So, you've got the rough? Maybe you could explain a bit like where you are now in the process? >> Yeah, I kind of have a little bit of a rough idea. I feel like I keep coming to certain patterns over and over again with this. And so, it's like, okay, I have to move on a little bit and start finding the design. It's a little bit still, for me, cloudy. And the way I've always explained drawing to people who don't draw, sometimes people go, oh, what's it like for you when you draw in your sketch book straight ahead? I can do that aspect for it, but it's not design. It's a cloudy image behind a shower curtain for me. That's how I've always seen drawing. And then it slowly gets revealed to me as I'm drawing it. So, almost all the thought process of it can't happen. It's not like I can sit there and I go, all I have a clear image in my head, now I can just draw it. The way it's always worked for me is that I've always seen something behind a shower curtain and I'm like, okay, there's something here. But I need to put the pencil to paper in order to really start like seeing it a little bit more. And I go, well, no, that doesn't look that's what was in my mind. It wasn't this. And you kind of just, you keep pressing it, and experimenting with it until you find that image that you're seeing over and over again. And the more you draw as you get older, the clearer, I think, the image in your head becomes of what you're about to draw. If there's a point where it gets crystal clear, it hasn't happened for me yet. I've been trying to do it a long [LAUGH], all the time, and it's still so much like jazz improv. When you're doing it, you're like, I kinda know what the basics of what is going on here. So, I keep seeing these eye patterns, that's like eight kind of thing. And then I'm like, well, it kind of repeats and nose, and I'm trying to find that balance of it and seeing like it's the wild and thing. And like I said, it's almost becoming more insect for me than a barn animal. But I will hopefully at some point, pull it together in rendering where you will just like go, oh yeah, now that's where it comes together and you can kind of see it a little bit more. Where it actually will look like a farm animal [LAUGH], not like a weird parasite of some sort. But you kinda have to go with the idea that you're seeing otherwise. You keep experimenting and trying different shapes. And then like I said, with designs nothing's ever perfect. So, you just end up going, this isn't it, this isn't it. Sometimes by failing too, I'm a big proponent of failure. Failure is like how you get oh, okay, that is how it was suppose to be the entire time. I had to fail three to five times. When I was younger, the woman who thought me design and she was always like oh, I draw everything 12 times. I was like, 12 times. I thought that you actually had to count too, so even if I got the design together in five, I would still go over it [LAUGH] until it was 12 because I was a very good student at first. The basis for design in general should be, these are the tool sets and I'll figure out why they're the tool sets. I figured out the appeal one just from experimenting with the high contrast one. And also there's a logical end to design. That's a thing that people probably don't talk about enough which is that, If you learn to be a good designer, a lot of things end up just looking the same because there is a conclusion if you follow one set of tools. Oh, to it's logical end, you will always get the same kind of outcome to it. But, where's the pink pencil? Then when you keep getting the same kind of conclusions over and over again, then you kind of have to go, oh, I need to figure out, I need to break this. I need to put something else. Everything's looking the same, it's looking a little boring. So I think that's how the appeal part of it worked for me, at least, was that I was like well everything at that point in animation. Think all designs like Samurai Jack and very like two whistle plump and boon's tired and stuff and everyone figured out the good stuff at this point. You kind of need to go like what's the dumbest thing [LAUGH] to design and that's kind of where I started going with design. I was like what would be the dumbest thing I could do in this situation and not thinking what's the smartest thing you could do. That kind of opened the door to design for me where I started seeing stuff more. I'm seeing the challenge part of it, but at the same time, I don't want it to look furry. [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> There's a very scary closeness where you could end up just doing an animal that just looks like fucking Tiny Toons or something. [LAUGH] I don't know. [LAUGH] I didn't mean to curse. My actual fear isn't the time. You guys can take as long as you're willing to take. I know that you guys got other lives too, but. For me, I'm more about the problem, I'm like, how is this gonna get solved? I'm so focused on. [LAUGH] Like it's actually gonna get made. [LAUGH] That's how I approach everything. No, no, this has got to be figured out. What's the solution? >> I think pushing the nose further from the eyes is- >> Yeah, it's something in there. Yeah, maybe you should come sit down with me with a pencil, that's the way we should do this interview. [LAUGH] Just give me a second. I'm seeing it. >> Yeah, okay. And you're drawing those lines to kind of measure things out? >> Yeah, it's still totally going to change, and stuff like that. But I do kind of try to balance it out. There's a shape that I did in the rough, where it's kind of an interesting geometric shape. But then you don't want things to get too geometric. You do want them to be able to be rendered, and figured out bur you kind of have to want some elements of play and design in there. Like I said, all design is kind of like the same, no matter what you're doing. So, the rendering part of it really doesn't matter if I was going to end up doing a brochure, I would approach it slightly differently but not as differently as people might expect. It's kind of just in the rendering part of it. You use the flat stuff to kinda figure out the angles but then you kinda have to go back in and make sure it has a form behind it. It can move, it's not just all geometry and beautiful shapes, stuff like that. Wanna make sure you get that balance of like, okay these are the kind of shapes that can move. Also, like I said, I feel like I over do everything until I get to the end. And the editing process for me is so much more important than even the anything beforehand. Lots of times I have this feeling when I'm designing of, why couldn't I get here faster? This took so long to get to this spot. Why couldn't I just do it naturally? Like I said, when I draw in a sketchbook I actually draw straight ahead in pen. And so that stuff, it's like a different part of my brain than the character part of it. I don't know why, it's a different process for me. So part of the thing I get so frustrated with is the journey that I have to go through to find the character. And to resolve the thing I have in my mind. But it's the thing that means so much to me is like when I see the character come out of it. It's like you fight it, you fight it. And you kind of like, what is this, what is this? It's showing me something it's almost here and then you eventually come to the conclusion. You're almost like, I can't wait to show somebody this. I don't know, it's like this weird feeling, it's like frustration but at the same time when you get it, you're very, like you can feel it before it's finished. You know it. There's an excitement to it. When I was first starting design, I would sometimes get afraid during that time, I would be like, uh-oh, it's getting good, it's getting good. Don't mess it up. I had that fear all the time. Like don't do the thing that's going to ruin this. And I would sometimes, and that was always, it was a real threat, it wasn't a threat that it was like, oh, obviously it always worked out. There's plenty of times where I had the design 75% done, and I'm like, this is great, don't mess it up, and I would mess it up, and I'd be like, oh, dang it. And then you just have to look at the time that you have left on something go like, do I have enough time to go back over it. [LAUGH] I always personally made more time for myself cuz I, like I said that's the thing I care the most about is the design element that it don't, Trying not to like get into the other. Everything else to voice that thing, the color, all of that stuff. It's interesting stuff to think about and to play with. But for me it's like, if it doesn't communicate the character for me, then I don't want to do it. >> Where do you see the problem still with this design? What are you still trying to fix? >> I guess I just feel like it's not a character yet still, I don't know, I feel like I'm seeing like it's just shapes right now. I'm not feeling a connection to it. I also feel like there needs to be some resizing going on. I'm enjoying the shapes that I'm picking up, but I'm not feeling anything yet of like a connection to the character or even the description, I guess is what you know that kind of wild man shape. I'm sort of embarrassed [LAUGH] about it right now. I'm just like, man I need this to come together. Yeah sorry, sometimes it takes awhile. >> That's okay. One thing I was noticing is, his hair is very quaffed right now. >> Oh, well that's just the framing part of it. That part will change. That's just figuring out the perimeter. Again, I figure out where the edge is. In fact, I might even bring it in more. >> You know what it is? I think the torso's starting to be a different size than the head. >> Yeah, I'm finding it a little bit more. But, yeah. I don't know, for me, like I said, so much of it unfortunately. I don't design in a way that, I'm sorry that it's not like that where it's like, oh okay. Here's the 20 minute design and here's the thing. I have to match so many different styles in the things. The thing I'm working on now is so opposite of this too, so you have to go back to different the things and you're just thinking about different things. I don't know. For me, design is just like it's so not a formula and but a formula too? [LAUGH] It's just like there's ideas and things that are like, I don't know. And I'm such a crazy perfectionist in that way where I am looking for that ideal design, I think you have to approach it that way. I'll be thinking about this after you guys leave today, even though this isn't going to be, this is an exercise, this is a challenge. I would still be going, how would I really solve this? How would I do this? Is there a better solution to it? I think it's the nature of design. You have to be that way. I used to always say how unfortunately, people who are creative, they can kind of be a little miserable sometimes. Because one of the things they do is they are constantly searching for ways to make things better. So they get off of work and they're like, they're sitting there all day and going like, I don't know, this could be like this. What if we did this, what if we did this? So then you get off work, and then you go and eat a sandwich, and then you're like, oh, that sandwich could have been better. It could have been good. It could have done this. And it never stops.
