Whatcha Eatin' Adelia?

 Whatcha eatin' Adelia?

How rude!

I was developing Adelia a few years ago as a cute penguin - and my version of Hello Kitty if I was to design a cute girl character.  I even got as far as development on a children's book as well as a handful of illustrations - but stalled out when I drew the Squaremania characters (Paddy Panda) as a supplement to Adelia, and then they quickly eclipsed her in my interest.

I went to a children's book illustrator meeting where I had an editor look at my portfolio.  She didn't get Adelia and said that kids would question why she didn't have a mouth (because she wasn't designed with one because she doesn't need one...not to mention the fact that the more I developed her, the less like a penguin she looked).  So I went home and redrew the top image with the bottom one and added a mouth.  So it's possible for her to have one, if she needs it - but I don't think she needs it.

Adelia: Space

Illustration friday had the subject of "Space" this week...so I thought I'd revisit an old character to participate.

I did a quick rough in Adobe Photoshop:

and then decided to do the entire cleanup and color in photoshop as well (instead of importing it into Illustrator like I usually do).  And this is the final:

I always liked to use specific colors with Adelia (this character).  She's a little blue penguin and she loves the color purple...so it would make sense for her to hop around this low gravity moon.

IF: Gesture

Originally I wasn't going to do a drawing for this week because all I could think of when I thought of the Illustration Friday topic of 'Gesture' was this:

And I couldn't have my cute little characters flipping the birds - although when I first started out my brother and I had a comic strip and something similar to this was our first gag - a penguin standing on an iceberg flipping off a flock of birds as they flew by.  Juvenile, but it cracked us up.

Anyway - I originally drew the hand, but decided it was better to 'blur' it out...as we all know what she's doing.  And Adelia (the character above) is really too classy for such things.

I then thought about scanning in some old gesture drawings:

I still ended up quickly drawing this gesture drawing of a snooty waiter, but then it clicked and I started a revision of an old Adelia illustration:

I'm having to completely redraw Adelia as I want her to look younger and cuter (so I'm making the eyes bigger and lowering them on her face - and the squaremania characters went through a big change from where they started as her side kicks...But this, if finished, would make a better drawing for Illustration Friday - a kind gesture of cupcakes.

Happy Adelia

This is one of the first new cleaned up versions of Adelia - with her new look (it's really just a revision of where her eyes and nose sit on her face).

IF: Launch - Angry Birds: Adelia the Adelie Penguin edition...

I drew this over the weekend for Illustration Friday's Launch...and I liked it enough to finish it up.  I cleaned it up in Illustrator and colored it in Photoshop.

I've been addicted to Angry Birds since Thanksgiving - I'm currently trying to get 3 stars on all the levels (I have one left!)...and then I'll move on to Angry Birds Rio (my wife is already half way through).

When I thought of Launch I immediately thought of the slingshot launching birds at little green pigs.  I didn't want to just draw the game, but have one of my characters get in on the action.  I created Adelia back in 2006 and I recently brought her back (which just means I started drawing her again)...so little Adelia the Adelie Penguin is getting in on the pig popping action.  I like to think that Adelia would be one of the little blue birds that work best on breaking the ice blocks.

Adelia's back!

I'm happy to announce the relaunching of Adelia! 

Adelia was one of the first character designs I did after college (back when I was only drawing to fulfill the requirements of the homework assignment).  This is what she originally looked like:

This was from 2006 - and at the time I was doing a series of realistic watercolor penguin illustrations.  I titled it Pinguino because I wanted a cuter word for Penguin (this is Italian), and her name came from accidently titling the Adelie penguin with an 'a' instead of an 'e' at the end...it sounded like the perfect name for a little girl penguin.  And the more I drew her, the more cartoony she became - and the toes (which look a little creepy on a penguin) changed to basic webbed feet and her nose became more upturned.

I'm currently going through my old images and seeing which ones I can salvage.  It turns out that most of them are off model from the way I want her to look now - so I'm using a lot of them as templates for pose, but nothing more.

Also, last month I was doing a bit of research for a project I was working on for Nick Jr, and found a small rule about drawing a child's head.  To make a character look younger or sweeter or cuter, just drop their eyes below the middle point of the head.  All of my previous Adelia illustrations had her eyes sitting on the middle line and sometimes above!  So I had to rectify that, and quickly!

IF: Launching a penguin

I heard so much about this game called Angry Birds last year.  Conan was talking about it on the Tonight Show (during the 15 minutes he ran that show), Adam Carolla's boy wanted to actually be an angry bird for halloween.  Some time around Thanksgiving of 2010 I decided to download it onto my phone and I've been addicted ever since.

Now what does any of that have to do with Illustration Friday's theme this week of 'Launch?'  Well,  I immediately thought of a bird being launched out of a slingshot.

But I wanted to draw my character Adelia.

Adelia is a penguin character I drew several years ago when I was trying to break into children's books...I ended up giving up on the idea in favor of other projects...but I dusted her off this week and decided to update her a bit and give her another go - but this time as a licensed character.  It's tough to get something like that off the ground, but I think she has a lot of potential.

Adelia Cleanup (illustrator lines)

IF: Crunchy cereal!

I had this old drawing from a children's book dummy that I was working on based on my character Adelia.

When I saw the topic of the week for Illustration Friday (Crunchy) I automatically thought of eating crunchy cereal...which is what Adelia is doing here:

I dusted off the old adobe illustrator drawing and painted it in photoshop this very morning. Sure I sort of cheated by having such a nondescript background, but it's only there to frame Adelia eating her deliciously boring looking cereal.

I was told by an executive at Nick Jr (Nickelodeon for smaller kids) that my character Adelia needed a mouth, so I've been toying with what she would look like with one...which is why, when I finished this illustration, I went back in and drew a mouth. I kind of think it's a stronger piece...it shows more that she's eating AND enjoying herself...

What's nice is that there's a website called Foodista - from what I can gather, it's a website that's all about food - and the link above is for cereal. They e-mailed me just this morning because they found my blog in a search and liked the above drawings. I thought that was nice enough that I'd post a link to their website (plus, they asked really nicely). But anyhow - if all that talk about cereal gets you craving some food - hop on over to foodista...and you just might find something tasty.

By the way - I'm currently addicted to Granola - so that's my cereal of choice...especially the Target brand (Archer Farms) ones. There's blueberry with flax (whatever that is) and there's another one with chocolate bits. Terribly good.

Oh, and if Oatmeal counts - that's the only choice one should have (unless, of course, you know someone that's willing to cook a full blown meal) on a cold day. I live in Southern California, which means it's warm most of the time - but every once in a while (like last week) it can get quite chilly. And it's only chilly for someone that's used to the warm weather. Anyway - if Oatmeal counts as a cereal (it's a hot cereal...but when I think of cereal, I usually only think of the crunchy stuff you pour milk over) then I'd like some oatmeal with plump raisins. And that's all I have to say about cereal.

Adelia thumbnails...

I work at Nickelodeon - and while we do all (or most) of the regular cartoons in our building, the nick jr stuff is mostly taken care of elsewhere. And the headquarters for Nick Jr (programming like Blues Clues, Dora the Explorer and Olivia) is in New York, so we almost never see the people who work on them.

Why that matters is that all the big executives for Nick Jr are in New York, and if you want to pitch something to them, you have to go to them. What's quite nice is that the Vice President and the production manager came to our little studio in Burbank a couple of weeks ago and sat in a meeting room for an entire day taking our pitches....

It was great meeting them, and I showed them this character that I've been working on for the last couple of years named Adelia (you'll see her all over my blog and/or website - www.isaacmarzioli.com). They loved the character but probably won't use her because of how I designed her. I intentionally drew her without a mouth because she started off as an adelie penguin and that pointy nose was originally a simplified beak...somewhere in the design process, the character became more stylized. The beak became an upturned nose. My thought was always to have her as a character that has a narrator, and while she isn't a mute, she doesn't have to say anything to get her story told.

This is the original picture of Adelia


Concept art for the original Adelia Design

One thing you have to be able to do when you pitch a character or a show or whatever is be willing to adapt. While it's your job as a designer or illustrator (or, more broadly, a creator) to come up with the original concept - it's their job to hone it and refine it into something that can be watchable and hopefully successful. I'm trying to redesign Adelia with a mouth to get the VP's attention that maybe this character is still a viable option for them, but at the same time I'm hoping to show that I am willing to revise and that I can work with critique.

I expect nothing to come of this, of course, but it can't hurt to try. If things don't end up working out then I can always go back to my original design of Adelia.

I'm still trying a couple of different ways to incorporate a mouth with the character. Do I make the mouth a full part of her head shape? Or should it be more stylized and appear on the one side of her face (which I like more because it's smaller and cuter and stays out of the way of the rest of the head design). Anyhow - I'm still working at it...

July Art Gallery at Nickelodeon

On July 10th I finally had my art gallery open at Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank. I interned there on Dora the Explorer (in it's first season) in 2000 and have been working there full time since 2002.

It's an incredible place to work...and one part of that is the art gallery they maintain in the main hallway. It's the hallway everyone walks through (from production, to artists, to celebrities. As I put my illustrations in the gallery Alfonso Ribeiro asked me for directions to the security desk to sign in) and I've always wanted to have a solo show there.

In 2007 I came back to Nickelodeon after a small hiatus (between the cancellation of Danny Phantom, the non pickup of Splattapus, and the renewal of Fairly Odd Parents, which had been originally shelved in 2005), one of the first things on my mind was to schedule a gallery. I figured in the few months between signing up for it, I'd have plenty of artwork to show off. They like to plan things very far in advance which meant the gallery was booked up through the end of 2008...and the first date available was July of 2009. It seemed like forever away, but at least it would give me plenty of time to work on my art.

the oldest piece in my gallery - from 2006 - it's a watercolor of a chinstrap penguin

Cut to April of this year - I've had the gallery on my mind on occasion, but I usually didn't think about it - and by April it was the furthest thing from my mind. Luckily for me, I happened to wake up one morning and it struck me like a revelation. Did I have a gallery still? I hadn't heard anything in all these long months, so I figured I'd better check into it.

The very last piece I did for the show (finished on Thursday morning)

What's nice is that I haven't been wasting my time. I had two different areas of interest that I wanted to explore - vinyl toys and children's books. I switched back and forth between ideas and when I checked with the person in charge of the gallery, I had over 35 pieces that I was confident I could use in the show. And since it was only April, I still had three long months to draw like mad.

The gallery right before they announce the opening

The next thing I knew it was June, and instead of drawing and painting (digitally) I had to turn my attentions to finding a color printer place and finding matts and frames for all the art. It's quite a daunting task to accomplish, so I'm glad I had my wife there to help me out. Some time in the next week I'll upload each illustration individually, and you'll see how much of a help she was (everything not in a black frame and black matt is her choice...I can do the art, but I'm terrible at being creative with frames).

Here's me in the gallery after having finished putting up all the titles and prices.

Here's the food spread (thai food and fruit)

The full gallery - wine on the right and thai food on the left

Zebra Berries for Mommy (cover) and other children's book art

A few of my early Adelia pieces

Igor Penguin and a couple of (older) penguin watercolors

Some of my early Penguin watercolors (from 2006-2007)

.

Some of my square animal children's book (style) illustrations

Some of the newer Adelia pieces I've done (between late 2008 - early 2009)

It was a pretty great show. I spent half the time leading up to the show wanting it to be over and then in eager anticipation. On one hand I just wanted the art up but didn't want all the attention, but on the other hand I was looking forward to seeing people enjoy the work that I've spent the last two years producing. The thrill part of it won out and I had a good time.

Drawn by all the free food and the chance to hang out (as well as all the nice art, or so I was told) - there were a lot of people. The food was all gone before 6 (but there was alcohol until the very end...so they had the important stuff covered). It was a lot of fun and I was completely flattered by all the positivity and compliments.

One of the pieces that sold on Friday night.

.

It was nice to see it all come together after all this time. I ended up with 52 paintings - between my watercolors and digital illustrations.

IF: Poise - tight rope walker...

When I saw that this week's subject was Poise - my very first thought was the poise a tight rope walker goes through. There's currently a documentary about a guy, back in the 70s, who tight rope walked across the twin towers. Could you imagine being that high...in New York...with all that wind and height...it would take a lot of concentration and poise to make it across. Anyway - that doc is in my netflix que and this drawing is on my docket to be worked on.

I did that original sketch in photoshop - it's very rough because I used a wacom to draw (it's much easier on a cintiq)...then I copied and pasted it into illustrator and did a quick cleanup of it - I'm going to print it out and revise it and rework it a little bit...but I like how it turned out...



It's not finished yet - but it's a start.

IF: Time....BOMB!

So this is my second sketch for Illustration Friday...originally I had Adelia holding up a giant pocketwatch...but the more I looked at it and the more I thought about it, it seemed like it should be a bomb. Sounded more interesting.



Also there's a lot more action going on...rather than just reverence for time (which didn't make much sense)...

IF: Time

This is a sketch i did this morning for Illustration Friday's theme: Time. Here we see Adelia and her little friends holding up time



Hopefully I'll have a chance to clean it up and color it for real...but we'll see...

IF: Craving - Adelia Holds Out!

How does this image fit? Well...let's see. The lil' characters were craving them some cupcakes - but their plan had a serious flaw as none of them match up to Adelia's stature.

The final version of a sketch I did this last weekend for Illustration Friday. I had been hoping to finish it - and I finally did...with a day to spare! The word this week was climbing and I thought of the little square characters I draw and what if they were climbing all over Adelia trying to get at something...I did the sketch last Friday and cleaned it up on Monday. From there I did several revisions (trying to get the character placement right and I also had to correct a lot of the perspective)...I started the color yesterday and today it's finally done!

IF: Climbing - Adelia holds out - clean up edition

I did a sketch of this on friday for Illustration Friday - this is the cleaned up version - after 3 rounds of revisions...gotta get it right....right?  I hope to have it colored some time this week.

IF: Climbing - Adelia holds out...

It's been incredibly busy the last couple of weeks. I made the mistake of telling someone I was blogging all the time - which was probably my downfall. I did this sketch on my wacom (which is a horrible way to sketch...I'd rather use a cintiq or grab some paper and a blue pencil)...but this is what I had in front of me, so I had to use it.

I thought about climbing - and wanted to relate it to my characters...so i thought a cute drawing would be to have Adelia holding cupcakes and the little kids climbing all over her to get at them.

I hope to clean it up and color it soon, but we'll see...there's way too much on my (work) plate...besides cupcakes...

IF: Pale - Adelia: Left out...

Here is my latest piece from Adelia.

Originally Adelia (the little blue penguin character in the foreground) was mostly outside the framing. I just joined a critique group through the SCBWI and it was suggested that I push her back into the frame a bit more. It made for a piece that worked better together...Adelia became a part of the picture once she was contained (mostly) within the frame.  From there I went and colored it:

I then submitted it to the Illustration critique group and got some more feedback.  From this I did a set of revisions - adding flowers to the back hill, desaturating the road (which was getting a little too much attention), adding shadows to the wheels on Adelia's cart (which I just completely forgot about), adding shadow to the flowers themselves (to give them more dimension), shrinking the size of the hill line (as the black line was a little too thick), desaturating the skunk's cart, and finally, saturating the sky and changing the clouds to less sucky ones.  I'd say the old version PALES in comparison to the new and improved version.

I've enjoyed doing all these characters together, and when I have time, I'd like to eventually put a story together around them. As for now, they're just going to help me out as a terribly cute subject matter.

IF: Resolve - Adelia's resolve for the new year...

I can't believe it's already 2009! I did a couple of sketches that I did a couple of days ago that I really liked. The first is this one of Adelia:

It's all a mish-mash of figuring out the hands, the body and the characters. I cleaned it up in Illustrator and then had to completely redraw the body and feet because it was in the wrong perspective. I was also tinkering with the scarf because it wasn't feeling right hanging off the side like that. I did a couple of rounds of revisions and then re-cleaned it up.

This piece started off as Adelia, bags packed, steady resolve, and ready for the new year. Somewhere the bags were lost (they ended up in the other sketch I did, which I'll be working on next) but since they were unnecessary, I decided to leave them off.

Also - it seems that the second I changed my blog name to the Heebeejeebees I stopped drawing things that would fit (such as the cute animal eating blobs). I'll be bringing those back eventually - but for some reason when I put pencil to paper it always ends up with some sort of cute nonsense. Anyhow - I like how this turned out. I tried a bit of a background behind them, but liked the blank canvas (with just a shadow underneath them, so they're not just floating in space). It sort of sets the mood for this new year - a clean slate. or something...

IF - Adelia: vs. the stinky sock

Hello! First post of the new year!

clan·des·tine (kln-dstn):

"Kept or done in secret, often in order to conceal an illicit or improper purpose."

Because, you know, Adelia isn't on the way to the hamper...

I've been working on this since last year! This was a sketch I did at the bookstore a couple of days ago. I spent all day yesterday (the 31st) working on a freelance project and I needed to do something fun...so I took this out of my sketchbook and went to work on it.

I really liked how the one hand (not the one holding the sock) turned out. Just a couple of years ago I used to really struggle to draw hands (and I'm still learning) - but I'm coming along quite well...

This was the first version I painted in Photoshop (or should I say colored in photoshop? I guess it amounts to the same thing, but it sort of feels like 'painted' sounds more like what an artist would do and colored would be something a kid would do with crayons...probably doesn't matter)...

but as I cleaned up the drawing I thought about another way Adelia could be holding the sock - it would make more sense, if it really was that bad, to not make skin contact. And then it meant redrawing and recleaning up and then repainting her right arm and the sock. I think the arm and especially the sock are a little bit more dynamic.

I felt this piece fell under the clandestine Illustration Friday topic because one doesn't just waste a stinky sock. One battles it for supremacy and then uses it for secret nefarious purposes. But, with such a pungent stinky sock, those purposes aren't secret for long. Anyhow - see ya next Illustration Friday!