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I’ve decided to begin a new series of tutorials to align with the “Wookie Rage” contest that is happening here on the site.

All you have to do is enter The Wookie Rage Poll, send me an email telling me that you entered the contest and you will have the chance to win one of my original sketches… …one that I did for this painting.

If you have iTunes installed on your computer, you can follow THIS LINK to the iTunes store and leave positive feedback in the “Customer Review” section.

The music heard on Chris Oatley’s ArtCast is provided by Storybook Steve and Kangaralien

I THINK THIS IS MY BEST PIECE OF 2009:

It represents a personal victory in the areas of spontaneity, loose-tight balance, strong drawing, appeal through silhouette and of course, character.  …ALL of the areas within which I have been focusing my efforts.

The irony of the previous statements is that I did this piece LAST FEBRUARY.  Yes, I have been focusing on all of these areas ALL FLIPPIN’ YEAR, but I have not yet had a bigger win than is represented here.

I have had a few personal wins at work (Disney) in the last nine months, but those wins were based more on the improvement of technical skill and efficiency of brush.  This Tin Man represents a big win for me personally because it looks the most like I WANT my personal work to look.

There is a LOT more to say about the above idea.  But I won’t write all about that here.  You can listen to several of my most recent ‘Collage Casts’ for more insight and I will be talking more about this pursuit in the upcoming podcast episode: “Looking Forward To 2010.”

THE DESIGN:

This is the third Tin Man design that I have shared with you.  This version gives you a better look at the ‘heart hatch’ concept that I talked about in Part 3 of this series.

There is obviously no ‘buzz-saw-beard’ like I talked about in part two, but I was attempting to represent a beard here.  This ‘beard’ was conveyed in essence by solving yet another design problem inherent to any ‘robotic’ or rigid character that also has a face.  (That is to say that this problem does not apply to ‘robotic’ characters like C-3PO or R2-D2.)

How do you show mouth movements and facial expression when the face is made of metal?

There were some interesting solutions demonstrated in the Blue Sky Studios film Robots.  There were concepts like jointed-eyebrows and bendy metal mouths.  The mouths moved subtly, so that they maintained the illusion of rigidity most of the time.  The animators achieved an appealing kinesis through fluid pantomime and a more global squash and stretch application.

Pixar’s Wall-E is also a very dynamic character.  And though his face is expressive, the animators relied more on posture and pantomime (ie: Andrew Stanton’s ‘Chaplin’ influence seen in the animated performances) than on Wall-E’s facial expressions to convey emotions.

My solution when designing this Tin Man was to form the head (including the eyebrows) out of metal and to form the mouth out of rubber.  This way, the mouth could be very flexible (as demonstrated in this image) but 80% of the head remains rigid.

The darkness of the rubber mouth makes the face resemble that of a man who hasn’t shaved in a month.

If this character were animated, his eyebrows would remain a fixed shape and they would just move up, down and rotate.

So this Tin Man, when animated, could have more dynamic facial expressions than the Blue Sky Robots or Wall-E.

This is not to say that this level of expressiveness is necessarily more desirable.  Its simply another solution to the expression challenges presented by robotic or otherwise rigid characters.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

The scarf and knit hat were attempts at irony.  Yes, they are ‘Woodsman’ visual cues as I described in Part 2, but they are also ironic since he’s made of tin.  Or maybe they are not ironic.  …maybe Tin Men get cold…  The painted-on suspenders were a last minute addition.

I don’t have a favorite part about this piece because I think it all works so well.  I guess if I had to choose, it would be the overall silhouette.  I like the variation in the silhouette; the contrast of the skinny limbs and the massive body.

I rarely, if ever, feel this satisfied with my own work.

Art is a discipline (in case nobody ever told you, that’s VERY important truth to accept) albeit a very enjoyable and rewarding one.  Art is also a battle.  In finishing a piece of art there is always a tally of wins and losses.  I just think that when this piece came to an end, the tally was mostly wins.  And that makes me really, REALLY happy.

Now, if I can just figure out how, in essence, to do this every time…

UPDATE:

I have once again attempted to allow BLOG comments.  I currently host my website throughApple’s MobileMe service and there are have been a lot of problems with the comments function.

However, I am VERY interested in your thoughts on this post/ piece so PLEASE share your thoughts and we’ll try this commenting thing for the third time.  Thanks!

I have to make this post quick.

My apologies – I’ll make it up to you in the future.

Another thing that I like about this piece is that it shows the Tin Man at peace.  He’s enjoying a leisurely stroll through the woods during the Fall.  It seems appropriate that a Woodsman as gentle and selfless as the Oz Tin Man would be really in-tune with nature.

Of all of my recent Tin Man, I think this one is the least strong (the strongest is yet to come) but there’s something I still really like about it.

Of course, I love the heart-hatch.  …a little door on Tin Man’s chest, right over the place where his heart should go.

Although this piece does not feature the heart-hatch concept as prominently as some of my past Tin Man interpretations have, I like that this one has a doorknob and a keyhole.

I love the idea of the heart-hatch because it indicates that the Tin Man is incomplete prior to his being given a heart.  It indicates that there is a destiny, or at least a hope that this space will one day be filled.

I like his knit hat and I like the proportions of the character.  I think that the color palette in this piece really works.

There’s the return of the buzz-saw beard (read more about this in ‘Oz Concept Art: Part Two’) and the pose is pretty strong.  It could be pushed further.

If I were to change anything, I would add more texture and loosen up the brush strokes even more.  I would put dappled light all over the character – the sunlight coming through the leaves on the trees.  I would also make his expression more serene.

Now that I am thinking about it, I’m getting the itch to go back in and work on it some more.

…or maybe I’ll just do another version similar to this.  Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.

Remember: NEW BLOGS or PODCASTS here at ChrisOatley.com EVERY WEDNESDAY!

Until next week…

…go well.