Disney T-Shirts

Every now and then Disney hits the ball out of the park with a new design.  Too often I see many designs that try and appeal to a 'Gang' or 'Rap' crowd and have made some really ugly merchandise. But these two New Designs blew-me-away had me smiling EAR to EAR!

The quality of this Donald Shirt had got the same simple appeal.  Out-of-sight!

I love the lettering and image here too.  Really eye catching without too much happening.

Nude swimming at the pool near the center of the dorms

I can not believe it's been 20 years since I went to Cal Arts! It doesn't seem that long ago.

Drawing Layout to TV Color Comp.

Somehow I found the exact two layout drawings from my one of my most favorite

Brian Mitchell scenes of the Cow and Might Mouse.  You can see how the cropping, clean up and color can make all the difference.  The non distracting color card allows zero conflict for the characters interaction.

I remember how extreme some of these cartoons would go on Might Mouse (1987). Above they are layout out by Brian Mitchell Directed by John Kricfalusi.  This is actually a John K. drawing below Mitchell above.

Mickey Mouse poses are the most cartoony I'd ever seen. Probably

making fun of the character for being to innocent.

Here are some

Van Eaton galleries got a bunch new artwork in. I just happen to be seeing this fish that keep calling my name for $200. I love this stuff but it's so expensive and really should be in a cartoon museum for EVERYONE to see.

Above I found the frame and double checked to make sure it was authentic. I had bought other cels and did not check and found them not even to be in the movie!

VAN EATON

Van Eaton galleries has some new artwork, here is a piece from Bedknobs and Broomsticks

Some old artwork, reworking with courage to resurrect some life into the cartoon. The most popular shoe I remember beside the Monkey Boot were the Larger Red "High-Top" Dock Martins. These air-wear boots allowed for great bounce when driving up to Hollywood to dance to you favorite 80's band.

I suppose 22 year old drawings would be considered to join the History page of my animation blog. These drawings are pretty good, not sure if I could even draw like this anymore! I made a this clay fishbone animation in 1989 and this is a drawing of it.

The drawings I liked the more in these old sketch books were where I had 'real life' reference. Stuff that I was inventing was pretty ruff and didn't have much direction, just "in the moment" sketches. . . not well planned. But I was just learning back then.

Originally I wanted multiple hands on each rib. I imagined the style was in a 1940's with still some early "rubber-hose" technique . You can see the influence that Chuck Jones and Marv Newland had on my work. Balloon-like flexibility.

This Chris Dowd caricature was suppose to go along with the Angelo character but never did any animation to accompany the Angelo and Fishbone cartoons . His head could be enlarged 20%. I was trying a brush-pen technique here. While crude I think my passion for drawing shines through my lack of skill at the time.

Here is a drawing I did in 1989. I don't sit around doing this anymore but thought this was pretty good. I found several sketch books going in many mysterious directions. I hope to post more good finds.

I am not too sure this background works with this set up but it looks authentic. I remember them being at the lunch room school cafeteria.

First animation of Milhouse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24gvMY0GR5w&feature=related

I found these Simpson cels from 1989 being sold at "Deep Archives" for around $200 each recently. Visit http://www.thedeeparchives.com. The weirdest thing was I bought drawings from this exact first Simpson commercial Comic Con 2008. I thought the price were pretty good being this one of the highest quality animation being produced at the time, main characters and hard to find classic first Butterfinger Commercial. Quality being artistry and Craftsmanship. Actually I bought two cels from this scene as well.

I was watching Walt Disney's Robin Hood (1973) tonight and in aw at all the work put into that film. The cast members are fantastic for each of the character voices. There's an emotion scene where the Sheriff of Nottingham barges in on Friar Tuck during a rainstorm and takes a last farthing from the poor box.

Friar Tuck tries to him to put it back but the Sheriff says, "I just doing my duty". The acting in the animation follows the voices perfectly bringing out emotion in the scene. These two character a large in size and the animator's literally throw their weight around. The way the characters move and act helps the story move along visually.

This above early color size concept piece is just as exciting to me as when I remember seeing it in 1973. I'm sure Milt Kahl and Wooly Reitherman had some challenges working this stuff out. It's a lot of work getting all of it done in a timely fashion.

After searching through 20 website I found one piece of art I helped work on.

From a Treehouse of Horror Halloween Episode. Bart's evil Twin.
http://www.animationartwork.com/simpsons_animation_art

After searching through 20 website I found one piece of art I helped work on.

From a Treehouse of Horror Halloween Episode. Bart's evil Twin.
http://www.animationartwork.com/simpsons_animation_art

While researching Nuclear Reactors I can across this beautiful colored map.

Here's an illustration that is in the works, the arm was behind the head trying to look like he's (I'm) running late but it ended up looking more like a fashion pose which I didn't want. So I may try snapping fingers or hold sheet music?

Th pin stripes on the overhauls will look better and simplify the drawing if the are in "light gray" instead of black. I'm really trying to keep this simple. Ha! I may add some halftones to add sparkle.................?

These are just traced from images I got off the internet.

After tracing these I think I have a much better idea how to draw these characters.

I didn't want to make them fancy or in my own style or anything, just the character we all love in a line drawing placed on stars.

These old posters are great, they show the power of color. Even if the characters are a little off model, bold color, composition and contrasting lettering are great design elements to keep your interest.

I love this old Donald Duck. Everything feels just right here.

This 80's Mickey is great, drawing front views of characters can be the most difficult drawings to pull off...well beside a 3/4 rear!

Again great color and wonderful how they got floating heads against the ocean musical stream...

This Pinocchio is just the angle and expression that I need for the final page in my book.

The work done here on the lettering here is so right on for the movie.

Amazing how life - like and child- like are these very loose drawings. They really were excited about what they were doing. At least they're work shows this excitement for me.

Primary colors work fairly well.

This pan looks to me like a sericel.
Walt Disney's Pinocchio clip art reference for a page in my book "Happiest Music on Accordion".

"It's not much of a tail. but I'm sorta attached to it."

- Eeyore the Donkey

One of my favorite lines from the original "Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh" (1967). I was thinking about backgrounds for my cartoon and was curious, what environment and style I'd like to put him into. The first thing that came to mind, were the backgrounds in the opening titles of this film.

These backgrounds have a simplified "storybook" look. They started with an over all "solid color" that covers the entire frame (Emerald,Teal or Shamrock) then with a few blended charcoal elements using colors (brown, grey & yellowish green). And lastly, a cel xerox of a pencil line (pencil turns to looking like a black inked line ) sitting on top of the artwork.

The lines are broken and allows color to enter and exit freely. The same with the grass, each blade is free to sit however it wants. The last element for me, are the white high-lights on the tree (light green in the tree leaves). In the rest of the film, the leaves are more detailed but here, they are just simple "puffy" clouds.

I better add that this background pan is most likely a 16 field which is larger than television 12 field which can hold more detail. If one would want this quality they should consider that too!