New Short and the Graphic Influences

I’ve been working on some pretty stylized character designs for another personal project.  Why I do these things is not rational and is the same reasons, I suppose, an artist does anything.  But, I’m learning what I’m doing is heavily influenced by what I enjoyed as a child and the awe I felt watching animation: moving drawings, imagine that!  My films are stylistically different from each other, each having a graphic look I discovered while growing up in a family of artists.

I can point to individual artists that imprinted me, and with this new project I can see this style grew from the work of designer Ed Benedict who populated Hanna Barbera Studios cartoons from the late 50’s.

The backgrounds are influenced by the rebellion, that sprang against Disney’s realistic literalness, that began with the UPA studio and their embracing of modern art. The high styling of both characters and backgrounds was so popular that even Disney had to incorporate it to appear fresh and relevant.

The animation style I’m trying to work in comes from the Disney artist Art Babbitt who was able to mesh the fluid motion of classical drawn animation with the high stylized designs that was happening at the time. Unlike the limited animation that Ed Benedict's designs were subjected to at Hanna Barbera, Babbitt frequently animated on ones, meaning 24 drawings for every 24^th of a second film required, instead of the 12 drawings shot twice which is a common practice, ( it is still recommended that ones be used on very fast actions).  A great example of Babbitt’s integration of fluid classic animation and high styled characters would be his work in Richard William’s The Thief and the Cobbler.

This new project may take some time to finish because I don't have any help on it,but I am having fun drawing just as crazy as I want.  Animation has become play again instead of work.

Below is a clip setting up the conflict between characters.  It's nothing too original but I hope it gets the story going.

Animation clip with scratch track and no sound effects.  

Maggie and Her Painting

I just received a lovely notice that Maggie MacLean is well pleased with her portrait and so is her owner Kevin. I'm so pleased they both are too. Kevin is a Disney animator now and has many screen credits under his belt. I first met him at the Will Vinton Studios where he was the youngest animator barely out of High school. Go Kevin, go Maggie!

Donald In 3D

We’ve had this old, damaged stereoscopic picture of Donald on our wall for many years.   It’s under glass and hard to free-view because of the glare but I always thought it was inverted.  I took it out of the frame and swapped the images around and now I can see it correctly.  Can you free view?  Cross your eyes and focus on the image that forms in the middle.

Original Mounted Under Glass

Images Swapped and Glass Removed

UPDATE:  A friend thought this was from a cartoon, and as far as I can tell my picture is from a ViewMaster Reel.  But! There was a Donald cartoon done in 3D called "Working for Peanuts" that someone uploaded to
YouTube in the free-view format here:

The Artist's Work Space

Fellow blogger, and animation artist, Eddie Fitzgerald has recently posted on his inspirational “Uncle Eddie’s Theory Corner”, an article about artists work spaces, (link provided here: http://uncleeddiestheorycorner.blogspot.com/), which I liked very much and responded to.  He offered an invitation for me to show my space if I cared to, so here it goes.

As I mentioned my wife hates clutter because her mother was a messy artist, and she had to clean the house around her moms work area, which also spilled over into their living space.  Well, my mother was a messy artist as well, and we lived in what she called 'creative clutter', which I loved! 

Wanting to keep a happy wife and an inspirational environment,  we have managed a pretty good compromise.  I can’t show you our entire house, which is an eclectic mix of styles and cultures, but I can show my work spaces and touch on a little of how I work and what inspires me.

My office is pretty digitally oriented for computer animation and this over-view picture kind of shows the contained chaos.  I have my messy bookshelf, walls of pictures, musical instruments and my sculptures and toys.  Some of the details are an unfinished portrait of my daughter begun by my late mother, which hangs above my desk, and a picture of my brother in period clothing that mom did, on another wall.  I also have paintings my mother-in-law did, and our mothers’ works are hung through out our house.

Downstairs I have a man cave with all my toys put in a wet bar, and movie posters on the walls.  This leads to my other work desk reserved for messy things like sculpture, or painting.  We have a cement floor in this part as it is also the laundry room, so I can drops brushes or cast plaster molds if I want. 

There it is.  I’m very thankful for what I have.  Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving!  

Daughter by my mother

Brother in period costume by my mother

Wind chime (hung inside)

Another wall hanging

Shelve in office, (note the Vinton box for floppy disks!)

Rug hung on wall

Wall hanging

Book case with sculptures I've done

Wet bar with collectable toys (sorry about the glare)

Basement desk for messy work, (portrait of grand-kids on easel started for Christmas, don't tell!)

Childhood Subverted

I’ve been noticing a trend that takes beloved stories we’ve grown familiar with, and twisting them in a subversive fashion until we don’t recognize the original message any longer.

I think I first became aware of this after reading the book, which later became the musical, “Wicked” by Gregory Maguire.  Now, we've known different interpretations of the classics such as “The Wiz”, and all the Disneyfications (is that a word?) on the known fairytales. These took liberties with the story to make them more contemporary, yet still kept the original storyline pretty much intact.  But, here was a re-imaging of The Wizard of Oz that told the back-story of how the wicked witch of the West became wicked.  Those we perceived as good guys were in actuality the bad guys and their behavior eventually led to the good witch becoming the wicked witch.

Another example is the re-imagining of Sleeping Beauty in Disney’s “Maleficent”.  Again, the actions of others turned a good spirit into the evil persona, Maleficent, who is misunderstood by everyone.  We are made to feel compassion for a character we’ve always taken to be pure evil. And now, I understand a new retelling of Cinderella is underway at Disney for a 2015 release. 

So, what are the children to think after hearing or watching these stories for the first time, and then seeing these alternative versions?   Is it confusing for them?  Will they learn tolerance from it?  Will they try to be more compassionate and to understand the other persons situation? Or will it cause a feeling of distrust and insecurity where they never know who can be trusted, who is a friend, who is an enemy, what is true and what is false? 

I personally feel children are too immature to understand the complexities of human nature and, just as adults, may never have all the information to reach a fair conclusion.  It's probably why our fairy tales and children's stories are so clearly defined as to who is good and who is bad, so that kids may hopefully have a standard to aim towards.  These shades of gray may be too sophisticated for impressionable minds.

I don’t have an answer, and I suppose it’s up to the parents to talk about these things, although I doubt if parents are even aware or care about this.  
   

 
UPDATE:  Here is an article about Neil Gaiman's new book, "The Sleeper and the Spindle", where he talks about the current trend of re-writing fairy-tales: 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/11243761/Neil-Gaiman-Disneys-Sleeping-Beauty.html

"La Joie de Vivre" influencing "Fantasia"

It’s never been mentioned in anything I’ve read about the making of Disney’s “Fantasia”, but was this film influential in any degree? Heinrich Kley is clearly an inspiration and only recently being acknowledged but what about “La Joie de Vivre” (The Joy of Living), by Anthony Gross and Hector Hoppin?

Could this 1934 film have inspired the Tchaikovsky Nutcracker sequences of the 1940 film “Fantasia”? To me the sprites of “La Joie de Vivre” looks strikingly like the fairies in Fantasia with their long legs and relationship to nature. The nude bathing scene in particular has all the proportional designs of the fairies and echoes of the ice fairy can be seen in their involvement with the lake. The sprites of “La Joie de Vivre” make flowers grow and dance among leaves. They also disguise themselves as flowers and the Disney’s fairies are introduced emerging from flowers, and have similar interactions with nature. There seems to be many parallel elements to me.

I see “La Joie de Vivre” as a viable springboard to “Fantasia”. It also reminds me graphically of what Lionel Feiniger, (“The Kin-der-kids”) might have looked like animated. I also see some “Yellow Submarine” too.

(Character designs for Fantasia)