Joe Pitt

Joe's post on Wreck-it!

Roger

I'm finally wrapping up my first chunk of shots on the movie! So here's another ARL study. Roger from Dalmatians. Seems to me that Milt's design aesthetic on the films of this period is the caricature of Ronald Searle, with the angularity and shape Pablo Picasso.  Lot's of wonky stuff with this drawing, but the original design and pose is fantastic,  everything down to the pant folds are designed.  Learned a lot from this one.

On to my next chunk of shots ,  which, no joke, are some of the biggest I've ever ever done!

Mark Henn

Yesterday for an animation meeting,veteran animator Mark Henn, who supervised the animation on Jasmine, Mulan, Simba amongst others, outlined his process & workflow for us.  For examples of his planning phase, he passed around his original thumbnails for his shots in Aladdin's "A Whole New World" sequence!  Just dozens of little idea scribbles as a way to brainstorm through his scenes.  I remember specifically looking at these rough ideas he had for the way Aladdin tosses the apple towards Jasmine,  and how that translated to the final film. We watched the sequence with him after.  Pretty amazing.  We've all seen this sequence before, so I just watched him watching it.  That sounds weird but I kept wondering what must it be like to look back at what you've poured your heart and soul into almost 20 years ago, something that's gone on to become these worldwide, iconic moments.  He watched it like a proud dad.  I just remember thinking, Welp!  If I get fired tomorrow, at least I got to sit through this. 

James Baxter : spacing, timing, shape change

This morning's inspiration.  Here's a great blog post by my friend and former mentor, Mark Pudleiner on some of James Baxter's Rafiki work.   Beautiful distortion, and spot-on timing & spacing.  Something to shoot for!

By contrast , here is some of James's work on the Prince of Egypt, which is so good it makes me want to cry.  Dig deep my friends, dig deep.
James Baxter- Prince of Egypt

I have to tell myself this

"It's never easy. It shouldn't be easy. If it's coming easy then you're going down a path you've been down before. You’re resorting to design solutions that you've used or you've seen used before." 

-Jason Deamer, Character Designer @ Pixar

Same goes for animation, or anything creative.

Degas @ the Norton Simon Museum

Adam and Dog

One thing about working at this place is that it's easy to stay inspired by the artists here.

While we were all on Cartoon Brew complaining about the shortage of 2D animation, Minkyu was out making his own short film.

Adam and dog Trailer from Minkyu on Vimeo.
 

Keane shape change

Fagin from Oliver & Company

The Broffice

Frank Thomas's Mickey

Classic examples of clarity in pose and attitude.

When he worked on Runaway Brain, Andreas Deja compiled these Frank Thomas drawings of Mickey.

Then gave it to Clay Kaytis who had it in his room for a while, now it sits in our office!

Thanks Clay! 

Sitting in dailies w/ Nik Ranieri...

...Is still intimidating.

On the other hand, I got my first final today!

2012

LETS DO THIS THING!

Wreck-it Ralph posters are up in front of the building.

Ice Age 4! The last film I got to work on back at Blue Sky.