How to Train Your Dragon: The Legend of the Boneknapper

Back in April I worked at Ken Duncan's studio on the Lengend of the Boneknapper for the How to Train Your Dragon DVD. It was a very intense and fast project, but fun too! Got to work with a lot of old friends, and make some new ones as well. The short's, at least the 2D parts, were really fast paced and didn't allow for a lot of longer acting shots so most of what you'll see here are pretty quick shots (plus it's not every single shot I did). Ken and Sandro (our awesome animation supervisor) were really cool to give me what is probably the longest shot in the short (the shot directly below). I have to say too I was very impressed with the clean-up crew on this project! I have worked on films where, for whatever reason, you have no contact with clean-up folk and sometimes the results are less than desireable. On this project they sought the animators out to run stuff by us which I was found amazing, and I truly feel like my work actually ended up on screen. It's the way it should be but hardly ever is anymore.

We are all about to go back to start animating a 21 minute short film (ALL 2D) for the Kung Fu Panda 2 DVD. I am really looking forward to this one!

Blaisedell Layout Pencil

This, for those who are not aware of it's legendary nature, is the Blaisedell Layout Pencil. Made famous by both John Lounsbury and Glen Keane. I can remember seeing pictures of Glen draw with this when I was a kid and searching high and low for these pencils. Unfortunately, there weren't many great art stores in the sub-burbs of Chicago growing up and these were nowhere to be found. Plus, I think they stopped producing them in 1990 due to the fact that the pencil contains actual lead and not graphite. Ya know, the cancer causing type!

But recently a colleague and friend of mine, the awesome Rick Farmiloe, super generously and graciously gave this pencil to me because he knew how much it meant to me. I know, it's just a stupid pencil but it kinda encapsulates so much of why I wanted to get into animation that it is priceless to be able to have one in my possession. Thanks Rick!!

Getting on with life

So let's get on with the fun! Something about blogs that has always bothered (and that I have admittedly fallen into) is this sort of egocentrism of posting stuff for the entirely wrong reasons. Mainly, to get compliments and praise.

Praise is a natural desire, but I don't feel it should be the focal point of any artist. Now switch gears real quick with me... how many of you are afraid of your sketchbook like me? I often put such unnecessary pressure on myself to make every page "perfect". Well, the more I do this stuff the more I realize that art is not about perfection, but about honesty. Honesty can seem like such a vague word, but in short it's about communicating your raw unadulterated feeling on whatever you are seeing, reading, absorbing from life around you and reinterpreting it in the way you feel/see it. Could I draw these better if I put another sheet on top and reworked them? Will there be folks who sees these and aren't impressed? Of course, but that's not the point! The point is motive, and the motive is honesty and sincerity.

I certainly won't argue that basic drawing isn't important to the communication of your feelings, but sometimes we get too concerned with the mastery of the visual presentation. Sometimes there is a raw feeling communicated in the most crude of drawings that I hardly if ever see in extremely refined drawings. So don't be afraid to make mistakes and show'em to people. Remember, they ain't perfect either... what matters is you communicating your feelings, even if that left arm is a little too long.

Untitled Film

About 2 years ago I did some design work for an untitled feature for Laika. I don't think it's getting made so I thought I'd post'em here...

And the winner is...

HOW TO TURN STUFF!

This was definitely the winner by vast majority, so turning stuff it is! Please be patient with me, I just started a new job and am getting comfortable. This tutorial will probably come in a few installments. Thanks for voting everyone, it's so helpful to know what information is lacking out there! Until the tutorial!

Ruff Stuff

Please continue to you cast your votes in the post below! I will end the vote as of THIS Friday (the 25th), so if you have an opinion on the matter be sure to vote in time! Until then enjoy this ruff bit of experimental animation I did for my short film. Often when I have a design getting "close" to what I want it to FEEL like, I take it for a "test drive" which always reveals a lot of it's successes and flaws. In this particular case I animated this to ultimately be used for an eventual color test as well. I animated this in about a day, and in a fairly more ruff way than I typically do. Obviously the end is just posed out, however I do intend to finish it. Also, the beard and floppy bits of hair will be animated in After Effects once the ruff animation is complete. So, no, it won't look like a bit moppy beard in the final product. So enjoy this ruff rascal--

Let's have a VOTE

So from time to time I get e-mails and comments asking about continuing tutorials on this blog. While I would love to be able to continue to do the same volume of tutorials that i once did, I have to be realistic with myself. When I started this blog my time was much more free and open, now, not so much as I am sure all of you have noticed.

But, the initial purpose of this blog was to spread information that I have learned from either people I respect, or just figuring the stuff out so that others could have the same access to, specifically, 2D knowledge. I would love to strike a compromise, so here's the plan. Right now I am on some downtime, waiting for my next job to start and I'd love to do a simple tutorial. So I am going inquire for your vote as to what that tutorial will be about. here are some options:

- Arcs

- Overlap/Follow Through

- Spacing

- How to Turn stuff

- Timing

- Posing and interesting Breakdowns

Just a few to suggest-- but do me a favor and place your vote in the comments section, I'll tally the votes and consider how much time I have to devote to the tutorial and then go from there. Sound good?

Cortez

Have been scanning a whole bunch of drawings lately to catelog them on my computer. Came across these and thought I'd post'em. I think I was reading something about Cortez when I drew these. Enjoy!

PENCIL TEST DEPOT blog by Jamaal Bradley

PENCIL TEST DEPOT

I have to plug this new, GREAT blog by Jamaal Bradley (animator on "Surf's Up") called Pencil Test Depot. The idea of the blog is to gather an assortment of ONLY rough pencil tests from a variety of hand drawn animators. It's the only blog of it's kind to my knowledge that is devoted to cataloging pencil tests! So cool! Jamaal honored me with an invitation to put add some of my work, but the real reason you should go there is to see all the other incredible work from the likes of Milt Kahl, Frank Thomas, Glen Keane, Sergio Pablos, James Baxter and Pablo Navarro! I am sure as time goes on the catalog will grow and the amount of amazing reference will become staggering! So check out this wonderful new resource for animators of ALL types!

John Musker caricature

Here's a fun little drawing! Every years at Disney they have the caricature show. Which is basically the "John Musker" show since he's the best and most active caricature artist in the studio (with Erik Fountain being a very close second)! I've been told I am hard to caricature, so I don't often see any caricatures of me. I thought this one was pretty cool though, I just didn't realize I looked so angry! hah--

Doodle_002

I went to the Skeet Range with my brother while he was in town this past week. Say some pretty hilarious people while I was there. This is Ling Ling-- from the moment she walked out onto the range she had this humongous smile on her face. It only melted off when she decided to kick some Skeet Shooting Butt! This girl hit everything man, EVERYTHING! And that's saying something for someone who's gun is bigger than they are! All in all, a pretty entertaining thing to behold...

Sandro Cleuzo

Ok Ok, so I am a bit late on this one but I thought I'd plug my friend Sandro Cleuzo. I worked with him at Disney on "Frog". He's an amazing talent, who consistently blew everyone away! I learned a lot from him indirectly... he's also one of the nicest people I've met in this industry. Check out his blog for sure and expect to see great things from his new Brazilian Studio! www.inspectorcleuzo.blogspot.com

All Cleaned Up (Revised)

I was asked to remove the boy riding the horse cycle as the project it was for is not released yet-- sorry for the idiocy.

puttin' the ol' reel together!

Just finished up on "Frog" and am having to put the ol' reel together and sort of rediscovered some old animation I never used on my previous reels. enjoy!

Shot from Curious George from handdrawn on Vimeo.

Curious George from handdrawn on Vimeo.

curious george from handdrawn on Vimeo.

Untitled from handdrawn on Vimeo.

OFFICIAL TRAILER!

CHECK WHAT WE'VE BEEN WORKING SO HARD ON!

Princess and the Frog

check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbCT0pG5iw4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eslashfilm%2Ecom%2F2009%2F05%2F04%2Fnew%2Dfootage%2Dfrom%2Ddisneys%2Dthe%2Dprincess%2Dand%2Dthe%2Dfrog%2F&feature=player_embedded

CORALINE ANIMATION TESTS

  Here are two animation tests I did for Coraline. Usually the way it would start out is me doing some expressions that were extremes for the character. Like how wide or how far something could go, and then animate within that boundary. How course considering character, and shape language as well... 

CORALINE

  I know I'm a bit late on the "Coraline post", but thought it would be a good excuse to post again! A couple years ago I got a call from this new studio called "Laika". They were doing a new Henry Selick film called Coraline and needed someone to design and animate the facial expressions (including design mouth shapes for dialogue) for all the characters in the film. And they wanted it ALL to be 2D upfront (it would later be modeling in the computer then molds would be made from that). It was a sweet gig-- I lived in Portland for 6 weeks, all expenses paid and was scared to death every day of failing miserably. I was surrounded by people who were infinitely more talented than I was and I learned a ton from it/them. It was my first venture in design, and I was therefor terrified. It was kinda like designing with training wheels on. I was already working with solid stuff, I just had to make it emote.

   I used to love walking around the warehouse where all the sets were being built-- it really felt like we were all making something special and new; something all of us artists talk about but never get a chance to ACTUALLY work on.  And here I found myself working on something that I had always talked about working on. (I'll post pictures of the warehouse later). 

  I didn't end up doing all the characters but I did end up designing for the Cat, Forcible, and the Ghost Children. I did some REALLY rough passes on Spink and Bobinski but I don't think they got used.

  So GO SEE THIS SPECIAL FILM! And I'll post more stuff from the film as time allows.

11-4-08

  I did these character designs for a friend a little while back. Had a lot of fun doing it! I miss doing character design these days-- I find when I am bored animating I whip out a clean sheet of paper and start doodling a design or a thumbnail for a future design to keep my mind active. But to be fair, when I was doing character design I missed animating. I know as an animator studying design is imperative to doing good animation. For some reason people seem to segregate design and drawing as separate things.  They are not, drawing IS design-- whether it's well designed or not, it IS a design. Maybe this segregation of thinking is why hand drawn animation tends to look so, well, bland. Too many people buy off on the lie that audiences to not relate to graphic character designs. They relate to who they are, not what they look like. Hopefully we'll get an opportunity to blow that old idea out of the water one of these days!  

what the?

  Am I posting this because it's beautiful? Am I posting this because I'd like to inspire the world? I believe if you look at this painting long enough you could answer these questions yourself... the real reason I am posting this is because it's random and I have nothing else to post while the man cub and wifey are down for a nap. If you are wondering this took about 5 minutes, took 0% thought, and was my first attempt at painting on a Cintiq. It's par for the course for me :)