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.

More Recreated Cleanup Drawings

Here are the rest of the drawings I had done for guests of a recent presentation at work. I scrolled each one up so they were sort of a mystery; when the guests opened them, they were then encouraged to trade with each other for their favorites. It seemed like a nice way to bridge the natures of our Animation and Theme Park Merchandise heritages.

Kitchen thug

Another pencil from the "Tangled" activity book.

Tangled activity book page

This is pencil art from a Tangled activity book I worked on, back in 2009. The initial art notes called for Rapunzel to be playing dice with the kids.

Snoozin' Sheriff

This is a page from the first Random House book that I had the opportunity to illustrate from sketch to paint, "The Spooky Sound", back in 2009. This also led to "Go, Go, Go!" and "Fast Friends". 

Radiator Springs

This is from a Random House book I worked on a few years ago called "Go, Go, Go!" 

I scanned in my pencil art, and then painted the scene and characters in digitally.

Water Parks bus wrap

Here's a Goofy I illustrated a few years ago for a WDW bus wrap. The mat he's riding is based on the ones at Blizzard Beach, with handles on the inside. 

More "recreated" clean-ups

Here are more of the drawings I did as giveaways for some of the guests of our presentation last year:

Fun game!

Back in 2005, I had the opportunity at Project Firefly (assisting a company called Cecropia) to animate on a video game featuring traditional animation, named "The Act". We had a blast working on it, and the assumption at the time was that it would soon be playable as a tabletop arcade game and eventually on a home game. As it turned out, technology took a few years more to catch up, and it's now an app you can play on your smartphone!

 Here's a link to their site if you'd like to see the trailer: http://www.theactgame.com/

Also, click here to see an early pencil test of one of my scenes (just hit play): http://roncohee.blogspot.com/2009/05/rough-animation-act-cecropia-2d-game.html

Re-created clean-ups

Earlier in the year, I participated in a presentation hosted by the Disney Events Group. As a surprise for the guests at the end, I gave out original "recreated" clean-up drawings based on beloved characters from Disney's animated features.