midnight 17

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style 10.5.3

more stylistic variations, looking at people in ART

regis loisel 6

here is the last part of REGIS LOISEL’S visual development work for disney’s MULAN.

© disney enterprises, inc / regis loisel

recent singapore

on my photo-blog I uploaded some recent pictures from singapore

moebius

8 May 1938 – 10 March 2012

JEAN HENRI GASTON GIRAUD, or as we knew him under his pseudonyms MOEBIUS and GIR, has died today in paris after a long battle with cancer, age 73. besides his creations in the comic strip world – BLUEBERRY, THE MAGAZINE METAL HURLANT, THE AIRTIGHT GARAGE, ARZACH and L’INCAL – moebius worked in live action and animation films – ALIEN, THE FIFTH ELEMENT, TIME MASTERS, LITTLE NEMO and TRON. HAYAO MIYAZAKI and GIRAUD were longtime friends. miyazaki said about moebius’ work – through ARZACH, which dates from 1975 I believe, I only met it in 1980, and it was a big shock. not only for me. all manga authors were shaken by this work. unfortunately when I discovered it, I already had a consolidated style. so I couldn’t use his influence to enrich my drawing. though, even today, I think he has an awesome sense of space. I directed NAUSICAA under MOEBIUS’ influence. –

© moebius

style 10.5.2

some more people in art…

# 299

style development

it is difficult enough to come up with your own character-design, but then on top of that this character needs to live in an environment that is stylistically in the same world. from my own work I am aware of that problem, and I am facing it constantly when my students develop their animated shorts. most of them don’t work systematically researching the art world and collect as much reference as possible. before you start searching for the right images you should know roughly how your film might look like, realistic or more abstract, a phantasy world, for children or adults.
I want to show you how I work with some reference and BG-artwork from my latest project that I produce with my filippino masterclass student KENNY TAI. the story is about a little filippino boy and his caribou friend, and it takes place somewhere in the countryside. after some initial idea sketches I decided to develop a style-mixture of STUART DAVIS and filippino artist MAURO ‘MALANG’ SANTOS. photo reference of poorer settlements in the philippines was no problem since I have several thousand photos shot myself. with STUART DAVIS work I am familiar since my production design work on disney’s shelved WILD LIFE production in 1998. DAVIS, 1892 – 1964, became early a committed ‘modern’ artist and a major exponent of cubism and modernism in the US. I learned about MALANG’S work since I live in the philippines, his beautiful paintings capture the traditional life, the colors and environment in a very unique style.
in the final look I came up with there is probably some more influence, from chinese art ( since MULAN some of my major interests ), MARY BLAIR and GERMAN EXPRESSIONISM. following are some of the reference compiled images and a few steps of the first design I did.

© stuart davis, malang, kenny tai, bilderfabrik

animal farm

the allegorical novel ANIMAL FARM written by GEORGE ORWELL was published in great britain in 1945. the english producer team JOHN HALAS and JOY BATCHELOR acquired the rights in 1951, it took nearly three years to complete the first english animated feature film, theatrical release was on january 7, 1954. the film was first rated R, for an audience not under 18, because of its very political and violent content. some critics wrote – ‘disney turns serious’. the character design is indeed disney-esque, very much in contrast to the cruel story events, the animation was supervised by english top-animator HAROLD WHITAKER. all in all a very interesting film worth seeing. following is some production artwork from the 1954 published book THE ANIMATED FILM, written by ROGER MANVELL.

© halas+batchelor

a lot more edelmann

from the eighties some more illustrations created by one of my favorites, an amazing illustrator, designer, typography and layout artist as well as animation production designer – HEINZ EDELMANN.

© heinz edelmann / WDR / manager magazin

wilhelm m.busch 27

WILHELM M.BUSCH illustrated JIM DODGE’S novel – FUP -, written 1983, in the following year, 1984, for the berlin ULLSTEIN verlag. the story is about a duck, named FUP, who lives on a farm with an old man who believes he is immortal due to the homemade whiskey ( he got the recipe from a dying indian ) he drinks. busch created very sketchy beautiful composed pen+ink drawings, giving you the feeling of the old man’s small world seen through a wideangle lens.

© wilhelm m.busch / ullstein verlag