Disney and Pixar process insights and getting the most out of master studies

Heyo!

Some great art resources I've found useful this week from artists that have worked for both Pixar and Disney Animation!

So lets jump right into this weeks resources, thoughts, 'aha moments' and announcements directly from my brain to yours.

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- Resources I've found useful this week

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Video - The Art of Monsters University Book Review​

I'm really loving Adam Duff's (LUCIDPIXUL) content, especially his book reviews!

This was a great one, and ties nicely into some Tonko House resources (below) because both Dice Tsutsumi & Robert Kondo (founders and Directors of Tonko House) actually worked on Monsters University at Pixar.

A couple of key little take aways...

• Try and imagine the voice of your character to bring it to life -> [10:30](
  ?t=629)​
• Observe diffrent times of day to breath some reality into your paintings -> [12:30](
  ?t=740)​

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People - Dice Tsutsumi and Robert Kondo of Tonko House​

Both Robert And Dice are founders and directors of Tonko House, an animation studio based in Berkley, California and they both previously had experience in Pixar's art department.

I first came across them in a schoolism course which I highly recommend named (Painting with Light and Color).

They have a unique way of illustrating using simple shapes and solid lighting fundamentals that really captured my attention.

They also like to use a lot of layer modes (in photoshop) to create different lighting scenarios using the same initial painting.

I suspect this technique was honed at pixar to efficiently crank out different lighting concepts without re-painting the whole thing. A very cool workflow for sure!

I reccomend checking them out and exploring their work!

I've listed a couple of videos below I enjoyed this week.

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Video - How to choose colours (Dice Tsutsumi)​

A really nice, quick video on how Dice Tsutsumi chooses his colours.

Dice likes to break his colour choices into two sections

• Values (How bright or dark the object is)
• Temperature (How warm of cool it is)

Dice mentions this should help to not get so overwhelmed with the millions of colours that are out there. And I 100% agree with this approach.

It's more or less how I'm thinking about colour now.

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Video - Really great explination of a still life painting (Robert Kondo)​

This is a great little walk through of Robert Kondo's though process when he's doing a still life in Photoshop.

A couple of key take aways from this one...

• Don't just copy what you see, paint what you understand
• Take note of the 'Cast Shadow' and 'Form Shadows' and learn the difference between the two
• Using overlay layers to enhance the colours

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Interview - Robert Kondo (Tonlo House) & Bobby Chui (Schoolism)​

This was a really great interview between two great artists. I often times listen to this kind of content passively (while painting, at the gym, driving etc).

There were some really great insights particularly at [10:56](

One big take away was a nice analogy... "Master studies with no purpose Is like finding a solution to a question you don't have".

They continue to discuss the importance of going into a study with questions to answer, and how best to come up with those questions.

Highly recommend popping this on in the background while you work.

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People - Griz and Norm (Instagram)​

Are a husband and wife team who are both feature animation artists at Walt Disney Animation Studios

I particularily love their 'Tip Tuseday' posts like this one on Eyebrows. They're quick, bite sized tips in that classic Disney Animation style that I really enjoy.

Check them out and absorb them sweet, sweet Disney Animation insights!

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Some quick updates

The Blog

I'm working when I can (inbetween my full time gig) to get this blog out ASAP.
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It's taking a bit of time because

- I'm building it from scratch and not using a website builder

- I want to make it more of a research tool for both myself and you instead of a chronological list of posts that can easily get lost with no context.

I can definitely see my perfectionist mentality creep into this project, so I might launch without a bunch of the features I want in there in initially, and then just continue to itterate it.

What's called in the tech world an (MVP - Minimum, Viable, Product)

Stay tuned.

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Hope you're doing well! And until next week...

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Stay consistent, use reference, have fun with it and remember; it's only pixels baybee!

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Cheers,

Ben

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Have any questions or just want to say "hey"?

DM me on:

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Email me at b.eblendesign@gmail.com or simply reply to this one.

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