CTN EXPO

Flying down to the CTN Expo, which should a blast! If nothing else, there will be a ton of folks that were friends and fellow workers form the California days! Also, if nothing else, a bit of california sunshine, which i have not seen in a long while. I haven't been out to any of the big cons in several years now, not since Comicon in 2001 or 02, I think it was. I have a bit of loyalty to CTN as I was among the first to join back in 2003(?) This one promises to be the start of a new tradition. Nothing for sale at this one, but next time for sure!

CTN, X marks the spot!

from last week

well, a couple of weeks ago now,really... this is a panic post...throwing up something just because you haven't for a couple of weeks, so anything will do....

More perspective demo drawing from layout class.

make sense?

Back To Layout

Here's a couple of pages that I used in class last week, coming back to revisit perspective...

Showing two simple methods of finding a correct square, in a one point set up and a two point setup.

Nothing new here - this is all in Loomis and others, but I find that sometimes the knowledge has to be winkled out and the step by step isn't always completely clear... ah well, that which is worth having, is worth working for, isn't it?

These are done FREE hand ...well, a little help with the shift key after i took to Photoshop, but don't use a ruler with the initial sketch!

Please vet these for me - are the instructions clear? Easy to follow? I'd like to use these in the BOOK when I get it OUT!

Medieval Mummery

Heather Hill, Assistant APM
Tom Shannon, Journey Layout
Sam Michlap, Journey Layout
Ed Ghertner, Layout Supervisor
Peter Bielicki, Journey Layout

More Medieval Mummery

OK, following on from the last post with the Don H. caricature, here's a bunch of other ones that I did at the same time, at the end of the show. As I said, feelings of job-well-done and go-team were running high, as they do when you're wrapping a project, and I was in the zone after looking at medieval stuff for two years straight.

Roy Conli, Producer
Kirk Wise, Director
Gary Trousedale, Director
Diana Blazer, APM of layout
Dave Goetz, Art Director

Lots of Easter eggs in these ones, which will only make sense to those who were there.

To all the above, where ever you are, pardon for publishing without your permish, hope you don't mind.

I shall blow my own horn a little here and say, these all went into the annual caricature show that was held every year at the studio - or as we called it the John Musker caricature show, long time disney director and crack sketch artist. JM simply dominated the field with his acidic and devastating portrayals of anyone at the studio. He held nothing back. I never saw any other caricatures that laid a person so bare. he would draw the most beautiful woman in an ugly way, yet they were beautiful.

At the show opener, it was the one time that HE came over and talked to ME, which I consider a better compliment than anything about any layout I ever did.

If only he would direct his films the same way he did his caricatures.

Don Hahn

This is Old News now, but we had the Uber Producer from Disney, Don Hahn, out for a visit to the College. He was primarily in town for TIFF, accompanying his documentary, Waking Sleeping Beauty, another take on the so called second Golden Age of Disney animation. I didn't make it to any of the three screenings myself, but here's a review from the Telluride Film Festival.

He was also promoting his new book, Drawn to Life, the legacy and memories of Walt Stanchfield, Life Drawing Instructor to the Stars at Disney for years.

Seemed to be a real shot in the arm for the students. He gave a very slick presentation of what goes into the making of an animated film, a Disney one at least. It was a good review of the production process and the application of the elements and principles of design.

It's interesting that the doc takes in the time 1984-94, as if the Second Golden Age was already drawing to close.

I arrived at Disney in 94, two months after the massive Northridge earthquake, to work on Hunchback of Notre Dame, which Don produced, taking over from Roy Conli about halfway through production. Within two more months, Lion King was just about to be released, Frank Wells died in a helicopter skiing accident, Eisner had heart surgery and the stage was set for the upheaval that led to new studios, tons of animation production, animators' salaries going through the roof and all the rest of the exhilaration and ultimately hubris of that time.

Out of that came six years of working on various features, but I still have a soft spot for Hunchback, as I love the medieval time period and was discovering life in SoCal. As the mighty animation industry grew like a new mountain range and sowed the seeds of its own doom, I was happily scratching away at layouts of cathedrals, bell towers, the lovely winding streets of medieval paris and meeting my destiny among new friends and the arrondisements of LA that I had always read about but was only seeing for the first time.

One of the things that came out of the time was a ton of caricatures and cartoons: Here's one of Don, done just post Hunchback, with the period still at high tide. Our beards were still brown!

Thumbnailin' Time Again

Back at it at the College again- getting the new crop used to the idea of the Successful Thumbnail.