The passing of legendary Disney animator Ollie Johnston has stirred a lot of emotion, memories, and discussion among animators and animation fans. In that spirit fellow Minnesotan Robbie Halvorson sent me a link to some of Ollie's notes on animation. The notes came from Disney animator G. Scott Owen Pixar's John Lasseter, who writes: When I was an animator at the...
This past Saturday morning NBC aired another episode of 3-2-1 Penguins! which I had the pleasure of working on. There were only two characters who needed to be designed, Admiral Sowmaster and his assistant, Cash. Both were to be pig-like aliens. Here's an early rough concept. The Admiral is on the left. After turning in the first concept I received some very...
Animation legend Ollie Johnston, the last surviving member of Walt Disney's famous "Nine Old Men", passed away yesterday (April 14, 2008). He was 95. Johnston was a phenomenal artist and widely regarded as one of the world's greatest animators. In 1935 he was hired to work at the Disney studio alongside his pal Frank Thomas. They rose to become two of...
The mascot contest is over. Everyone who correctly identified all twelve products was eligible for the final drawing. I put all the names into a baseball cap and my one-year-old daughter drew the winner (with a little help from Mommy). Congratulations to Robert Miller for winning. He will receive a free copy of the new book Hi-Fi Color For Comics: Digital...
Kelly McNutt, a talented Minneapolis animator whom I mentioned in yesterday's post, has been working with Michael Jantze (creator of the comic strip The Norm) on some fun new animated shorts. The shorts are now viewable on the new Jantze Studios YouTube site: At Your Service is a cartoon created for a client in the hotel/hospitality industry. If only every hotel...
I'm super busy finishing up a client project, so today I'll just post a few miscellaneous links: • Calling Minnesota Animators. My friend Kelly McNutt is a very talented artist and animator in his own right. Check out his blog and website. He's currently looking for some Minnesota animation artists to help him out with a client project. • Disney's Announces Upcoming...
