Dog days of summer

As the dog days of summer draw to an end here is a drawn dog.

Smook

Now that he's got it up and running I must direct you to check out good friend Mike Smukavic's Red Dot Blog. Mike is a storyboard artist of immense talent and character. You can also view samples of his work by following the link to his portfolio on his blog.

Thanks alot Red Dot.


RED DOT BLOG

John Nevarez

Ooooooo, you must check out John Nevarez's blog. Absolutely lovely sketches and designs that you can sprinkle on your Corn Flakes cause they're so darn sweet.

Go there.... NOW!


LINK

It's a bird, It's a plane, It's Siepermann

The greatly talented Harald Siepermann now has a blog which must be bookmarked.

Check him out HERE

Thanks to Cartoonbrew for the link.

Matt Jones

Another blog from another Uli Meyer artist.
Check out Matt Jones work HERE

Making of Corpse Bride

Great interview with Graham G. Maiden on the making of Corpse Bride.

HERE

Gur-B

Check out Gerben Steenks from London, England. Great character designs. Has worked for many, most notabley Uli Meyer. He has a great blog of his work going and updates quite regularly.

Very Cool

HERE

Saul Bass

Cartoon Brew has posted a great link to the movie titles designed by Saul Bass.
Fantastic stuff! The funny thing is I was just watching the Seven Year Itch on the weekend and was thinking of Saul Bass. How ironic.
Anyhow, Check out the site. You can advance through the credits by clicking on the image.

SAUL BASS

pleasent surprise

I was looking to post an image and link to the nicely drawn Over the Hedge strip by Mike Fry and T.Lewis when I came across these story sketches for the Over the Hedge movie(Dreamworks). Stephen Gordon is the name and he's been around the animation world for some time. So check him out.

HERE


Oh, and here is the link to the comic which is updated daily over at comics.com

HERE

technical difficulties

For some reason I have lost the ability to post links the way I normally do. I'm assuming this is temporary and things will be back to normal shortly.
In the meantime here is the link to the Mars and Beyond post below.
http://www.vintagetips.com/2005/08/illustration-tom-orebs-mars-beyond.html

Mars and Beyond

Check out some great paintings created for Ward Kimballs Mars and Beyond..

New from Uli

It's always a good idea to check some of your favourites in case something new pops up.
Case in point is Uli Meyers site which has a couple of new commercials up. Big Giant Rabbit and Sky Safety.( Which at the time of this posting I was unable to watch). Be sure to look around his site if you haven't done so before. Amazing.

Uli Meyer

Super student animation

Check out this cool short film I found on Cartoon Brew.
Super Tibetan racer. From the same school as those that brought you Le Building.
I love it.

HERE

Woody Woodpecker

Ahhhh Woody...

Apart from Woody Woodpecker and the gang being part of my after school must watch routine, I remember with fondness going to the mall with my mom and being able to watch one of these cartoons in one of those arcade cartoon booths.
I don't know if anyone out there remembers those but for a quater you could sit in one of these booths(similar to photo booths) and watch 16mm prints of Woody, Popeye, or Heckle and Jeckle.
I've looked all over the internet to find an example of these Cartoon Booths but haven't found one yet. So if anyone out there has a link to one please feel free to send it to me.

In the mean time, check out this wonderful site with clips and pics of Woody and his gang. Go to the main Golden Age page and find lots of other shows to enjoy.

HERE

Gene Hazelton

Gene Hazelton died in April of this year and although I don't remember his passing receiving a great deal of attention, here he is summed up in a nutshell by Local 839...

Hazelton took an entry-level job at Disney in 1939, where he animated the goat kids and cherubim in Fantasia and several sequences in Pinocchio. He moved to Warner Bros. after the 1941 strike, where he designed the infamous characters for Bob Clampett's "Coal Black and the Sebben Dwarfs". He worked at MGM on "Tom and Jerry" and with Tex Avery on his shorts, and he designed the "Sinbad the Sailor" sequence in Gene Kelly's Invitation to the Dance. Hazelton designed the animated title for I Love Lucy.

At Hanna-Barbera, Hazelton was credited with designing Pebbles and Bamm Bamm for The Flintstones. In the 1970s he took over writing and drawing the Flintstones and Yogi Bear comic strips. After he retired, he continued to draw Hanna-Barbera gallery art as well as dabbling in teaching.

Rest in peace Gene.

Monday morning rant

Okay. It's time for a little rant. I just saw some footage from Disney's "A day with Wilbur Robinson" and "American Dog" over at Aint it cool news.com
The question I have is this.
Why must everything done in 3D look like it's 3D?
I know it's early and these are preliminary tests, but the fact remains that when they are completed they will have lighting up to wazoo, cast shadows all over the place and the characters will be moving in 360 degrees all over the place. Backgrounds are still too realistic looking for my taste.
Now don't get me wrong. I have nothing against 3D. I work in 3D and love it. But I wonder why no one is taking a run at making things look flat or "stylized".
We once had the opportunity to take a project at our studio (a very flat graphic character) and try a 3D promo with it. The studio was thinking of doing it using Toon Boom( a Flash like program with a sort of 3D camera) but decided to do it in 3D and have it rendered flat to look 2D.
Unfortunately no one involved knew what they wanted. They didn't understand what the 2D look really was.
The result... Shadows everywhere, gradients everywhere, 360 degree camera moves everywhere, and animation that moved too much. Throw in a totaly horrible script and you've got a total waste of money.
You know someone, somewhere is going to do it and do it right. And when they do they are going to score big time.
One of my favourite shows that came close was Olive the Other Reindeer by Helix dna studios.
It's on every Christmas and is worth a look. There's also and interesting review of some test footage of "Rapunzel Unbraided" over at Aint it cool news, which counds promising.
In closing let me just say once again I am by no means against 3D, but, can we just try something a little different and utilize this immense program for something a little more visually creative?

Marionettes

Check out this site created by Scott Radke who also creates wicked looking marionettes and other things. HERE

Curious

Check out this Dolby Digital trailer with Curious George. I believe it was created by Project Firefly in Florida(ex Disney Animators).

LINK