Hi, Dahveed Kolodny-Nagy here! It’s time for the Annie Award nominations! And this is the first year I’ve got a project in the running! So I’m here to drum up some votes for myself in the Character Design for Television category. Do I expect to win? Heck no. But like the Green Party, I want to at least be on the ballot next to the Republican and Democratic Parties…or in this case next to the top dogs at Pixar and Disney. But mostly this gives me an excuse to toot my own horn and bring some attention to a really amazing project, Teapot.
For a look at Dahveed’s awesome character design work on Teapot click here
Teapot is an 11 year old boy determined to become a rap superstar. One problem- he was born with NO rhythm! But fortunately he has a huge ego to compensate for his lack of skills.
Teapot was a concept originated by my collaborator Greg Eagles (Grim from “Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy” among many other roles) and then developed and art directed by Dahveed Kolodny-Nagy (that’s me!). We pitched it to Nickelodeon and were selected to create it as a short for the Random Cartoons shorts program through Frederator. The finished animation can now be seen in rotation starting December 20th at 1:30pm on Nickelodeon. But this was just the start of an exciting process developing the series for television! We are continuing to fully realize Teapot’s world as we are developing the ongoing animated series.
For Annie consideration in the category of Character Design in an Animated Television Production or Short Form, I am limited to submitting only ten characters for consideration. I actually designed over forty different characters but the Teapot Character Design Book is focused for the review of the characters Teapot, Bouche, Silkbone, Video Vixen, Ozone, Silk Bone’s Dog, Security Guard, Excited Female Fan, Dorky Male Fan, and Blind Man.
The character design for Teapot was very much inspired by an actual teapot. His signature pose is one hand in the air like a spout and his huge mouth wide open much like a tea kettle blowing off steam with a high pitched squeal.
Bouche
I designed Bouche to be the opposite of Teapot. Instead of small, wiry and fast, he is large, round and slow. Whereas Teapot has hard edges on his fingers and feet, Bouche’s hands, feet and dreds are rounded. His voice provided by the amazing Cathy Lewis is also much more deep and mellow- like the rich tones of Louis Armstrong.
Silkbone
Silkbone was designed in many ways to be grown-up version of Teapot…or what Teapot might grow up to be. Although I didn’t intend it, he ended up looking quite a bit like Dave Chappelle. He was created as a parody of an outlandish rapper with the most ridiculous bling Greg and I could come up with. In early drafts he appeared shirtless and with a cowbell.
Key Character Poses
Character Keys were created to show the overseas animation studio how to draw the characters in certain scenes. Bouche’s messy face is one of my favorites because I had to figure out how he went from a messy face to a clean face in the next scene.
Character Construction
Construction guides were created to assist in showing how the characters come together. Everything has to be planned out carefully in animation- from the number of hairs on a character’s head to their color palette so that they look consistent in the animation.
Teapot Poster
After finishing work on the ‘Teapot’ animated short for Nickelodeon it was time to work on the Teapot promotional poster. The concept was to present the title character as a rapper by placing him on his own CD. And to build excitement the CD is held aloft by celebrity rapper Silkbone. In the background I squeezed in as many characters as I could to build even more excitement. Does it look busy? Sure, but it also looks exciting!
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