Sunday, January 18, 2009

The Art of Warner Bros. Cartoons

I just got back from the "Art of Warner Bros. Cartoons" exhibit at the Crocker Art Museum. It was a brilliant exhibit, featuring everything from model sheets to background paintings, all of which was original (the oldest work I saw was a . Some featured works included model sheets for "Feed the Kitty" and concept paintings for "What's Opera, Doc?" You can imagine how much I geeked out upon reaching some of Chuck Jones' sketches; it's always fascinating to look at drawings up close and try to find out where the artist started and how he or she built up the drawing from there. As much as I'd love to have pictures to post, photography was (naturally) not allowed inside the museum.

Something I was surprised by was how often my parents would point out cartoons and characters they remembered from their childhood; just goes to show the memories that surround the cartoons are probably the greatest testaments to the craft of the Warner Bros. artists.



Fans of Monsters, Inc. will recognize this scenario.

P.S. Sammy Jo says "hi."

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Deadlines

This is the weekend I finish animation on our group project in K9 Studios, "The Three Little Pigs." The other guys have really shelled out material, and Clayton especially has done some great work, so I can only hope my stuff will be up to par.

I'm heading up the Big Bad Wolf. I thought it might be a fun idea to reference Disney's 1932 version, but our story's so wildly different it'd be difficult to splice them in any way.

But I'll see if there's a way we can subliminally sneak in "Who's afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?" somehow. =P


Anyhow, here's an early concept sketch. It's since been streamlined quite a bit, but it gives the basic idea.