After working on 6 movie backgrounds for Cartoon Network's "Aqua Teen Hunger Force colon Movie Film for Theaters" (yes, this is the full title exactly). They called on my pixel pushing skills again for the TV show. Just this past Sunday the new episode of the Adult Swim TV show Aqua Teen Hunger Force "Rabbot Redux" aired and it had about 2 min of air time using a background I did! Took about 2-3 weeks to do back in December
2009. A bit about the creation process.
1. This is what the Art Director, Bob Pettitt, sent me as a starting point. This was used as a "holder" for the animation build of the scene. After talking with me about the scenes needs and he sending me a few texture files, food items for the salad bar I got started.
2. I established eye an level horizon line using one point perspective. Then I created most of the base mechanical/architectural shapes in Illustrator CS4 then by copying and pasting into Photoshop CS4 I created several
smart object layers.
3. I sent progress to the AD a couple of times. I did not do the Ferrari. They already that done, I just had to make sure the perspective matched the rest and fit in between the bed and fountain. I had to make sure that the layers of objects were set up in such a way that the characters could go behind all the elements. So each object was on it's own layer with transparent backgrounds.
4. After creating in smart objects in Photoshop, I used them as
clipping masks to add textures mainly. On some smart object layers I added shadows and highlights as clipping masks. This is the final background low res version. The original is 12000 x 3240 pixels (40in x 10.8in at 300 dpi) with 411 layers!
High Def Baby!
Some screen shots of how they used them in the end. It was about 2 min of airtime. Pretty funny little scene.
If you want to
see the whole episode you can go to this direct link on the Adult Swim website, but I must warn you that it's NSFW, but not R rated. It's not the type of crude humor that everyone can appreciate. (If there is such a humor.) It's only a 15 min show, but to skip right to the scene go to the end of the first video clip and the next clip will load and it's toward the beginning of that video file.
Prismacolor Pencil transfer to Strathmore Illustration Board. 10" x 7.5" image area. Taped off with Blue Safe Release tape.
Acrylic and Ink base colors. Watercolor was used for the clouds that I don't have a picture for.
Oil wash made with Dioxane Purple and Permanent Green Light thinned with Gamsol.
Dried oil wash removed with kneaded eraser revealing highlights and unifying shadows.
Final flatbed scan color corrected with touched off with digital signature.
