Wedding Illustration

I had the privilege of witnessing one of my cousins get married at the end of April and did some wedding illustrations as a gift (beats giving gift cards any day). 

The roster includes (as follows): the married couple, both sets of parents, the bride's brother, her father's mother/my Oma, her birth mother's and mother's mothers, the bride and her birth mother (an earlier sketch from the bridal shower), and the wedding party's post-ceremony smoking pit (which elicited an "Oh, that's a big part of it!" comment from the groom). 

Uncle Antlers: character development and preliminary boarding

At some point in the early portion of the character and story development stage of Uncle Antlers, I played around with the idea of switching out one of the characters - the boy - with a separate character I had kicking around at the time, a girl. Myrtle. I had previously done a graduate film centering around a boy and his grandmother, and wanted to try something different this time, switch up the dynamics a bit. Myrtle also had a more distinct character and style that I thought would make an interesting contrast with the melancholy and sombre Uncle A. I think it worked quite beautifully.

 

early boarding, pre-Myrtle

the magnificent Myrtle

the two, together

 

an early concept that made it into one of the final scenes

I storyboarded the film several times, over the course of two or so years - picking it up and working on it, putting it down and letting it percolate, returning to it, reworking it and repeat. Within that time frame I also ran it by a few trusted people with fresh eyes for feedback, implemented suggestions,  and continued shaping it). By the end of 2013 the story was at a point of being finished; I worked towards the deadline of film grant applications. I must mention that I am very thankful to live in a country that has a number of grant programs available for artists to create their own projects outside of the commercial sphere.

A sample of the boards I compiled for grants: