No more misreports, please!

Kaj Pindal and yours truly
Picture by Mitch Kennedy

Readers of Cartoon Brew know what I'm referring to, The great Grim Natwick has also experienced a similar mishap when he was in his 80s. Please don't rush false notions.

Kaj is an inspiration to so many of us. A warm and giving person, experienced animation history first hand. In his lectures, accompanied by many behind the scenes stories, He exposes us to many brilliant films, saying "I want to give you an impression of what hasn't been made, so that someday, you may do it yourself"

He Created a very good show called "Peep and the Big Wide World" encouraging kids to put aside the chips and remote and keep being curious about the natural world.

I drew a caricature of him as he appeared in the documentary "Laugh Lines", made in 1979 by the National Film Board. When I gave it it to him, he said "I'm going home to show it to my wife"

Screenshots from "I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly" Animation by Kaj, Direction by Derek Lamb.

"I'll have to learn all your ugly secrets!"

Here's my contribution to the "Wall of Witches" in the animation lab.
Most people point out they like the nose hair.

Caicatures re-scanned

I re-scanned these for better quality

Plus all new Napoleon and Friends!

Storyboarding class

Last week, we were assigned to copy frames from “North by Northwest” held on screen for 15 seconds. These drawings are taken from the climax of the “Crop sprayin’ where there ain’t no crops” airplane chase, Cary Grant throws himself in front of a truck to escape the airplane. I like the teacher’s note on the middle frame. Made me chuckle. I got an A.

The best animation school I know of

copying the old masters.

Think Fink

Last Thursday we had a visit from Sheridan grad Mike Roberts.
He animated “Tales of Rat Fink” all by himself. I haven’t heard of the film before,
but now that I’ve seen it, I highly recommend it.
“Tales of Rat Fink” is a part animated/ part live-action biography of pop culture icon Ed Roth.
Ed isn’t a household name, but his influence is phenomenal.
He revolutionized the world of Hot Rods and created the graphic T-shirt (“before him they were just underwear!”) He’s best known for designing the character of Rat Fink: A grotesque monster resembling Mickey Mouse… after a nuclear shower.
This is a classic fun-to-learn documentary, giving the deserving recognition to this pop culture icon. If your stuck for inspiration, or just looking for movie night ideas, think fink!

Inspiration

Betty Boop drawn for the 80s by Grim Natwick (signature hidden by flash light)

Photo courtesy of Reg Hartt

Work in progress dept.

Not "Mobile Phones", but "Wireless Telephony"!

I received my first bill from Canadian phone company Fido (which uses dogs for it's ad campaigns) and I thought I’d give their slogan a bit of a twist.

Yankee Irving

Yankee Irving, now re-titled “Everyone’s Hero” is a project I worked on during summer 2004. My job was to take original character design sketches, and map them out for 3d modeling. I drew diagrams called “orthographic character views”, “orthographies” for short. Orthographies are a spread of a single character in front, side and back views, drawn in a position suitable for rigging. It’s kind of like a model sheet/character roatation, but more strict and technical. Our team did orthographies for every character in the film, the 3d modelers used them as a guide for building the characters you see on screen.

Characters

I designed these characters for my Sheridan portfolio. I was always inspired by how the Looney Tunes directors used animals for caricature. My favorites are Babbit and Catstello in Bob Clampett's A Tale of Two Kitties, and The HoneyMousers by Bob McKimson. Frobster is based on Alfred Hitchcock, Marlon Brando and Sydney Greenstreet.

Bad movie dept.

When I sit in fort of the tube to doodle, I come across all kinds of stuff, current Hollywood movies tend to have little or no appeal to me. A recent viewing, “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days”, was simply horrid.

They added something new, though: clips from classic Tex Avery cartoons played to the tunes of Sixpence’s Kiss Me, during the main characters’ first kiss...

Tex Avery is known for his outstanding sense of humor, but I don't think he'd take it lightly.

Captain Jean-Juc Picard

Baldy went where no one has gone before.

Girly drawings vol.2

Five letters, opposite of 'Hired'...

"If you think about leaving me like this, you can look for a new job, START INKING!"

Go ahead, punk...

Make my day!