great Disney links
Posted on August 22, 2010
Filed Under Animation, Character design | Leave a Comment
I was busy collecting some references for my shortfilm today and found some really good Disney links.
Animation Background. As the name implies, you will find a large collection of old classic Disney shorts/features and also more recent backgrounds. It is so cool to finally be able to take a close look at those beautiful watercolours.
http://animationbackgrounds.blogspot.com

The Art of Disney Animation
http://artofdisney.canalblog.com
That one is mainly in french but you will find a lot of artwork from the house of the mouse, among them a larger collection of colour scripts from Toy Story 3 than was had been available in the past.
and 2 more links that have been around for a while but a lot of people don’t know about.
The Pixar blog
http://pixarblog.blogspot.com/
Upcoming Pixar
http://pixarplanet.com/blog/
oops I was about to forget a great resources if you intend to do some research on old Disney short films
The encyclopedia of Disney Animation shorts. A great website if you want to track a Disney director or artist.
http://www.disneyshorts.org/sitemap.html
By the way, does anyone know who was the main character designer on Jungle Book, Sword in the stone, 101 dalmatians, Robin Hood and other features sharing the same angular look? With my colleague Karim we are not able to agree on this. I am aware Milt Kahl reluctantly became character designer but I am pretty sure he was only drawing in that very characteristicstyle. For some reason Ken Anderson keeps coming back to me but I can’t find any information about it. Any idea?
Related post:
Dice Tsutsumi on the Chiustream
Nicolas Marlet workshop!!!
Posted on August 3, 2010
Filed Under Character design | Leave a Comment

Character Design blogpost just announced a new training and workshop with Dreamworks Character Designer Nicolas Marlet, check this out
http://characterdesign.blogspot.com/2010/08/who-wants-to-watch-nicolas-marlet.html
The Art Center
Posted on March 21, 2010
Filed Under Character design, Drawings | Leave a Comment
If you like the Radhowto blog you will love the Art Center. A blog sharing ideas and tips from Artists to Artists. The contributors are no less than some of the best artists in the industry: Florian Satzinger, Rad Sechrist, David Colman, Louie Del Carmen….
http://theartcenter.blogspot.com/
Thanks Annes for the link!
Read more
Drawing reverse engineering
“Paperwalker” Florian Satzinger
abAutorig overview, how to create a rig in 5 minutes
Posted on March 17, 2010
Filed Under Animation, Character design | 10 Comments
It looks like I will never find the time to record a full rigging tutorial so in the meantime, here is a quick abAutorig overview with no audio track. (maybe I will record the audio one day)
Double Click on the Vimeo logo to get the full screen video in full HD res.
http://www.vimeo.com/10220416Related post:
Autorig tutorial preparation work part 04
Autorig tutorial prep work 03
Autorig tutorial prep work 02
Autorig tutorial prep work 01
Low polygon modeling tools
Gaston the TV series
Posted on January 13, 2010
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Gaston
Gaston, my all time favourite comic by Franquin is finally airing on french TV. I wasn’t too excited when I heard they would be using After Effect rigs to give life to the useless intern but Normaal did a really nice job I must admit.
http://www.gastonlagaffe.com/anime/serie/
I would also like to mention an other one of my favourite comics, Leonard. That one has been given the 3d treatment by Ellipsanime and is looking very cool!
Related post:
Gaston Lagaffe by Franquin
“There is no such thing as a Gruffalo”
Posted on December 20, 2009
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Gruffalo
Some of the best European Animation Mentor graduates worked on that great looking Christmas short film done for the BBC by Studio Soi in Germany. The Gruffalo is a very charming child story books created by Julia Donaldson.

[...] Read more
“Lost and found” Amandine Pecharman
Posted on December 3, 2009
Filed Under Animation, Character design | 4 Comments
Amandine Pecharman, production designer on Studio AKA “lost and found” posted some really cool concept designs on her blog. Check it out it is really really nice.
http://lostandfoundartblog.squarespace.com/
[...] Read more
Double Duck, Topolino
Posted on November 20, 2009
Filed Under Animation, Character design | 1 Comment

Double Duck
During my summer in Angouleme, I met a lot of very cool people and one of them was an italian artist that kept talking about his time at Disney which I found really intriguing as Disney doesn’t have an animation studio in Italy but the Disney he was referring to was … a very different one.
[...] Read more
“Paperwalker” Florian Satzinger
Posted on November 20, 2009
Filed Under Character design | 2 Comments

Paperwalker
Thanks to Jean Denis Haas at Spungella, I rediscovered the work of incredible Austrian character designer Florian Satzinger. I got acquainted with his work through an interview on Character design blogspot few years ago.
[...] Read more
“Creature box” blog
Posted on November 5, 2009
Filed Under Character design, Modeling, Portfolio, Video Games | Leave a Comment
I just found that great blog from some Insomniac concept artist. Too bad most of their sketchbooks are sold out.
I would love to model some of their characters one day.
[edit] well I just started ;-) Proportion are off, it is a very rough pass.
“Despicable” new trailer
Posted on November 5, 2009
Filed Under Animation, Character design | 3 Comments

Despicable me
I am frustrated by the lack of cartoony games those days but in contrast it is such a treat to see so many cartoony movies coming out.
Here is the new “Despicable me” trailer.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/universal/despicableme/
[...] Read more
Mark Kennedy on Character design
Posted on October 31, 2009
Filed Under Character design | Leave a Comment

Disney Aracuan
Mark Kennedy from the “Temple of the Seven Golden Camels” wrote a nice post about Character design some time ago. This will inaugurate the creation of a new Character Design category on my blog. Character design is something I would like to focus on one day but this is not my priority right now. In the meantime I will collect articles that could prove useful.
Confessions of a Lazy Character Designer
His post made me realise that there are potentially two approaches to character design:
[...] Read more
AKA Marc Craste Pictoplasma talk
Posted on October 27, 2009
Filed Under Animation, Character design | Leave a Comment
Thanks Keith for the heads up, with Philip Hunt, Marc Craste is also one of my favourite directors. I guess that video was shot during Berlin’s Pictoplasma exhibition earlier this year.
Modern Martin has a blog!
Posted on October 6, 2009
Filed Under Animation, Character design, Friends | Leave a Comment
hehe, Modern Martin now has a blog so you can see some of the preparation work that went into the making of that great short film
“Modern Martin” is very Modern!
Bobby Chiu Video interview
Posted on September 6, 2009
Filed Under Character design, Drawings | 1 Comment
CG talk just released a short video interview with Bobby Chiu during ComicCon2009. Check it out.
“Walt Stanchfield”, Don Hahn Webinar
Posted on July 22, 2009
Filed Under Animation, Animation Mentor, Character design | 3 Comments
Animation Mentor just posted a great conversation between Disney producer Don Hahn and Bobby Beck about the life of Disney’s life drawing teacher Walt Stanchfield. Walt Stanchfield was a keen tennis player but more than anything an immense inspiration for everyone at Disney. His family also released his famous notes if you didn’t get the previous pdfs
http://www.amazon.com/Drawn-Life-Classes-Stanchfield-Lectures/dp/0240810961
Check it out
“Monstre à Paris” short clip
Posted on July 5, 2009
Filed Under Animation, Character design | 3 Comments
Curious about “Monstre à  Paris”? Max Vallon, one of the animators just posted a short video clip from the teaser that was shown in Annecy last year. The animation is 3d and the backgrounds are matte painted/camera mapped. For having seen the whole sequence, I can tell you that the rest is even better.
Read more:
Un monstre a Paris
Gaston Lagaffe by Franquin
Posted on May 23, 2009
Filed Under Character design | 2 Comments
Listening to the Ken Duncan’s interview on the Animation Podcast I remembered those great comic strips from Begian author Franquin. I still can’t believe Gaston Lagaffe is more than 50 years old! No wonder Gaston’s car was a 1925 Fiat 509. [...] Read more
Harald Siepermann interview
Posted on May 23, 2009
Filed Under Character design | Leave a Comment

Here is a very interesting interview of german character designer Harald Siepermann. Harald was animator then character designer on Roger Rabbit, Mulan, Tarzan, Treasure Planet, Brother Bear, Space Chimps and plenty of other great features. [...] Read more


















