supernoooodle

[supernoooodle]

Guys, the things I do to make our characters easy to animate!

[supernoooodle]

Introducing Kimmy!

For those of you who don't know, SuperNoodle will be releasing it's first app in spring 2012. It will be an interactive story book featuring a boy with a very strange dream and his family. I would like to give you an opportunity to get to know each of them. 

Let's start with Kimmy, the sister!

Hey Kimmy!

It took me quite a few tries to get Kimmy to look just right. When you are designing characters for books you will probably draw them dozens (if not hundreds) of times before you hit upon something you just LOVE. And you should LOVE the way each character comes together. 

The sketches above show where I started thinking about her, and some other versions I was thinking about before I got to her final design. 

Sometimes I find drawing a person over and over a good way of getting to know that person.  Here are some things I learned about Kimmy as I drew her:

She thinks yellow socks match every outfit, and always wants to wear them.

Her older brother annoys her, she thinks he is a weirdo. 

She secretly admires him.

She really wants a pet cat. 

Her favorite ice cream flavor is cookie-dough with rainbow sprinkles, only in a wafer cone.

[supernoooodle]

It is probably a little known fact now in my life that my nickname in elementary school was Smiley. It was bestowed upon me by a gym teacher when I was around eight or nine years old. Now, when he first called me Smiley I'm sure he had no idea how well it was going to stick amongst my peers, and I'm sure (or at least I hope) he didn't realize how it could turn into a form of teasing and bullying when he let that name fly out without thinking. 

You see, I had braces for the better part of my youth. Not only did I have braces, but I had retainers with so much plastic built in I was forced into lisping. Not only did I have lisp inducing retainers, I had the most dreaded piece of dental machinery of all time. Headgear. Which for a short period of time I had to wear to school on top of wearing it to sleep. 

But I was lucky that  I was what I like to call a "space cadet" in elementary school. I probably still have some pretty spacey qualities left over in my adulthood. And I thought when my peers started calling me Smiley, it was because, well I was a happy kid. And I embraced the name without realizing they were even teasing me and my mouthful of metal and just kept on being...Smiley. 

I don't remember when I finally realized I was on the bad end of a joke. But I did. At this point there wasn't much I could do. I probably had a bit of a cry at home, but seeing as the name had stuck, and the braces wouldn't be finally coming off until I had reached the eighth grade I decided that there were worse things people could have called me and went right out and bought a shirt with Mr. Smiley on it. (okay it was Mr. Happy but to my young self, this was a fine compromise)

So at the close of national smile week, I have one small piece of advice.

Choose to smile. 

[supernoooodle]

We have been so busy here, there is just so much to do! But we are inching closer and closer to our goals of getting the word out about out little publishing house.

It's hard sometimes, because when it comes to big plans Whitney has no patience. She just wants to show you everything RIGHT NOW! But she has to wait. 

And remember: good things come to those who wait. 

Someone with a big brain came up with that one. 

[supernoooodle]

Sometimes you have to draw a ton of one thing in order to choose just the right one. Like drawing three pages worth of noses just to pick out three. 

But now I have a whole nose library! 

[supernoooodle]

There are no bad stories. 

There are no bad drawings.

It's hard not to look at your own stuff sometimes and just...hate it. It is easy to compare your work to your friends and feel like you don't quite stack up. 

This is okay. And totally normal.

The important thing to remember (other than the more things you create the better you will get) is that no matter how bad your art turns out to be, you will survive its creation. 

You will live on to write, and scribble, and doodle, and draw another day. No matter how awful you think what you just made is, you will outlive it. You just can't let that scare you from making more awful, and also awesome stuff. 

Even sitting here in SuperNoodle H.Q. I psych myself out all the time. And there is nothing scarier to a creator than a blank sheet of paper. Well, even worse than a blank sheet of paper, is a whole blank book full of them.

Getting a new blank book, I'm filled with hopes and dreams of all the beautiful masterpieces that will no doubt adorn the pages. Then you know what happens? I mess up the first 10 pages and that feeling just flies out my window. 

So here is the SuperNoodle secret solution for you. Something we can try together. 

First: Take a deep breath. Shake out your arms and some nervousness with them.

Now: We are going to make a book especially for our crummy work. A book, I promise, you won't feel bad about crumpling, or shredding, or stomping, or flushing if you end up hating everything you make in it. 

The video is a lesson on how to make one of these super cheap-o bad stuff books. I've made it so you can try to work along with the video, but feel free to pause and work through the steps. 

Here's a big hint:

Don't crumple, shred, stomp, or flush these. Even though you might REALLY want to. Hide them. Put them in pages of books you're done reading. Under the bed is a classic. In an old shoe, where smelly stuff belongs. Whatever. Just save them, so when you make your amazing new work, you can look back and see how much better you've gotten.