Big Lips= Success?

Theoretically, If you have big lips, you can become an instant commercial success. Let us examine this argument carefully:

Big Lips+Talent=Rock Star. Talent gives Mick Jagger prestige among pop musicians, because it is quite rare among them today. As far as I know the stones wrote their own material which makes me nostalgic for yesterday's music and respectful for their ongoing popularity.
Notice the subject matter the stones chose for their logo, there has got to be a connection.

Goldilocks here was the hardest to draw, she's not easy to exaggerate since she's quite symmetrical...and...dare I say? Prettyful. Of course big lips can't be entirely the explanation for Scralet's success, she's very popular now, but it took her quite a few years in the business to get there. I've never seen any movie with Scarlet Johanson, but I've heard she's alright, and so I can put that in my critique.

--Comments & Criticism welcome

Doodlez

Carlo Vinci

Steve Worth has posted a Journal from our visit to the Vincis' including the first images from a series of beautiful previously unseen artwork-- Check it out!
Thanks again to the Vinci family, Steve and John.

Yay, Vacation!

Got back to Canada from LA this Saturday, I volunteered at the ASIFA-Hollywood archive. It was so much fun to help Steve out, listen to his great stories, see amazing rare artwork, and to hang out with genuinely great people. I learned a lot and also drew a lot:

practice drawings

Sketches from a story about a gal's first gig as a babysitter,
What could possibly go wrong?

Two of my favorite actors caricatured

Mike Fontanelli said this looked like Robert Mitchum merged with the bizzaro superman

Hanging out with John and Kali was fun, I havn't seen John since I was 15. John's got a great sense of humor, Folks at Sheridan are mighty proud of him, but I won't talk for too long, this picture speaks for itself:

the ASIFA-Hollywood Archive RULES!

Steve Worth has asked readers of the ASIFA-Hollywood Archive blog to write about why we think the archive is important.


Why is the Archive necessary to Animation History?
1. Good cartoon material is RARE!

Animation has a curious history. Our medium hasn't been around half as long as music or traditional painting, Film Animation has been around for roughly a hundred years, starting to develop commercially in the 1920's USA, and reaching its artistic peak in the 1950s. By the 1960s The golden age of American cartoons has ended, since then the majority of previously created gems hasn't been available to the public.

Not many golden age cartoons and comics have been re-released in their original unharmed version. some golden age cartoons were made available on VHS and Laserdisc in the late 80s and early 90s, they are now out of print. Many of the cartoons now out on DVD are lesser-versions. Unlike the original cartoons, they consist of wrong colors, censored material and introductions by Whoopi Goldberg.

Comic strips and classic illustration suffer from a similar syndrome: only a fraction of the wonderful material created has been re-published and kept. Our medium keeps progressing technologically and financially...but artistically, too much stuff looks the same. This is a result of limited classic material to study from, we keep re-using recent material.

The archive is important because it can preserve animation history, without learning from our medium's wonderful past, we may never be able to progress artistically, and never capable to do it as well as the old masters did. Animation history is still young, but to our grief, the majority of the first generation animators have passed. Their work is still around and it can be learned from, The archive is being set to make sure classic work does not perish.


2. Steve is the man to run it

Since classic cartoons keep going out of the public's reach, you need to be an expert just to know what to look for, but have no fear, THIS expert wants to make them available to you. Starting an archive is no easy work, it requires strong knowledge, vision and capability.
Of all the people I've met, Steve is the perfect man to run an operation like this. He's not only professional, he is also a real fan of cartoons.

Whatever Steve touches turns into gold, he's been resorting beautiful production cells using home-mixed paints in his Animation art gallery "Vintage Ink and Paint",
He's been designing awesome web pages (at its prime www.Spumco.com) using plain raw HTML,
In fact, Steve was in Ralph Bakshi's "Cool World" for only a brief moment and his acting was better than Brad Pitt and Kim Basinger combined.
Now seriously, just check the Archive blog and see samples of this wonderful restoration project, Steve has kept top quality material putting expensive "restored and digitally remastered" DVD releases to shame, the cartoons in his collection are uncut, as their creators intended them to be seen.

To differ from many other projects in the Animation industry, this is not made for profit! This voluntary project is made with love and respect to culture, heritage and creators.

Thanks to ASIFA Hollywood animation archive, young artists won't have to keep re-inventing the wheel.

I can breath again

This is my flour sack, Animated fully in flash, without tweening god forbid! I like using flash to mimic classical animation because you can change the spacing without changing the drawing, the onion skin mode alows you to see your arcs very clearly, and focus on the timing without worrying about other stuff.

Well, First year has come to an end, It's been one heck of a ride!

My favorite learning experience this year has been assisting Nick Thornborrow on his wonderful grad film "The Foolish Bet". Mitch and I really benefited from working for someone so talented and knowledgeable, He's a natural born director. It was a thrill to see it with an audience today at the fourth year screening, sensing and hearing the enthusiastic response.

Of all I've seen today, "Key Lime Pie" by Trev Jimemez was Simply incredible!
I'd like to further congratulate Sam Bradley-- The Lighthouse was full of energy! Shaz Lym--the Scooter Goon is a really great cartoon! Casper, Tim, Olga, Johannes... you guys did our school justice.

peace.

"Rawrr" in two parts

The Master Copy assignment

Our painting teacher Tim assigned us to choose a painting done by an artist we admire and paint along their lines. I think this was a great assignment, I love to take the time to appreciate a still image and learn every line of it.

first draft and correction of line drawing

working print

Our class is tomorrow. Today I ran into Pete Emslie, As always, he was kind enough to spare his time and look at my work. "It looks like you worked hard on your behalf" he said "But what kind of brush are you using?" He read right through it "A very old brush I need to replace" Pete went along and explained the kind of brush and method that would boost up a piece like this from his own experience. I love Pete's critiques, he hits the nail right in the head. I feel lucky to have such a good cartoonist, and a genuinly good person around!

Read Between the Frames

My proposal for the 2007 Sheridan animation t-shirt, inspired by Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, creator of the original graphic t-shirt. If you'd like to wear this design make sure to vote, your opinion counts.
Note that my character is using top pegs, I'm an anarchist!

Caricature Night

Nothin' like a drawing night with fellow cartoonists.

From the left, your hosts: Brock, Amir and Mitch. Picture by Melanie

Those two caricatures of Brock were my favorite

A later caricature of Mitch. He may look innocent but he gets MAD, lemme tell ya!

Babes on a train!

Transit Sketches

Another version of the same chap.

Peace.

Animation Assignment

This is a three part assignment: head turn, lip sync and expression change--ACTING! I went an extra mile with this one, T'was our first chance to choose a character we loved, make it act and have total freedom with it. This is personification, how I would react if I slipped a "Meoww" instead of properly whistling at little red riding hood.
for those of you who asked, I didn't physically act it out, I did it with thumbnail drawings.

I love Tex Avery's cartoons, but he wasn't an influence for the animation itself.
More direct influence came from my favorite golden age animators: Rod Scribner (for Bob Clampett's Looney Tunes) and Jim Tyer (for Terrytoons), their acting was over the top, and very physical, which made it look believable.
Our animation history teacher, and brilliant cartoon animator, Kaj Pindal, noted Gertie the Dinosaur looks believable when scratching herself. When a well animated character touches itself, we believe its alive.

And for students who inquired, the characters are taken from RED HOT RIDING HOOD.

Posing Assignment

Reads from right to left.


This is the most recent character design project,When my teacher Enzo saw these, he said he was inspired and wanted to draw. the best thing I heard all week!

Copy isn't a four letter word!

Every once in a twice I break away from school work to do some hardcore cartoon copying.
There's no shame in that, vice versa, if you learn from established greatness, you don't need to re-invent the wheel, We have yet to see it invented better than by the first generation of Hollywood cartoonists.
Following the lines of the ol’ masters helps me to look at my construction skills, see what needs work and what’s already working. Trying to emulate my heroes and choosing my favorite drawings also helps me keep my integrity, in case it has been sitting on the bench following instructions for too long.

It's hard to explain the appeal of Coal Black, simply because there's so much of it!
Leave alone it's politically incorrectnesses, it's one of the most explosive and lively short subjects ever made, I love Snow White, but the immense range of emotion and expression Clampett cramps into a seven minute short was never topped by Disney storytelling, even with complete features.

Mitch Kennedy and I keep talking about the what-if of animation history, can you imagine what would happen if the Clampett unit was handed to Rod Scribner instead of Bob McKimson? and if Fleischer had outlasted Disney?

Over the break from school I would copy one cartoon and one anatomy image every day, here's an unfinished page.

Braden of the Apes

An amazing action ape who idolizes Korgoth of Barbaria.

When Braden isn't drawing, he growls to remind us of his might,
This was captured in a sketch

And a picture of a sketch

Plus a drawing of a caricature of a picture of a sketch

Yay, Reading night!

Sarah's reading nights are fun, we gather around, read amusing texts, act them out and sing ye olde folk songs (mostly improvised). As you may have guessed I draw caricatures even while I'm on break from drawing, here are 3 of the popular participants.
When Guillaume saw his caricatured self, he gleefully uttered "I'm cooool" with his heavy French accent. how right he is.