Two character design bits from the time I started drawing ducks ...

Little John

more of the same

Sketching Away ...

Sketching away ...

Visual Development

These are the early development sketches for John Starduck's rocket ship. The final design changed a bit since these were made but to this later ... I just wanted to share some rough concept stuff.

Frequently Hijacking Albert Bierstadt

I love to hijack Albert Bierstadt's sugary landscape paintings of the American West because of the excessive use of light and exuberant romanticism in them. These features work so well with my animation design work.

Original painting: "Indians Spear Fishing" by Albert Bierstadt (1862).

Ducks in my head, again

Ducks In My Head

My brain kind of automatically produces certain shapes and colours which helps me a lot to save time and energy in visual development processes. On the contrary, working with intuition only easily can lead one to lack variety. So it became extremely important to me to constantly influence or inform my visual development work by adopting ideas from all kinds of references from the fields of industrial design, architecture, fine arts, photography, engineering etc.
Reference materials: Albert Bierstadt (painting), Paul Arzens (car)

Ducks in my head

Don't!

"If you shampoo a duck, you'll strip away its oils, causing it to sink. Please don't shampoo a duck." (via)

Don't shampoo a duck ...

Electra

‘L'oeuf Electrique’, an electric car from 1942, designed by Paul Arzens, France.
Here is another beauty by Paul Arzens, ‘La Baleine’ (the whale), from 1938.

I Drive The Car I Want To Drive

Here, I built one of my characters directly into the mood/style reference, just to get a taste for how it works in direct interplay.

Detail ...

Cintiq Of The Past

Touch screen technology prediction in a French children's encyclopedia from the 1970s.

John Starduck Rocket Ship Shape Reference/Inspiration: Cloth Cover from 1961

First Men to the Moon, reprint (1961) (via Dreams of Space)

Designing Away

Designing away the past mistakes of the First Industrial Motorbirds Revolution.
Reference photo (skeleton) via/by Brandon Kihl. All rights reserved.

Legroom

A random bird in a Donald Duck costume. Splitted in two parts on Instagram.

Sunday Spirits, Quoting Donald Duck

«We've got a problem, Goofy!
But don't tell anyone...»
Donald Duck (Kingdom of Hearts, VG, 2002)
Images via/propery of Gorrilas don't blog and Not my father's slides.

Reference: Photographer Chris Lord, Duck Pond, Central Park, NYC

The very first idea for having John Starduck based in New York City I had quite some time back at the Duck Pond in Central Park. The photo background here I hijacked from uber-talended photographer Chris Lord; he was looking across the duck pond from west to east with Fifth Avenue in the distance.

I saw a little more in the snow ...

(Photo: courtesy of/copyright by Chris Lord. All rights reserved.)

By the by, Lord's photo reminds me a little of Adolf Fassbender's 'White Night' painting, which dates back to 1936. A piece that I can't get enough from:

The Big Duck

I had to share, hadn't I? Thanks Rick; via/by Scott Shaw

26 Million Scratchy Blue Lines Views

The Paperwalker Journal has crossed 26 million content views, recently. Terrific! Thanks for stopping by my little slice of the internet!

Winter

Aside from when the snow gets really bad in winter my commute from Steiermark to Salzburg is pretty trouble free ...

My commute, today.

The Sound Of Paper

Inspiration: Philippe Halsman

The versatile Jean Cocteau (via Philippe Halsman Archive—Magnum Photos/TIME).

Portland, Maine, 1960s

Reference photo heaven.