As artists, our goal is not to draw what we see (a camera can do that), but to draw in a way that makes the viewer feel a certain way. Our goal is to tell a story visually relying heavily on emotion.

I think one reason I love animation so much is that it is so expressive. You have many art forms (writing, drawing, color, movement, sound design, voice acting, art direction, etc.) colliding to tell a story around a core story with powerful emotional themes….or very cartoony or light hearted themes depending on the genre.

So today when you pick up your stylus, mouse, brush, pencil, pen, marker, or the like, remember to draw the emotion and tone you want to convey.

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First look: DreamWorks’ 3-D ‘How to Train Your Dragon’

Before launching Timbuktoons I toured a large animation studio to learn all I could about each step in the animation process.

One area I absolutely fell in love with was the Visual Development Department. Concept art, character designs, inspirational sketches, color studies, prop and environment design all take place in “vis dev”.

One of the things that amazed me was the amount of research, reference, and inspirational material on hand to give the concept artists everything they needed to work their magic. Each artist had a huge (I’m talkin’ 5′x8′) foam core board with tons of visual reference material that someone had meticulously researched and prepared for them.

They had anatomy diagrams, photographs, illustrations, inspirational artwork, lighting and color reference, all right there in front of them.

I point this out because I’ve talked with other artists who feel like they are somehow cheating if they use reference material. Here at Timbuktoons we use a ton of reference material to generate ideas and use as spring boards.

We spent the summer developing the story and key artwork for a show concept we’re going to start pitching in November. The main characters are from different time periods.

The thing with reference material is that you notice details and nuances you would otherwise have overlooked. Those are the exact details you need to make your designs unique.

I confess that I don’t enjoy research…at all! I just want to dive into sketching. Fortunately Sean Copley, our Creative Director (AKA “The Think Tank”) is a one man research department.

For each of our characters, he researched everything he could about their clothing, culture, personality, similar characters, etc. He created a huge digital file of images as well as a reference board with the best stuff for me to have on hand when I designed each character.

I also had images pasted up all over my wall in various artistic styles that inspired me in different ways.

Art doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We build on what others have done. We are influenced by all sorts of visual complexities that we often don’t think about. The job of a concept artist is to unpack those attributes and use them with intentionality in their visual story telling.

So, if you are a creative of any stripe…a little R and R will help inspire you and take your art to new levels!