The Music Man

My summer was a summer of theatre.  I originally signed up to do Stage Crew/Assistant stage manager for my home town's community theatre production of The Music Man, where I would be backstage with my friends for a few weeks.  Well, it became a lot more  than that.  Early in June I was told they needed help with the sets so I went in to do whatever i could, when i could, and where I could.  However, I was asked by the head set designer to help in designing and painting four building flats for River City, Iowa.  Already have done one set design project prior, I was happy to do it again.  The flats were already sized, 12ft high by 6ft 10" wide with another side panel that was 4 ft wide.  I now became the lead on that project.  Originally, they were going to be just painted flats but a props master and friend Tom Bray who has worked for WCT for many years saw my designs said "lets build them out!" so we did because and I thought we should too, it would give them more dimension and make them more real.  If brought in from the beginning, I think I would have designed the basic structure of the town differently but, then again, they were only in two scenes....which i found out later.... oh well, they were important ones!

 Now, I had only about 3 weeks to get all 4 flats ready to be transported across town to the stage, so i was going pretty much day and night on these suckers to get it done, saving minor pieces to be added on later. But I sure as hell could not have done it without the supportive help of props master Tom Bray, Set Designers George Juaire, Craig Steineck and good friends who came in to help when they could to lay down basic colors so i could focus on details. I learned a lot on this project, in relation to colors, building, textures, and what not to use/do haha like mixing paints (for set pieces cause they are so big)......or using hot glue to glue foam pieces onto the flats...... live and learn right :)

I think what I love most about theatre is the fact that it is all collaborative. Even though it was my design, its hard to say it was solely one person because here you get to bounce ideas off of other people and feed off their energy, rather than just sitting at home in a studio by yourself.  Its so full of life and energy, even when it gets stressful, and thats what i love about it and why i love the world of theatre so much.  Having this now be my second set design project, I must say I really do enjoy it.  I get to combine my love for visual and my love for performing arts, how great is that!  

Sketches from Stillwater MN, studying architecture from buildings built during the late 19th century and early 20th century

Early Roughs of the Buildings for River City

Final Line Drawings that would be turned into transperencies to blow up to larger size to trace them onto the flats themselves.  They were a lot short than expected in order to make them fairly proportional.   

Color Renderings of the buildings

Separate photo shots of the Town pieces. 

Detail Shots of the Buildings.

Full Shot of the Town

Performance Nights

Where we started....

Where we ended :)

BEDRAH

 Early this summer, my friend had this fantasy story idea in his mind for a number of years now, and since I was looking for something to do he told me all about it. Its a cool idea with interesting characters and fascinating cultures.  Its not fleshed out, but both him and I thought it would be cool if I drew up some things, so i began with characters.  My time on this was put on hold unfortunately while I temporarily dealt with Music Man.  But basically I have taken the liberty to sketch up characters and put my own spin or thoughts on them.

The first character is the antagonist who basically is "good" but becomes manipulated by dark magic in order to reclaim his terrible past and become someone important, someone to be remembered.

very early sketch

 More refined sketch. the bottom right was a sketch for the hero.

 Costume sketch. silhouettes i liked as well as playing with crests.

He becomes possessed and manipulated by dark magic, corrupting his humanity every time he uses spells from the book of the necromancer.  A book he found on an expedition to an unknown region that is completely dead, but there the expedition uncovers canyons and in one was a tomb of the god of death.

Value study showing before and after. There will be more of an in-between state, but its a few years after the book takes control, where he becomes the ruler of the dead lands and raises an army from the afterlife.

His friend and companion who accompanies him on the expedition who has an unfortunate date with destiny and becomes a...

DEMON! thats right

Playing around with hair or no hair. More mane like and more fleshier on the chest.

Then there is our hero.  An elf paladin. Playing around with costume, thought an interesting motif for these high elves would be a peacock, maybe there story of their god had something to do with peacocks. who knows. but its fun to think about cultural influences like that :)

Sketch of our hero as well as a side version of his companion, a wood elf ranger chic

Costume ideas for the wood elf. just began to toy with her character.

More to come!

Architectural studies

These next few were done to study buildings built in the late 19th century to early 20th century for set pieces for Woodbury Community Theatre's production of The Music Man

More Plein Air

Two Paintings done back in June. My time has been limited  in which a later post will reveal unfortunately. These were I think around an hour and a half and done in oil on 8 by 10 canvas :)