Character Design

[youtube_sc url="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9USEtUDgydw" title="Who%20really%20created%20He-Man?"] As a freelance toy designer this looks fascinating to me. It's a trailer for Toy Masters, an upcoming documentary about a long-running dispute over who should get the credit for creating He-Man and the whole Masters Of The Universe juggernaut. It's clearly a low-budget effort but judging from the trailer there will be a good mixture of conflict,...

Carter Goodrich is an amazing illustrator and a truly brilliant character designer. He's worked on such animated films as Finding Nemo, Despicable Me, Open Season. The Prince of Egypt, and Ratatouille. Up until now he was one of the few remaining artists on the planet without a website. That is no longer the case....

Last year I designed a monkey puppet to join the cast of characters on JellyTelly.com, a multimedia website venture from Focus on the Family and VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer. There's lots of terrific educational video content on the site and several of the characters have also crossed over into the DVD series What's In The Bible? The new JellyTelly site is...

There's a lengthy slide show over at NBCNewYork.com showing aging rock stars "then and now". It's a fascinating study in how the human face ages over time (years of drug use not withstanding). Great reference material for artists. (Note: You may have to view a short ad before getting to the slide show.)...

If you're looking for any last-minute Christmas ideas you might want to browse through my Amazon.com store, Cedric Hohnstadt Recommends. It's a collection of books, DVDs, and other resources related to art, animation, and freelancing. Each item is something I have personally owned, used, and found to be especially helpful and/or inspirational. Full disclosure: If you order any of the items...

This is long overdue but now that work has slowed down a bit I can finally get back to regular blogging. Last month I attended the 2nd Annual CTN Animation Expo in Burbank. Once again it was a smashing success. Hundreds of animation artists converged in the Burbank Marriott to immerse themselves in everything animation. There were dozens of workshops and...