Master Study - Milt Kahl

This was a fun little project I was given my mentor Mario Menjivar. It isn't uncommon for traditional painters and apprentices to create master studies in order to learn from those who were at the top of their craft, so I'm not sure why it never crossed my mind to do the same with animation before now! This is a study of a scene animated by Milt Kahl in the classic Disney feature "The Rescuers". I learnt so much just from studying and recreating the four second sequence. It's truly inspiring to see how Kahl plays with overlapping animation to make Medusa (who by the way is absolutely hilarious) completely real. 

LIFE DRAWINGS

A series of sketches completed at Animation Mentor showing various emotions and concepts

“STRENGTH”

“BALANCE”

“CONCERN”

“DEVASTATION”

“EXCITEMENT”

MODEL SHEET - "FRENCH WAITER"

MODEL SHEET - "YOUNG WOMAN"

CONCEPT ART - AN ICE CUBE

A fun little character, and the star of my upcoming thesis short film. Playing around with this little guy was too much fun! With such a limited design, figuring out how to contort him into readable poses was a rather entertaining challenge.

CONCEPT ART - FLAME

One more from the thesis train! The girl that could make a frozen heart (literally) melt.

"amore" BY JOE SULSENTI - LAYOUT DESIGN

During the past month, I have been working as the lead layout artist on a short film being directed by my friend, Joe Sulsenti. Having just made the big jump to Computer animation, I can't describe how wonderful it felt to pick up a brush in Photoshop once more. As always, I find the greatest experience to come from the learning process - and this was no exception.  Below is the final linework of some of the layouts to be used in the film, and a sneak peek at one of the pieces in the colouring stage!