This project seeks to recreate Maurice Sendak's timeless novel, Where The Wild Things Are, in the context of a new animated show. This assignment was developed during my semester at Nottingham Trent University and remains, to this day, one of the most challenging and exciting works I've ever done.
To prepare for this project, I started an extensive research around these characters and their remarkable legacy. This includes not only the original tale by Maurice Sendak, but also later interpretations of the novel, created by multiple artists in several fields: the short animation produced by Gene Deitch (1974); the small opera composed by Oliver Knussen (1980); the first tests with 3D animation explored by John Lasseter e Glen Kean (1983); and, more recently, the live action movie directed by Spike Jonze (2009). This allowed me to slowly shape these characters, and to create new parallels with the original spirit of the novel.
The final work resulted in two turn-around sheets for the main characters; two expression sheets; two concept sheets; and a variety of rough sketches exploring different techniques and materials. The drawings were entirely created with traditional methods (indian ink, charcoal, sepia, pen, and blue colored pencil with graphite for the final retouches). The images were later scanned and edited in Adobe Photoshop.
I hope you enjoyed.
