Tip of the Day - Cover and Art Direction Guidelines

2004 - Adobe Photoshop - Corel Painter - NewTek LightWave 3D

“Tip of the day” is a TV animated series project developed by Dreamlike Visions s.n.c. in 2003-2004.
When I designed the cover for the Promo DVD, I wanted to use a classic old family photo layout to focus the attention on the relationships between the main characters, that constitute a real, although odd, family.
I used the facial expressions to speak about the love that the grandpa Alchemius feels for the little Tip, the jealousy of Trick, and the sweet but astute and smart attitude of Tip.

I tried to get the characters in touch with the audience through the looks flow: Trick watch the hand of Alchemius, Alchemius watch Tip and Tip Watch us.

From the composition point of view, the faces of the three characters create a virtual arrow, that moves the attention on a warm and very saturated logo.

For the character poses I asked for the help of the animation supervisor (Marco Carpagnano), giving him some geometric guidelines:
I wanted Tip in an unbalanced position placed on the (top-left/bottom-right) diagonal, in this way Tip become the most dynamic character in a pretty static image.

For the back cover (right below image) I wanted to focus the attention on Tip and his liveliness with a very dynamic pose.

I wanted a special, warm and pictorial look for the “Tip of the day” project.
I looked for the inspiration in my child memories and I found it in the beautiful backgrounds of Classic Disney movies, in some American artists from the Hudson River School such as Thomas Moran and in many other extraordinary artists from all around the world.

I tried to interpret all these influences creating a personal look that I named “Painted Like” and I wrote some simple guidelines for the art direction.

For the texturing process I defined these rules:

1- Textures must appear as they were painted with acrylic colors. Colors must be blended in a natural way and the brush strokes have to be visible.

2- Texture details can be synthesized by a few brush strokes, because this style doesn’t want a hyper-realistic approach.

3- Color can be “contaminated”. Different hues can be opposed and blended together: A bluish tone can be blended on a brown wood texture, or violet and orange tones on a gray rock texture.

4- Whenever possible use warm colors near cold colors.
This suggestion is valid for the lighting and color grading processes (warm Sun-lit areas
vs. cold shaded areas), but also for texturing tasks, as shown in the little dragon
texturing (warm colors for the face and the spots on the back, cold colors for the skin
and for the bluish effect on the back)

As a representation of these guidelines I created the image below, that has been very useful to explain my idea of how this style looks like (the ball on the right) opposed to a classic rendering (the ball on the left).

The “Tip of the Day” trailer has been created by the technical and artistic efforts by some very talented friends:

Alberto Gelpi : Director, Co-Author, Executive Producer, Editor and Character Modeler
Cristian Giuseppone : Character and Storyboard Artist
Michele Paciulli : Musician, Sound Designer and Creative Consultant
Marco Carpagnano: Animation Supervisor
Nicola Filiali : Lead Animator and Character TD
Lino Grandi : Technical Director
Massimo Curatella : Coordinator, Mentor, Advisor
Federico Romanazzo : Web Designer and Graphic Consultant

…and I…

Marco Genovesi : Art Director, Co-Author, Production Designer, Hard Surface Modeler, Lighter, Compositor, Digital Matte and Texture Painter

For more info about the project you can visit also “Tip of the day” web site.

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