Welcome Adrian!!!

[Michaelangelo]

Welcome to TMNT-L Adrian, it's a real honor to have you here at TMNT-L.  

For those of you who don't know, Adrian is one of the Character Designers for the 4Kids TMNT series and is a wonderful artist.  I got to see some of his work at Big Apple Con this last November.  

Adrian if you don't mind, this area is where fans can say Hello and ask questions.  We're truely honored that you've taken time to come and say hello to us.

I would like to take a moment to ask some questions,

Was there any character that you had to design, which gave you a challange?  Which character was it, and what was the challange of bringing a look to this character?

 Thanks again for joining!  

[Eclipse]

Hey!! *Waves* Welcome to the forum!! ^___^ It's great to have you here! As a wanna-be character designer, I've so many questions that I'd love to have answered! *grins*

How many others do you get to work with while you do the Character designs?
Are there other Characters designers doing the same thing as you?
About how long do you usually have before they expect to have the Character Designs? ^__^

[Danceingfae]

Welcome and welcome again to our fun (if a bit crazy but definately fun) forum! It's great to see you on here and hope you enjoy being a part of this great site!

[AdrianB]

Hey Guys thanks for a warm welcome! It was a pleasure to Meet Michele at the BIG APPLE COMIC CON in NY. And also thanks for those Turtle gumbies candy thingie, she gave me some for lunch. it was Good. Anyway, lets see if i can answer some of the Questions you guys have.

Q: Was there any character that you had to design, which gave you a challange? Which character was it, and what was the challange of bringing a look to this character?

A: Actually, every characters i've designed were very challenging, Specially the ones with no character descriptions from the writters, sometimes i only get a name or sometimes a vague description. but the one character that i can think of right now that was really challenging for me to design would be, THE SHREDDER from the episode "SAME AS IT NEVER WAS" where he had six arms with 4 legs. The Design was really complicated,i had to put so much details on it at the same time i had to simplify it for the animators. so the design was going back and forth to the drawing board. -simplifying/addingmoredetails-im glad Animators Did a good job!c

Q2: A: How many others do you get to work with while you do the Character designs?

A: A: I Designed most of the characters. but when i was also doing storyboards,  i had help from Rob. he helped out designing/cleaning-up characters. which was a big big big help to me, he still helps me with clean-ups.

B:Are there other Characters designers doing the same thing as you?

B: If you mean for TMNT, yeah, Rob was helping me design before now he got busy doing boards. now he helps me doing clean ups.


C:About how long do you usually have before they expect to have the Character Designs? ^__^

C: They give me a 32 pages Script to do all the designs within a week. Sometimes if theres a deadline or Client model (Peter Laird Appoval ) they need them ASAP. my bosses are very nice to give everyone extensions. cause sometimes there are heavy scripts where theres like 30 characters to design or sometimes even more.

I hope i answered your Qs, if you have more, just ask away! ill try my best to aswer them!

thanks
AdrianB.

[Shredder]

Here's a question I was thinking about just last week..

There's so many people in the world, it's amazing that no one looks exactly alike.  There's an equal amount of animated characters on TV, and not one looks like the other.  For instance, no one would mistake Charlie Brown for Schroeder...  

Is it ever a challenge to come up with a new interesting look, or do you sometimes resort to looking at the internet for referance photos to come up with a new character?

Also, I emailed denny and he never got back to me.  I dunno if you guys are gonna have the time to do a short 20 minute or so interview for TMNT Radio or not.  If so, let me know and i'll start coming up with some good questions to ask you guys :O)

Thanks!

[Ty-Chou]

Sweet! Welcome Adrian! I bet that's an awesome job! Thanks for joining the board and answering some of our questions. ^.^

I was wondering if you had a hand in designing the turtles and if there were any specific changes or requests given for deviating from the designs from the old school show. Like, were you told to take out the pupils from the designs or was that something the designers thought of. Things like that.

And forgive me for these next questions/comments, but I've never been too impressed with April's character design. I mean, you guys obviously wanted to make a different character that what was in the old school show, but I'm curious about some of the decisions made for her design. Like why is her hair so saturated? She's extremely bright compared to the color designs of all the other characters. It's not really a natural hair color, why was it decided to make her hair so bright pink? And also, the first time we see her, she's working for Baxter stockman, but her outfit is hardly 'lab assistant' attire. Mid drift and khakis under a lab coat. Not exactly something one would wear to work.

Not that I'm trying to criticise too much. I did like some of her other outfits and I like her hair when it's down. But that outfit just struck me as odd. I'm curious as to the thought process that went into her designs and what made you guys decide on the final designs and colors.

[AdrianB]

Yo Yo Yo!!! how are you guys doin?

Q: Is it ever a challenge to come up with a new interesting look, or do you sometimes resort to looking at the internet for referance photos to come up with a new character?


A: Yup, its always a challenge to come up with a new interesting design, and Yeah, i have a LOTS of REFERENCE BOOKS...some artists feel like its cheating to have a reference, i think thats BS. I use alot of ref. Internet is my best tool to get REF. their image search is awesome.

Q: I was wondering if you had a hand in designing the turtles and if there were any specific changes or requests given for deviating from the designs from the old school show. Like, were you told to take out the pupils from the designs or was that something the designers thought of. Things like that.

And forgive me for these next questions/comments, but I've never been too impressed with April's character design. I mean, you guys obviously wanted to make a different character that what was in the old school show, but I'm curious about some of the decisions made for her design. Like why is her hair so saturated? She's extremely bright compared to the color designs of all the other characters. It's not really a natural hair color, why was it decided to make her hair so bright pink? And also, the first time we see her, she's working for Baxter stockman, but her outfit is hardly 'lab assistant' attire. Mid drift and khakis under a lab coat. Not exactly something one would wear to work.

Not that I'm trying to criticise too much. I did like some of her other outfits and I like her hair when it's down. But that outfit just struck me as odd. I'm curious as to the thought process that went into her designs and what made you guys decide on the final designs and colors.

A: I wish had a chance to Work on the turtle design. I started working on TMNT as a character designer on episode 9, the turtles and other main characters were designed and developed already by Chuck Patton (the previous director of tmnt) and by an amazing artist  name AJ. you'll see their names under "Development or Character Development" so as the colors and everythingelse were Chuck Pattons Deciscions. I give him All the Credits for that! im just his humble servant...

Shredder, ill ask Denny and the other guys about the interview, were just really busy cranking out here at work. i'll let you know.

[Ty-Chou]

Aww...well tell him to come on so he can answer our questions.

Moving on then, I'll give you a chance to brag. What character design that you worked on are you the most proud of?

[Buslady]

I thought Michael Dooney desgined the new toon turtles? Am I wrong? On his site, he says he did a ton of the commerical product images, I guess I assumed he basically designed them for the show.

[Danceingfae]

Just wanted to take the time to wish you and your family a very happy holiday this season and hope you have a wonderful new year!