BLUE'S CLUES!

Here's some pieces from my original Blue's Clues audition for Nick I did years ago. These were done after the first guy who starred with Blue left the show and they had his replacement come on to take over. I think his name was Joe, but I can't remember now. The show did take a hit ratings wise with the new guy since everyone loved the original more. At any rate these sketches were pencilled out in purple colored pencil on cheap art pad paper and then approved by Nick after one round of changes I had to do for them. They then get scanned into the computer and started in Adobe Illustrator where everything is built and then it gets pasted into Adobe Photoshop where the individual textures are then dropped into the characters.

It's hard work but if you know the software it can be done rather quickly. I built up great speed working in Adobe Illustrator when I was deep into work for Strawberry Shortcake. The main reason that a lot of work has gone digital is that you lose the individual characteristics of an artist when he inks or creates a piece by hand. Corporations who have brands like Disney, Nick, and the WB need all the art to look like one person did it, when in reality 30 artists may have worked on it. The computer end of it all keeps the consistency which is very important in maintaining the style of a licensed property.

Working on the Blue's Clues stuff, I still have my "How To" book, which teaches the artist how to label their layers and generally how to create the characters in the computer. It makes it easier to change things when every artist labels his files and has all his layers set up like everyone else.