Imagine Museum

One of the bigger projects I've worked on this year is the Imagine Learning Level Two Opening Sequence. I've been designing/building all the characters and backgrounds for the wraparound setting type stuff for Level Two, so I also got to do a 60 second animation introducing everyone.

I've posted some of the backgrounds previously, but realized I've never posted the actual Museum exterior. I had the worst time figuring out what the museum should look like until I stumbled across pictures of the Mont Saint-Michel Sundial project. Level One is set on a sort of tropical island (Imagine Island - we're clever that way with naming things!) so I decided the Museum was on a sort of neighboring island, perhaps part of the larger Imagine Archipelago, and based it off the idea of a citadel on a big ol' rock.

Below is the sketch I was finally happy with. This was imported into Flash to use as reference. I built all the different building sections on separate layers, exported all those layers back to Photoshop to add a little shadow and texture to everything.

The start of the movie is a pan through the palm trees of Imagine Island, past the lighthouse and then a zoom to the Museum, all the way up to the golden front doors, then through the doors into the lobby. Took me forever, but was really fun to put it all together.

New Halloween Blog

The eponymous Two-Headed Goose in situ at the American Dime Museum, Baltimore, MD

I got myself a new blog. It's called The Two-Headed Goose. Um. Because that's what I named it. The idea is to basically chronicle my over-the-top obsession with Wunderkammer, all things Steampunk, Halloween and wacky taxidermy. See, fun for all the kids and family too!

Not much there yet, but lots more to come. Hopefully more illustration to come at this blog as well.

Business Baby

Well, some bad news on the ongoing quest of mine to do a Lewis and Clark illustration. I'm working on a picture book about museums, and I whined and pleaded to change the Victorian era page to one about Lewis and Clark. Ok, I really only sort of casually tossed out the possibility, but it didn't fly.

Someday. Someday when I have a minute to breathe, I WILL paint a Lewis and Clark picture. :-)

In the meantime, I don't think I ever posted this one (see above). We love doing these at work - they are for a rhyming activity. We get three random words that rhyme, and have to figure out some sort of picture for them. So apparently pen, briefcase and pacifier all rhyme in Portuguese.

To get the texture, I scanned a blank piece of copy paper, played with the levels to increase the contrast and then set that layer to overlay. But I think if you use the Noise filter, you get pretty much the exact same effect.