Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Direction and director was John Halfpenny






Direction and director was John Halfpenny; timeframe was breakneck; layouts were by Pascale LaMontagna.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Work from the summer






Work from the summer. Layouts by Pascale Lamontagna, direction by John Halfpenny, whose colour scheme I used quite directly for the Kremlin shot.

Thursday, January 17, 2008

Small colour studies painted


















Small colour studies painted from drawn story sketches and storyboard panels for a little movie I worked on over 10 years ago now. Most of those drawings were probably done by Uncle Frank Nissan, a delightful character to work for and from whom I learnt an enormous amount. I don't think I've met anyone who is so visually compelled before. Despite great success and huge accomplishments up here in Canada, Frank headed back down to his home in California to go on to even greater challenges. I can still hear the echoes of his summons for a critique....'Poooowww-seeeeey!'

Tuesday, January 15, 2008










I just got a hello on one of my other blogs from Dave Pemberton who has just started blogging; lovely to see a bit of what he's up to with drawing and painting. Have'nt seen him for years, he was directing for years at Nelvana, and seems to be doing story art now. I'm pretty sure Dave directed some of this show I worked on many many years ago, and may have been assistant director for a period too; I think I remember getting direction and approvals from him as well as John Van Bruggan. Dave, if I recall correctly, seemed to impishly have a lot to do with one of the funniest sequences in the series which involved the hero and villain having a duel of sorts to see who could do the most risky and dangerous activity. It was hilarious; running with scissors, operating heavy machinary while taking cough medicine etc...escalating until finally the villain trumped the hero by leaping into a meat grinder and coming out the other end in tins of meat. I vaguely recall John or someone wondering how on earth they got away with the sequence on a fairly tame little children's show. Pretty sure every one of the design drawings for these colour sketches were by Ted Bastien, and you can just see hints of his lovely drawing coming through some of the hastily painted scenes.

Monday, January 14, 2008

Old colour keys from actual layouts




Old colour keys from actual layouts, maybe 10 years ago. Layouts were supervised by Ricardo Durante; not sure who did these specific ones...

Thursday, January 10, 2008

Some recent bg's from a promo by Chuck Gammage Animation










Some recent bg's from a promo by Chuck Gammage Animation. I got lots of direction on these, not being particularly stylish myself; more of a meat and potatoes guy when it comes to painting. Art direction was from director Jamie Mason, who was also imparting to me the stylings of one of Chuck's designers, Rex Hackelburgand was thus well received. Layouts by Graham Falk. Actually, if you click on Jamie's name above, you can go to his blog and see the actually promo with all the characters, action and music in all their splendour.

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Four night backgrounds








Four night backgrounds; layouts for the paintings by Pasquale LaMontagna.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

A couple of acrylic keys from a special directed by John Van Bruggan




A couple of acrylic keys from a special directed by John Van Bruggan. The furniture stylings in the lower are characteristic of Leif Norhiem who would have done the drawing for this key; the top one is harder to tell who did it as the subject is less specific; perhaps Goran Delic. It was always a treat to paint from the designs of those guys; you can visit Goran's blog by looking at the links at the bottom of the page.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Quick exploratory keys from a storyboard










Quick exploratory keys from a storyboard; the board was by the films director, Andy Knight.