TBT Photo Shoot!

So today was an amazing day, not only was the weather gorgeous but it was a perfect day for a photo shoot (of a few friends of mine dressed as my main characters for my comic)that I had planned to do for months now. We had kept pushing the shoot back a lot due to schedule changes from the models or the photographer and I was so ready to throw in the towel with it. If it weren't for everyone being so into the idea for the shoot and tellin' me to just pick another date we can all agree on and stick with it I woulda said, "forget it." Thankfully despite my constant stressing and worrying that something would go wrong on this shoot things actually came together quite nicely. Everyone showed up so that was a good sign right there that things were going to be good. At first the shoot was a bit rocky cuz I'll admit I've never been an art director before, and I don't easily work well with others with my art (I'm a solitary artist) but the collaborations with the photographer and the models went off without a hitch. They were telling me to give them direction more, and I realized 'crap, right, they don't entirely know their characters, I need to inform them how they are a bit to give them an idea, to see what ideas they can come up with'. I gave them some direction and they eventually began feeling comfy once we got to the graffiti wall and saw all the possibilities with it. I think the key is not to put too much pressure on your models to be a certain way, even if it is about a certain character. I love candid photos and I knew this would be hard to do, so I tried to come up with a way to do something candid, though they were playing very specific characters. I just let the models call the shots. I let them improvise some ideas and get into their character's head and we actually ended up pulling out a whole bunch of props that worked well for the shoot that I never would have even thought about. The creative ideas were definitely flowing with everyone and people got really into it. We even caught some attention with people walking by. My brother even shot some behind-the-scene footage that we may post on the website too eventually. All in all we got some sweet shots and everyone had a blast doing it! A total adventure to remember. How often do people do photo shoots of cartoon characters? I guess it happens at Hallowe'en or comic conventions and even once in a while for other pro shoots, but it's a rare thing to do, and I think it turned out awesome, in my humble opinion.