I did some work on EPIC ABRAHAM, a short pitch to Adult Swim about a gruff man who drinks and punches his way across the supernatural landscape of early America.
My job was to take assets hand drawn by the talented Joseph Ryan and scan, clean, color and texture them in Photoshop. I then arranged and animated a few of the key scenes in After Effects.
A sample of the assets after being exported from Photoshop.
I was given creative control over the dramatic lighting in the thunderstorm scene. By quickly flashing between different levels of shadow we were able to create an intense visual to match the mood.
Most of the animation in Epic Abraham was cutout style, but more complicated movements like the one pictured above needed to be done frame by frame. This caused problems with the texturing, where a frame by frame approach would appear jittery and inconsistent. To solve this, after creating the grimey texture I used Photoshop's warp tool to match the Executioner's bodacious curves.
I ended up becoming infatuated with this guy after spending so much time on his turnaround. So for some fun I made him into a paper cutout doll articulated with a bit of string. I wish I had taken some pictures or video of the finished product, but I ended up giving it to Joseph Ryan as a gift.
The finalized pitch.
It's the nature of the industry that only a small percentage of pitches are actually accepted by studios. So unfortunately, Epic Abraham did not develop into a series. I am unaware of any current plans to move the project forward, but it wouldn't surprise me to see more of the grizzled hero in the future. Nevertheless, working on the pitch was a journey that rivaled the titular character's and I will look back at those times fondly for years to come.
