Genndy Tartakovsky

The first stage of this assignment, designing the model we would be making. Specifically based off of the art style of Genndy Tartakovsky, a style defined by exaggerated characteristics and distinct shapes. He very much uses clear shape language in his designs, with powerful and strong characters being more square as is seen in his characters from the movie “Primal.” This is something that I found very significant, and so tried to incorporate into my character also.

 

The work of his that we focused on was Hotel Transylvania, our prompt being to create a monster that looks as though they would fit into this world as one of the hotel guests. I really enjoy creating non-human characters, so was excited to begin my work.

 

My Process

I first wrote down a list of monster types that I thought could make interesting models, then narrowed them down to my favourites. Ironically, what I ended up going with was not part of the narrowed down list.

I was very loose with the first sketches, just trying to get the shapes down, as I was just throwing out ideas until I found a concept I liked.

I really liked a few of the earlier drawings that I did, but didn’t think they fit the style, so I think I’m going to use them as characters in future D&D games, I’m too attached to let them go!

 

I was set on working on a male ghoul design, as I liked the sharp shapes, but I wasn’t satisfied. I was working on him, and decided to do a design for his wife also. She ended up being my final, although I changed her a lot- from high class snob to a strict school principal.

I tried to exaggerate the angularity, using shape language to get across who she is as a person, as is found in Genndy Tartakovsky’s work. Triangles and sharp edges to imply danger and unkindness.