Angry Birds and nonplussed Pigs

I'm addicted to Angry Birds.  I don't know they came up with the concept - but having little birds launch into green pigs and destroying precarious structures just keeps me enraptured week after week.

They had a movie that came out based on the game - but I don't know if I need to see that - I'd rather the interactivity that comes with the game.  And it's weird that the movie versions all have arms and legs...it's like they couldn't just figure it out with what they had originally designed.  But, I guess, it's easier to emote and to interact, not to mention move about if you have limbs.

This is Halloween, 2011

Last year we got a group together to do a Mario Brothers theme.  This year we visited the Tim Burton exhibit at the LACMA.  It inspired us to make our own costumes using the Nightmare Before Christmas as our theme this year.

My wife and two friends were Lock, Shock, and Barrel - the three little kids who kidnap 'sandy claws'.  I wanted to be something a bit harder and went with the Mayor.  Every year at Nickelodeon Animation Studio (where we work) they do a costume contest.  So while we were waiting for our turn, a girl dressed as Sally joined us and we all went together. 

We won for 'best entertainment characters'.

There's also a pumpkin carving contest that we entered:

My wife stayed with the theme and carved a Jack Skellington head and painted it white.  It also won!

I changed my plan at the last minute and went with an Angry Birds theme:

the red bird is an orange and the little blue bird is a lime.

 Angry Birds in their natural habitat.

This was part of the process of painting the Mayor head - I did a layer and then hung it to dry while I worked on my pumpkin.  I cut out the pieces for the eye, the nose and the mouth (which is where I saw out of).   The other cone (the white one) was the bottom part of the hat.  The material I used was a light weight black foam, so I had to do an undercoat before painting it gray.

And here are a few pictures of the making of the pumpkins:

The pear was too difficult to work with, so I ended up not being able to do a yellow bird.

precision cutting for Jack Skellington's eyes

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.

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)