Anatomy of a Rabbit
For about twelve years now I've been drawing a little rabbit named Albert (pronounced "Al-bere").
Like many rabbits, his drives are very simple; survival and replication. His tendency to obsess and over-analyze makes it difficult to achieve these basic needs.
He's one of many rabbits I drew throughout my childhood. I eventually settled on the current design, which hasn't changed much since junior high. These are pictures of Albert as he appeared in my eighth grade year book:
As you can see, I was...very influenced by Berkely Breathed, to put it mildly.
The design has undergone some minor tweaks, making him a little more traditional and rabbit-like (and not infringing on anyone else's copyrights), with just enough to distinguish him from other cartoon rabbits.
This is Albert as he appeared on a mixed CD I made for a friend, circa 2003:
I got on this weird kick of showing Albert being mutilated in various ways. It all began when I was subbing for an art class and I grabbed one of those "creativity tests" and created this image:
I started thinking of Albert as a grim extention of Buster Keaton. I even toyed with the idea of giving him special powers, or simply the ability to defy death. But in the end, he's simply a core personality that can thrive in any number of stories and situations.
My drawing stalled a bit during high school, and never fully recovered. I started focusing more on filmmaking, girls, and something that seemed very new at the time, the internet. But now everything's come full circle. I started up this blog in order to participate in the John K/Preston Blair online drawing course. I'm without a scanner at the moment, so I can't display any work that's less than a year old. But the important thing is that I'm drawing again, and eager to pick up where I left off in the development of Albert. This is a blog intended to chronicle that journey.
This'll involve redesigning the character, creating stories, and figuring out ways to animate him.
Lately I've been doing some crude experiments using Benettonplay, an online flipbook site:
It's incredibly frustrating, since there's a limit to what you can draw within a frame (which is why Albert has no ears) but until I get software it'll have to do. This particular sequence was more-or-less improvised just to give a sense of what Albert will be like fully animated. I'm going to continue to experiment with these and post them in the future.
Like many rabbits, his drives are very simple; survival and replication. His tendency to obsess and over-analyze makes it difficult to achieve these basic needs.
He's one of many rabbits I drew throughout my childhood. I eventually settled on the current design, which hasn't changed much since junior high. These are pictures of Albert as he appeared in my eighth grade year book:
As you can see, I was...very influenced by Berkely Breathed, to put it mildly.
The design has undergone some minor tweaks, making him a little more traditional and rabbit-like (and not infringing on anyone else's copyrights), with just enough to distinguish him from other cartoon rabbits.
This is Albert as he appeared on a mixed CD I made for a friend, circa 2003:
I got on this weird kick of showing Albert being mutilated in various ways. It all began when I was subbing for an art class and I grabbed one of those "creativity tests" and created this image:
I started thinking of Albert as a grim extention of Buster Keaton. I even toyed with the idea of giving him special powers, or simply the ability to defy death. But in the end, he's simply a core personality that can thrive in any number of stories and situations.
My drawing stalled a bit during high school, and never fully recovered. I started focusing more on filmmaking, girls, and something that seemed very new at the time, the internet. But now everything's come full circle. I started up this blog in order to participate in the John K/Preston Blair online drawing course. I'm without a scanner at the moment, so I can't display any work that's less than a year old. But the important thing is that I'm drawing again, and eager to pick up where I left off in the development of Albert. This is a blog intended to chronicle that journey.
This'll involve redesigning the character, creating stories, and figuring out ways to animate him.
Lately I've been doing some crude experiments using Benettonplay, an online flipbook site:
It's incredibly frustrating, since there's a limit to what you can draw within a frame (which is why Albert has no ears) but until I get software it'll have to do. This particular sequence was more-or-less improvised just to give a sense of what Albert will be like fully animated. I'm going to continue to experiment with these and post them in the future.
posted by Jeremiah at 10:16 AM
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