps for water or power, but around it were arched 'windows' in a way I imagined Rapunzel (or the many other tower-involved stories in folk legends) would look...right near a main road - I see these things everywhere and that to me is far more fun to write.

If monsters exist don't just plonk big teeth on a shapeless furry body...give it reason, history...as a bear has, as an accountant has, as a rock or a building has - make it twined into the world and not just click and dragged there.

And that fact that I wrote that rant without even thinking is why I think I took on Tilt...because I'm in love with monsters.

~ Roslyn

Why Tilt?

Conceptual art and rough colour test for on of the Tilt cast....

I turned down an apprenticeship with Disney many years ago to pursue my own direction. A choice vaguely criticised when I made it, though never regretted for a minute, for despite the 'opportunities' and shiny possibilities offered with it, it simply wasn't the raw creative, passion driven life I envisioned for myself.

Years passed and the shiny bauble of animation that had so fascinated me and first attracted me to the path of an artist at eight years old started to dull and the more intricate, complicated neusances of comic art made me pack up that childhood toy (though still fondly loved) and move from video dreams to illustrated page.

And then I met Tilt, and I decided this was the thing I had been looking for when i turned down Disney. But what was it that made it so attractive?

The alternative comic scene is stagnating.

A real example of this is simply asking yourself to name five well known alternative comic writers (Not counting personal favourites well know to you and your friends alone). Neil Gaiman. Alan Moore. Jhonen Vaquez... and... and...
Look at the shelves of the big comic book stores and find the shelves flooded but only a few creators are represented. The big local deamon has ten or so shelves...four for Neil, four for Alan...and a handful of sundry tucked to the left.
That handful is heartbreaking....that handful should be fists full - swelling with new ideas, compelling and tugging at sleeves to pull people in to new realms.

My personal heartbreak is the art. The art is either edgy, angular and oh so Gothic in the manner of Vaquez, or hails back to the rounded, mannish and still, unfortunately, live and kicking classic western style started by superman and slavishly repeated and updated by everyone who could pick up a "How to draw comics" book.

This is what I want to break. It's a cycle that needs a breath of fresh air and as ambitious, possibly even arrogant as it sounds, that's what I strive to be. That's what I want to represent in my artwork for Tilt.

Myth and Fairytale is always dangerous ground. It's ripe and fertile for stories, and has been ploughed, sewn and harvested countless times, but because of that the yield is often wilted, dry and flavourless, the stories oh so done and the style of art cliche. "Modernized" fairytale is even more over harvested then classic. How many feminist Snow Whites can you have? How many pictures of blood soaked, axe wielding Red Riding Hood?

So. How does one make this poor, starved resource tempting fodder again? Certainly not by digging in the classics, but by stopping to look at what fairytale really means.
Fairytale isn't a label exclusively owned by a specific set of stories. It's actually a genre tag, like fantasy, crime or thriller. You don't need to re write old tales, you simply need to examine them for what makes them a fairytale...and perhaps dig a little further than the surface of tales. Suddenly the ground is new again, fresh threads to weave with - and more importantly, new design ideas to interpret.

Tilt is the crop grown in this ground. A fresh fairytale and a damned exciting project for any artist to bend their talents to.

This is why I chose Tilt to work on....this is why I'm looking forward to years of work with the glimmer of a child promised candy. I have boundaries to push....

Natalie