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!

Monica Bellucci

Yeah, I know it's a long time since New Years Eve when I last posted on this blog. Blame it on a lack of creativity on my part, as well as my general feeling of disinterest in that which passes for entertainment in this 21st century thus far. I'm afraid I'm very much out of step with the tastes of modern society, and that's why most of what you'll see here at The Cartoon Cave is dedicated to my nostalgia for a better era.

Still, I have to post something to keep you folks interested in coming back, so here is a brand new caricature I just finished yesterday of that beautiful Italian goddess, model and actress, Monica Bellucci. She's the featured subject this week on Caricaturama Showdown 3000. The initial sketch was done from watching her in the Italian film, Malena, in which she plays the title character, a beautiful yet terribly ill-treated young woman in Sicily during World War II. However, I decided to portray Monica just as herself in more glamourous mode. By the way, as today is also the birthday of my Italian buddy, Cory Crivari, I shall dedicate this caricature of Ms. Bellucci to Cory, as he well appreciates the charms of a lovely woman as do I. Happy Birthday, Cory!

Here too is a montage of clips from the film, Malena:

Happy New Year!

Well, just another quiet New Years Eve for me again this year. Not much to report, but just in case you're wondering, here's how it played out....

I asked my friend Julia if she'd have dinner with me this evening, but she was too busy making a movie so she took a rain check.

Plan B fell by the wayside too, as J-Lo was still miffed at me over what happened on our last night out together. Ouch!

It looked like a night out on the town with Jenna was a sure thing, only she couldn't find anything to wear. Ah, maybe next year...

So, after licking my wounds, I ended up dancing most of the night away with Beyoncé, who showed me a few new moves.

Luckily for me, just as I was resigned to heading back home in time to watch Anderson and Kathy do the countdown on CNN, I ran into that good sport, Lindsay, who invited me along to celebrate her recent discharge from rehab.

So, I guess it was a pretty decent New Years Eve after all. Um, how was yours?

Drawn Animation Still Matters

My good friend and colleague, Mark Mayerson, has written his well reasoned theory on why today's audiences may have forsaken traditional, hand-drawn animation in favour of the ever increasing use of CG. I think he's correct, but only up to a point, as he uses the new French film, The Artist, to make an analogy between the decline of silent film after the introduction of sound with the current decline in popularity of drawn animation. I just finished putting my own thoughts into an impassioned (if longwinded) comment in response to his post. Since I'd been wanting to say something regarding drawn animation vs CG here on my own blog, I figured I'd repost my thoughts here in order to get more mileage out of them. For what it's worth, here's what I said on the matter:

I haven't seen The Artist as yet, although it's top of my list to see. (Actually, it's about the ONLY film that I'm planning to see these days, sad to say). I have to quibble with you on one thing, though. There's no question that it is an "affectation", as you describe, but I'd argue that it was never meant to be anything more than that. It is undoubtedly meant as a loving homage to those simpler times of the silent films, but it is a one-shot novelty, not in any way hoping to bring about a return of the silent, black and white film as a form of popular entertainment. I think that's quite obvious from the fact that it's set in the 1920s, not using the format to tell a contemporary story. Back in 1976, Mel Brooks gave us Silent Movie, which was also a love letter to silent films, though one set deliberately in modern day in order to parody it in the Mel Brooks style of absurdity. But that film too was never intended to usher in a new wave of silent pictures.

That's why I think your analogy to handdrawn animated films may ring a bit false here, Mark, with due respect. Whereas nobody would want to bring back the silent film as an ongoing form of popular entertainment, recognizing its inherent limitations that no longer exist since the advent of sound and colour, those of us who champion drawn animation still believe it will always be a valid form of the art. Also, I don't think that opinion is limited to just those of us who work in animation or related fields of visual art. A lot of people, particularly mothers of young kids, do see the difference between traditional drawn animation and CG and have told me that they do indeed miss the former.

Animation may have started out as a novelty on screen, but once Disney and Fleischer popularized the illusion of moving cartoon drawings as a legitimate form of entertainment, it was recognized as a distinct art form in itself, a completely different experience to that of a live-action film. Even the technological advances in features like Pinocchio, Fantasia and especially Bambi, did not so much blur the line between drawing and live-action, but rather, treated the resulting imagery more like moving paintings, still far removed from live-action cinematography in their graphic visual clarity.

This is why I cringe at what is being done today in the name of "animation", utilizing the computer to replicate everything in live-action: light, shadow, texture, and now, with the introduction of mo-cap, slavishly realistic movement, devoid of creativity and caricature. In short, there really is no such thing as animation anymore, as the industry honchos have decided that the inherent charm of a cartoon drawing seemingly springing to life on the screen is passé, and must never be see again. The rules of photography can be the only goal to aspire to if one is to remain working in Hollywood.

What a sad state our industry has fallen into. Even sadder because nobody working in it has the courage of their convictions to fight back against the madness of it all.


There's more I want to say on this topic, but I need to gather my thoughts together first and grab some visuals to illustrate it. In the meantime, please leave your own thoughts in my comments section.