Saturday, July 18, 2009

"Curious George" rough animation


I recently watched the "Curious George" film again, and recalled how much fun it was to work on (for Universal Pictures, via Project Firefly). Here's another of my scenes. While I had always enjoyed the embellishing precision of clean-up animation (which I did for a decade at Disney), the opportunity to animate in rough was an absolute joy! This was the first film for which I'd animated professionally, as opposed to final line, clean-up animation.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

"Princess and the Frog" team at Premise Entertainment


I'm very excited to be involved in this project. It's also great to be working with old friends from the glorious heyday of Disney 2D animation - seen here with Ruben Procopio when he visited a while back. We're all hoping this film will herald a genuine return for a beloved, classic art form. In the meantime, this studio in Orlando is full of its own original ideas and talent, and the creative drive to make great things happen.

Haunted Mansion pins


Coming up very soon is the 40th anniversary Haunted Mansion event at Disneyland, and some of my pins are up online for sale already (the actual event is 9/09/09). Several of my original sketches are also available, framed with the final pins for which they were created. I still can't believe it - it is still unbelievable to me that something I drew is being sold at the Happiest Place on Earth. I'm still a geek and still in love with Disneyland - if anyone's interested to see some of this stuff, try this link (foolish mortals):

http://www.register123.com/profile/web/index.cfm?PKwebID=0x15118481e2&varPage=info

"Cars" illustration

This was for a fun short "Cars" story I illustrated in the 2008 edition of the "Disney Yearbook" (Scholastic). Snot Rod had been speeding through Radiator Springs, annoying everyone, so Lightning McQueen challenged him to a long desert race. Trying to take a short cut through a dangerous area, Snot Rod got stuck in a collapsed mine shaft entrance, and McQueen and friends rescued him. After that, he cleaned up his act and took a job at Flo's Cafe.

It was a great opportunity to gain futher professional experience creating original rough layouts, as well as final pencils. Prior to this book, I had been primarily cleaning up the sketched layouts of other artists. This was a chance to prove myself.