tell-tale heart 1

it has been a while since I last posted a recreated background. besides that I realized I had never shown any artwork from THE TELL-TALE HEART. this animated short based on the EDGAR ALLAN POE short story was produced in 1953 by UPA and directed by TED PARMELEE, narrated by JAMES MASON. PAUL JULIAN, master designer and painter, was responsible for all the backgrounds in this film, as well as the color-styling. the film was nominated for an academy award but lost to disney’s TOOT, WHISTLE, PLUNK AND BOOM, nevertheless it is a true masterpiece. below now the first recreated pan from the film.

© UPA

sketchbook published

my publisher informed me today that my SKETCHBOOK is printed and will be on the shelves within the next 4 weeks, as well available through AMAZON.

below is the press-release with all the information like ISBN-number, pages and content for everybody who is interested in it.

romeo v.tabuena

accidentally I found out about this filipino painter, ROMEO V.TABUENA. for me his paintings represent the best the philippines, the life of the simple people in the countryside, the feeling of nature there with carabaos and houses on stilts. he was born in 1921 in iloilo city and learned his craft in new york and paris. for the past two decades he resides in mexico with his norwegian wife, his paintings are very much in demand from collectors and museums.

© romeo v.tabuena

here we go…

happy holidays

1984 – olympic games

1984. olympic games in los angeles. the organisers had come up with the idea for an ANIMATION OLYMPIC ARTS FESTIVAL during the games. PETER SCHNEIDER, later head of disney feature animation, was in the organising committee. all the participants knew about the festival one year in advance. time enough to come up with an animated short – I did my personal 5 min version of the whole olympic rubbish.
to understand my critical view you have to go back to that time. it was in the middle of the cold war between russia and the US ( another one, not the one from these days…). in germany we were sitting on american nuclear warheads, there were big protests. we felt not safe at all. it was not a very pleasant time, and in the middle of all that there were supposed to be happy running, jumping and playing games between the ‘friendly’ nations?
the festival guys as well as the L.A.press didn’t like my version very much, they called it ‘a grim version of an angry german’ – ach ja…

ARD 1 – 1984

talking about the ‘good old days’ a short time ago I realized it is already 30 years ago that I worked on the the ARD 1 ( the german 1.tv-station ) logo-design. cg in those days was nearly unknown in germany. during my frequent visits in L.A. I had seen a lot of the development in computer generated images and I was fascinated by it ( that should change over the years! ). so I introduced the idea of a cg-logo to the german television guys and the ARD 1 logo became the first cg-logo in germany, and probably the first one produced at such high costs. below are my early designs, a rough story board and some very precise keyframes for the production at CRANSTON CSURI in columbus.

© ARD 1

corny cole

unfortunately I never met CORNY COLE, I know though some of his work, especially what he did for RAGGEDY ANN AND ANDY. RICHARD WILLIAMS worked very often with CORNY, he described to me his crazy style, doing most of his sketches with a simple ballpoint pen and never using any reference. DICK described him as a genius. the illustrations below might have been for a personal project, CORNY had in mind, or it was one of those collaborations with DICK WILLIAMS, anyway, DICK gave me these xeroxes about 30 years ago.

© corny cole

wilhelm m.busch 37

© wilhelm m.busch

edouard-leon cortes 2

© edouard-leon cortes

life drawing 1014

sketchbook update

my sketchbook is finished and will be available very soon.

edouard-leon cortes 1

over the past years I have posted several articles about the PAINTERS OF PARIS, LUIGI LOIR ( 1845 – 1916 ), JEAN BERAUD ( 1849 – 1936 ), EUGENE GALIEN-LALOUE ( 1854 – 1941 ), EDOUARD-LEON CORTES ( 1882 – 1969 ) and ANTOINE BLANCHARD, ( 1910 – 1988 ), and the genre PARISIANISM. here now is the first part of a series about EDOUARD-LEON CORTES, and his beautiful paris city views.

© edouard-leon cortes

wilhelm m.busch 36

the illustrations below are from the 1955 published novel TANZPAUSE (dance break), written by VICKY BAUM and illustrated by WILHELM M.BUSCH. I am posting all 12 illustrations in a bigger size, so you can see the incredible quality of BUSCH’s artworks, all done in pencil. he creates such an atmosphere in these simple line drawings, captures moments in a way a photograph could never do. BUSCH never used any photographic reference, but he usually studied and sketched situations of his daily life, especially in the circus or during his lectures at the art academy. when you take a closer look, you can see the rough basic composition lines. the final drawing looks so effortless written down. whenever I look at his work I am speechless and in awe.

© wilhelm m.busch / bertelsmann verlag

mulan findings 9

the first pen+ink style sketches for disney’s MULAN and their color versions.

© disney enterprises, inc.

madeline

the first children book MADELINE was published in 1939, 8 more followed. the author and illustrator was LUDWIG BEMELMANS, 1898 – 1962, born in austria and emigrated to the united states in 1914. the illustrations in the first book are very simple, concentrating on the characters, there is barely any major background. in the few pieces where BEMELMANS added some more detail to establish where the story takes place you can see that he was obviously inspired by the french painter RAOUL DUFY, 1877 – 1953.

in 1952 UPA produced an animated version of the first book, directed by BOBE CANNON, layout design ART HEINEMAN and color by JULES ENGEL. the animation was done by BILL MELENDEZ and FRANK SMITH. the design team was facing the problem to develop a background style since there was not enough reference in the books. they went back to RAUL DUFY, and came up with backgrounds inspired by his art. below you can see 2 recreated longer pans from the short.

© ludwig bemelmans / UPA / raul dufy

sunset

rooty toot toot

after a long time I recreated some more backgrounds, from the 1951 UPA short – ROOTY TOOT TOOT. directed by JOHN HUBLEY the main animators were GRIM NATWICK and ART BABBITT. you might have guessed it, the amazing styled layouts and backgrounds were created by PAUL JULIAN. the film was voted in 1994 one of the best ’50 greatest cartoons’.

© UPA

stage

beauty and the beast 1989

around this time of the year, 25 years ago, a small team of artists from california and europe started to work on their version of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. you can read more about the story behind the scenes in several of my earlier posts ( here, here, here ) there was DON HAHN, the producer. ANDREAS DEJA and GLEN KEANE from animation, TOM SITO story, JEAN GILMORE visual development, DEREK GOGOL from london for production design, MICHAEL DUDOC DE WITT from london as well for storyboard, and me for storyboard, color and design, working in the animation studio of JILL and DICK PURDUM, in london. for a short time veterans MEL SHAW and WALT STANCHFIELD joined the team.

glen keane’s board

michael dudok de witt

derek gogol’s castle version with my colr additions

glen keane

me

glen’s board

the team discussing storyboards

mel shaw and his pastel paintings

mel shaw

glen’s early beast version

part of glen’s boards

derek’s castle

glen’s board

derek gogol and jean gilmore

opening sequence by dick purdum

tom sito pitching

andreas deja’s character design and my color

glen’s action scenes

glen’s beauty and the beast

© disney enterprises, inc