©DON TATE
ILLUSTRATION
Character development: What's Bruh rabbit gonna look like?
Sitting in the daily news meeting, I'm contemplating what graphics to propose for tomorrow's news stories. I work full-time as a graphic artist/illustrator for a newspaper in Austin.War in Iraq, multi-million dollar highway projects and airport security procedures were the news of the day. But the burning question in my mind that day was, what's bruh rabbit gonna look like? I'd stop throughout the day putting my ideas down on paper and tossing them into my duffle bag. Later when I was ready to do some real sketching, I pulled out my ideas. What will Bruh Rabbit look like? The rabbit character in most of these tales past and present is a trickster. He's clever and is able to fenagle his way out of any situation while making everyone else look like fools. I pictured a character like this to be little, nimble with expressive eyes and buck teeth. I don't know what makes people with buck teeth look so intelligent, but bruh rabbit is obviously very smart.
For me the most important part of painting is understanding the the object you are trying to paint. I have to understand the shape,folds, bends and indents. Knowing how light affects the surface of the shape at varying vantage points makes for a more convincing painted image. To
better understand the anatomy of my characters, I created models each one using clay. I also built some of the characters as virtual models in a 3D computer program. Using this program, I can set up various lighting situations and print out a computerized rendering that I can
use to paint from. Once the models were created, I could see where my sketches needed revising. I will keep those necessary revisions in mind when approaching the final illustrations. If I had time, I thought it would be fun to take these models as far as painting dressing them. As a teenager with all the time in the world in my hands, I probably would have.