Free Birds AKA Time Turkeys

Free Birds

I did some early development for my good friends at Reel FX on "Free Birds", their first movie. It's coming out in November so go check it out. The animation is more Looney Tunes than Pixar so it should be fun.



I don't think anything I did was actually used; it was mostly exploratory stuff but here are some of the  drawings:

TURKEY STUDIES:

 First I wanted to know what turkeys actually looked like, so I did some studies from photos I nabbed off the net.

Turns out that Turkeys aren't the most beautiful creatures in the world. 

Their heads are pretty rude looking, actually and the director, Ash Brannon asked me to see if I could cuten them up somewhat.

 So next step was to draw more cartoony versions. My tendency of course is to make characters as cartoony as possible, so I tried retaining some actual turkey traits, like their snoods (the erotic appendage that droops over their beaks), their warts and their long thin necks and bald heads.

 I tried many variations.

 I don't think I was getting cute enough though as long as I kept trying to make them look like turkeys.

 

Here was a basic generic turkey that wasn't too complicated to animate that I figured we could do some animation experiments with. The movie is CG and I was asked to help the animators get a more cartoony, Warner Bros. movement as opposed to the typical Pixar-Dreamworks style of motion.

 We actually did some animation with this design (I wish I could remember the animator's name who did some really funny walks!) We created a Busby Berkeley style sequence of a hundred turkeys doing a crazy retarded march to doom.

MAIN CHARACTER NERDY:

 The script called for Reggie to be kinda nerdy so I messed around with that.

OWEN WILSON

Then I found out that Reggie would be played by Owen Wilson so I was asked to try making thew character look kinda like him.

I did some straight caricatures first:

 I tried applying some of his characteristics to the turkey:

BROCK

The movie is a buddy film, so there are 2 leads. Owen's Reggie, has a partner named Brock, a big manly turkey played by Woody Harrelson.

I don't think I actually tried making his character look like him, but here are some initial studies of Brock:

It was pretty hard to make a manly character also look like a turkey, so I finally settled on this:


I really wondered if they could translate a 2d cartoon drawing into a 3d model. Here's where it started:

I worked with the modelers and did some draw overs

It eventually looked pretty good. I asked for some asymmetry and cartoon concepts like line of action and negative shapes. We also studied clips from classic cartoons and the Reel FX crew quickly picked it up.

I drew some storyboards too but this is a long post so if you're interested I'll show them in another post:

FREE BIRDS comes out on November 1 to celebrate Thanksgiving. It's a wacky family film, so bring the kids.

Here's the website and

trailer:

Free Birds

Happy Birthday Jim Smith!

 It's time to celebrate the man who made you laugh and cry growing up!

Jim of course drew some of the funniest and most emotional scenes in the original Spumco Ren and Stimpy Show. Above is an animation drawing by David Feiss from layouts and storyboards drawn by Jim.

 Here are some more unforgettable scenes Jim drew.

 He also designed the manly rugged backgrounds in many of the cartoons.

 Here's Bill Wray's tasty painting of Jim's layout.

 Here are some of my favorite Jim drawings and presentation art that really show his unique qualities...

 the Predator Broods

I usually give Jim the most moody scenes in cartoons because being the heavy brooding type himself, he feels the depths of human torment more than anyone and is only too happy to have his audience plumb the depths with him. That's the Predator up there waiting for life to evolve. It's a long wait and thus his brooding despair.

 War is Hell

Jim really feels the Hell that our fighting men go through to protect their buddies and our freedoms because it's just like what cartoonists go through.

GEORGE LIQUOR'S DEN

Here are some moody scenes from a pitch for the George Liquor Show we made to Fox long ago, while waiting for life to evolve.

Wouldn't you love to live in this manly musty den of stuffed denizens of the forest?

the RIPPING FRIENDS

 Jim was the top Ripping Friends artist. His drawings were so manly and strong that all our cleanup artists had a hell of a time keeping the guts of his roughs.

Jim, master of serious

 Jim has many talents but the one that I find the most original and unique is his ability to make really serious drawings and moods look funny. The character Crag is a very serious leader and authority figure and you can't just draw him with normal cartoony techniques.

 I had a hell of a time trying to get our overseas studios to use drawings like these. They never believed we actually wanted anything to look this manly so they kept watering the drawings down or just throwing them out completely. They kept telling me they were "off-model" and thought they were doing us a favor!

Bonus Rendered Art

I love Jim's rendering style too. Here are a couple treats from some development we did on a movie pitch for Reel FX.

Own Jim's Sketchbooks and Drawings!

You could probably nab this genuine original Ren and Stimpy sketch or others if you pleaded with the birthday boy yourself. Or you can buy one of his thrilling sketchbooks if you contact him at his blog or maybe even on Facebook.

JIM SMITH CARTOONS: Sketchbooks for sale cheap

Send the man who gave your childhood meaning some birthday love in a comment on his blog:

JIM SMITH CARTOONS

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY FAVORITE CARTOONIST AND PAL, JIM!