Disney's Nine Old Men: Marc Davis

I have been enjoying studying up on Marc Davis. He did a lot of design and animation for leading ladies in the Disney's earlier days which included Cruella De Ville, Alice, Cinderella, and Maleficent. I was more impressed with the designs he did for Disneyland though.  He designed many characters for rides like Pirates of the Caribbean, The Jungle Cruise, It's a Small World, and, one of my favorites, The Carousel of Progress. 

Here are some of his beautiful designs (I didn't draw anything from him this week because I'm a lazy bum... sorry :P)

Disney's Nine Old Men: Milt Kahl

As an animation major I feel like I should more about Disney's Nine Old Men than I actually do at the moment, so for the next few months I'll, hopefully, be sketching from their work and learning more about each of their specific talents. This weeks man is Milt Kahl.

Milt Kahl was able to give such fantastic life to his characters which included Peter Pan, Alice, Cinderella's fairy godmother, Edgar from The Aristocats, and Madame Medusa from The Rescuers. Just look at this pencil test he did of Roger from 101 Dalmations! He was able to make such a simple action as putting a coat on interesting.

Milt Kahl was so talented that other animators would bring him their work to touch up or have him make a drawing that they would then continue their animation off of to make it better. I will definitely be studying his work more in the future.

Here are some sketches I did to study his work:

Sugar doo doo doo doo doo doo awww, honey honey doo doo doo doo doo doo

Archie comics! Woot. They were first created in 1939, and I was amazed to find out that they are still being created today. crazy. Personally I always liked Betty more than Veronica, but after 70 years Archie still hasn't made up his mind o_O

And if you don't understand my title, watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9nE2spOw_o

Mystery revealed!

I didn't do any drawings today because I was pretty worn out after going to comic con which, by the way, was a lot of fun. I got to see William Shatner, Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca), Dee Bradley Baker, and Colin Baker who played the 6th Doctor in Doctor Who. They were all fantastic, but now I want to talk about my last drawings!

Those cute little drawings were from some of Disney's old cartoons Silly Symphonies. If you've never seen one of these delightful shorts you should. They were a series of cartoons where the character's movements were timed to match a musical score; Walt Disney used it as a way to experiment and further what his studio was able to accomplish in animation. These cartoons are also where characters such as Pluto and Donald Duck were first introduced. If you really haven't seen one I'd recommend The Three Little Pigs. Pay attention to how the animators made the pigs and wolf move to the music, and let me know what you think!


P.S. You all should check out Katie Cook at katiecandraw.com I discovered her at comic con and I think her work is fantastic.

Mystery and Comic Con!

Whew.. made the post for today!. If  you don't know what these sketches are from you'll have sometime to figure it out because I'll be explaining it until my next post; unfortunately that won't be until Monday because I have some packing to do and a comic con to visit :D Yes, I am going to comic con! I'm pretty excited about it. I can't wait to see and be inspired by all the artists there. So, have a fantastic weekend and try to figure out what my sketches are from:

Pinocchio Sketches

     So, I've been watching a bunch of the classic Disney movies lately, Fox and the Hound, Mulan, Hercules, Dumbo, and I've got to say... Pinocchio is by far one of the craziest stories out there. A blue fairy comes out of nowhere magically turning a puppet alive, the puppet is stopped by a talking fox on it's way to school and convinced to become an actor and is locked away by a mad puppeteer. When he lies to the blue fairy about it his nose starts to grow (with no explanation about how and why), he goes to Pleasure Island which is full of shadowy creatures and boys who turn into donkeys (again with no explanation as to how and why). After escaping he goes home where a glowing dove comes out of nowhere with a glowing message about how his father was swallowed by a whale (oh, and there's no explanation about who sends that message), and then he goes out and gets swallowed by the whale, escapes, and turns into a real boy by the random fairy.

If you look up summaries about the actual book it was based off, you'll see that the Disney movie is actually pretty mellow compared to the book, but as crazy and random as it is I still have to say that Pinocchio is an absolutely fantastic movie. If you haven't watched it in awhile go watch it now:

And I'm not a huge fan of cats, but Figaro is so darn cute! I want him :)

DC Comics and Jim Lee

Jim Lee is considered by many to be the best modern comic artist. His drawings are dynamic and detailed, and after copying his style I noticed his amazing inking skills that, with a pencil, I was not able to replicate very well. Here are the drawings I drew based off of his art:

Check out more about Jim Lee and his incredible work here: http://www.dccomics.com/talent/jim-lee

Avatar Sketches Part 2

Had to show Legend of Korra some love! I wish they'd announce the premiere date of Book 2 already:

I thought Korra was a great continuation of The Last Airbender. Unfortunately the ending of Book 1 was a little rushed because the writers didn't know if Nickelodeon would order more episodes, but I can't wait to see where they go with this next season.

Avatar Sketches Part 1

Here are some sketches I drew out of the Avatar The Last Airbender: The Art of the Animated Series book. It's a great show full of a lot of talented people:

Marvel Characters

I've had the book You Can Draw Marvel Characters by Dan Jurgens for years, but I've never really used it so I finally decided to sit down and draw some of the characters from it:

First Post!

Hello all! Welcome to my blog. I'm hoping to use this as an area to share and vastly improve my skills in drawing and animation. I may occasionally post some of my old work, but I think overall I'm going to try and post newer stuff. In the coming weeks I'm going to be copying (not tracing) different artist's work to improve my own drawing skills, and I'll be posting them up here.

I do have both of my animations I've completed up on my page including the storyboards for them. Feel free to check them out!