As promised, here’s some of the character design sketches I did for last Saturday’s episode of 3-2-1 Penguins!:

(All artwork is © copyright Big Idea. All rights reserved.)

In this episode, the Penguins visited a planet inhabited by lawn flamingos and garden gnomes who were fighting each other for control of the water supply (the episode was about learning to share). These are some early concept sketches I did for the garden gnomes.

This is the final gnome design.

In one scene, the script called for the gnomes to fly around on little motorized garbage can lids. This is what we came up with.

The gnomes were imagined to be tough little guys from the Bronx. By contrast, the flamingos were upper-crust snobs reminiscent of Thurston Howell the Third. This is an early rough concept sketch.

Here’s the final design for the lead Flamingo character. The director didn’t want them to look too much like literal lawn flamingos, he wanted them to somehow look slightly alien. My wife and I were in a garden shop and we saw a goofy looking lawn ornament that had a coiled spring for a neck. So that’s what we settled on.

Tomorrow: Props!

Another Episode of 3-2-1 Penguins! airs tomorrow morning on NBC. For this particular episode I designed not just the alien characters but also the various props and gadgets. I think I did more work on this episode than on any other episode during the season. And as always, it was a blast.

On Monday, after the episode has aired, I’ll post a slew of sketches and concept art from the episode.

You can watch 3-2-1 Penguins! Saturday mornings on NBC. The broadcast time varies from city to city even within the same time zone (don’t ask me why) so check your local listings. In the Minneapolis area Penguins airs at 10:30am.

EDIT: I’ve also heard that in some tv guide listings and websites, 3-2-1 Penguins is flipped with VeggieTales on the schedule. Seems to be a recurring problem, so I thought I’d better mention it. I guess nothing’s simple in the world of Saturday morning TV.

On Saturday morning NBC aired another episode of 3-2-1 Penguins! for which I did some character design work. The episode was a lesson in gluttony, so I had to design an alien race of overweight pig-like characters. The primary character is a slobby, pizza-chomping Ambassador, but there were a few quick cuts to scenes with other misc. alien families all watching TV. In the final edit you could only see the families from behind, but they were still a lot of fun to design.In one scene the script called for an oil painting of the Chancellor during his younger, thinner days. The schedule was tight and the budget didn’t allow for a lavish illustration so I did the best I could with the limited time I had. (Working on a TV show is like frantically laying down track in front of a moving train.) I whipped this out in Photoshop. It could definitely use more contrast and definition, but all things considered I think it turned out ok:

As I’ve written before, I spent much of the summer and fall doing character designs for new episodes of 3-2-1 Penguins!, an animated series on NBC from the company behind VeggieTales. It’s a goofball comedy about four penguins and two kids who travel the universe ala “Star Trek”. Each week’s lesson is based on a verse from the book of Proverbs.

Tomorrow morning they will be airing another episode that I worked on. I designed the various aliens, and I also illustrated an oil painting that hangs on the wall in one scene. Big Idea owns all of the artwork I did for the show, but they have graciously allowed me to post samples on my blog after each episode airs. So look for some Penguins artwork on Monday.

You can watch 3-2-1 Penguins! Saturday mornings on NBC. The broadcast time varies from city to city even within the same time zone (don’t ask me why) so check your local listings. In the Minneapolis area Penguins airs at 10:30am.