The Animator's Eye can see the light of day...

The Animator's Eye is scheduled to be published September 21, 2012. Here's a sample page. The five images on the right are flip books which run throughout the book. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Focal Press has posted the animated short with animatic insert on their web site- 

http://bestanimationbooks.com/

Music Score by Hans Karl-

http://www.hanskarlmusic.com/

And a very special thanks to Bryan Cox and Chris Siemasko ( http://www.chrissiemasko.com/) for adding some spicy special effects. And Audio Production Services by J. D. Stewart. And film editing by Ryan Glebas.

Yes, it's true.

You can see Iggy on YouTube. It's an 18 minute drawing lesson taken from the upcoming Focal Press book, The Animator's Eye. The book contains the making of an animated short starring Iggy and Scared Bunny as they learn the secrets of animated life. I can't wait to hold the book in my hands and flip the flip books.

Drawing tips and tricks- learn to draw Iggy

Yes, Bunny it is true, you are drawn on a sticky note. This is one of my favorite ways to work. I wrote my first book on sticky notes and storyboarded sequences on sticky notes while sitting in airports. They cheap available and easy to rearrange. I like drawing with Ticonderoga Redisharp + markers. They create an expressive black line, they're permanent, and no smell.

I'd actually love to have software where I could type and draw onscreen in the same program. So far I haven't found it. This blog was written in Literature and Latte's Scrivener. I drew the cartoons on sticky notes, then photographed them with a digital camera and imported them into the computer.

Watercolor is one of my favorite mediums

Watercolor is one of my favorite mediums. I love the spontaneity of it and the "happy accidents" when colors unexpectedly blend together. Another thing I liked was that it was easy to control the values in a painting. This was after I learned that you need to use the white of the paper for your whites. Then it's just a matter of the lighter you want it the less paint you use, and the darker you want it the more paint you use.

Here's some watercolors completed during my college years. They were really fun to do and I'm now inspired to create more of this fantasy type.

This last one lead to an idea for an animated film. Imagine the whole scene dancing around to Pink Floyd's One of these days.

Another thing I like is that you can gather your watercolor supplies in a backpack and go. When I was at Disney I used to go out painting at lunch time with a group of my friends, Ed Gombert, Dan Cooper, Bill Perkins and Vance Gerry. I learned so much from all of them. And the painting would be dry by the time we got back to work.

Contrary to the earlier ones these were completed on location. The first one is in Burbank and the second in Chatsworth. These were completed with a simple pencil sketch underneath and filled with a large brush. 

I want to try more of these too. Since I don't have the time, I'll have to make some. Maybe it will force me to be even more spontaneous. 

Try watercolors yourself. You can start out inexpensively with a small watercolor kit and a small watercolor block. (A watercolor block is a pad of watercolor paper taped around the edges so it stays flat when it's wet.) Do invest in good brushes. They really are worth their weight in gold.

Note to self: A future how to watercolor blog post. 

Would elves? A long lost comic strip

What do you call a digital treasure? I was looking in my hard drive's attic and found this old comic strip that I did when I was in high school. I wanted to be a cartoonist like Charles Schulz the creator of Peanuts. I was also inspired by Charles Barsotti the creator of Sally Bananas. 

I never did get to publish it but now, due the miracle of the internet I can share Would Elves? with an audience. Enjoy. (CLICK TO ENLARGE)

History of Snowboarding

Been on the road from Connecticut to California. I have some interesting posts planned once things settle into a rocking' groove.

This was my first published cartoon. Funny how publishing makes you a "professional". It was published in International Snowboard Magazine. They were great because they didn't usually publish cartoons. Go for it. You'll never know unless you try.

Fantasia 2000's The Ugly Goofling

One of the most fun aspects of working on Fantasia 2000 was coming up with ideas for stories and choosing interesting music to accompany them. We listened to all kinds of classical music searching for ones that would create the right mood and narrative structure to support a visual story.

My interest in classical music actually began with cartoons. The Warner Brothers cartoons are filled with snippets of classical music. These snippets got stuck in my brain. As a young adult, I would go to the library and borrow a new composer each week. This is how I discovered that there were other giants of classical music besides Beethoven and Mozart. Some of my favorites were Debussy, Mahler and Sibelius. 

One of the challenges of Fantasia is that the story has to be told purely visually. It was kind of like watching silent movies. The other challenge was that when we needed to make changes to the story, we had only so many frames to make the change within because we were locked in to the timing of the music. Sometimes these constraints can stimulate creativity. Other times they’re just a pain. 

One of my favorite pieces was Stravinsky's The Firebird Suite. I thought what if Goofy were a ballet dancer starring in the Ugly Goofling, a play on the Ugly Duckling story. Well, unfortunately the idea never went anywhere but it was fun to work on and dress Goofy up in a ballet costume. Here is the design and the beat board that I used to pitch the idea.

(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

One other tidbit about the music of Fantasia 2000 was that we occasionally had to edit the music for length. We picked which parts of the music we wanted to use. And don’t tell anyone but we even added some extra percussion to make the animations sync better.  In the capable hands of legendary conductor, James Levine, these extra flourishes were completed in a very musical way. That was a real treat for me to get to work with him and even have him like Pomp and Circumstance.

It's almost time...

The clocks ticking on my new book, The Animator's Eye. Finally, everything is off to the publisher. Over 6000 drawings and 100,000 words. Hmm, let's see, if a drawing is worth a thousand words then that's 700,000 words. Focal Press looks like they're on schedule for an August 2012 publication date. I've seen the proofs and they're doing an awesome job. The flip books along the side of the page look great. You get to see animation in action in a book.

This book was a killer. For my last book, Directing the Story, I created about 1900 drawings but since it was on storyboarding most of them were rough. For The Animator's Eye I completed a three and a half minute animated short to demonstrate the whole process of making an animated film. Scared Bunny, my co-author, keeps asking me why I didn't just make a 15 second film. I guess I'm too impulsive like Iggy. 

Wait till you hear the incredible score by film composer, Hans Karl. You can check out his music on his website- http://www.hanskarlmusic.com/