More Life Drawing

Here’re more of my life drawings. These are more line without modeling. I love women. I can’t think of anything more beautiful.

Figure Drawing

My modeling is kind of muddy on these. I think the term is chiaroscuro. Anyway, I’m trying to get back to doing some figure drawing. There maybe more gesture stuff from these sessions I might post later.

click on images to enlarge.

Rabbit Miniature

During some house cleaning, I came across this image of the white rabbit miniature I did long ago as a kid. The lighting isn't very good and I've gotten much better as a sculptor since then. Partly it was the material but mostly it was just lack of experience. I see a big fat finger print I never would allow today and things that could have been detailed better. There’s a penny in the shot to show scale.

Click on image too enlarge.

Sorry Frank

This needs some explaining. While I was busy on a project, a friend asked if I could find time to do a test of Liberty Meadows characters as part of a pitch for a series. So I did these rough animations overnight. Before I could show them the next day to get feedback the plug had already been pulled. All characters are the property of Frank Cho.

See the real Liberty Meadows and other cool Frank Cho stuff here: http://www.libertymeadows.com/

Fantasia Cuts

The digital removal of cigarettes from Disney archives indicates a rather recent editing of the studio history. I would like to know when the removal of racist humor, although common to the times, was applied to the original 1940 film “Fantasia”? In the Beethoven Pastoral segment, the character Sunflower was, (understandably), cut with simple edits way before digital images existed. Later, the zebra centaurettes who rolled the red carpet out for Bacchus were digitally removed making the carpet appear to magically unroll itself. When was this last edit done, and why? They don’t seem offensive to me, am I wrong?
 
 UPDATE:  The youtube vids are sometimes taken down because of ownership, but I have added smaller files that hopefully wont' get removed.  If you have trouble with the youtubes, try the ones below them.

Omation House Jam

Not the best fidelity, but here’s the house jam mentioned in the last posting. All animators, the line up is Cory on bass, Ivo scratching, Fatty on guitar, Steve on drums, David on water cooler jugs, and myself on sax.

Fantasia-Minor

I found this on another Omation buddies site. Eric ‘Fatty Lees’ posted one of my dry board drawings that had started quite innocently as Fantasia-Minor and ended up Fantasia X-treme. The reeling drunks may have been mine but I swear the drug paraphernalia was added later.

Fatty’s site is still shaping up but you can see more dry board lunacy and even a movie clip of our house jam with Fatty on guitar and me on Saxophone, here: http://www.fattylees.com/

Kris Costa is Brilliant

One of the many great pleasures of Omation was working with Kris Costa, one of the most amazing people I’ve ever met. Not only can he animate, the guy is a true artist. Words fail to do justice but fortunately images speak louder. Take a look at this virtual sculpture of Marty Feldman that he modeled and textured.

See more Kris Costa work here: http://zbrushcentral.com/zbc/showthread.php?t=045504


Click on images to enlarge.

Good Knight

Animation Magazine has an interview with Laika’s Travis Knight. I’ve worked with Travis when Laika was Will Vinton Studios and I have to admit this article is the most I’ve ever heard Travis speak. He was a pretty quite guy and I understand why, (his dad was buying the studio). Regardless of all the politics, there is one thing that speaks louder than anything that went down in the transformation of the studio and that is Travis is a natural born animator. Stop-motion or computer, his characters move beautifully and their hands are particularly expressive. He did a sequence for Gary and Mike that I think is some of the best stop-motion anywhere. Travis would be an asset to any studio. I hope our paths cross again, and then maybe he could answer my question, why Laika and not Leica as in leica reel?

Read the article here: http://animationmagazine.net/article/6824

Rotoscope VS Reference

I wanted to do a test using live action as a reference and a character whose anatomy was different from humans. I used; I guess in this case it would be ‘Anthony the Tiger’,(They'rrrr fabulous!), because he was recognizable and I had a model sheet of him.

This test illustrates the difference between rotoscoping and reference. Snow White and most Disney features have live action film as reference but the styling and proportions of the characters make it impossible to call them rotoscoped. Rotoscoping is the verbatim tracing of live action footage as can be seen in the still images from Don Bluth’s “Thumbelina” posted below.

Other animated films with heavy rotoscope are Fleischer’s “Gulliver’s Travels”, and Ralph Bakshi’s “Lord of the Rings”.

Update:  For some reason many of my early Youtube videos don't play all the way through anymore.  Sorry for the inconvenience but it's out of my control.


Live action reference rotoscoped

Rough animation of Anthony by Joel Brinkerhoff using Flash



Live action footage and rotoscope from Don Bluth's "Thumbelina"












 UPDATE:  A sequence of reference for the Disney version of Alice in Wonderland was discovered and put beside the animation to show how much of the performance was altered by the animators.  Here it is:

Copyright Law Explained

We have long known animation is a great teaching tool. Here is a brilliant explanation of the copyright laws that even I can understand from Stanford Law School.

Soup Scene

Speaking Of Ward Kimball, here is the scene he did that was cut from Snow White. It's nice but I can understand the reason it was taken out. It fell right on the heals of the 'Washing Song',(which was a better tune), and really didn't advance the story or character development. This and another Kimball sequence involving a bed built for Snow White were cut because they slowed the movie down. Walt felt badly about the cuts and gave Ward many opportunities to try and make up for it.

Ward at Play

The lens on this picture makes the room appear much larger than it actually was, but here is Ward Kimball with his toy trains and airships. I had the privilege of a two week visit with the Kimball’s where I saw this and his other detached building of Disney Memorabilia first hand. The time spent with the Kimball’s made an indelible impression and I hope to enjoy life and work with as much integrity and fun as he seemed to.

Picture by L.A Times

Click on image to enlarge.

Tale of Tales

One of the most powerful attributes of animation is the ability to communicate mood and feeling visually. Strengthened with music it can transport you to realms beyond our daily norm or symbolically comment on the human condition in ways not possible in other media.

Yuri Norstein's Tale of Tales is a dreamy mix of memory and myth that reminds me of Chagall and Fellini. Fragmentary and illusive, touching and haunting this is a masterpiece of artistry that could only be animation.

Hedgehog In The Fog

I'm really digging all the great animation posted on YouTube. I wish the quality were better but it still allows you to see some obscure and classic films from around the world.

Here's one of my favorites: Yuri Norstein's Hedgehog in the Fog. There are versions without subtitles available that don't encroach on the picture but I thought the translation adds to the poetic understanding of the narration.

It looks to be shot on glass with flat cutouts, but his control of light and shadow and the multi plane depth he creates along with elements like water make me wonder just how he pulled it off.

Stealing Disneyland

Cartoon Brew has an article on China's blatant plagiarizing of Disneyland. Apparently they were not alone. Check out this postcard from a Japanese amusement park called Nara and the building from Disneyland Main street USA.

Check out article on China here: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/disney/chinas-unlicensed-knock-off-of-disneyland

Disney Scene In Stages

This may seem like over kill to some but I found these interesting. Someone called cookedart has posted these on YouTube. It’s a scene from The Emperors New Groove going from story reel, to rough animation, to clean-up.

3D Mandy...

Dean Yeagle is one of my favorite ‘sexy girl’ artists. His character Mandy is even hotter than my adolescent crush, Little Annie Fanny, done by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder for Playboy. So imagine my joy in finding this very cool 3D picture of Mandy! To see her in glorious 3 dimensions you must cross your eyes and focus on the image in the middle. Thanks Dean. See more of lovely Mandy here: http://www.cagedbeagle.com/

Before the Digital Age…

Colin Giles posted this on his site: http://cartooncolin.blogspot.com/
It shows what a labor of love and dedication it took to make an animated film. Now things are banged out in weeks with little care except keeping in budget.

What The ...?

Generally the topic is animation but anyone who knows me well knows I love the Beatles. So what does McCartney do in his off times, you might ask? Appear on cooking shows apparently. Here he is making mashed potatoes. Bizarre!

Jim Tyer

I thought I would show more Jim Tyer work. Here’s some screen grabs by CLARKE (CSNYDE) from the Mighty Mouse cartoon A Cat's Tale (1951.) These images are sequential and show the wild distortion of the characters anatomy.

Many people including John Kricfalusi hold him in high regard. I still haven’t reconciled my feelings about his work. Sometime it has a unique sparkle to it. Other times it’s just totally jarring and not in keeping with the rest of the cartoon. Sometimes it’s totally appropriate as when Gene Deitch used him on Tom Terrific and other works tailored to his style. Jim was a very good draftsman as his comic book art shows but he was an iconoclast animator.

You can see more stills here: http://inspiration-grab-bag.blogspot.com/2006/05/jim-tyer-animation-cats-tale.html

And actual clips here: http://www.strangetoons.com/strangetoons%20root%20folder/shows/Jim%20Tyer/jimtyer.html

Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy

I still love these guys. Look how graceful Oliver is. These guys were the real thing.

Going Off Model

It’s nice to see so much interest on the internet in animation. It’s also nice that others are doing the ranting for me about why today’s animation is so poor. But one thing I’ve run up against time and again is people who don’t know or care that much about the media controlling a project. They inevitably demand a retake because they have single framed through and see a squash or stretch as the character being off model. Played at speed, the scene works, but they insist you stay true to the design and have those offending frames removed. Of course things can be pushed to crazy extremes such as what Jim Tyer was doing in the examples from Heckle and Jeckle. But even his stuff has a charm to it. Thanks Kevin Langley for the great screen captures.

Frame by Frame

Another favorite site for animation is Kevin Langley’s Goober Sleave. This is his posting of a frame by frame look at a dance sequence from ‘The Greatest Man in Siam’ animated by Pat Matthews. You can see the whole toon, at speed and other cool stuff here: http://klangley.blogspot.com/
Siam-Pat Matthews
Uploaded by klangley

Paperless Animation

These images and writings are from D.T. Nethery and taken from his blog: http://inklingstudio.typepad.com/my_weblog/

He’s talking about paperless animation using the Mirage software. I think the results are pretty amazing and a hopeful sign that hand drawn animation won’t go away or turn into Flash looking robotics. I don't know if I could ever give up the freedom of drawing on a disk, but I want to get my hand on something like this soon.
___________________________

Here's what else is on my computer right now : I'm having a ball learning to work with a program called Mirage, from Bauhaus Software. Mirage is a 2-D animation program that allows the animator to draw directly into the program, frame by frame, more or less replicating the traditional hand-drawn animation experience in a digital environment. The drawing tools are some of the best I've used. They can be customized to feel something like your favorite pencil or pen. It's not exactly the same as drawing on paper, but it's pretty darn close and not at all difficult to get used to.



I love that it allows me to draw naturally and not feel like my line is getting "digitized" or changed by the program. You can animate in full screen mode as shown in the first image, with ability to zoom in and out on the drawing (shown zoomed in here); you can access the toolbars when needed by a simple keystroke to toggle the toolbars on and off. (see next image showing the expanded toolbars) .



I like that Mirage allows the user to customize the pencil and pen tools to be anything from a very thin , fine black line for clean up , to something resembling a big ,soft Prismacolor for roughs :


I don't know how well the texture shows up in the posted images, but look at this close-up screen grab showing the "light blue prismacolor" pencil used for roughing-in drawings. Does this look like a computer line to you ?




The above images were all drawn at home , using my regular old Wacom Intous 2 tablet,but let me tell you, Mirage really takes off when used with a Wacom Cintiq tablet. I have a Cintiq at work and using it has totally sold me on wanting to buy one for my own use at home .

I'm just now starting to work with Mirage in earnest again . I started messing around with it when I purchased it last year, then other things got in the way and I didn't do much with it . Now I'm back at it and really excited by the possibilities. Mirage is a 2-D animation studio in a single software. Design, storyboard, animate, clean-up, color, paint backgrounds, composite all in Mirage.

Walter Stanchfield Notes

The internet is proving to be a great resource for animation information. Animation Meat has 65 handouts from a Disney class taught by Walter Stanchfield. This is just one page analyzing two drawings. All the other handouts are equally inspiring. Find it here: http://www.animationmeat.com/notes/waltstanchfield/waltstanchfield.html

Ward on Illusion of Life

Animator Colin Giles uploaded this video of Ward Kimball from the Disneyland TV show. Colin also has a great clip of legendary animator Marc Davis that you can watch here: http://cartooncolin.blogspot.com/2007/02/disneys-illusion-of-life-tv.html

Illusion of life3
Uploaded by cartooncolin

Adult Ward Kimball

I saw this film at Ward’s home in 1979. He showed it on his own 16mm projector for us. It typifies his humor and shows a more earthy side than the Disney work allowed. I remember seeing an original Herriman Krazy Kat framed on his living room wall hanging right next to an original Robert Crumb orgy scene that was very graphic. It told me a lot about Ward and his wife Betty. I hope to have as much fun out of life as he seemed too.

Mary Blair

I just found this on Youtube posted by crpeoplemover and want to share it. This shows Mary Blair talking about her work for Disney. I've loved Mary's work as a child and still do. It's also nice to see Unka Walt again too.

More Albert Hurter

Just when I thought no one was reading this stuff, I got a very nice comment from Henkus Schumacher in Holland wanting to see more from the long out of print book by the Disney inspirational artist Albert Hurter called He Drew as He Pleased. Henkus these are for you.

Click on image to enlarge.

Find more Hurter work here: http://www.animationarchive.org/2006/09/media-two-disney-concept-artists.html

More Ward Goodness

Most everyone knows two of the Disney Nine Old Men were Frank Thomas and Ward Kimball. Not everyone knows they also played in a band made up of other animators call The Firehouse Five. Here’s a sample and description from boberwig. Thanks!

Everybody loves my Baby Firehouse Five plus Two 1951
One of the American West Coast Dixieland Jazz Bands in the fifties was the Firehouse Five Plus Two. Here you see a filmclip from 1951 of Ward Kimball's very popular band. Ward on trombone, with Danny Alguirre on cornet, and Clarl Mallory on clarinet. In the rhythm group we see Frank Thomas piano, Harper Goff on banjo, Ed Penner on tuba and Monte Mountjoy on drums. They play "Everybody Loves my Baby"

Everybody loves My Baby
Uploaded by boberwig

Happy Birthday Ward Kimball

When i see an elephant fly
Uploaded by thadk

One of my favorite sites is Animation ID hosted by Thad Komorowski. He has a brilliant on going break down on what animators did what scenes. This is part of a tribute to Ward Kimball that he posted on Wards birthday March 4th. Please visit the site for more wonderful Kimball animation and other great stuff. You can find it here: http://classicanimation.blogspot.com/

Mad Doctor

A Mickey from 1933 when he was at the heights of stardom, this cartoon does what animation is supposed to. Beautifully done in everyway, it’s every bit as entertaining today as it was then. A perfect cartoon.

That's Why...

Gabe Strine, creator of the comic strip Brinkerhoff, tells me how the name came about:

“The name for the Brinkerhoff comic came from the name of my elementary school in Mansfield Ohio. I’ve always thought it was a unique name and I’m glad to be able to use it.”

That’s pretty cool. So Gabe is originally from the Buckeye state. Buckeyes are a kind of nut. I’m originally from Indiana but I still don’t know what a Hoosier is. Thanks Gabe, keep up the good work. Click on image to enlarge.

Why Brinkerhoff?

My buddy Robin sent me this link to a web-strip by Gabe Strine: http://www.brinkcomic.com/

click on image to enlarge.

I wonder why the bunny is named Brinkerhoff?

Pencil Tests

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdwByOaft3o

Raul Andres has a blog called The Art of Glenn Keane. It’s got pencil tests and other cool stuff to check out. This is one of many you can find here: http://theartofglenkeane.blogspot.com/

Fleischer Setback Process

YouTube user, ‘matbergman’, has taken the time to cut together scenes with the setback process used by the Max Fleischer studio. He has a good description of it and gives us the original name here: The rotograph, patent #2054414, was invented by animator Max Fleischer in 1936. Essentially an enormous, revolving, circular miniature set built in forced perspective, it enabled a fantastic sense of depth and parallax in cartoons produced by the Fleischer Studio in the 1930's.

I’ve included the video and some stills showing Max looking through a camera and setback scene, and a line art diagram that kind of explains the process yet again. These really give a striking effect and I’ve often wonder why they weren’t used on Fleischer’s feature works like Gulliver’s Travels and Mr. Bug Goes to Town?



 UPDATE: Here is a great scene form a Popeye cartoon. Watch the cages as they turn showing all sides.

https://www.facebook.com/joel.brinkerhoff.9/videos/1314691704956/

Popeye 3D background
Scenes with 3D models for backgrounds like these would completely baffle me as a kid.
Posted by Joel Brinkerhoff on Friday, December 18, 2009

Handy Models

I can’t get a model so I’m drawing my hand. Click on image to enlarge.

Letting Sleeping Dogs Lie

I’ve been trying to keep with my daily drawing. I like using the Wacom tablet because it forces me to sketch less, like using a pen instead of pencil. Here’s a visiting dog named Coco. Click on image to enlarge

Albert Hurter

Hurter was the first Inspirational Artist in animation. His job was to draw anything unfettered by subject or schedule. Of course this could only happen at Disney. Albert Hurters book, “He Drew as He Pleased” has long been out of print and hard to find. I’ve spent years looking for it and could have paid a small fortune to own a copy. Then I found it through my local library and scanned the entire book. These images are a mere sample of this book’s delights. Click on images to enlarge.

Inspirational Artists

I spoke of knowing some excellent artist friends who draw like mad everyday for fun and profit. One that I’ve had the pleasure of knowing and working with is Robin Ator. His range of styles and great sensibilities has made him a strong contributor to the old Will Vinton, now Laika Studios. Check out his great site here: http://www.glowinthedarkpictures.com/

Drawing by Robin Ator. Click on image to enlarge

2007

Here it is: 2007. I’m proud to have friends who are incredible draftsmen. They are truly gifted in drawing, painting, and sculpture and amazingly prolific. One thing I’ve noticed about these guys is they draw all the time, not only professionally but in their off hours too. I’ve made a resolution to draw everyday. I did some life drawings the other day and was appalled at how much ground I lost. It’s not like riding a bike or other things you can jump back into. You need to practice, practice, and practice. It’s easier for single people who have more personal time, but that is no excuse and I’ve got to devote time for this. These very rough drawings were done on my Wacom tablet. It’s a bit like Etch-a-Sketch for me right now but I hope to get better at it. Click on image to enlarge

Merry Christmas

Cards have never been my forte. Happy Holidays anyway.