Recent freelance job

Finished this last month, for client www.bar1nyc.com
It was originally a radio ad. They decided, along with many of their other ads, that they wanted an animated version to put on their website, and contacted me.

I tried to do a storyboard first to get an idea down, but it wasn't working. I needed to create the characters first. The dialogue in the audio moves the story along, I thought, so I needed to put faces to the voices first before doing anything else. I had to get past many ideas before settling on the final design, and I had to please my client.

The biggest hurdle was getting past myself. At the beginning I was just thinking too hard about it, I was putting too much of my own biases in it. (I just kinda detested the mayor character. I wanted to make him as ugly as possible, or as stupid as possible.) In the end I am pleased with his design. He's not ugly, per se, but he's sumg. And a little dumb. (left vs. right hand). He's looks like a mix between Nixon and a Kennedy. He was certainly fun to animate, I loved drawing his facial expressions.

Early in the design phase, I had a hand-puppet motif going on, which is why it's mostly heads. The animation would have looked pretty much the same except the characters would have arms sticking out of their bums. I decided it was just simpler to have them as people. Again, I was thinking too hard about it.

The female character was a bit easier to design. I figured her purpose (visually) was to make the mayor look bad. The rhino is probably my favorite unused design. I just love the idea of an adorable little rhino reporter with a sawed-off horn. The oxpecker (bird) on her back would have fulfilled the mic's duty in the animation.