Howdy, DC here.
Here’s the very first look at some Storm character artwork – well, not exactly a character, but I thought this would be a fun pic to start with. One of the nicest things about animating Storm is the amount of elements which are minor details in the lyrics, but very important visually. “Top floor flat, all white walls, white carpet, white cat.”
I played around with a range of shapes and sizes, and eventually settled on this smug little chap.
Here are a few early sketches:
I toyed with the idea of using a Scottish Fold, as they are especially cute, but I wanted a bit more expression in the ears. Hope you like him! Oh, and Happy New Year 
31/12/2009 at 10:00 pm Permalink
Love the top-left and bottom-left in the first image of concept sketches. The kooky, odd looking style suits the beat poem. Can’t wait to see more. Keep up the good work =D
31/12/2009 at 10:03 pm Permalink
very cool very much how i imagined the animations to look in my head, Happy new year to you also
31/12/2009 at 10:35 pm Permalink
I really love the final result. Being somewhat of a graphic designer, I really enjoy the texture and very simple, yet very effective, shapes. What tools did you use to create this?
31/12/2009 at 11:06 pm Permalink
I love the smugness! It amazes me that you can get so much expression and attitude (please note I restrained myself from ‘cattitude’ there with great difficulty) into that still image. Lovely to see the sketches as the character was developed too.
01/01/2010 at 12:58 am Permalink
Yes, this moggy most definitely would be smug. I imagine this little feline would be listening intently to the conversation throughout. Great stuff!
01/01/2010 at 2:45 pm Permalink
@Blake Urmos,
I’m drawing everything for Storm as vector images in Flash, polishing in Photoshop if necessary. I was tempted to use Toon Boom, as it’s great for animation production, but I’ve been working with Flash for a decade, so it’s under my skin now
ps: Keep an eye out for regular time-lapse videos of artwork being drawn. I’ll be showing every step involved, from sketching to final animation.
01/01/2010 at 4:49 pm Permalink
This is now my new homepage, very excited about this
Any thoughts on how it’s going to be distributed? Film festivals? Dvd? Download?
01/01/2010 at 6:10 pm Permalink
@Gemma, the main method of viewing will be online, it’ll be available on YouTube, but if all goes well it’ll also be a DVD extra. We’re also talking to various film festivals and awards, so I’ll keep everyone posted with details over the next few months.
01/01/2010 at 8:13 pm Permalink
Love it! So interesting to watch a work like this develop. Thanks for the opportunity.
13/01/2010 at 11:23 am Permalink
lovely – made me think of the cats in Frakk http://www.videoplayer.hu/videos/play/47967
and the Check-Eared Rabbit
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kqdd2R6IkO4
13/02/2010 at 9:27 pm Permalink
I love this!! I love the smugness and the shut eyes and the little cat grin and the long neck!
Out of the sketches I particularly love the chubby one that looks a bit like a seal
21/04/2010 at 9:26 am Permalink
It looks like something out of a stylized classic children’s book! Love it!