Roger Rabbit Study

My Next Pencil Test Im going to do is of Roger Rabbit. To familiarize myself with the character, I sketched roger's face emotions. Media: Pencil, Colored Pencil, Markers

Thoughts on the end of Hand Drawn Animation

In 1991, production started on the first computer animated feature film ever to be produced, Toy Story. The director of Toy Story, John Lasseter loves animation and is one of the pioneers of this new medium. After Toy Story, animation studios all over the world started to do computer animation, and most of them found success. In 2001, articles around the world started to speculate that hand drawn animation was dead, and no one wants to sit through drawings anymore. This topic is very argumentative, and people have different opinions of why. I have my own theory of why. During the early 2000's, computer animated films were at the top. Hits such as Shrek, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, Shrek 2, The Incredibles, etc have changed the way that we look at animation. Most people think it is because of the technology why these films hit the top, while in reality, computers aren't the reason, it is the story and characters. Now keep that thought, what were the Hand Drawn animated films released at the time? Atlantis, Home on the Range and Sinbad. With the exception of some, aka Lilo and Stitch, most of the hand drawn animated films at the time weren't as good (or even good at all) as the computer animated films at the time. Now why is that?, is it because the pencil sucks?, No! It is because the stories weren't strong, and characters were uninteresting. The general movie goer public started to think that hand drawn was not for them and rather for little kids or no one at all. So they stop seeing them. The companies thought that no one wanted to see the hand drawn films anymore, when in reality it is just they didn't have strong stories to go with the film. In 2005, Pixar and Disney merged into one company, after the replacement of Michael Eisner (who led, during the Disney renaissance) with John Lasseter, Ed Catmull, Bob Iger, and Steve Jobs taking over Disney. One of the first things they wanted to do was to start production on a hand drawn animated film. In 2009, the Princess and the Frog was released while Winnie the Pooh was in development. After the Princess and the Frog released to okay reviews and a descent box office, disney decided that they were done with hand drawn features after Winnie the Pooh. John Lasseter isn't showing any drive to make more hand drawn animated films, so in a way, he kinda let us down. Animation legends such as Glen Keane, Andreas Deja, and James Baxter left the company because there was no more work for them. Computer animation is a wonderful art form, but hand drawn is beautiful, and its sad that it was decided not to be done. Where is hand drawn today?, in some of the shorts before the feature computer animated disney film, really? Were all waiting for Disney or any company to Make the next hand drawn renaissance. One of Walt Disney's most favorable quotes was, "I only hope we don't lose sight at one thing, It was all Started by a mouse", well, these days a project always starts with a computer mouse.

The Evolution of a Character: Salah

When I was getting interested in animation, I always knew that in order to be an animator, you have to also be a character designer, the problem is that I really don't know how to design a character. I can envision the character in my head, but the problem is transferring that thought into a character. I love characters, but creating that design of the look of the character can be quite challenging. Anything in animation takes many many drawings, sketches, paintings, doodles, pastel work, and great ideas. In the middle of last year, I was thinking about story ideas for some animation films that I can develop, and I came up with this great idea for a story. I am working right now on small things such as pencil tests, but once I get good at animation, I will start animating it. It is set in Arabia and needed a strong character to carry the picture. So I start sketching a character known to be Salah. My First sketches of Salah, you can see that I was trying many ideas.

An interesting problem that I had was to try to be as original as possible. It was really hard to step away from other work and do my own thing. In the early 90's a film came out from Walt Disney Animation Studios as we all know as "Aladdin". My favorite animator is Andreas Deja who animated the main villain in the film, Jafar. The design on that character is so good that it was hard to come up with my own ideas.

Some other Ideas for the design

Jafar has so many great stylized details in the design that it was hard to stay away from it

At that time I haven't watched Aladdin in a while so I popped in the dvd, grabbed a sketchbook and started watching. I doodled many expressions that Jafar was expressing in the movie

After the film, I went back into my studio and started drawing

In this particular drawing, the clothes, earring, and hat wasn't original, but the face was getting somewhere Then I drew the same drawing more cleaner and in the style of a model sheet.

I started designing the hat and wardrobe in quick scribbles.

I found the hat design that I wanted and finalized a new drawing

This particular drawing isn't the final design, I am still going to try making it even more creative, but it shows that designing a character is a fun part in the Animation Process.

My Animation Studio

Just some pictures of my work area

Salah Sketches

Some simple sketches of a character I am developing for a possible film. Named Salah

Donald Duck Pencil Test Animation Sneak Peek

Frames 1 and 2 of a pencil test I am currently working on. It will be shot at 24fps.

Donald Duck Doodle sheet

A doodle sheet I did to get ideas for a pencil test Im going to do with Donald Duck to practice the principles of animation.