RICK AND MORTY - Forgetting Sarick Mortshall

"Mmmm trash, I love trash! Yum yum trash! I wanna eat trash!, wise words of Garbage Goober whom lives in a hole in Ricks garage. I was worried if the arms attached to the lips would be too distracting, but he came out great and is quickly becoming one of my new favorite characters. Lizard warlords of Kuntak rough concepts that hide a portal fluid supply. Last is Morty's bicyle spaceship rough concept that Rick cobbled together for Morty to be his errand boy handling the tiniest of tasks. Property of Adult Swim. Any press or reposting must be directed to Adult Swim for approval.    

RICK AND MORTY - Gotron Jerrysis Rickvangelion

 

Voiceovarian, a rough concept for the voiceover space worm that is pulled out of Summer and Morty's ear. Property of Adult Swim. Any press or reposting must be directed to Adult Swim for approval.

RICK AND MORTY - Amortycan Grickfitti

I'll take your coat sir! The rough concept for Coat Hangar Face was so much fun to draw and gnarl his features in different ways!  The character team had a blast designing cenobites integrated with office supplies into their bodies in this hell episode, so good! Property of Adult Swim. Any press or reposting must be directed to Adult Swim for approval.

RICK AND MORTY - Mortyplicity

Hold it right there partner! Rick and Morty is back with more crazy adventures as the fifth season invades your homes. These future western aliens are some roughs I did from one of my all time favorite episodes I have ever had the pleasure to work on. The Glockenspiel Jerry journey through the tag was truly a joy that made us all laugh throughout the process while working on it. Hope you enjoy it as much as we did making it! Property of Adult Swim. Any press or reposting must be directed to Adult Swim for approval.

RICK AND MORTY - One Flew Over the Crewcoo's Morty

Monster Morty! There were a couple other renditions I loved that cut, so in a pinch this Morty was born as part human part gargoyle gone wrong. Next are a couple early Heistotron explorations and a few fully built cubes the size of Texas. - Property of Adult Swim. Any press or reposting must be directed to Adult Swim for approval.

RICK and MORTY - Wedding Squanchers sketches and BG paint

A dramatic ending to an incredibly dark season! I don't know whether to be happy or sad. Originally this episode was arranged as a two parter to end the season with but plans changed and thus, the purge episode was born. The first two concept sketches are for Squanchys world. I thought it would be fun if  the architecture resembled a giant cat toy obstacle course style homes on the beach with colorful above water coral foliage. No one could believe the killing off of the beloved Birdperson, the wedding reception sketch staged his last breath framed by a phoenix symbol banner. Next is a bg paint of the exterior of the wedding reception with afterglow from a Gromflamite ship exhaust on top and finishing touches by Carol Wyatt. The next image is a concept sketch of the PlimPlom tavern exterior I did on top of a Bg that got cut from season one originally painted by Carol Wyatt. I wanted to add a weird membrane hanging from the ceiling that contained some alien jungle juice that transforms into different kinds of alcohol for its patrons in the interior sketch of PlimPlom that you can also see in the glass rooftop in the exterior. Next is a bg paint for the reentry of the Smith family to Earth which Carol took further in the final version and a rough concept sketch of Courier Flaps. After turning himself in, in order to protect his family, Rick is hauled off into a concept painting I did of the federation maximum security prison accompanied by the NIN song "Hurt". I can't believe they got the license to use it, but the song really brought that much more impact to the sequence. We had a few versions of how to play this, but Dan wanted the tone of it to be dire and hopeless. Next is a bg paint of the exterior of the federation prison with some finishing touches from Yaoyao Ma Van As. As difficult as this show was to manage, we really hit our stride this year and never have I been so fond of the material we worked on. In the fine words of MPB- "See you in a year and a half!"

RICK and MORTY - Look Who's Purging Now sketches

Heres a few sketches for the purge episode, the top one is a first pass on the cat people. Justin wanted them to have a 1920's depression era vibe but still have sci-fi elements about their town. We spoke of changing the characters animal species type, but Arthrisha had to be cute in order for Morty to be attracted to her so we stuck with cat people. Next is the writer of "3 weeks Earlier", the lighthouse keeper who gets mauled by Morty after being bored to death by his long winded and poorly written screenplay. I loosely based him on Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnel, his resemblance to a turtle has always astounded me.

RICK and MORTY - Interdimensional Cable 2:Tempting Fate - Concept Sketches

Jerry's quest to make everyone like him goes horribly wrong when faced with giving up his wiener in order to keep the most important being in the universe alive in an alien hospital. For the backgrounds we decided to give it a clean look, similar to an apple product. The first sketch is the St Gloopy Noops waiting room where Rick rigs an alien cable box to watch improvised commercials. The next one is the courtyard area where Jerrys press conference is staged. Last but not least is the old reptile played by Werner Herzog, his epic monologue about human culture revolving around the penis had the crew in stitches and disbelief that he decided to do the role.

RICK and MORTY - Big Trouble in LIttle Sanchez concept sketches

Tiny Rick! This was one of the crews favorite episodes and most manageable production wise, and its always nice to see Jerry and Beth work out some of their troubled marriage and actually have a fond moment once in awhile even though Tiny Rick steals the show. The first character Glaxo Slimslom was played by Jim Rash, we wanted him to come off like a soothing host at first but give him enough facial space for big expressions when shit hits the fan, I love the simple nacho shaped head. Next is the coveted XenoBeth, this was a collaborative effort with Maximus Paulsen, Gerry Galang and myself. This was by far the most complex character of the season, and it took many rounds to simplify her enough to not be a complete nightmare to animate, Max and Gerry did a few versions and then I did these roughs to get her on track. Her mouth was probably the most complicated mouth we've done to date and still took some time to refine. Next are my takes on Worm Jerry, ewww. For both characters we tried to work their stock colors into their new half breed bodies. The Nuptia 4 world was inspired by a hotel in St Tropez that has bubble structures overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. The mythologue therapy lab was a tricky one because it still needed to come off as a relaxing resort juxtaposed with making the most awful monster version of its guests. We played up the idea of their world being crystal powered and when everything goes dark the back up emergency lighted version of the crystals come on. Lastly is a first pass of the individual battle pits lined along the hall of mythologoues that the guests monster versions of themselves tear each other apart in, all of which was refined further by the BG and color team.

RICK and MORTY - The Ricks Must Be Crazy - sketches

This episode took some planning in figuring out the confusion of what world belonged to whom, and what character designed the following universe based on their good or bad design aesthetics. The first sketch was my first take on Zeeps world that his character created for Kyle's people to produce Zeeps power. Justin wanted his world to reflect that of Frank Lloyd Wright, real pristine clean design where every detail works in harmony with the other. The next sketch is of Zeep and some of his expressions based on the storyboards, if you look at some of the Cromulon head rejects from my previous post you'll see where Zeep began. Everyone was super excited to have Stephen Colbert on board to do a voice. The last set of characters were all rejects for the primitive tree people that Morty gets mixed up with in Kyles Teenyverse. It helped to have the characters figured out ahead of time in order to figure out what their worlds consisted of, but believe it or not Kyle was the simplest design that took the longest to land on.

RICK and MORTY - Get Schwifty- Early Concept Sketches

Time to get Schwifty in here! The first piece is a concept sketch of a flashy solar system set up as a Japanese game show with a disco ball sun and comets spotlighting recently removed planets as contestants with the intention of a giant plasma ray committing animated genocide on a cosmic scale if they don't perform a hit song stat. The next page is a variety of Cromulon head roughs, I started out with more of a deity take similar to the Rapa Nui heads but Justin wanted them to look bored in search of that sweet melody. Next is Birdworlds establishing exterior, I wanted to form the structures around the idea of swallows nests made of mud mixed with adobe style homes, and give off the sense of birdpeople being hunter gatherers. For the interiors I loved the idea of having the inside/outside feel of building his home around the trunk of a tree with bohemian/native american details, but my favorite detail is the scattered newspapers underneath his bed nest of twigs, even Tammy can't change old bird habits.

RICK and MORTY - Total Rickall - The evolution of a parasite

Total Rickall had a crazy amount of new one off characters and once again the board artists had a real challenge having to stage and track so many characters on screen together. For the true die hards, if you noticed the green rocks from episode 2 that Rick puts in the trunk of his ship you might have seen a couple pink eggs attached to the rocks, the same rocks Rick throws in the trash at the top of this episode. The first parasite, post transformation, is the only one with larvae growing off its back suggesting that others had been laid in the house. From the beginning Justin pictured these parasites with a beef jerky body and after much research of microscopic bacteria/parasites (which is absolutely terrifying by the way) I started some roughs. During that process I thought it needed a dramatic death mechanism by having its neck foreskin fold over its face ending with tendrils shooting out its mouth gasping its final breath to contrast the colorful over the top nature of the parasites pre-transformation. The first page above exhibits my initial roughs and the more refined color versions I tried, but the transformations proved to be a real challenge for animation so the color team had to really simplify the color which worked better in the long run. Next are some early sketches for Tinkles and friends, which were a lot of fun to be able to introduce another style to the show, the far right one is the final color version credit to the color team. Lastly Hamurai, I started with more of a cartoony take on him but Dan wanted to go with a more realistic look to him.

RICK and MORTY - Auto Erotic Assimlitaion Early Concept Sketches

Here's some early concept sketches I did for the latest episode, first being Ricks subterranean layer where he chained up Blim Blam the Korblok. There were many iterations of Blim Blam before landing on the right hand side one and the color team took it further for the final broadcast version. Originally the six blue blob patterns I designed as six beak mouths above his red mandibles only to be used when he screamed but it got lost in translation so it remained a pattern instead. The following pieces conveyed the architecture of the planet I wanted to use, gave it more of what I imagined as a futuristic scientology style campus canvased with cultish looking church glass. The BG team ran with it and turned it into a unique metropolis and the painters simplified the glass color in a way that made this one of the prettiest RAM episodes despite its bleak ending.

RICK and MORTY- Morty Night Run

This episode was so jam packed with really fun designs. The first two pieces are rough concept drawings I did of a shady space garage that Rick sells his anti-matter gun to Krombopulous Micheal. I wanted to give it a wet and steamy mood to it, and for the final version the color team took it another 10 steps and really made it look amazing. I did quite a few rounds on everyone's favorite assassin, K Micheal, who "just loves killin" played by Andy Daly. These were my favorite 5 out of like 40 before his color was finalized. The next two are roughs of a character that got scrapped from the episode, Krootch, an alien pimp that tries to trick out Jerry as he's walking around Asteroid City lost and confused trying to find his way back home. It was a funny bit but Harmon felt like the stakes needed to be higher and make the environment scarier and unpredictable to terrify Jerry more. Next, are some sketches for the Garble alien who was a throw away character I did as a redline from season one that Justin and I always loved and wanted to find a way to get him into the show for season two. I didn't realize how much it would get used this season, but it was awesome to see it make an appearance in our Simpsons couch gag and a version of them as handmade puppets for a live action promotional ad for the show. Next, is my second pass on the Jermaine Clements character, Fart of course. Loved the way it seeped in and out of tight spaces....brrrrrraap! Lastly, my first rough of Gear City focuses on Gearheads garage. Justin wanted to have a mix of bright plastics with greasy gears and I tried to give it many chasms below the surface level so there were a lot of options for the ship chase sequence to dip and weave in and out of levels of gears and piping.