The Birth of Frankenberry

Or should I say rebirth?....adoption? Anyways, this is the 2nd piece in my ceries on cereal characters in General Mills' Count Chocula universe...CERIOUSLY! This time showcasing the character Frankenberry, the Frankenstein-like mascot of the sugary strawberry cereal, Frankenberry. This time I thought I'd share some of my process in creating him.

I spent a lot of time sketching to figure out how I wanted to reinterpret this character. Above you can see a few of the reference images I used. I wanted to make sure I kept my Frankenberry recognizable (keeping in the metal eye-pieces, chains, head-shape) while at the same time trying to be unique. I wanted to make him my own. Below you can see some of the early sketches I did while trying to design the character. Not all of the sketches wind up being winners, but that's the whole point. I wanted to push past the early ideas (most of them weren't so great). I wanted to try and create something really interesting. When I did the sketch on the bottom-right (with Frankenberry written next to it) that's when I knew i was onto something and from there I started sketching digitally.

I wanted to hint at story and create an exciting composition. I used the digital sketch below as my value study and I referenced this image throughout the execution of the final piece. You can see that things aren't exactly the same but it definitely helped inform my decision making when painting the final.

I always thought Frankenberry had an oddly shaped head, so I decided to do something fun with it. I made the top of his head a shriveling strawberry, that's what fuels him. Hence the urgency for him get to this other giant, lush strawberry oozing with juicy goodness in the foreground. It's time for a tune-up for Frankenberry. Time to change out strawberries.

 I hope you enjoy this piece. I spent a lot of time creating it and it's one of my favorite portfolio pieces at the moment. You can probably guess who's coming up next. I plan on him being my new favorite so I hope you'll keep your eyes peeled for him. See you next time!