Happy Father's Day!

A little drawing I did for my Dad who loves Rocky and Bullwinkle among other great older cartoons. The Indian theme comes from all the fun times we spent together at the now renamed adventure guides (his "Indian name" was Longknife). Thanks for teaching me so much especially your great sense of humor. Happy Father's Day!

Drawing what you think you see isn't always the best.

I'm about half way through drawing everything in Preston Blair's Cartoon Animation book, and boy have I learned a lot. Looking back on some of the drawings I've done even a month ago I can tell I really have grown quite a bit. I thought I would have been done with the book by now, but some of these animation cycles are taking a little longer than I had originally planned and I still want them to look nice too.

Gilligan just hanging around.


Claude goes fishing for turtles.


Pirate a Day


After a good 49 hour nap our little hero awoke rested, ready to face the day and what ever adventures it might bring.


Walt Stanchfield has been teaching me a lot about angles lately through his book Drawn to Life Vol 1. He talks about angles in a similar way that Preston Blair presents line of action. Just drawing what you think you see isn't always the best. As humans our rig, or rather our body, knows how to handle itself, but as artists sometimes we need to see what the meaning behind a position, movement or action actually is. So sometimes it is necessary to over exaggerate angles or the line of action to better tell a story with an image. John K also did a nice write up on a similar idea, but focused on setting up a shot rather than a pose. Definitely worth the read.

Borders finally got Imaginefx's How to Draw and Paint Anatomy in stock, and I quickly snagged up a copy, well, after an hour or so of sketching people in the coffee shop. I've only had a chance to flip through it, but it looks like they've done a great job again. Thanks for the inspiration!

The Cintiq has landed!

I finally got my Cintiq in the mail the day before yesterday.

It truly is a thing of beauty. From the packaging, to the sleek design, to functionality you can really see how much care went into this product. It wasn't too hard to set up, the only complaint I have with it is so far is that I find it easier to just duplicate my monitor, but that means I have to lower the resolution on both screens to 1280x800, also I think I have to find a way to balance the color between my monitor and the Cintiq so they match exactly. Overall I'm am completely in love with it.


(*the wallpaper is based on a Dumbo, pink elephants, concept piece that Michael Sporn posted a week or so ago*)

I'm still figuring everything out with it, but here are a couple little images I've done so far.

Gilligan splashing around.


Sleepy Gilligan


Claude and his super fantastic flying turtle!


Claude may have inadvertently enlarged his turtle, or shrank himself... he's still not sure.


Pirate a Day

Pirate a Day II


On that day all the townsfolk celebrated! They had a huge bacon feast and held the first ever annual Our Little Hero Memorial Bacon Day Parade!


After all the festivities were over our little hero finally got some much needed sleep.


A couple of notable things have gone or will be going on this week in the internet art community. First off the Art and Story crew finished up their big Kids Read Comics event and it seems like it was very successful. If you haven't been keeping up with it they recorded a bunch of podcasts during the weekend and even a couple funny audioboos. Overall a great listen and some of the kid stories they share are priceless.

The other big event is the Pres-Aid auction being held this Sunday June 20th. The auction is a benefit for animator Pres Romanillos who suffered from a relapse of leukemia. It's amazing to see how the community has really reached out and jumped in to help him, not to mention the great resources and art pieces that are being donated. I really wish I could go. If you're in the LA area you really should check it out. I hope the event goes great, and that Pres get all the help he needs and the bone marrow transplant is successful. Thanks for the inspiration everyone!

Like what you like!

Between watching old Disney videos on youtube, the CalArts history video, and listening to Brad Bird (who trained under Milt Kahl) on the Spline Doctors Podcast, I've really found a lot of similarities in their approaches and advice. Disney himself had a passion for animation, but it was fueled and influenced by all of his other interests. CalArts approached and still approaches art by trying to give the student a broad view of what is out there by mixing music, with dance, theater, visual arts etc. Also while listening to Brad Bird speak he talked about what he thought animators should do and what he observed the 9 Old Men doing and that was to get inspiration from everything, and feed your outside interests. Don't just stare at your paper and pencil, but watch how your loved ones interact with others, pause to see how the trees blow in the wind or how your little puppies play together outside, play a musical instrument or in Walt Disney and Ward Kimball's case fall in love with trains. All of these unique views, special interests, and outside knowledge will only help inspire and influence your art. Thanks for the inspiration!

Camel Gilligan

Gilligan performing with his sock puppets.

Claude and his turtle going for a ride.


Claude and his turtle having a dance party.


Pirate a Day


Pirate a Day section B


As soon as our little hero got back to town, a crowd began to form around him. Everyone was wondering what had happened to the monster, how did he get back, and most importantly what was in his gigantic gunny sac.


Once our little hero had settled the crowd down just enough, he threw open the bag and out poured the most delicious scent any of the towns people had ever smelled. Right when they started to wonder what that mouth watering aroma was, the skies seemed to rain bacon.

Speaking of Animation (the podcast) put out another fantastic episode this week. They got the extremely talented Chris Sanders and Dean DeBlois talking about my favorite film I've seen so far this year, How to Train Your Dragon! I've loved Chris Sanders drawing style for quite a while and it was fascinating to hear about his and Dean's process. From learning about the evolution of their Nightfury design to old stories about Mulan this is a podcast that can't be missed!

Just a couple quick bloggestions

Another fun night of drawing.

Gilligan celebrating Earth Day a little bit early.

Mr Money bags and his turtle, I mean Claude.

Pirate a Day.

Our little hero just wanted to go home, so he got out of the pigs lair as fast as he could. Feeling so relieved to be free, he hummed to himself all the way home. Something akin to what might now sound like Zippity Do Da.

A few nights ago I talked about the trailer for Disney's new animated feature Tangled. John K also posted an entry about the movie this weekend, which has been garnering quite the attention of the animation community. He makes some very valid points, I'm not sure I agree with everything, but no matter what it's well worth the read.

I don't think I have nor can I enough recommend Inspector Cluezo's Blog. Sandro has quite the resume from working as an animator at Don Bluth, Fox and even Disney. Most of all he always has something inspiring to post and he loves Milt Kahl.

Thanks for the inspiration!

Avast me hearties!

Responsibilities, necessary daily tasks, most parts of life in general... I wish there was some way to condense them all into one lump of time, or get rid of them all together. I know, I know it's supposed to be everything in moderation, but if you do that how do you ever focus on something and hone you skills. Alas, a dilemma for another day, or rather drink up me hearties, yo ho!

Gilligan and his favorite stuffed Gilligan.

Claude's turtle having a relaxing afternoon.

Pirate a Day

Our little hero, never one to let a good opportunity get the best of him, jumped on top of the fallen choking swine beast, grabbed his broken skewer, and with all the strength he could muster thrust it through his mouth and out the back of his skull.


On Friday night I got a chance to watch part of Pirates of the Caribbean for the first time in quite a while. Wanting some sort of a new twist I put on the commentary track and Gore Verbinksi and Johnny Depp have some pretty decent insight into one of my favorite movies. Out of everything the movie has to offer, I think they really captured the atmosphere and feel of Marc Davis' original concept.

To my surprise, the next morning Michael Sporn posted some of my new favorite Marc Davis pirate illustrations. Some of the images are so iconic to me and pictures I have loved since I was little, but between Mr Sporn's post and the Disney and More blog post I've found a few new treasures. Not only do I admire Marc's draftsmanship and the amount of energy and life his illustrations exude, but his subtle color choices mixed with a few vibrant highlights make the scenes look historic and fantastical at the same time. Thanks for inspiring the little pirate inside me!

Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.

So excited! I ordered my Cintiq last night! I had to have Rhys push the purchase button for me though, sheesh that's a lot of money. I'm starting to shy away from my 2H Kimberly pencil in my daily drawings, lately I prefer using a sharpie and just a Dixon Ticonderoga HB. Both of these options seem more permanent so I'm less likely to noodle a line over and over again. Also I find with the mechanical pencil (Dr. Grip) I push way too hard even though I really like the clean line I get. Plus having the lead break just plain sucks. I'm sure I'll change again in 2 weeks what I like, especially once I get the Cintiq! Oh, check out this great article over on smomotion about different pencil types.

Gilligan chasing his tail.


Claude playing a rousing round of flip the turtle.


Our little hero couldn't have asked for a more perfect shot.


Pirate a Day


I stumbled across a new (to me) artist today Dean Yeagle. He grew up loving Disney and wanted to become an animator there. Eventually, he worked with them, but he is most famous, most people would say, for his pinups. The thing that really attracted me to his work is that he can blend cartoon style with real anatomy seamlessly. The expressions and fluidity that his characters portray seem way too over the top for a normal human, yet somehow he makes it all look natural. Treat yourself and take some time to truly admire some his work. The way he draws makes me want to get better, and his body of work makes me want to believe that drawing in a more cartoon way can still be realistic, so much so, that even critics would have a hard time not seeing it for it's true artistic value. Thanks for the inspiration!

Today's quote, "Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere", comes from G.K. Chesterton, and from this Dean Yeagle drawing.