Happy Birthday, Donald Duck!

I thought I'd acknowledge Donald Duck's 78th anniversary by posting some of the Disney merchandise that I had a hand in helping to create a few years back. Though most of my Disney work was in the form of traditional cartoon illustration, there were also many figural projects that required a series of rotational drawings in order to help the sculptor visualize it in three dimensions before going to work on it.

MMC Donald Duck Rotations

This piece was to celebrate The Mickey Mouse Club TV show from the 1950s, and I did rotations for both this Donald with the gong and a Mickey figure in bandleader costume, as the two were featured in the opening titles of that show. 

Mickey Mouse Club Donald Duck Figurine

I was quite happy with the way this figurine turned out, and the pic above was taken of the actual piece that I'd bought at The Disney Store at the time it was made available for purchase. I only wish I'd bought the one of Mickey as well!

Snow Globes Rotations

This was a commemorative snow globe that was created for the 65th Anniversary of Donald Duck in 1999, called "Donald Duck - 65 Feisty Years". I remember doing a lot of art for that merchandising programme featuring the duck in his various incarnations through the years.

Donald Duck Snow Globes Figurine

I must admit I was a bit disappointed in the sculpture of the large Donald Duck figure in the armchair, as I felt the face wasn't quite right and overall he looked a bit thick and lumpy. Still, it was likely due to the constraints of the mould-making process.

Three Caballeros Rotations

This was a fun project to work on, as the original concepts for these Big Figurines of The Three Caballeros were by the exceptionally talented Disney artists, Kevin Kidney and Jody Daily, and their poses were so expressive to translate into dimensional drawings.

Three Caballeros Big Figurines

Here's a pic of the finished sculpted figurines that I've borrowed from Kevin's site. As you can see, the poses were modified a bit from my drawings - Panchito's hands not on his hips with eyes straight ahead, and José's beak is closed, but otherwise are quite faithful to the way I'd drawn the rotations.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed seeing the process behind creating these sculpted figurines of Donald Duck. I have other examples of my rotation drawings of various Disney characters that I'll continue to post from time to time.

Happy Birthday, Dino!

Yes, June 7th marks the 95th birthday of Dean Martin, one of the favourite performers here at The Cartoon Cave. Now that Time-Life are releasing some of The Dean Martin Variety Show on DVD sets, I've been itching to do another caricature of ol' Dino. Though the first two DVD sets have been a bit disappointing for the fans, as they're cut down and missing some of the music numbers due to licensing hassles, I gather that the 3rd set just released finally features complete shows. I sure hope that Time-Life now continue with this approach to keep us all happy.

The Dean Martin Variety Show was a great example of the long popular variety show format that has sadly been missing from network TV for too many years now. I personally feel that the variety show was an integral part of the TV schedule, as it brought together top entertainers from TV, movies, and the music business. The benefit was that it kept all popular entertainers of that era very much in the public eye, creating a shared culture for all viewers to enjoy together. We really don't have that today, what with the severe fragmentation of the television audience due to the "500 Channel Universe", where no single show gets much of a market share. Frankly, I was a lot happier back when there were no more than about two dozen TV channels and just the three big U.S. networks creating shows that were genuinely entertaining. Not so anymore, in my opinion.

While most of the variety shows were rehearsed laboriously every week until the day they were taped in front of a live audience, on Dean's show only the guests rehearsed all week. Dean's contract stipulated that he didn't have to show up until taping day if he didn't want to, as Dean liked to keep his image real loose, even stumbling over his reading of the cue cards to add to the comic effect and his on-screen image of being a bit tipsy with the booze. It was an individual approach that worked so well for Dean, as he knew that his natural charm would suffer if he had to adhere to a tightly scripted format.

It also helped when he had just the right chemistry with his guests, as I think is evident here in this clip alongside cute and adorable Goldie Hawn, who was then one of the stars on the very popular comedy review, Laugh-In:

Blonde Beach Bunny

Yes, it's been a long time since I last posted something. Anyway, here's something I've done as a result of playing with Photoshop CS5. Admittedly, I'm not likely to ever be a "digital painter" in the truest sense, as I find that my efforts to paint without benefit of a containing outline just don't seem to look very good. While it's frustrating to try and achieve the fully rendered approach that others do so well, I suspect that I'd never be totally happy with it even if I could do one to my satisfaction. I am a cartoonist who happens to love the power and graphic boldness of a line drawing, so I'm always going to prefer working like that.

It's for this very reason, actually, that I'll always prefer traditional hand drawn animation to CG, as I still believe that you can make a bolder visual statement through outline describing the illusion of solid form than you can with the fully rendered CG approach. While it's true that I'm adding in all the highlights and shadows in my drawing similar to the look of CG, I find that I really need that outline to hold it all together and make it pop. Anyway, I'll continue to experiment with CS5, since it does seem to give a huge improvement in the way the brush tool handles a controlled line compared to what I was achieving with CS3.

Sheridan College Open House 2012

On Saturday, April 28 2012, I once again participated in Sheridan College's Open House, drawing caricatures of the visitors to the event to help raise money for the Animation program, in which I teach 2nd Year Character Design. Here's most of the ones I drew that day:

Sheridan Animation Industry Day 2012

On Thursday, April 26th, Sheridan College held its annual Industry Day in support of the BAA Animation program, in which I am the instructor for 2nd Year Character Design. Here are pics of some of the 4th Year students who are graduating this year, photographed at the work stations that were set up in Sheridan's computer commons to showcase their films and artwork for the benefit of the industry reps who had just watched the 2 hour screening of their short films:

Ada Bratic ("Foxed") and Kirsten Whiteley ("Spectra").

Brad McLeod ("Doggy Dilemma") and Natalia Shevcun ("Breakfast Time").

Eva Zhou ("Yeti") and Darryl Kee ("Chewy!"). In the background, Dylan Glynn claws his way into the photo on the right, while my colleague, Mark Mayerson tries to look inconspicuous on the left.

Dean Heezen, creator of the brilliant dance animation in "Sax".

Evee Fex-chriszt, with the furry star of "The Terrible Bandit".

Justin Hartley ponders the mystery behind "Murder on the Docks".

Kathryn Durst with her delightful puppet family in "Doggy See, Doggy Do".

Leigh Anna Frostad ("Origin Story") shows off a sketch of her pet piggy.

Nichole Ter Horst ("Pillow Talk"), yours truly, and Kat Antonic ("Amare").

Crazy rascal, Noam Sussman ("Gum") and Nicole Ter Horst.

Seol-Ah Rim, with images from her film that seems to have no title!

Shen Ramu, with images from "Bygone Bounce".

I don't want to state what films I considered the "best", however, here is a list of the ones that were among my personal favourites, mostly from the standpoint of character/personality animation, which is what I'm always most interested in seeing each year. If you click on the student's name, it will link to their own blog or website where you can see more examples of their artwork:

Sax, by Dean Heezen - A beautifully crafted film designed around dancing to the jazz beat of a saxophone instrumental. Dean has an astounding feel for appealing character design and his animation is very fluid and fun.

The Terrible Bandit, by Evee Fex-chriszt - Evee is a truly brilliant character animator, and her film about a sly raccoon trying to pry a dish full of dogfood away from a sleeping doberman shows off her exceptional drawing talent so well.

Origin Story, by Leigh Anna Frostad - When in my 2nd Year Character Design class, Leigh Anna often cracked me up with assignments that showed off her funny and appealing cartoon style. Her film featuring anthropomorphic depictions of the moon, sun and earth was a lot of fun.

A film that seems to lack a title, by Seol-Ah Rim - Her film about 3 roly-poly hamsters (or mice?) helping a bear to bake a pie features such an appealing and original style that I found absolutely charming. If you click on her name, you can view the film in its entirety on her Tumblr site.

Bygone Bounce, by Shen Ramu - Somehow I had missed seeing this film in its early leica reel stage, so I was very pleasantly surprised to see it for the first time in final form. Shen's parable on life of a little girl bouncing on a trampoline and aging a year or more each time that she bounces up into our view is absolutely delightful. There are some gags that are so sweet and adorable along the way, with really well thought out personality animation. Definitely one of my favourites this year!

There are many others I could mention but I'll stop there, although I do have to give honourable mention to a really funny crowd pleaser, Gum, by the completely wacky Noam Sussman, a highly original talent who has provided us with much entertainment in his four years at Sheridan. It's always rather sad to see our grads leave the school, yet all of the faculty wish them the best as they head off to pursue their careers in the animation industry. We'll miss you all!

Happy Birthday, Jim Garner!

Here's wishing the best to my favourite actor, Jim Garner on his 84th birthday. I've been watching a lot of episodes of The Rockford Files lately, as for me it's the best example of TV as "comfort food". I never get tired of watching the charismatic and extremely likeable Garner portraying private investigator, Jim Rockford, as he somehow always gets the better of his adversaries. This expression was sketched from a typical scene in which somebody is putting the screws to Rockford, but they soon find out that he has the upper hand. In this case, a shady District Attorney who's hired Rockford on a personal case is not happy that Rockford wants no part of it anymore after figuring out that the DA is among the guilty, so he threatens to use his clout to have Rockford's investigator license pulled unless he complies. Rockford then just calmly explains to the DA why he probably would regret that move, as it would mean an appeal in court where he'd have to divulge all he knows about the dubious case the DA had him investigating, the details of which might just reveal the DA's own questionable involvement.

I just love situations like that in the show, as they're pure Jim Garner. Having recently read his autobiography, The Garner Files, it becomes quite evident that Jim never let himself be pushed around by others, no matter how big and important they thought they were. He refused to be bullied by studio mogul, Jack Warner early in his career, and years later after doing The Rockford Files, he successfully took Universal to court when he discovered they'd been illegally withholding millions of dollars of profits he was entitled to. He also would stand up for crew members or fellow performers when they might be bullied on a movie set, always looking out for the underdog. It's that aspect of Jim Garner that I admire so much, as I think we could all learn from his fine example of fighting injustice time and again. I'll admit it - this man has long been my hero, both on and off screen, which is why I like to honour him each year here on my blog. So, Happy Birthday, Jim - I hope you have a wonderful day with your family!

RIP Robert B. Sherman

I read the sad news on one of my favourite sites, Cinemaretro, that Robert B. Sherman has passed away. Robert along with his brother, Richard, were the talented songwriters who wrote much of the music that we all loved from the Disney films and theme park attractions throughout the 60's, 70's and even into the 80's. Since I was a child of the 1960's, Disney films such as The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, and The Aristocats were very much a part of my formative years, as well as their absolute masterpiece, Mary Poppins. Actually, I had just screened my DVD of Mary Poppins over the Christmas holidays, watching it for the first time on my big HDTV, and was awestruck by the sheer craftsmanship that is in abundance at every level in that film. I was a bit teary eyed in fact as I listened to "Feed The Birds", remembering that it was the song that Walt Disney would often request that Bob and Dick play for him in his office when he was in a reflective mood.

The music of the Sherman Brothers is strongly melodic with witty and whimsical lyrics, making everything they wrote memorable and timeless. For me, their songs, combined with the orchestral scores by composer George Bruns, were so much a part of that warm and wonderful era of Disney, and I am grateful to these talented men for the legacy they have left us. Bob, I hope you're now enjoying a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow!