Monday, April 27, 2009

A Bit of Disney Animation...sorta

Back in 2002, a friend of mine offered me a fantastic opportunity to get involved with a bit of animation. He and some of his colleagues were working on a film and they wanted to to get the pitch in front of the eyes of management, so they recruited me to help with some rough inbetween work.

A had a great time inbetweening this scene. Although I only spent a handful of hours working on it, it was terrifically rewarding. These 75 drawings represent the realization of a dream. My friend had invited me to help animate a scene for a proposed featurette for the Walt Disney Studios in Florida. Unfortunately, the project was tabled and I was not asked to make any further contributions. As far as I know, the project never made it out of the early exploratory stages. I am pretty sure that it was my scene that killed the project.

The scene synopsis : A young Samurai finds that he must defend the honor of a woman in a duel to the death. He has challenged a great Samurai warrior, a man that is respected and revered by the other Samurai, including the young man. The young Samurai knows that he cannot win the battle. He is outmatched and outclassed. It is hopeless. Still, honor must be satisfied and so he will fight. In the moments before the battle, we see the young man resigning himself to his fate, undeterred. He takes a steady breath and looks down...where he sees a lotus floating in the stream at his feet.



Even though this is a small bit of business from a film that never saw the light of day, I can with great pride that I worked on a Disney animated film. Sorta.


Sunday, April 26, 2009

Pen Sketches


Just in case there wasn't enough awesome in your day today, I give you these scribbles. You can now breathe easy.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Troll


"You're not going to give me any trouble, right?"

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Sketchbook doodles




The most frustrating thing in the entire universe is drawing. Every little line has to go into the exact spot. A scribble here and there until the jumbled little mess begins to take on some sort of shape. It is an excruciating exercise that has engaged me ever since I was a little boy. I cannot possibly numerate the hours spent at this. The most frustrating thing in the entire universe is drawing.

It is also the most wonderful.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

My Neighbor



Last week my neighbors dropped by to show me their pet. They we very proud to show off their well behaved 8 year old.