Workshop and lecture at Sam Houston State University

Wednesday April 6, 2016...

Willie Williams, Assistant Professor of Animation at Sam Houston State University located in Huntsville TX and I met a few years ago at Creative Talent Network.
CTN for short, is an international gathering of animators, illustrators, film makers, creatives etc.held in Burbank, CA each year.
 At our first meeting a few years ago Prof. Williams extended an invitation for me to visit his students at SHSU. Last week it finally happened.

This photo taken right before the animation students enter the classroom.

(Prof. Williams, second from left and Prof. Melissa Glasscock, flanked by student film crew.)



Rapt attention in the crowded room...

as I gave a drawing demonstration.

 The students and I pose after the demo and Q&A session.

I had the opportunity to sign a few books, VHS and CD covers, sketchbooks, scraps of paper and even a sun visor...

critiqued a sketchbook or two...

 passed on some helpful advice...

and encouraged a student who just the day before wanted to call it quits. Now she feels 'I can do this'.



Later that evening...
a lecture and power point presentation to an almost full auditorium of animation, art students, faculty and public. To my surprise many non art majors attended and commented I spoke meaningful words to them too.

There is always time to sign for those kind enough to hear what I have to say and wait in line for a signature. 

Thursday April 7th...

On the way to the airport we stopped off for lunch at the #1 Bar-B-Que restaurant in Houston, Corkscrew.

We got there early (10 am) first to place our order. The first 26 or so get a number, the rest form a line. All food prepared fresh that day, or should I say the morning before and as the sign says "11am to sold out".
One bite of brisket, sausage, ribs, beans or cobbler and you'll know why it is the best BBQ I've ever tasted.







Kamm, the manager of Corkscrew took this picture for us...

( l to r Professors Glasscock, Williams, teacher Shelby Tedder and myself.)

and I drew his.

(me with Kamm, who the owner Nicole Buckman calls the "best manager ever".)

Meeting at the George Bush Airport...

Nate 'Hawk' Hawkins met me at the airport. Hawk and I played football at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas back in the 70's. He was on the first football team UNLV fielded in 1968.
He started as a receiver all four years and holds or held records for most yards receiving(173) in a game, touchdown passes caught (2) in a game and longest pass play (82 yds.) in a game.
He was one of the few football players to graduate. His determination, work ethic and friendship gave me the incentive to graduate the next year.

Nate was drafted by the Pittsburgh Steelers and retired from the Houston Oilers after a few seasons. He is originally from the Houston TX area and resides in Pearland TX, supervising a crew that unload cargo ships that pull into the Houston Harbor.
We talk at least once a year as we were born on the same day and call to wish each other a 'happy birthday'. We hadn't seen each since Sept.19, 1997 in Las Vegas for a tribute to Bill Ireland, first coach and 'Father of UNLV Football'.
This was truly a special occasion for both of us.

(me and the Hawk)

Until next time...

Back to Beauty...

Fantasia completed...
 My next assignment was a revisit to Beauty and the Beast... Advertised as a  'Special  Platinum Edition featuring an all-new musical sequence'.

It was an 'All- new' musical number to the public, but for the crew who worked on the original feature, this musical number had been around from the beginning. This sequence had been story boarded but not taken to the animation stage.

Lesson #1... 

One of the most important things I lerned at Disney over the years is the importance of story telling. How to convey a story or get over a story arch is crucial to the success of any entertainment piece.
As the story of B&B played out throughout production, it became apparent that the musical sequence 'Human Again'  was not a crucial part of the story and cutting it would save time and money.

There was a time at the studio when an animated feature was released and after it had played its time in the theaters, it was back in the 'can' for five years or so then re-released to an audience who were not even born for the pictures' premier.

Today it is only months after a theater run before a feature is made available as a 'two disk set on blue-ray' or available digitally to any number of devices.

But, back then the studio wanted to appeal to people who already owned a copy of Beauty and the Beast...What could be done to get the public to buy it again? Give it a catchy name (Encore Edition) and insert the musical number (though shortened from the original) Human Again. Bring in writers, both story and song to fine tune and add to its success....Bingo!

The studio assembled as many of the original animators as possible.

For me this assignment proved to be challenging but fun.

I originally animated Gaston as part of lead animator and Disney Legend Andreas Deja's crew.

The Human Again sequence required more versatility on my part as there were new characters (mop, broom, pillow, hair pin, perfume bottle, garden tools and plants) and a few old (Lumier, Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts, footstool) that I had not animated before.

As always I started out with thumbnails...

The footstool enters the scene between the suits of armor and sniffs his way to the chair...

I played the situation as the cushion on the chair reacts like a cat that has awakened face to face with a canine.

More thumbnails to 'flesh out' the action...

These are the thumbnail drawings I showed the directors to get approval to take the next step which would be rough animation.

This was a fun scene panning in to the footstool with a load of linen on his back and a chair scurrying by also holding linen. The initial idea was to have the chair walk around the still footstool...

I did not want to loose the silhouette value of either character, so I had the chair jump over the footstool. The idea came to me to have a piece of linen get caught on a leg, adding a little bit more entertainment without detracting from the main point of the scene which was to introduce the audience to the activity of the household objects cleaning house.




The (above) smaller thumbnails for me and the larger ones (below) to show the directors.

Small rough thumbnails to map out a path of action as the footstool/dog chases the throw pillow/cat across a freshly mopped floor.

Again small thumbnails with the camera angle as the mops and brooms chase the footstool and pillow out the door...

This action starts off the scene as a broom swats the footstool's behind...

And these 'thumbs' help me work out the animation of the mops and brooms as they chase the culprits that messed up their floor.

More inanimate objects come to life as the powder puff  joins the dance with a hair pin, perfume bottle and others...

Towards the end of the sequence the inside and outside objects come together from both sides

 to form a line in front of the fountain as they sing the finale of Human Again.

Again thumbnails to the rescue as I work out a multi-character scene.

Sequence completed...

 communication from management confirming it's time to celebrate.

until next time...

Steamboat School...

The road to Steamboat School...

My last assignment before retirement from Disney Publications Worldwide was to illustrate the story "Steamboat School."

Published in New York, Steamboat School is an imprint of Disney Hyperion.

Beautifully written by award winning author, Deborah Hopkinson, this book is based on the true events of Reverend John Berry Meachum (1789-1854).  Born a slave, he bought his freedom and that of his wife, relatives and others.  An educator, he taught school until a law was enacted forbidding African-Americans to be educated in the state of Missouri.


It was my great honor to be able to illustrate this story.

Here's a sneak peak at the Cover!

Steamboat School...

"Sometime courage is an ordinary boy."

                                                 Deborah Hopkinson author, Steamboat School

Meachum built a steamboat and moored it in the Mississippi River in order to continue teaching his students. The river, being federal property was not subject to state laws and no laws were broken.

Deborah and I teamed together to bring this much needed piece of history to life.

Steamboat School will be in print and available summer 2016.

Presently it can be pre-ordered on Amazon here:  Steamboat School

And already it is garnering attention!

Steamboat School has been named a Junior Library Guild selection for 2016.

What does it mean to be a Junior Library Guild (JLG) selection?

One million+ manuscripts are submitted to publishers each year -
     of these:
195,000 manuscripts are published.
     of these:
3,000 +  submissions to JLG
     of these:
756 are named a JLG selection
     of these:
95%+ go on to receive awards or favorable reviews

(information from the JLG website based on U.S. statistics)

I don't know what the future holds for Steamboat School, but it is headed in the right direction.

until next time...

Book and Magazine Illustration...

 Illustration...
  I have been aware of my drawing talent for sixty one of the 65 years of my sojourn on planet earth. Yet, my early years posed a mystery as to how I was going to parlay this talent into a career. In my youth I painted signs and life sized posters, taught myself how to use an airbrush and even did custom car painting (pearl, lace, candy apple etc.) among other artistic endeavors. Not really looking for a means of employment, I just loved the creativity of it all.

 After high school and into junior college, more serious thought was given to how my future was going to unfold artistically.  Drafting and technical illustration was a part of my curriculum and added serious thought toward a career path. The information gained through these classes would prove valuable in my understanding of layout in animation.

 Medical Illustration also seemed interesting as a career option.  However, a course in kinesiology proved too technical for me. Yet the experience of that class would also prove valuable later on in my journey in animation as it helped in my understanding of action analysis.

 An athletic scholarship to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas broadened my horizons not only athletically but artistically. I was exposed to more drawing and painting, stretching my own canvas, ceramics, modeling and photography. I finally settled in on concentrating on becoming a commercial artist.

 At every step of my art journey, from elementary, junior high, high school, college and now university, my talent in art had been and continued to be recognized. I realized early on that my competition was not my fellow students in the class room but the people who were already making a living at what I wanted to do.

 A fair amount of my time was spent in the magazine section of  the UNLV library looking at the illustrations. Great illustrators of the 60's-70's era caught my eye. Robert Riger, Norman Rockwell, LeRoy Neiman, Bob Peak, Bernie Fuchs to name a few.

 Gag cartoons in the Saturday Evening Post and New Yorker laid the ground work for how best to put over a gag in animation.  Playboy magazine too played a part. Once you get by the centerfold, they published some entertaining 'gag cartoons'. The staging and drawing ability of Dedini, Roth, Wilson and others would tribute to my story telling ability in animation.

 Leonardo daVinci, Michelangelo, Picasso, Henry.O.Tanner, Charles White, Wallace Tripp, Heinrich Kley and others filled my cup to overflowing with visual stimuli.

After graduation I headed home to Southern California. There were no jobs for a  commercial artists in CA, especially a novice seeking his first job. Chicago and New York, where there is a lot of publishing,  would have been the ideal places to go but I had a wife two toddlers to think about.
So, I took employment as a draftsman. That job lasted exactly one week. I had multiple job applications out and Honeywell Inc. called and offered me a position in their technical illustration department. Friday  I said "good bye" to drafting and Monday "hello" to technical illustration.  I thought Technical illustration would be a step closer to my goals.

The reality was that in the department of about six of us, one guy, Pat Person by name, got to do all the neat stuff. Exploded views, art work etc. The rest of us did block diagrams and flow charts. I did this about a year and a half before I branched out to do something more creative. Earlier blogs go into the details which led me to a thirty eight year career with the Walt Disney Co.

 Around the mid 1980's, while working at Disney Feature Animation, a fellow animator, Ruben Aquino, brought in to work a home work assignment he was working on. Impressed with his work I asked about the class he was taking. Children's Storybook Illustration was the class, offered at night by Art Center College of Design located in Pasadena. I signed up for the next semester of this class.

(My first homework assignment from Children's Storybook Illustration class)

 I took the information gleaned from the class and pursued an interest I had back in my college days, book and magazine illustration. I submitted some samples of my work to publishers. I soon found out there is no easy path to a commercial art career. Fortunately I had a 'day job', so I could afford to be patient.

I got my share of rejection letters:

A sampling below...

After about two years or more of rejection letters I got my first assignment.

(My first freelance assignment-pen and ink/airbrush)

Over the years I got other assignments. Below is a sampling of some of the projects I worked on...

(pen and ink/watercolor/airbrush)

                                                                                          

(pen and ink/watercolor)

(pen and ink/watercolor)

(pen and ink/watercolor.)

(pen and ink/watercolor)

(pen and ink)

Over the years, animation, other priorities and projects took me down other paths.
Almost 40 years in a different direction, my goal to illustrate books and magazines seems to be back on course.

more to come...