Ashley Stoddard

Color & Concept

[eye-may]

Never-before-published model sheets for canned Amblin Cats movie 🐈‍⬛✏️👁️

Hi all. As promised, I am sharing a comprehensive .PDF of model sheets that were created for the Amblimation Cats movie that never saw the light of day. Most of these model sheets have not been published or posted anywhere on the internet as far as I'm aware. I'm going to get ahead of some questions for the good of the order:

Are these real? I certainly didn't sit and create all 117 pages myself for the sake of an elaborate hoax!

How did you get these? I work in the animation industry. A senior coworker caught wind of my cats obsession and said he had the Xeroxes and asked if I wanted him to bring them in. Internally, I flipped my shit. And then I digitized his hard copies.

How did your coworker get these? They were found in the library of the university he used to go to. (Not super unusual at an arts school in southern California.) He made photo copies back then and has been holding onto them. The thing is he knows nothing about CATS; isn't a CATS fan, never seen it, etc. I guess he just felt it was something worth holding on to!

Can you upload better quality? Unfortunately what you're seeing as good as the quality gets. These are scans of photocopies from the 90s. There is nothing to be done for the crunchiness.

What about (missing characters)? I'm showing you everything I was personally given!

Which character is (nondescript drawing of a cat)? If the image isn't labeled, your guess is as good as mine! I put all the misc./unlabeled cats in the back of the PDF. The only exceptions are ones that I felt were abundantly obviously supposed to be a specific character.

Who are the artists? Unfortunately, there's no way I can tell for sure. None of the sheets are signed. I wouldn't even go about guessing because many concept artists can perfectly emulate more "well known" illustrators whose styles were sought after. My coworker said he might be able to figure out who the draftsmen were; until then it's a mystery! If I find out, I will come back to this post and update it with that information.

Are these all the model sheets ever? No! In fact, there are model sheets that have been posted online that are not in the bundle I was given. I have no idea of the sum total of model sheets in existence.

Where's the link?! Here it is! Have fun kitties!

[art-of-vox-machina]

THE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA | Emon 3D Model Design

By Joseph Martinez

[art-of-vox-machina]

THE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA | Whitestone Acid Pit Modeling

By Joseph Martinez

[art-of-vox-machina]

THE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA | Wilhand's Hovel Backgrounds

By Eduardo Vargas

[art-of-vox-machina]

THE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA | Feywild Backgrounds

By Eduardo Vargas

[shoomlah]

how do you consistently draw the same character without it looking weird or off every different time?? also how do i coordinate faces, i always make the eyes too far apart or too big or too small or make the mouth too close to the nose or chin edge. If you have any advice I'd really appreciate it since it looks like you have your art shit figured out 🙏

Oh man SO so much of it is just practice, and you're not alone! I honestly think everyone struggles with a sort of "generification" of their characters' features the more they draw them, even seasoned professionals. There's a tendency to just sort of average everything out into an unrecognizable mush over time, and it takes a lot of conscious effort to push back against that.

Here are a couple tips and tricks that I've found to be helpful over the years:

Make turnarounds and model sheets. There's a reason animation/game studios do this, and it is because we are all still bad at drawing a consistent face. Despite being gainfully employed. What are we, graphic novelists?? We wish. Anyway it's a great way to familiarize yourself with your character's face from multiple angles, and it gives you a single source of truth to return to anytime you need a refresher:

Gather real-life reference. Anytime I'm designing a character I'm pulling together a ton of reference of actual people who look, to some degree, like the character in my head. It's always a collection of analogues, never just a single person, but it can be a great cheat sheet for understanding how your character might move, emote, etc:

Make a 3D model. I know it seems daunting, but with the advent of programs like Blender and Nomad Sculpt it's becoming remarkably more accessible. Heck, even James Gurney was sculpting maquettes out of clay for Dinotopia back in the day! It doesn't have to be particularly detailed—just a sort of proportionate lump will do—but it's another great way to have dynamic reference that you can rotate and light accordingly:

Practice, practice, practice. Make expression sheets for your character! Either right there on the spot, just start drawin' expressions, or you can slowly collect drawings of your character that you like, as you draw them, and compile them all in one place for your own reference. Need to draw your character's head from a weird angle? Maybe you've already drawn it before and you can copy your own homework! Doesn't count as stealing when the call's coming from inside the house 😎

I'd love to pretend there's a magical point where you can just immediately rotate your character's head in your brain like some sort of photorealistic apple in a twitter meme, but a lot of the time it's reference, hard work, and whole lotta repetition. 😐👍🏼

[astoddy]

One of my favorite CR moments

[astoddy]

Just a couple o plein air paints from the past few months. Gouache and pain

[astoddy]

I’ve been working on a personal project for a few years now. This is an iteration on the main character Dell

[astoddy]

Flashback to some of my earliest CR fanart for this Thursday night!

[astoddy]

Some landscapes from pleinaipril

[twinkiesdraws]

Critrole stuff from twitter Its been about a year since I last posted 🐸 Hope yall have been doing well 

[astoddy]

Apparently I last posted here 3 years ago. I think I’ve made some progress since then...

[astoddy]

‪Y’know, I was all set to go to sleep early and just finish tomorrow, then Yasha had to go fight lightning. #criticalrolefanart #CriticalRoleSpoilers #CriticalRoleArt #CriticalRole ‬ https://www.instagram.com/p/Bro6CB9BSSw/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ec1bjpjsiqf5

[astoddy]

Doing some creature designs for a friend’s home brew content. He wrote some great descriptions, made the design really easy #creaturedesign #dnd #hyenahedgehoglovechild https://www.instagram.com/p/Bplg2W8BDO1/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=81sg6dsdxv0a

[astoddy]

‪So, I’m really happy that I’m inspired to draw for myself again, but it’s really messing with my sleep schedule.... worked out an outfit for my firbolg grave cleric #DnD #waterdeep #characterdesign‬ https://www.instagram.com/p/BpEDr4JhNgz/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=u8fphgs37o9x

[astoddy]

‪Oh, join your waterdeep campaign you say? Well that sounds downright lovely I’ll just squeeeeeeze that into my schedule there... Guess I’m making a firbolg grave cleric beholden to the raven queen then! #thanksvoxmachina #DnD #gonnaneedatimeturner‬ https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo-58mQBzj8/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1njt0deabg95v