Terry's Groceries

Earlier this year I went to visit my cousin Eliot in New Rochelle. I asked him if the Terry-Toons studio is still around, We drove over there, and took pictures of the original building, which is now a grocery store.

Contrasting Characters

Here's a sketch of characters in development, I'm trying to get more energy into my drawings.

Experimenting with ink wash

I need more practice with full color pictures, and I figure that before I can do decent color, I need to learn decent Black & White


I drew a layout and traced it on watercolor paper, I mixed India Ink with water to reach 3 variations- light/med/dark/

When applied to the paper, more variations can be reached. India ink dries fast, and doesn't re-ignite when you apply water on it, So you can mix Gouache and water to apply on the ink. Below are 2 tones of Gouache- brown and green, applied to an ink wash, I left the bird in ink, as a reference to how the tree looked like before the applying Gouache.

Now to color the busted living room scene, My first attempt included too many unrelated secondary colors, It chilled my blood just to look at it, So I put it to rest. Backgrounds made of opaque saturated colors set a barrier between the cartoon and the viewer, they hold a 3 year old's attention, but that's about it.

In my second attempt I wanted more contrast, and more muted colors, as if you could walk right in it. The result was mostly pee and poo colors, but it's a step in the right direction since they are earth tones, and you can imagine lying in your own filth.


Now I'm trying to copy one of kristy Gordon's amazing backgrounds from Ren Seeks Help, What will I think of next? It'll take many more tries to get it right, The benefit is-- copy studies train my eyes to see things I wouldn't have noticed otherwise.


Critiques Welcome

Btw...school starts on Tuesday!

Walk & Run Expression Change Bundle Bonanza

Here is a rough version
This is an experiment to combine three assignments (including the weight lift and toss) into a story, I hope it entertains. I'm going for a shorter, carefully planned and more tightly layed-out scene next time. critiques appreciated.

Hi Folks

I'm working on the final sequence,
meanwhile- here's a model sheet I drew for it.

C'mon! C'mon!

Flash CS3 for my Mac should deliver within the next few days, I'm eager to start animating the next scene!

Next year's homework: part 2

Weight lift & Toss assignment

Wanted to get a sense of effort into this one. Oh, How I love rubber hose animation!

Speaking of which, Check out the Fleischer cartoons posted on Dailymotion: "The Dancing Fool" , and "Betty Boop's Museum" are especially great. They are pure cartoons (A term I first heard from Mitch) with unrestrained humor, joy and imagination.

Btw, I will add a face of the Toss!

Time to give a lil' sumpin' back

Sharper scans are up!

Put these up for John who sent me a very thoughtful and generous letter back in 1998. In his recent posts he talks about why its important to construct a drawing, rather than draw straight ahead.

Next year's homework: Part 1

Waveboat Assignment

I've got some spare time now, and I'll have none when school starts. As always, my fingers are yearning for new projects, so naturally I started working on next year's homework.

To time the waves I studied Bob Clampett's masterpiece Horton Hatches the Egg. In my opinion, the best adaptation from storybook to cartoon.

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