Production Diary: Shoot the Freak – Under the Boardwalk

The end of this summer hasn’t been the most productive for this project. Between two road trips, work, a overly ambitious Halloween costume, and assorted other smaller projects I’ve been working on, I haven’t really gotten anything done. In fact, I haven’t even had time to post some updates from months ago, so here we go. Hopefully this will help me get motivated again! As of my last post, I had completed the Wonder Wheel and its cars. Next, I set about working on the boardwalk. After much agonized sketching and re-sketching:

I finally managed to get it all painted.

I think it looks rather nice when the beach, the sky, and the wheel complete the picture:

After finishing the boardwalk, I got the brilliant idea to sink hours of my life into a under boardwalk tableau. This was inspired by a section of the interviews in which my mother discusses how all sorts of unsavory activities used to take place under the boardwalk until it was finally filled in with sand. I attempted to illustrate the unsavory activities, although I have to admit – my mother never mentioned aliens, escaped convicts, or battling dinosaurs. The idea is for there to be a very short animation made by having the camera tilt down as my mother talks about the boardwalk.

Here is the initial sketch:

And the almost finished product:

I have since filled in some more of the color, but then I decided to go on a cleaning binge and the unfinished painting ended up under the bed. Next up: The animated puppets that will march along the sand.