Dinosaur sketches

Some rough character sketches for a future project, starring a traveling band of dinosaur performers.

The stygimoloch


The hadrosaur

The triceratops



The velociraptor

"The Woman in White" character sketches - Count Fosco

Here's one of the most entertaining characters I've ever encountered in a story. Count Fosco, the fat Italian con-man who collects white doves and keeps white mice in his pockets. He has partnered up with the main villain, posing as an eccentric doctor.

Some face exercises.

"The Woman in White" character sketches - Anne Catherick

Here's the character for which The Woman in White is named, Anne Catherick. She's a frantic, vengeful woman who's escaped from an insane asylum, and for the first half of the story, the male protagonist believes her to be a ghost. She wanders the roads and outskirts of town, vowing to tell her secret to someone she must save. Anne is all sharp angles and gaunt limbs wrapped up in a shawl. She's supposed to be frightening at first, then sympathetic.

I'm not satisfied with this design, so I'll come back to it later.

"The Woman in White" character sketches - Marian Halcom

It's one of my goals to someday animate The Woman in White musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber (not by myself, but with a team of animators). It was a gorgeous musical -- and my favorite one of all time -- as well as being based on my favorite book. The stage play itself suffered from bad luck and never made it to the States, and that was that, but I think the music would lend itself perfectly to animation.

I've sketched a few characters as they appear in my head when I'm listening to the play, and first up is the main character -- or the character who feels like the main character to me -- Marian Halcom. Marian a strong, no-nonsense woman from the Victorian era, who looks after her younger sister Laura. As it says in both the book and the musical she's not traditionally pretty, but she makes light of this constantly with a sort of busy brusqueness. She dresses in muted colors, not only because they suit her but also to let her sister shine. When things go bad -- and of course they do because this is a Victorian thriller -- she ends up being the only one who can do anything, and kicks ass at it.

Animation Reel 2011

"Reversal of the Heart" Senior Thesis 2011

The finished film, started in Spring 2010 and finished in Spring 2011.



Characters are animated in Flash, composited in After Effects.
Backgrounds by Gillian Grossman. Check out her DA page ~ LINK ~
Additional music by Dave Volpe. Check out his website ~ LINK ~ or his blog ~ LINK ~

"Reversal of the Heart" character designs (old)

From way back in Spring 2010. The designs ended up being pretty rushed, since I really just wanted to start animating. As a result, some things ended up changing along the way, although I kept to the designs pretty well.

See the finished film here ~ LINK ~

Character lineup

There is no way the Prince's head could fit into the Knight's helmet, but I kept the design because I liked it.

References for the Knight's design

The Apprentice/Wizard's design changed the most throughout, mostly during production. In the end I made him loopier, with less angles, and his outfit was a bit different.


The Hopgoblin's design also changed a bit as I went along, mostly in color design. He was may favorite to design and animate.








References for the design of the various settings in the film. Early on in the pre-production phase I didn't have any backgrounds or concept art for the settings, so I used a lot of pictures from various artbooks (Tales from Earthsea, Mulan, and How To Train Your Dragon).

"Goldenberg and Schmuyle" - 2011

Goldenberg and Schmuyle - Spring 2011 from Carolyn Chrisman on Vimeo.

This version is edited to fit one screen, as the version for the performance was designed to fit 5 screens that surrounded the audience and the orchestra. Here is an example of what the theater looked like:

This is a view from above the audience in the projection booth. The two side-sails are not shown.

"Goldenberg and Schmuyle" odds and ends 2

The close-to final designs for Goldenberg and Schmuyle, going a different direction than the last ones. We narrowed the look down to Aramaic letters on paper with warm lighting.


Because the project was so hectic and new, there wasn't much time to develop the characters designs until the actual production:

"Goldenberg and Schmuyle" odds and ends 1

Michael Tilson Thomas and the New World Symphony commissioned a group of students at USC to create animated pieces to accompany the symphony's performance of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition at the new building's opening gala. I was given the opportunity to animate "Goldenberg and Schmuyle," one of the more character-based pieces in the series. Immediately I had some ideas for a conflict, as well as some preliminary designs.

The below designs were never used, as the piece was simplified and tweaked after a series of back-and-forth meetings between MTT, Michael Patterson, Candace Reckinger and myself.

"Evenfall" - Fall 2009

Evenfall - Fall 2009 from Carolyn Chrisman on Vimeo.

The final project for my visual music class, fall 2009. Animated in Flash and Photoshop, composited in After Effects. Animated over a period of 3 weeks total.

* In 2010 it was accepted as a Regional Finalist in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science's 37th Student Academy Awards for Animation

Music by Dave Volpe

"Evenfall" odds and ends

I love combining the median filter and glow filter in Photoshop, so I got the idea to make a short film to show them off.

See the finished film here ~ LINK ~

Basically The characters were drawn with a thin white brush on an alpha channel, then a 1-5 median filter was applied, then the glow filter.



I didn't do much concept work on this one -- just dove right in. I was also animating Hacky Sack at the same time that I was animating Evenfall, so the faster I could get things done, the better.

"Hacky Sack" - Fall 2009

Hacky Sack - Fall 2009 from Carolyn Chrisman on Vimeo.

Animated in Flash, composited in After Effects.

"Hacky Sack" odds and ends

See the finished film here >>>> LINK <<<<
I wanted to try a very simple style for this project, with bold colors and shapes.

An early test in Photoshop

bird walks around test from Carolyn Chrisman on Vimeo.

The final color palette

"The Painting Dragon" - Spring 2009

The Painting Dragon - Spring 2009 from Carolyn Chrisman on Vimeo.

A film for class, the requirement being that it be under the camera. I experimented a little by using markers -- so many markers! -- and then keying the paper out in After Effects. Anything to composite it together, I guess. It didn't turn out so well. Also, it was all animated in 1 week, over Spring break, and it shows.

"Paper and Line" - Fall 2008

A short for class. The requirement was for half of it to be under the camera, so I animated in paper and yarn, and the rest was in Photoshop. Yarn is surprisingly hard to animate smoothly...

Paper and Line - Fall 2008 from Carolyn Chrisman on Vimeo.

"Split" - Spring 2008

Split - Spring 2008 from Carolyn Chrisman on Vimeo.