Category: Disney

Pixar’s BRAVE

Last week I attended an advance screening of Pixar’s latest film, Brave, at Disney’s El Capitan theater in Hollywood. The folks at Beyond the Marquee invited me to write an actual review of the film.

Writing a review for a film in an industry of which you are a part is a tricky thing. You want to be fair, but not write anything to alienate you from being hired to work on animated projects in the future. It takes a long time, usually four to five years, to create a feature animated film with much hard work and sweat going into every decision. Having been there, I have tremendous respect for what goes into a project. At the same time, the length of those years sometimes can be numbing to the point where an insider isn’t sure any more as to whether or not something is funny, touching, or wise to include.

So, I didn’t write any spoilers that the trailer didn’t already give away except for one thing that I didn’t feel was wise to include – the inclusion of nudity in this film. Yes, nudity.

To find out more before the movie opens tomorrow, please CLICK HERE or on the image to see my article on Beyond the Marquee.

 

Princess Merida
The third film this year to feature archery (following “The Hunger Games” and “The Avengers”), Pixar’s Princess Merida takes aim.

 

Categories
Chad's Editorials Disney

…From the Flat File: 2009 – Donald Duck

I was going through some of my old art the other day, and came across this small Donald Duck watercolor/colored pencil piece I did just for fun a few years back. It was painted around the time I was finishing up my time working on two seasons of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. I LOVED drawing those classic Disney characters for the time I was given, and still will often doodle Mickey and the gang on scratch paper while talking on the phone.

Did you know that long before I worked on Donald for animation, I wrote a six-page Donald Duck story for Disney comics, too? I talk about that a little bit on my website. You can check that out by CLICKING HERE!

At any rate, enjoy this Donald Duck piece from the bygone year of 2009.

 

Original Donald Duck art
Donald’s stripes and lack of buttons on his sailor suit are depicted as he appeared on “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.”
Categories
Animals Art: Colored Pencil Art: Watercolor Comic Books Disney Flat File Archives Illustrations

Silly Old Bear

About a week and a half ago I was finally able to see the very charming new movie Winnie the Pooh created by Disney’s Feature Animation Studio. For the past few decades, new animated Pooh adventures have been ably put together by Disney’s television division, but it did my heart good to see the 100 Acres Wood gang return to the Features division with characters rendered by some of the industry’s top traditional animators such as Andreas Deja, Eric Goldberg, Randy Haycock, Dale Baer, Bruce Smith and Mark Henn.

I once was a part of Disney’s Television Animation group that worked on Pooh’s last outing, the My Friends Tigger & Pooh show that aired on The Disney Channel. Seeing the new film made me wistful for the characters. Pooh & company are such delightful characters to watch, and equally delightful to draw. The whole thing is a warm and fuzzy experience all the way around. Then again, maybe I’m conveniently forgetful of the challenges of working on a television show.

After finishing my work on two and a half seasons of My Friends Tigger & Pooh back in 2008, I just couldn’t stop Poohing. I spent some time doing some little watercolor pieces of the gang, the last one I posted here in April of 2009. So, in honor of the wonderful new film that families of all shapes and sizes will delight in seeing, I am posting this previously unseen watercolor & pencil piece of Winnie the Pooh with his friend Darby.

 

Pooh Bear
Darby with her friend Winnie the Pooh

 

If you or your children ever watched My Friends Tigger & Pooh, you would know that Darby was a little American girl created just for the show that would be there for all the adventures with Pooh and the gang. She was shorter and younger than Christopher Robin, and was likely conceived with the thought that she would be more relatable as an equal to the target audience of 3 to 5 year olds. I grew to really appreciate Darby, and enjoyed drawing her. She had a sweet innocence about her, and a voice to match provided by a very young Chloe Moretz in one of her early jobs.

Well, enjoy this painting of Darby with her silly old bear, and be sure to add the new Winnie the Pooh film (that includes Christopher Robin – not Darby) to your “to do” list.

 

Categories
Animals Art: Watercolor Disney Illustrations

Always Room for Cello

I recently made a card for someone I know who plays the cello professionally. Thought it would be fun to put little Mickey Mouse behind a giant cello. After it was done, I realized that it could be mistaken for a bass. So, it really is a cello. Just a small mouse.

Mickey Mouse Music
Why, cello there Mickey!
Categories
Animals Art: Watercolor Disney

Gnomeo & Juliet 5

Well, here is the last of my 2002 audition pieces to work on Disney’s Gnomeo & Juliet (opening on February 11). Not having seen it myself, I can’t vouch for its content. With all the years it has been in development, one would hope that it is every bit as fun as they are leading you to believe with the advertising. After all, it MUST be good because it had 9 writers – 10 if you count William Shakespeare. (cough cough)

I am glad that it is completely animated though. Early on there was talk of having the gnomes be realistic and set in a live-action world. If they had gone that route, kids would likely run crying in fear of any actual garden gnomes they would encounter in the future. I might even have reacted that way.

At any rate, here is my final submission for your perusal. It’s a watercolored piece inspired by the first drawing I posted on Monday. I expanded that idea of the “bent over” lawn ornaments to epic proportions by making a Braveheart gag out of it.

Gnomeo & Juliet
Nothing puts a cold fear into the hearts of the opposition like teddy bear underwear.

Thanks for checking out my Gnomeo & Juliet inspired art this week. While these proposed pieces didn’t land me a job on the film back then, they were fun to come up with. And I’ve managed to work on a few fun things since then in the world of animation.

Categories
Art: Watercolor Character Designs Development Art Disney Illustrations

Gnomeo & Juliet 4

When I lived in Greenville, South Carolina back in the mid-1990s, this one house near downtown was just COVERED in lawn ornaments. In particular, they had soooo many whirly-gig type devices that made their whole property look as though it was in constant motion. You know what I mean, right? They had anything that had a moving part when the wind blew. That was in my mind when I drew this next piece for submission to the Gnomeo & Juliet team back in 2002.

I thought of a wooden duck that had propellers for wings like you see on those whirly-gigs. If the Montagues and Capulets were in full blown fighting mode, why not have an air force of gnomes riding on the backs of these devices? If the wind was low, they could attempt to keep themselves afloat by blowing on the propellers!

Gnomeo & Juliet

Come back again tomorrow for a final look at my 2002 Gnomeo & Juliet development art submissions!

Categories
Animals Art: Photoshop Character Designs Development Art Disney Illustrations

Gnomeo & Juliet 3

For those of you just joining the blog this week, I have been showing you some art each day that I submitted to Disney back in 2002 in an attempt to get on Gnomeo & Juliet as a development artist. I had been working for the Feature Animation division for five years at that point as an in-house instructor of creative computer programs. My background had been as a children’s book illustrator prior to working for them, so I was itchy to get involved once again in creating art.

Today I share with you TWO gag pieces that were more verbal in nature than the others. The first was a quickie just to get out a little Fantasia joke…

Gnomeo & Juliet
Sometimes lawns have ceramic mushrooms decorating them as well. Fantasia’s Hop-Low character makes a cameo in this “Made In China” joke.

….and the second piece plays on the fact that these gnomes are also breakable with Grandpa referencing some dog attack from his past…

Gnomeo & Juliet
Talk about a trick knee!

Just in case you can’t read it, the girl is saying, “Mommy! Mommy! We can hear the ocean in Grandpa’s knee!” Grandpa adds, “That there is from the Great Canine Calamity of ’39.”

Come back again tomorrow to see another Gnomeo piece!

Categories
Art: Photoshop Cartoons Character Designs Development Art Disney

Gnomeo & Juliet 2

I mentioned yesterday that the upcoming Disney release of Gnomeo & Juliet was ultimately created up in Canada and was NOT the product of Disney Feature Animation down here in Burbank, CA. I was never privy to the big business branches of the studio, nor was I really all that interested in those decisions. I was just the little guy trying to scratch my name in the tree trunk.

I would imagine that part of the reason Gnomeo moved out of house was due in part to the fact that it was being developed right at the time that the studio was laying off half of its workers that was documented so well in the film Dream On Silly Dreamer. That’s about the time I was laid off, too. Not long after, Disney’s corporate management was having its own disagreements with Pixar, and had started to develop a version of Toy Story 3 apart from Pixar in the building where they had been developing Gnomeo. Those were dark days indeed.

In honor of those dark days, here’s a bleak piece I submitted back then. Somehow the thought that the deep feelings a ceramic gnome would have in losing a dear friend (that just so happened to be a ceramic lawn deer) made me laugh. Twisted? Perhaps.

Gnomeo & Juliet
Whether you are on the side of the Montagues or Capulets, you can’t help but shed a tear at the agony of this scene.

Come back again tomorrow to see TWO more Gnomeo inspired gag drawings from my archives!

Categories
Animals Art: Inking Art: Photoshop Character Designs Development Art Disney Illustrations