Wishing you and yours a very merry Christmas in what has been, to say the least, a very strange year.
My Christmas card this year takes on the coronavirus issue of today, but applied to that first Christmas long ago. The art was inspired by medieval tapestries in case you were wondering.
Click on image to enlarge.
I’ve been making my own Christmas cards for over 25 years now, but for the first time ever, the art is completely digital this year. While I love having a physical painting when it’s all done, it just seemed for the time I had to work on this, and for wanting to paint without outlines, Photoshop was the way to go. Here’s a close-up of the wise guys…
Click on image to enlarge.
Merry Christmas to one and all. Hopefully we’ll all breathe more easily in the new year.
Today marks the 20th anniversary of the premiere of Disney’s comedy feast The Emperor’s New Groove directed by Mark Dindal! This film holds a special place in my heart, for it was the first big Hollywood production on which I received screen credit! To celebrate, I created a new drawing to mark the occasion!
Emperor Kuzco in his llama form created in ink and gouache. The character was animated so brilliantly by supervising animator Nik Ranieri and his team.
I actually started at Disney on Mulan, and also worked on Tarzan and Fantasia 2000 before this, but back in those days, the studio didn’t give screen credit to everyone like they do now. I wasn’t a production artist on the films, but rather was considered “support staff” with my computer job.
New Groove was such an interesting journey. It started as a musical drama called Kingdom of the Sun, later changed to Kingdom in the Sun (that’s what all those songs were written for that are on the soundtrack), before changing to the comedy that folks have come to love.
If you are ever curious to know the sordid details of the production journey, Trudie Styler (Sting’s wife) made a documentary about it called The Sweatbox that while never having been released to the public other than a short Oscar qualifying run in theaters 20 years ago, it does pop up every now and then on youTube.
Hard to believe all this was twenty years ago. I feel privileged to have been able to be a part of it. Of anything I have ever worked on, this is the project that lights up the most eyes when folks hear I was involved with it.
So, celebrate with me in this special birthday for a special Disney movie!
Captain Mickey here as Steamboat Willie turns the ripe old age of 92 TODAY! That’s right, Mickey and Minnie both were born this day in cinemas in their first cartoon way back in 1928.
The mouse has held up well over the years. We should all be so fortunate.
You know what today is, don’t you? That’s right, it’s everyone’s favorite quasi-holiday “Talk Like a Pirate Day!” Arrrr.
So, of course the ol’ blog must feature a pirate today. And a dog. A pirate dog. A pirate dog munching on a bone. A pirate dog munching on the forearm bone of a human. Gross.
A new article came out about me a couple of weeks ago. The folks at Shoutout LA asked me a few questions about my work, my mentors, and life in Los Angeles. So, I obliged them with some answers.
So, grab a cup of coffee and enjoy a little light reading about an illustrator in Los Angeles by…
It’s Labor Day here in the States, which is our fall holiday where normally folks celebrate with picnics, time spent together at parks, and maybe get together for a baseball game. Not sure how much of that is happening this year, but it’s nice to think about more carefree days of the past.
Nice to see a baseball bat used as intended at a park as opposed to how it has been used lately by “peaceful protesters.”
