dinosaur pencil test

In the summer of 1993, I was in an internship at Hanna Barbera in Hollywood (specifically Turner Pictures, which had just released "The Pagemaster" and was gearing up for "Cats Don't Dance"). One of our assignments was to animate a character getting into a cookie jar. The studio was walking distance from Universal City Walk, where I'd recently seen the premiere of "Jurassic Park" and was thoroughly blown away by the realism of the dinosaurs. Later that fall, Industrial Light and Magic flew me up to San Francisco to see my animation reel - they were looking for students who could potentially help out on the film "Casper" - and I had the incredible privilege of meeting some of the "Jurassic Park" animators. That was a cool year!

Nemo pencils

These are some pencils I did for a Nemo short story in a 2005 Disney Yearbook, involving a new character I had the opportunity to design. Based on a flounder, she had eyes on one side of her body (like Mr. Johanssen in "Finding Nemo") and had trouble fitting in. Her hidden talent of camouflage was revealed when she instinctively hid in the sand from a tiger shark.

pencil test

One of my rough scenes from "Curious George", prior to cleanup. This was back in 2005, while at Project Firefly.