New Pencil Test

A few people have been bugging me to put up more pencil tests. I've wanted to put up some Curious George stuff, but i figured i'd wait till' it had it's run in the theaters. Just to play it safe. This was a fun shot to do... in retro spect, i would have done some stuff differently but this was done in the crunch of the film and i didn't have a lot of "searching time". I only had a week to do it and it's mostly on 1's as you can see. I think it turned out ok, but as we learn and grow our work just seems to get dated huh? at least mine feels that way to me. Whenever I can, I love to move the character in and out of the foreground. We as hand drawn animators already have the challenge of making people forget about the fact that they are watching drawings so this depth can help with it. CG has had a positive affect i think in this way that they have forced us not to cheat. CG can obviously do all the technical stuff automatically, but in handdrawn it takes real skill to do these things. I think CG has forced us to not fudge anything to keep up... personally i think it has been a good thing.
On another note i got my copy of King Kong! I'm one of those types who watches DVD's, or rather listens to them as he works. I get a little obsessive about new films. Especially ones from directors and studio i highly respect. The same has been true of watching King Kong. I know the reaction was kinda mixed, but i loved it and still do now. That T-Rex fight is pretty freaking amazing man-- geez, talk about clear staging and knowing where you are from cut to cut. Those guys know what they're doing that's for sure. but for anyone who knows me knows i am a sucker for the tender parts even more so... i can't get any work done when those parts come on man. I just have to abandon myself to it, get sucked into it, and start to feel something. Maybe someday i'll get that chance to animate something really tender, as well as some kick boot-tay action sequence!
This kinda brings me to another thought that i've shared repeatedly. I wanna see hand drawn animation do something like this again. I think Iron Giant had a lot of what i'm talking about... heartfelt moments (the climax of the film), cool action stuff (when the Giant goes bazurk!) and fun humor (playing in the lake). Oh PLEASE Brad, come here and make Ray Gunn. You gotta man!!
Anyhow, enjoy the pencil test and have a great weekend everyone!