FBIT faculty member contributes artistic talents to animated episode of ‘black.ish’
Gavin Ball, Assistant Teaching Professor in the Faculty of Business and Information Technology’s (FBIT) Game Development and Entrepreneurship program, was one of the main concept artists for a special one-hour animated episode of the ABC television sitcom . The episode , after Game 3 of the NBA finals.
How the opportunity came about:
One of Ball’s colleagues passed his name along to Smiley Guy Studios, an animation company in Toronto. Smiley Guy had a number of is artists working on cartoon versions of Dre and Rainbow, the two main characters in black.ish. Ball also created animated versions of the characters, and ABC liked his work, so Smiley Guy brought Ball on to help with the project.
Ball created a ‘first pass’ (first version) of nearly all main and secondary characters in the show. He also did sketches of cameo characters like the director, show creator and several other people involved in the production. Some drawings were changed to serve production, but many of his designs remained intact.
Other projects:
Ball has also worked on a number of other high-profile video game projects, including:
- Fortnite: Collaborated on a couple of splash screens with another artist.
- Skate 4: Visual development to help with the look and style of the characters (still in development).
- Apex Legends: Character skins for an upcoming downloadable pack of additional content.
- NBA Live 2019: Custom court design for the cover art, featuring Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers.
He has also worked on some as-yet unannounced projects with video game companies Blizzard Entertainment and Electronic Arts.
