Toby Shelton Blog

I discovered an animation art blog created by a current Story Artist working at Dreamworks Animation.
http://tobyshelton.blogspot.com/Seems Toby Shelton has worked in the business for a while. What I find fascinating is the fact he has worked at Disney Animation and was responsible for designing a slew of characters used in several series that ran during the Disney Afternoon.His current work at Dreamworks is great to go through as well, his boards are full of great action and camera angles. I'm sure his blog will continue with great artwork...

A Look at "Almost There"

I've been enjoying a copy of Disney's "The Princess & The Frog" and I must admit one of my favorite scenes is the fantasy sequence "Almost There".The art design of the scene is quite inspired by the popular styles of the early 1900s.According to Sue Nichols, visual development artist, "Art styles such as art deco in the style of Erté, art nouveau with poster designers like Alphonse Mucha and ethnic American art from such Harlem renaissance artists as Aaron Douglas helped me create a look that's new and different yet still feels like it would have existed during the time period."Enjoy a brief clip of the visually appealing scene here:

Roger Rabbit Rarities

You can come across the unexpected so often on YouTube these days.
Here's a couple of clips featuring behind-the-scene looks at Roger Rabbit during the characters' heyday. The first clip features very early pencil & animation tests of early character designs of both Jessica and Roger. It would seem that Paul Reubens (a.k.a. Pee Wee Herman) was an early cast choice to voice the funny bunny.

The second clip talks about the making of Tummy Trouble, the first single Roger Rabbit/Baby Herman short created in 1989. If you watch carefully, there seems to be a scene featuring an out-of-place scene of Roger singing "Happy Birthday". Could this be an early animatic of the scrapped short, "Hare in my Soup"?

There seems to be so much forgotten material left out of the Vista Series DVD special edition from 2003. Hopefully we can see more of this rare material eventually on another home video release in the future. (Maybe when the rumored sequel hits home?)

Disney's Newest Hand Drawn Feature Hits Home Soon

Disney Animation's return to traditional 2D animation will be released on DVD & Blu-ray on March 16th!
The Princess & The Frog from the classic Disney animation directors, John Musker and Ron Clements will be available to own next week and I am looking forward to it. The film itself wasn't the best thing Disney has done, but it is a well-put together film with great animation, songs and story.
Toonzone.net has a sneek peek of the special features that should be available on the upcoming release as well as some great "fun facts" that went into the film's production.
http://www.toonzone.net/news/articles/32909/disney-releases-bonus-video-clips-from-princess-and-the-frog-dvdblu-ray

The Rescuers Down Under (1990)

I just watched this film from Disney Animation for the first time in about 15 years and I got to admit, it holds up well. Since I'm getting set to see "The Princess & The Frog" this weekend, I picked up a copy of "The Rescuers Down Under" while Christmas shopping.
The movie is filled with great traditional animation while still experimenting with early computer animation. A great cast consisting of Bob Newhart, Eva Gabor, George C. Scott, Tristan Rogers and John Candy.
I remembered having an article about this feature so I thought I would share it with you. From the pages of a 1990 Comics Scene magazine straight to your computer screen. Stay tuned afterward for a brief behind-the-scenes look courtesy of YouTube...

Conjuring The Villain

The Walt Disney Company was kind enough to give Cartoon Brew TV an exclusive look at the creation of the newest Disney Villain: Dr. Facilier for the upcoming film, The Princess and the Frog.
http://www.cartoonbrew.com/brewtv/princessandfrog.html
Supervising animator Bruce Smith explains the process that went into creating the character and how the voice of Keith David influenced the animators' work which is seen in Dr. Facilier's performance on screen.

New Rapunzel Artwork

Walt Disney Animation has released some of their development artwork for the upcoming 2010 CG film, "Rapunzel".
Follow the link to learn more and to see the artwork:
http://www.disneyanimation.com/projects/rapunzel/index.html

Officially 3 Years Old

Hey Hey everybody! May 13th 2009 marks J.E. Daniels' 3rd Year Anniversary!
And seeing how this is my 1000th post, I really wanted to do something special but due to "not-enough-time", I could not complete the second comic story featuring B.B. Wolfe who first appeared in 2007!
http://jedaniels-adventures.blogspot.com/2007/05/happy-mothers-day-anniversary.html
For the meantime, here's a title card for the upcoming story entitled "3 Times the Charm". This time, B.B. Wolfe returns to get even with Red & Grannie but finds out that the cottage has been left in charge by pigs. It's been a couple of years since B.B. has had a decent meal so he decides to try to catch himself a three course dinner. I will be posting the new story here once it is complete!
Seeing how the comic is still in it's production phase, I thought I would take this time to celebrate Walt Disney's return to traditional animation since 2004's "Home on the Range". Here's a look at the current theatrical poster and the official trailer of the upcoming film, "The Princess & The Frog"!

Tiki Disney Projects Sneak Peeks

Since Darkwing Duck has been released for collectors, follow the "Teeny Weeny" link to see what Electric Tiki has planned next for Phase One of their Disney Projects line of mini-maquettes!
http://electrictiki.com/homepage/tikihome.html

Suddenly Hades

James Woods had a recurring role on Disney's House of Mouse whenever Hades made an appearance on the show.Hades is one of the more popular villains from a Disney film (Hercules) so it's no surprise there are a couple of episodes devoted to the character.
"Suddenly Hades" is the first episode from House of Mouse's third and final season making it the 27th episode in all. Enjoy the story here with the 3 short cartoons removed making it more concentrated on James Woods' performance. ("What type of club you runnin' here Mick?" lol)

Have Yourself a Merry Christmas

Here's a featured line of songs from "Mickey's Once Upon a Christmas" to help you get into the spirit of the holidays!

Happy Holidays!

Christmas Day is almost here! Let's celebrate a little by viewing some beautifully painted backgrounds from 1952's "Pluto's Christmas Tree".

Bill Melendez 1916 - 2008

Another great Golden Age animator has passed on.
Animator, director and producer Bill Melendez died on September 2 at the age of ninety-one.
http://animationguildblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/bill-melendez-rip.html
Bill started out as an assistant for Walt Disney Animation in 1938 working on various features and shorts. He later went to Warner Bros and worked in the Bob Clampett unit. UPA soon followed.
He finally met Charles Schulz, creator of Peanuts and Charlie Brown, and proposed a television special called "A Charlie Brown Christmas". The rest is animation history.
RIP Mr. Melendez.

Original Disney Character Designs?

After watching the trailer for Disney's upcoming animated feature "Bolt", there are a couple of things that come to mind.
Not only do I personally prefer the original look of Chris Sander's "American Dog" which "Bolt" evolved from,
http://characterdesign.blogspot.com/2008/06/disneys-bolt.html
but the pigeons that appear in the trailer instantly reminded me of Warner Bros' Good Feathers characters that appeared in "Animaniacs".

I will give kudos to their hamster which seems like a fun character to watch, but there doesn't seem very much else that is "original". I guess only time and box office receipts will tell if this is a classic...

iTunes Goes Goofy Again

The brand new theatrical cartoon "How to Hook up Your Home Theater" featuring Disney's Goofy is available for purchase again after a short hiatus.
http://www.2719hyperion.com/2008/06/get-goofy-on-itunes.html
Unfortunately, the short is not available in the Canadian iTunes store. I hope it gets a DVD release in the future...

Goofy Available on iTunes: Sort of...

According to a recent thread on the Golden Age Cartoons Forums,
http://forums.goldenagecartoons.com/showthread.php?t=11397
the new theatrical short "How to Hook up Your Home Theater" featuring Goofy is available for purchase on iTunes!Unfortunately, for the time being, the short is not available in either the Canadian or US stores. Hopefully someone in charge will correct this problem soon.

Jiminy Cricket! An Odd Disney Team Up!

I recently posted a story starring Warner Bros stars Bugs Bunny and Cool Cat from an old issue of Gold Key Comics. Well I also found another Golden Magazine Special from 1969, "Walt Disney Comics Digest #7"!
It also features weird team-ups such as this first story starring Jiminy Cricket & Mad Madam Mim with a cameo of everyone's favorite villian, Pete!