Animation Drawing Collection

For my birthday, Jay lovingly got some family contributions to get my Ken Harris drawing from 'Thief and the Cobbler' framed. It's drawing #366 from the "Polo Ponies" sequence where the Thief is running from the polo ball. Where I got it is a "military secret" (ha ha ha)...now we just need to find a wall for it.




Speaking of animation drawings, I don't have these ones framed, but figured I would scan and post them since I got 'em. They are from Ralph Bakshi's Mighty Mouse TV series from the late 80s which I fondly remember watching on Saturday mornings. These drawings might be by John K, but I'm not sure.

Splintered Drumsticks

I watched this Muppet Show episode (Harry Belafonte...the best one) with Ariel last night and it might have provided inspiration for some evening fun.

Animation Haiku

I was up until 1am last night (and Jay with me shading in drawings) meeting a deadline for my latest freelance animation project for Bigfott Studios. Bleary-eyed but satisfied after the long hours of work, I decided to write a haiku.


I sit in jammies,
Pondering how a stack of
Paper can have life.

In reality though, I think I was pondering more how I was going to get up for work a few hours later.

Snot Living (1998)

In honor of its 10-year anniversary, I'm pleased to announce the online debut of my student film from University of Michigan, Snot Living. This film was my final independent study project, which took about a year to complete. It was all shot on 16mm and premiered with live organ accompaniment by Newton Bates at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor, on April 19, 1998. The music track was improvised to the film and recorded live in the theater itself.

The San Francisco Treat , Part 1

I just spent the last couple days (Sunday-Tuesday) in San Francisco for preliminary meetings with the Academy of Art University regarding my online stop-motion course. I hadn't been there since 1999 so it was fun to check it out again...quite a beautiful city, I really like it. The Academy staff is very nice and they have some great facilities there for animation. So it looks to be a good experience overall, once I really start crackin' with writing the course content. I'll be returning there in April for the official demonstration video shoots, so lots of preparations must soon be underway.

I don't have any pictures of my whirlwind trip to post, but I can borrow a few to reference the Cartoon Art Museum where I happened to stumble upon the Mary Blair exhibit.


I also got to see many surprising original pieces of animation art, including: original animation drawings, cels, and concept art from practically every classic Disney feature ever made and many others from Hanna-Barbera, Warner Bros and elsewhere. Plus some original 1950s comic strips like an actual Pogo strip, Andy Capp, lots of stuff like that. They even had an original Gertie the Dinosaur drawing, which was outstanding to be in the presence of, even though it was much smaller than I thought it would be.


Hopefully next time I go I'll have a camera with me to make for a more interesting blog.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Jay made me a cake. And it was good. Yay for cake!

Books and another Movie Review

Currently I'm reading a fantastic book by VeggieTales creator Phil Vischer, about the rise and fall of his visionary company. Definitely an engaging, funny and amazing read and highly recommended for animators and business-folks alike.


Also today (while I'm home with a cold) my copy of Barry Purves' book arrived. I have a few comments printed in this book as one of many other stop-motion animators who contributed their thoughts on the bizarre art of pushing puppets around. I'm just starting to flip through it...Barry did a great job and I'm still kickin' myself for not being home when he phoned my house to thank me.


And last but not least, I've finally added another review for Hollywood Jesus, for the film Imagination. This is my first time I've actually interviewed filmmakers for the site, and it was really nice talking to some other kindred spirits who like puppets and weird images.

Clicky right here to read!

Presentation Days (or Daze?)

So the last week has been one of many presentations in a row, enough to certainly curb whatever apprehensions I may have about public speaking. Last Sunday I was proud to speak in church about my thoughts on animation as worship, and it's looking like I'll get to reprise it at another church at some point. Afterwards we had an open sign-up for volunteers to help us put together an Animation Festival at the church as an outreach event. Hopefully it will come together sometime in May, given that there was an overwhelming response from people wanting to help out. Quite a blessing.

Later in the week I got to introduce the King Kong and Jason screenings, and also host a Q&A with Brett Purmal and "Kong" himself. These photos were graciously taken by Jason Vanderhill, who also brought his Colargol collection.

Busy Bee

A busy time ahead...where should I start?

I've received word that "I'm Dirty", the short film I animated on through the Fall for Galen's BigFott Studios, is in the can, and is currently in post-production for a release date later this year. Can't wait to see it! Needless to say I look at back-hoe loaders a whole different way now.



I just got another little animation gig from Galen on another short film, so I'll be working on one short sequence throughout the next month or so. The character designs are really fun on this one.

Enrollment for my part-time courses this session has turned out to be rather low...the lowest it's been in years! Can't really figure out why, but anyway I'm still running my 2D course but had to cancel Stop-Motion, which I haven't needed to do in several years. So unfortunately, no student dialogue exercises on YouTube until late summer folks, (if my May course runs). A big part of me is actually quite OK and relieved, because as much as I enjoy my one day of teaching, it takes its toll after a long week. The last session took quite a lot out of me! I'm extremely grateful for the extra time, since I not only have this little animation gig but also my online course to start building, plus allowing for more family time. So it's actually quite a blessing!

Speaking of the online course, hopefully soon I will know when I'm going to San Francisco for the video shoots. This probably means no Michigan visit until later this year, most likely. Sigh...

Oscar noms released today...for the most part I don't really care this year...didn't see any of those deep, arty films I haven't heard about. New dramatic movies just ain't cuttin' it for me these days! Excited to see many noms for Ratatouille though. Tonight I watched the stop-motion Peter & the Wolf by Suzie Templeton which is nomimated, and loved it! (Watch it in 3 parts starting here)



I hope it wins, although it will probably go to Madame Tutli-Putli which would also be a good choice, and props for Canada too!

I absolutely adore Peter & the Wolf as a musical piece, a story, and for the many different ways it has been expressed through animation. (Just found a neat version narrated by David Bowie on iTunes, hoping I would find the Weird Al version, which I have yet to hear, sad to say) I have an old British audio version of it on vinyl and the Disney version on 16mm which is a joy to project now and again.



As a child, my Mom got me really interested in the piece as a way to learn about different instruments. I was particularly drawn to the french horn because I loved the wolf's theme. Later on when I had to pick a musical instrument to learn, I went with trumpet instead...oh well, that was fun too.

Ariel actually sat still with me and watched most of the stop-motion version this evening, and even laughed a few times. I also just got the Chronological Donald Vol 3 and we both sat on the couch last night to watch it. Ariel laughed out loud several times...I can't even begin to express the joy I felt! My daughter loves Donald Duck! What a role model...oops, now we're in trouble! Jay will have to counter-balance it with Strawberry Shortcake or something to keep her temper in check.



Finally we are getting close to the phase where she will begin to sit still for a book or a short film. Once she starts to comprehend what she's looking at, the fun will really begin! I can't wait to curl up with her and introduce her to Snow White, Beauty & the Beast, Mary Poppins, and all the rest...not to mention Star Wars and Lord of the Rings when she's a bit older. I'm really excited that the Narnia films will likely continue to unfold into her generation; for her and any future siblings, those stories could be what Star Wars was to my generation. (Until then, we have the finger-puppet spider book.)



Tomorrow night I'm going to a test screening of Edison & Leo, the first Canadian stop-motion feature film. Back in the Fall I visited their set here in Mission and was blown away by the lovely detail of the sets and puppets. Hopefully the story works just as well. I've never been invited to a test screening before, so I'm honored for the opportunity.

In other future news, coming up soon is my Sunday Morning message, "The Breath of Life: Animation as an Act of Worship" at my home church Cedar Park, this Sunday (eeek!) January 27. Service starts at 10:30 and directions can be found at this link to their new site, if anyone local reads this in time, you are invited!

To help me prepare my thoughts for this momentous occasion, Pastor Dave just happened to find me a copy of an amazing book I just read within the last couple of days on the bus, called EPIC: The Story God Is Telling and the Role That Is Yours to Play by John Eldridge. It's a wonderful, quick, inspiring read about how fairy tales, myths and movies reflect the grand story we are all a part of...God mending the universe and calling us home to a life of adventure and abundance. It gave me a sobering reminder of what the Christian life truly is all about. I highly recommend it to you reading this, whoever you are and wherever you are on your journey. Find out more about it here.



In other future news, it's finally official that I will indeed be introducing the films King Kong (1933) and Jason & the Argonauts on Thursday, January 31 for the SIGGRAPH Spark VFX Film Festival. In addition, on Saturday Feb 2 I will be giving a re-cap of my historical Kong Introduction and then segueing into a Q&A with Brett Purmal, a current employee at Electronic Arts, who was an animator on the Peter Jackson's King Kong film. Brett has a limited edition replica of the original Kong armature, which should make a nice conversation piece, don't ya think?



There's many more of my favorite films playing throughout the weekend, in particular Close Encounters and Raiders of the Lost Ark...not sure how many of them I will drag myself to, if any...Raiders would sure be awesome to see in 35mm though. At this rate, I'm not sure if my brain could handle it...my life is so boring!

I need to get out more eh?


"I wonder what sort of tale we've fallen into?"

Old School Films

Playing with the magic Canopus some more this weekend (my last REAL two-day weekend before teaching starts again), I've captured a bunch of my old films from my University of Michigan days for posting to the masses. In no particular order, here's some of my roots.

This one is from an "animation" class I took which was really more of a course on how to use Director 5, which was kind of a pre-cursor to Flash. The main character was actually built out of clay and animated into basic poses, which I took photos of (non-digital, mind you), scanned them in and imported them into Director. The TV images are a combination of 2D animation and still images. This film won first prize for digital animation at the final term film screening, which I was absent for because I stupidly mis-read the schedule for the radio station and had to do a show that night. This was created in 1997.



The second level of this Director course dealt with creating an interactive animated project, so this one was a "game" of sorts that included roll-overs and movies that played when clicked in certain places. It was technically never finished...there was supposed to be a different "horoscope" movie for each Zodiac sign, but I only had time to do half of them. All the animation was done on paper and scanned in, with the notable exception of the fly and the baby fairy, which were "puppeted" in real time by moving the icon with the mouse and recording it. Primitive but fun, also from 1997.



Flashback a couple years to 1995 and my first 16mm filmmaking class. I didn't direct this one really, but rather starred in it, and technically was the "producer." I was in a group with 3 other students and we all got to share director, producer, grip and cinematographer on different projects. This was the "lighting exercise" film, shot over the weekend right before Halloween. It wasn't too difficult to act in this, since I for real can't play basketball and I seem to remember being pissed off the whole time. The soundtrack was also mixed by myself...I used 'Apostrophe' by Frank Zappa and a spooky Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan song from the 'Natural Born Killers' soundtrack. The music synced up perfectly as I mixed it LIVE along with the film, with no planning involved. Twisted but fun...the moral being that idol worship solves any athletic shortcomings.



This was our final film project for the semester, which ended up being 'co-directed' by myself and a student named Ed Tsai. Our team had a difficult time agreeing on an idea for this film, so I thought, "why don't we make a film about a person who can't think of an idea for a film?" That way we could each come up with a little idea to use, though in the end it was me and Ed's ideas that made it. Ed came up with the "Superman" and "romantic melodrama segments", and the "boy-girl-donut" and "WTF?" segments are mine. Again, I also mixed the entire soundtrack.



Within this same class, there was an 'experimental film' project which I chose to direct, combining live-action with my first attempts at cut-out animation. I was going to hold off on posting this one due to a not-so-good film transfer, but I figured since it's on YouTube with not-so-good quality anyway, what the hell. My story is not complete without it. Just ignore the fact that a cat goes through the projector at the climax of the film, OK? Once again, I mixed the entire soundtrack and the classical piece I randomly selected JUST HAPPENED to sync perfectly with the actions as I played it live along with the film...don't ask me how! The lead actress in this film, Amanda, was a musical theater major who was in another film project we did (which doesn't have any sound so it's not very exciting to watch) and we liked her so much we kept using her over and over. She's particularly brilliant and deadpan in this one.



This is my independent study film "Random" which was mostly done for experimental purposes and getting used to animating in clay. My brother Dan joined me in animating some of these segments, some of which were done in our basement, others in my dorm room. The B/W stuff was all done, sadly underexposed, on the school's Oxberry. Music by Frank Zappa makes it a bit more bearable to sit through...this film taught me a lot about timing.



Here's a bunch of "dweeble" animation I did on my first actual animation job with Steve, all done at his house for Media Station in Ann Arbor, for the CD-rom game Tonka Search & Rescue, only playable on Windows 95 and ended up given away for free in cereal boxes. That being said, I did find another post from someone who was quite fond of the game in his youth, which also includes little animations I did. This animation was all done in Photoshop at 10fps and compiled in Movie Player, for various parts of the game.



And from my Vancouver past, here is most of the animation I did at VanArts during the one-year program, almost 10 years ago now...



And my Halloween costume from 1999, wandering the streets of Vancouver as the Skeksis Chamberlain from 'The Dark Crystal.'



Good times all around. Still to come...Snot Living...

Happy Animators!

Props to my fellow animation comrade Ryan McCollough for generously plugging my book on his blog. Check out his work...I'm amazed by the sheer VOLUME and QUALITY of it! He's been animating since he was a kid and appears to have made a good career out of clay animation; not an easy feat!

Last night Maddie Ferguson was murdered by Bob on Twin Peaks. Man, that was brutal! How did they allow that on TV? I wish David Lynch had done more TV...he blends horror and comedy very well, (especially when he has a cameo.) Reminds me a lot of another TV series I've seen from Denmark called 'The Kingdom' which was simultaneously side-splittingly hilarious and disturbingly frightening.

Random Creepy Things and Whatnot

So I've been easing into 2008 after the holiday hooplah by gradually balancing preparations for the years' events (building the online course, travels, work, etc) with enjoying the fruits of recent Christmas gifts and just being with the family, getting back in touch with old friends, and taking it all in.

The new Hollywood Jesus Review book is out, including my review of Ratatouille and tons more from the other writers. It's a thick volume this year...check it out here.



Jay and I have been making our way through the Twin Peaks series at night. It's brilliant stuff, and most of it I've been wanting to see for many years. I never caught every single episode when it was in its heyday, but I remember being so blown away by what little I do remember. It's easily my favorite work from David Lynch, since it has the quirky humor that's missing from most of his feature films...his features I find intriguing enough, particularly Blue Velvet, Eraserhead and Dune, but Twin Peaks is the best by far. Since it was made for TV, it's creepy Lynch-ness without getting as extreme and gross as his features do. Why is it possible to be simultaneously scared s***tless by something but also strangely attracted to it? Like this scene I saw for the first time last night (don't watch this if you are calm and happy right now)...



I can barely watch this without freaking out, yet...it's....just...so...interesting!
Yeeesh!

I got some goodies with my iTunes gift cards tonight too...some classic Bill Cosby, rare Oingo Boingo stuff I used to frequent while I was a VanArts student, random tunes by Led Zeppelin and Soundgarden I remember, and a few unfamiliar songs by Toad the Wet Sprocket that sound good. I'm holding out for their 'Fear' album to become available there...can't imagine why it's not, as they had some minor hits off it. I was really fond of that album in my high school/college days, and I miss it. Oh, whither Toad?



...and thanks to 'Studio Toledo' for the animated care package! I can't say I'm lacking in entertainment these days, that's for sure.

SIGGRAPH Stop-Motion Screening

This hasn't been made as an official announcement yet, but I can't contain myself, so...the local Vancouver SIGGRAPH Chapter is planning a series of screenings in late January/early February of influential Visual Effects films. I tried helping them arrange the possibility of flying Ray Harryhausen out as a special guest, but that idea doesn't appear to have materialized. Nevertheless, on January 31, they want to do a stop-motion night and screen the original King Kong along with a new print of Jason and the Argonauts. I've been invited to introduce the films, so naturally I'm rather honored and excited! Should be a fantastic night.

Andy Kaufman does CTV News

Recently I got myself a new toy, a Canopus ADVC-110, which allows me to capture video again, since the old Matrox I used to have got fried by our old computer. I used this new one to capture clips for my Hollywood Jesus presentation, and it works like a charm! So expect to see lots more interesting video clips showing up here from now on as I become more and more obsessed with it.

Thanks to the magic Canopus, I'm finally able to post this video I did at the CTV booth at the Vancouver PNE Fair this past September. It's a little bit dated now that it's 2008, but oh well...

It's 2008, Charlie Brown!

We're home again! The Hollywood Jesus Gathering has come and gone, and it made for a great weekend. Overall I learned alot and got a great deal of inspiration from the various speakers and their wisdom; they all did such a great job! My presentation on animation went very well...a few minor technical glitches but I had a great time sharing it. Any opportunity to share more on the marvels of animation is a blessing...I'm sure glad I had that opportunity before presenting to tons more people in church in a few weeks! News Flash: I'll be presenting an abridged version of my presentation at Cedar Park Church on January 27th!

Best quote of the weekend:
Greg Wright: "You know, some people are going to say you're in danger of being desensitized to all that bad stuff in movies."

David Bruce: "Yeah, I'm so desensitized to Jesus, I don't want anything to do with him."

It will be nice in the future to be able to involve all of us, that is Jay and family, into the discussions and screenings more. Ariel is sure getting more active these days! Walking her up and down the hallways in the hotel was fun...she was terrified of the pop machine, which was interesting. At least there weren't any creepy girls at the end of the hall...


Eeek!

Hotel hallways always make me think of 'The Shining'...but not necessarily this version:



Merrie Neue Year!

Christmas and Elsewhere

To kick off this catch-up blog, here's the lastest installment of animation from my stop-motion students. We tried some green-screen shots for the first time with good-looking results...plus I added the facial expression exercises this time around.



After wrapping up this last class session of the year, another Christmas has come and gone...kind of crept up on everyone this year...that tends to happen when it's early in the week as it was. This year I felt like I did some catching up on my favorite Christmas traditions moreso at the last minute. For some reason I didn't muster up the spirit to embrace the holiday traditions I love until it was closer to the actual day. I didn't help Jay put ornaments on the tree or watch that many animated Christmas specials, or *gasp* play the John Denver Muppet Christmas album...not until Christmas Eve. I'm a little bit disturbed and perplexed as to the reason why. The only lame excuses I can think of would be I was too pre-occupied with work, or that Ariel is still not quite at an age that I can fully share these things with her, and have her understand. Or perhaps I still have lingering afterburn of Christmases past where I would lose the sense of magic there once was, or the over-commercialization of it all (and appalling, degrading commercials for the Deal or No Deal Christmas Special) makes me cranky. Or perhaps it's because my grandmother broke her arm and is going through a tough rehabilitation right now. Who knows...overall when it was all said and done, it was a special day for the family and we had a wonderful time, and even more wonderful food.

I've spent the last few days hastily preparing my presentation for the Hollywood Jesus Gathering in Renton, WA, where we are currently as I type this. Yesterday we spent the day driving down and combing the outlet malls so Jay could satisfy her kids' clothes curiosities and we could just have some family time. Today was the first day of presentations with Greg Wright, Peter Chattaway, Jeffrey Overstreet and David Bruce. Though I'm still a bit bleary-eyed from all that shopping and staying up until 2am the night before we left, overall I'm feeling inspired and empowered by the words that were said today. It's been nice seeing the people we met 2 years ago again, and also meeting some new faces...makes the e-mail correspondence more well-rounded and complete. Hollywood Jesus went through a bit of a rough patch last year with the many changes that had occurred in its management, but I feel that it's finally coming out of that shadow and moving towards bigger and better things again. I hope to contribute more to it as much as I can...so long as there are more interesting movies to talk about. I've also had a book review idea for 'The NeverEnding Story' kicking around in my head, so perhaps I should tackle that soon. I got to meet the author and purchase a copy of Jeffrey Overstreet's book today, as I feel from seeing his writing and meeting him in person that we're very much from the same planet. I ended up having a conversation today about 'The Dark Crystal' (which I just picked up the 2-disc edition at the outlet mall) with Jeffrey and Peter that was good encouragement for the soul. (Peter had a comment that the split between the Skeksis and Uru was a metaphor for separation between the body and soul...and when they come together as the Urskeks, they are whole, spiritual bodies. Whoa!)

I find it endlessly fascinating that I have managed to put down roots in this part of the country...as I keep finding more clues throughout my life that the Pacific Northwest had been beckoning me for so many years. Some gifts I got for Christmas were a live Queensryche DVD taped in Seattle, and the DVD box set for Twin Peaks. So far in peeking at the special features I was reminded that the series was shot only a matter of miles from where we are right now. Yet just a few fleeting examples of pop culture that made me go 'hmmmmm' when I was younger...just something about the flavor they had...the feeling...the calling, which only in hindsight do I see how I was led to put down roots and live here eventually...and as a result, meet some kindred spirits. Anyway, just another weird thing I ponder.

Concerts and Counting Down to Christmas...

Just a little bloggy update for the life of Ken...last weekend Jay and I had a night out on the town for the Bon Jovi concert. It was a really good show, and they sounded just like their records. I particularly liked the old stuff like Runaway, Raise Your Hands, Wanted Dead or Alive, all them 80s classics I grew up with. Funny thing about Bon Jovi is I've never actually owned an official copy of any of their albums, but rather snatched up singles I liked off friends. They were always sort of on the perimeter of the bands I was more obsessed with, but nevertheless I would say an important part of the soundtrack to my teen years. Jay is a really big fan, and it appears that Ariel is too.



So I suppose now the circle is complete by finally having seen one of the biggest rock bands from that whole genre of the hair-metal scene that I grew up with, and still have the occasional entry into my current ipod shuffles. I thought it would be fun to post a reminiscent blog about the various concerts I've been to over the years, if I can remember them all. Somewhere I have a whole bunch of ticket stubs still saved, but can't seem to recall where I've put them. But off the top of my head, I remember my first was Aerosmith in 1990, followed by Queensryche (eventually 4 times), AC/DC, Def Leppard (twice), Great White, Jimmy Page/Robert Plant (twice), Crosby Stills & Nash (twice), Metallica (twice), Pink Floyd, Black Crowes (twice), Jars of Clay, and Lollapalooza '92 (Pearl Jam, Chili Peppers, Ministry, Soundgarden). Also saw They Might Be Giants in an Ann Arbor record store. I know there are a few others I'm forgetting.

I shall muse on music once again soon...in the meantime, it's time to wrap up some freelance animation and my part-time courses and get ready for Christmas!

I'm on the IMDB!

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2559602/

Ken Southworth 1918-2007♦

I found out today that my friend Ken Southworth passed away, so I immediately passed the news along to some of my friends in the animation community. Jerry has graciously shared my message on Cartoon Brew.

I thought I would post a few details on how I got to know Ken over the years. I first got to know who Ken was through his work, unknowingly by seeing films that he worked on, such as Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, etc...and then more intimately while I was working as an animator with Steve Stanchfield in 1997. We were working on a CD-rom title called Tonka Garage, and Steve told me he got an animation veteran named Ken Southworth to key out a scene for us, which I would be cleaning up and in-betweening. When Steve told me who he was, I was blown away that I would get to work with someone with that kind of experience on my first job!

Later in Spring 1998, we traveled to Los Angeles for the World Animation Celebration and made some time to visit him and his wife Carol at their home in Anaheim. Unfortunately, we didn't get to stay long because he arrived much later than we said we would, after driving around to pick up some other friends of ours who wanted to meet him! He was a bit disappointed that he only had about 20 minutes to spare with us, as he had to leave to pick up his daughter soon. But nevertheless, we got to have a nice visit and see the miniature train set that travelled around his swimming pool!

The following summer while I was studying at VanArts, I found the ironic twist of fate that Ken would be coming there as a guest instructor for the summer program, which I was also assistant-teaching. So it was great to see him again and spend more time with him.


(Ken & Ken, summer 1999)
In 2002, Janet & I went on our belated honeymoon to Arizona and Disneyland. We both paid Ken & Carol a visit and had a lovely dinner with them. Ken showed us his train again and played piano for us. Ken came to VanArts for a couple of summers afterwards, until recent years when his health made it too difficult.

My favorite quote from him was his description of what an animator is: "one-third artist, one-third actor, and one-third engineer." I use this description often to my students and find again & again that it rings true. I feel blessed to have known Ken and to have heard stories of his experience in animation. I deeply regret that I didn't try harder to keep in better touch with him for the past year or so. I need to remember to nurture the relationships I have with these animation legends.

Here is another link to my page about Ken featured on my old abandoned animation history website.

I'm proud to present here my collection of mementos from knowing and working with Ken Southworth over the years.

These are key drawings he did for Hasbro Interactive's Tonka Garage title, produced by Media Station in Ann Arbor, MI in 1997. Part of my job was to clean-up these keys and in-between them. Ken had a very methodical way of planning out his animation due to his many years organizing limited animation at Hanna-Barbera, and he really seemed to like 'stagger' movements.




I think this is one of my clean-ups for a key pose by Ken...I like the 'Scooby-Doo' quality in the design and posing.


For helping him teach his first summer course at VanArts, Ken gave me a copy of this classic book which had served as a guide for the early animators at Disney and other studios in the 1920s-30s. It was sort-of the preamble "Animation Bible" before the Preston Blair book came along. This is one of my prized possessions, even more so now.



In those days I was toying with using my middle name 'Ambrose' as a stage name, but it didn't really stick.


A few years later, on another visit to VanArts, he drew this for my wife, who was also a student there.


I also asked him to autograph my copy of this rare Disney book I had picked up at a used book store (Powell's in Portland, I think!)



(The same page is also autographed by Disney veteran Bill Matthews, so it's pretty special to me.)

Ken faxed over to us folks in the 2D animation department of VanArts these notes and photocopies of Mickey Mouse drawings, pointing out they were drawn by Freddie Moore and making reference to the fact that he had succeeded in drawing Mickey's ears more natural instead of round, apparently "behind Walt's back."





One year while tending to students in the classroom, Ken sketched out an animation scene, either for demonstration purposes or just for fun. He left the drawings behind so I kept them. These are just a few key poses and notes, followed by the resulting animation pencil test which I shot to the best of my ability based on his notes and timing chart.








Thanks Ken!