Will Vinton Turned 70

I don't know how I forgot to post this but my old boss, Mr. Will Vinton had a 70th birthday celebration this year that I was not able to attend.  I did however paint this portrait for Will with a sculpture of Mark Twain from the celebrated Claymation feature film The Adventures of Mark Twain as my present.

Will is one of the nicest people I've been fortunate enough to meet and so many opportunities were given to me at the Vinton Studios.  I hope Will enjoys many more happy birthdays!

  UPDATE: Unfortunately this was Mr. Vinton's last birthday: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/will-vinton-dead-oscar-winning-legend-claymation-was-70-1149596

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.  

Ice-Peter

The trouble with doing a personal film is they can take forever to do.  Real work and real life have a way of eating time and energy from projects that you may want to do, and this short film is one I never thought would be stretched out over years.  The short was fraught with troubles which made it easier to shelf and neglect.  But technology progressed and I was able to solve some of the problems I couldn’t when I first started.  One I’ve never quite fixed is the narration which was completely unusable.  I tried rerecording many times and never could match the inflections and feel of the first tracks.  After filtering the heck out of them, this is the end result.

I’ve always loved Wilhelm Busch and his quirky style.  He reminds me of Edward Gorey to some degree but Busch pioneered some visual jokes which have become cliché standards in cartoons from the golden age of animation.  I wrote about them in this earlier post:  http://joelbrinkerhoff.blogspot.com/2006/08/cartoon-inspiration.html    

Here is my faithful adaptation of Wilhelm Busch’s Ice-Peter.

"Welcome To My Daydream" a New Documentary

At last, the whole story of Will Vinton and Claymation is going to be told by filmmaker Marq Evans in the new documentary “Welcome To My Daydream”

This link from Cartoon Brew goes more in depth about the film and its importance in animation history: http://www.cartoonbrew.com/documentary-2/exclusive-first-look-will-vinton-documentary-welcome-daydream-153840.html  

I’m not sure where I first saw “Rip Van Winkle” but it touched me emotionally with that strange beauty good animation has.  I remember these surreal moments in the film where Rip is dancing in the sky with pulsing color blobs set to the beat of the music, and how affecting the song Rip sang to his friend at the end was.   Later, I ran across a 16MM print of the early documentary made in the 70's about Claymation and saw a young Will Vinton with long hair and a full beard, along with Barry Bruce, and I think, Bill Fiesterman, and Joan Gratz.  It must have been during the shooting of “Martin the Cobbler” because it had this great scene where a clay crew of stage hands is frustrating the clay actor playing Martin. The door to the miniature set opens and the giant head of Will himself peeks in to ask how things are going on set.  I knew then and there these were people after my own heart and wanted to work for them one day. 

Not only is Will one of the sweetest people I know, but so many good things have come from the opportunities he made possible for me and many others.  Thank you Mr. Vinton, I look forward to seeing your story continue.  

Best Workstation Yet

It's been awhile since I've posted anything which means I've been busy, but here's an update on my search for ergonomic working in the digital age.

I ran across a workstation that is very similar to mine using the same software, Cintiq and monitor configuration.  The big difference is that I don't have to reach over my drawing to get to my keyboard and that surprisingly makes a real difference.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

You can see my system, on the left with the yellow sub on the monitor, can dock menus on the large monitor and leave the Cintiq free for drawing.  My Cintiq is elevated and at a comfortable height and angle for drawing and my keyboard is mounted underneath which is ergonomically better and keeps me from stretching over my drawing to get to.
  

Fake Gnus

Fake Gnus

 Click on image to enlarge

This is my latest painting based on an incredible photo I ran across.  I wish I knew who the photographer was so I can give him the proper credit but I chose to do this at the prompting of my wife and the challenge of painting all those textures.  This is another combination of acrylic and oils where I struck in the background with acrylics and to get the foggy haze I did a wash with a thin layer of white.  I did the animals as far as I could in acrylics but turned to oils for more control.  One day I may learn how to use acrylics totally but I'm not there yet.

Dino Floss

I was sent some old memories.  My daughter grew up watching a children’s show called Adventures in Wonderland on the Disney Channel that had animated stories done by the Will Vinton Studios.  Here’s a piece I did called Dino Floss that John Ashley Pratt designed the characters for.  These stories were some of the most fun I had at the studio and I ended up doing over twenty of them.  Good times!

Adding Color to Faded Photo

Before and After Restoration  (click on image to enlarge)

A friend sent me a picture from his childhood that his mother treasured.  It's a good example of the instability of color photography.  For whatever reason the colors fade and eventually become almost monochromatic leading toward sepia.

Using Photoshop I was able to do a restoration that my friend was happy with.  It was kind of tricky  because detail in areas like the stitching on the collar and cuffs would drop out.  Thankfully, through some trial and error, I worked it out.

Acrylic & Oil Portrait in The Works

I've done my first acrylic painting (it's the flowers and hummingbird picture somewhere on this blog), and found it hard to get nice blends.  Other painters I know said you can paint over acrylic with oils, (but you can't go acrylic over oils!). This is my first painting where I struck it in with acrylics and then ended doing a finish in oils.

I'm liking the speed I could do the blocking in and most of the detail.  It's nice to know I can always jump in with oils over the top and will probably work this way from now on. There's more to do but I  think this is promising.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

I found these images while surfing and the synchronicity made me want to put them together. The overall impression I get is a magnetic attraction of everything to a force and the impulse to give thanks. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Ergonomically Improved

I did this awhile ago but my work-space has been ergonomically improved by Velcroing the keyboard onto my riser holding the mini-Cintiq. No more weird twisting. Here's a side by side picture for comparison.

Acrylic Painting Number One

I've expressed my frustration with the drying time oil paints take, and many fellow painters recommend acrylics.  If you paint, you know the expense involved. You really should keep your brushes separate for each media and not cross over from water color to oils, or oils to acrylics.  I already have an extensive oils set and didn't want to buy something I may not use.  Fortunately I was blessed with acrylic supplies by a friend who was giving up painting.  Now I had no excuse and did this painting for my daughter.

I need to do more to really get a technique down and do better blends.  I may have to do a finished past over the top in oils to get what I want, but this is a start.

Stop Motion in the Digital Age #5: The Hybrid Film

           "Kubo and the Two Strings", Laika's latest film, is about to be released.  It looks fantastic.

 

In past postings on this blog about stop motion in general, and in the digital age, (type Stop Motion in the search bar to see all the posts), I’ve personally wrestled with the reasoning behind this hybrid style because it seemed as though everything could have been done with computers.  Now, I think the penny has finally dropped, and I’m beginning to understand the logic behind it.

Personally, as an animator who has done both stop-mo and c.g., if I were given a puppet that was well built and allowed me to get the gestures I wanted, and having the same character built as c.g., I would choose the puppet anytime.  Let me explain.  The interface of a  c.g. character is not as immediate or intuitive as touching and moving a puppet.  I could move much faster, and keep my focus on performance by not having to pick through menus and processes that are found in computer animation.  Somewhere in this blog are posts about input devices that would allow a person to manipulate a puppet that moves a c.g. figure, so you can see the idea of 'if only I could just grab this thing and move it around', has been thought about in computer animation.

True, the computer allows you to embellish and improve the animation through a process of refinements, but with the new frame grabbing software programs like Dragon Stop Motion, you can see your scene as you are animating, and play it back at real time, and make changes to your animation without re-shooting your whole scene, similar to the computers allowing refinements.  Both styles of animation are time consuming and take great skill, so where's the advantage?

Here’s the logic:  By building your character as a stop motion puppet you have the speed and intimacy of stop motion, plus the new power of digital assistance while animating, in rig removal, facial replacements. And by building a c.g. character, it can be manipulated with no restrictions, (armatures, support rigs,) for facial animation, special effects, populating crowd scenes, and it would interface with particle programs and other c.g. dynamics making the best of both worlds.

We’ve already talked about computers used to export or rapid proto type printing of props and full color replacement heads, and we talked about computers for sets and environments where characters are added into it through green screen. 

The computer has changed the way films are made in every way. Live action movies are loaded with effects no one would know were there until shown.  Computers have change the way animated films are made, people no longer using paper and pencil, paint or even film. So, I think I finally get it.

Kudos to Laika and “Kubo and the Two Strings”.

   

Smallest Portraits Received

Finished 14"X11" Portraits

Framed Painting

I just received word that the 14"X11" double portrait arrived safely and also a picture of it framed.  Nice choice! 

Smallest Portraits to Date (Work in Progress)

I'm just about done with this 14"x11" commissioned oil painting.  It's been a challenge not only because of the small size, but also because the source photo given to me for reference was aged and color faded.  The client is happy with the likenesses so now I can finish this up soon!  

14"x11" Full Figure Portraits

Detail to Show Scale (Need to clean up areas around brides head)

Heavy Metallurgy

I was asked to do a music video that featured heavy metal music.  I've stopped foaming at the mouth but my ears are still bleeding.

Retouching Younger Days

I had the pleasure of restoring an old photo for a friend.  His wife only had this one picture of herself as a teen and it was badly damaged.  This was kind of a tricky restoration because of the back lighting wanting to turn her face into a dark puddle, but my friend was happy with the results, so yahoo.

BEFORE

AFTER

Dream Project

While my children were growing up, I came across the book "The Boy Who Could Sing Pictures" by Seymour Leichman.  I thought it would make a wonderful animated film and pitched the idea to the studio I was working for at the time.  It's a simple story of a kingdom lead by an inattentive ruler who is kept in the dark by his advisers. The overall atmosphere and mood are excellently captured by the illustrations and I wanted to keep the anthropomorphic sadness the architecture of the peasant township intact.   There are some changes I think would make the story stronger and more dramatic but I still think the book would make a magical animated musical.

Here are my interpretations of the kings advisers Pomp and Circumstance.

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE

Home Grown in 3D

Here's my composite picture called "Home Grown" I did in 3D using vintage photos.  There's a free-view, version where you cross your eyes and focus on the image that forms in the middle.  I've also made an anaglyph version for those with 3D glasses.

You can click on the images to make them bigger.

Happy New Year!