KERSWELLIAN: 2013

Monday, 25 November 2013

Way back in early 2010 I was approached by director Charlie Bean (who i'd worked previously with at the doomed Cartoon Network Development Studio Europe) to do some design work on Disney's 'Tron Uprising'.

Exciting stuff! Being a big fan of the 1980's original I was very excited ...not to mention terrified, mainly because the whole look of the show was to be styled by the amazingly talented Rob Valley. You don't have to be neither Sherlock Holmes or Miss Marple to deduct i'm not used to working in Rob's particular style. I do mostly silly cartoony stuff, you know, crazy characters made out of ham, bits of old lettuce and fur ...i don't really do stylised realism. I usually try to steer clear of it as a rule! It was safe to say I was completely out of my comfort zone, should I go sit in a dark corner somewhere and freak out silently or get scribbling pronto...??? Oh go on then I'm up for the challenge! Charlie sent me through some model sheets and a rough trailer segment to look at which even in the early and unfinished stages looked incredible!!!

It was a lot of hard work, frustrating at times trying to get the style but mostly great fun and a great experience, plus it kept me busy for well over a year. So thank you Charlie for showing faith in me and asking me to participate. In this time I did designs for secondary characters, namely the 'Black Guards' and 'Sentinel Guards', incidental characters, concept designs for costumes, numerous headgear and helmets (I got carried away here), drones/robots (again, I got really carried away).

For the many 'headgear/helmet' concept designs I worked over existing character heads designed by Rob. The incidental characters are my attempts at trying to replicate Mr. Valleys super-saucy style, I got my copies of Rob's 'Massive Swerve' books out for much needed help, if you haven't got these books, track them down and BUY THEM!!!

Disney Xd's 'Tron Uprising' was a very ambitious show and a massive undertaking for all involved, it aired in 2012 and the finished result looked fresh and ultimately epic! Sadly the powers that be at Disney (in their infinite wisdom) decided not to commission a second season despite the show having a massive fan base.

Here we are almost exiting 2013 and finally ...FINALLY, I get my finger out and post some of the work I did, what with this and that cropping up it's taken me a while to gather and sort through all of the artwork, and believe me there was a lot to scratch through! This really is the tip of the iceberg and my small contribution to fleshing out the enormity of what lies within The Grid.