These were the very first exploratory drawings of Kenai. |
This guy was written out of the movie. |
Griz originally had a much bigger role in the film. Here I put together some rough model sheets for the story board artists. |
Over 700 Hours of Art & Animation Lessons. Plus a collection of concept art & character designs from various films along with wildlife and animal paintings of Aaron Blaise.
These are a few life drawings I did of tigers in preparation for creating Rajah from Aladdin |
The next few were from early in the design process |
Here is where I finally hit the design that ended up in the film. |
These are few life drawings I did from lions that were brought into the studio at the beginning of production on The Lion King |
These next few sets of drawings I did were from the design process of creating Young Nala |
These drawings are from creating the Ancestral Ghosts from Mulan |
These were little pen and marker thumb-nails I created in trying to find different compositions for a mountain climbing scene in Brother Bear. |
These are a collection pen drawings from several years ago that I drew over a few days as I brainstormed hidden creature/elf ideas
Continue reading A collection pen drawings creature/elf ideas
These images are from a film I was co-directing called “The Legend of Tembo”. I am always deeply involved in the design of the films I am directing. I try to create the images that I am trying to explain to people on the crew. I feel it is much better to show than to explain. It gives a clearer picture to the Art Director, modelers, lighters, and animators. This cuts down tremendously on the number of iterations needed to achieve whatever it is we are shooting for this in turn eases the impact on the budget of the film.
Here are a few drawings from when I was doing some design work at that beginning of Mulan. I ultimately was the supervising animator for Yao and the Ancestors but I helped on a number of different things in the beginning. These were a lot of fun. I especially enjoyed the charcoal. This is not even a fraction of the hundreds of drawings I did.
It starts with me doing a digital comp in photoshop. I can easily work out all of my compositional problems at this stage. |
I then print out my image and grid it so that transfer to the large canvas is quicker and easier. I grid the canvas the same way and begin to transfer the drawing. |
Ugh!! A blank canvas…such a long road ahead! |
Continuing on the drawing… |
The finished rough sketch on the canvas. Although I want a fair amount of detail in the drawing, I’m not trying to make it look pretty at this point. |
Now it’s time to start painting. Here I’ve started with the face of the male lion. |
I continue into the mane. Notice that I apply my darks first then work lighter. |
As the head of the lion began to develop, I felt it was time to start laying in the background to get the lion to sit in it’s environment. |
I then jump back to the lion and continue with the mane and roughing in his body. |
After adding more texture and interest to the background, it’s time to start work on the lioness. |
Here I’ve finished with the lioness and have gone onto the finishing touches in the foreground and background grasses. |
Here I’ve posed with the painting thinking I was done. The next day though after looking at it, I decided to add a few more darks in the tall sprigs of dried grass. |
“Protecting the Queen” 36″X48″ Oil on Canvas |