VIGNALI STUDIO

Another Bear...

Askel and Milky, here's another bear drawing for ya.

This was drawn with marker on newsprint.

Brother Bear Humans

One of my assignments was to design some of the human characters too. So, with a bit of research, I did a series of drawings that I believed would be helpful in terms of authentic costume design for pre-Columbian natives in the New World, tools and activities.

In this drawing, I have called out the tools -- and how they're used. This character is drilling through solid bone with a reed and a hands-free vice. The reason for this is to make a bone hook. The kind you see being sold as necklaces today in gift shops.

Showing a variety of different tools, and their usage, I believed would help they guys on the Brother Bear project see things in a different way.

Here, I'm illustrating how the natives would have made planks of wood with an obsidian adze.

These poses and characters were all drawn without photo reference, but rather with lots of research on the usage of stone age type tools.

I was fortunate to have worked on a previous project where I had already done research on this subject, and already bought the books on Native American stone tools. I'd be pretty handy if I ever ended up on a deserted island!

The drawings were drawn on newsprint with prismacolor pencil.

Brother Bear Close Up

Here's a close up as per Mark's request.

Brother Bear Background Design

Here's one of the background designs I did early on the Brother Bear project -- before I concentrated my efforts on the animals in this world.

I wanted to come up with an iconic view of the world that would set it apart from other prehistoric interpretations. The directors described to me that the film takes place during the end of the Ice Age, as the world began to warm up. I thought it would be visually interesting to see a glacier melting in a way to create a grand-canyon-like effect, with a giant waterfall cascading out of a wall of ice.

Well, nowhere in the film do you see anything like that because the directors chose to go more naturalistic than fantastic. Still, I thought it would be fun posting.

As a visual development artist, it’s my job it to come up with as many visual ideas that I can in the hopes that somewhere in my exploration, I will stumble across a particular direction that will work for the directors.