Disney Internship: Tower of Terror Construction

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The Tower of Terror at Disney’s MGM Studios was constructed right next to the parking lot trailer where we were learning the art of animation during the Disney Feature Animation Internship.

The construction itself wasn’t that distracting, but when the ride opened, we could hear people screaming bloody murder every few minutes when the elevator dropped. The ride designers were kind enough to make sure the elevator doors were wide open overlooking  the park and studio, where we were working, each time they dropped.

When construction was complete the designers needed guinea pigs to test out the ride before it was opened to the public. Of course the animation interns volunteered. As the elevator rose I started to think it was a bad idea. What if the brakes failed? What if one of the shaft panels wasn’t bolted in right?

Disney Internship: The Ball Bounce

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This is our group of Disney Feature Animation interns listening to a lecture I believe by Sam Ewing about the mechanics of a ball bounce.

I worked closely with Sam when he was the clean up lead animator on Koda in Brother Bear. Among the interns in my sketch I recognize Darren Webb, Peter Clark. He blew me away with the amount and quality of the animation projects he completed. He was an absolute machine. Yes that is a compliment, He was building whole worlds while I struggled with basic mechanics of getting my drawings to move. On Dinosaur, Peter got to shine doing what he does best which is visual development and creating whole new worlds.

I was surprised to discover that Darren Webb went on to work in the the animation department of many amazing computer animated films from Dreamworks like How to Train Your Dragon. I would love to find out his story some day. The main thing I remember about him as a roommate is that he took very long showers. I was in a room full of great artists.

Disney Internship: Apartment 3903.

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Getting into the Disney Feature Animation Internship Program back in 1993 had to be one moment in my life where I felt absolute brilliant Joy. I read the acceptance letter while on the streets of NYC and literally leaped for joy.

On the plane ride to Orlando I remember hearing the soundtrack for Aladdin and the song, “A Whole New World” was playing as we flew through some of the most gorgeous billowing clouds I have ever seen.

At the Disney Feature Animation studio, we were given a tour of the MGM lot. The rest of the day was spent doing drawings of Mickey Mouse and Goofy. By the end of the week we were required to produce a story sequence with the characters. The studio was actually a trailer in the parking lot behind the MGM Studios theme park.  It wasn’t exotic but it would be home for the following months of intensive training.

Disney put me up in an apartment with 4 other Animation Interns. We didn’t spend much time in the apartment. Once we all started the animation projects, we basically lied at our animation desks. Tony Stanley had a car and brought our group to one of those food warehouse stores. I purchased a whole bag of potatoes figuring I might bake one up each night. Those potatoes started to sprout since there was never time to bake. That reminds me, I purchased 3 sweet potatoes last week and I need to figure out what to do with them. The apartment was at 131501 Meadowcreek Drive Apartment 3903. There was a bus to the MGM studios where we set to work.

From the start I felt that I was in the company of some of the most talented artists I had ever met. The experience was to prove intimidating and inspiring at the same time.

Life: The Rainforest

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This new Rainforest exhibit in the Orlando Science Center used to be the former Kids Town. The temperature controlled environment is warm lush and humid.

Birds flew overhead. They were just quick flashes of color and movement, so I didn’t catch any in my sketch.

A sloth rested in a circular shaped hammock and never moved the entire time I was there. If he did move, he did so so slowly that I never noticed. Ropes up inn the branches were highways for a tamerin monkey.

A marsupial was quite curious about me and chomped on some of the foliage. I heard he is a bit of an escape artist. I named him Houdini.

One of the handlers was kind enough to dig out a turtle from his hidden cave. I had a few minutes to sketch him in the corner before he crawled back inside. Behind me a 17 foot waterfall cascaded down into a pool filled with freshwater fish. I must say this was the most relaxing exhibit to sketch and I never knew where some wildlife might pop up. All the live landscaping seemed to be thriving with all the light pouring in through the huge windows covered with blue and green art.

Life: The Ocean

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The new Life exhibit at the Orlando Science Center, 777 E Princeton St, Orlando, FL, features three habitats, the Swamp, the Amazon, and the Ocean.

The Ocean features a huge cylinder shaped aquarium. The top is open and I am left wondering how long it will take before people start throwing coins in the tank. Of course the exhibit is still under construction.

There was one lone hammerhead shark swimming in the tank the day I drew it. I knew that the rest of the fish were in quarantine, waiting to be introduced to their new home.

The coral isn’t live. It consists of sculpted replicas. To grow live coral would involve a huge investment in bright halide lighting or direct sun light. I am guessing that the challenge of keeping fish alive is enough without also trying to grow live coral. Live coral is so beautiful though. I had a live coral tank and it was rewarding but a challenge. Granted 180 gallons if far less that this huge 10,000 gallon tank in the museum.

Since the fish were not in the tank yet, I contented myself with sketching the metal fish silhouettes hanging from the ceiling.

Taco Cheena

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I was near Taco Cheena on Mills Avenue in Orlando one morning to meet a student. As I waited, I sat down and finished off a sketch to pass the time. The student never showed up. When you are an urban sketcher such moments are never wasted.

Someone was waiting for a bus across the street in front of the Forest Gump mural. He was picked up long before I finished the sketch.

Taco Cheena wasn’t open yet but I saw someone moving trash out. It looks like they have a food truck as well. They open at noon. I have never eaten there but I will have to order food from there someday. I don’t eat in restaurants anymore since I know too much about the COVID virus which is still circulating but unreported. There is outdoor seating which I appreciate.

Maybe someday all restaurants will have strong HEPA air filtration systems so that patrons can breath clean air indoors while they eat. I am not holding my breath however.

Cyclops

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For the day of the out Macular Degeneration patient Eye surgery I had to wear a plastic Eye shield. I couldn’t resist the opportunity to do a Van Gogh inspired self portrait.

The eye patch was removed the following morning at the doctors office by a nurse. She waved her hand in front of my face to see if I could see and then held up one finger to see if I knew how to count. She pulled her hand away with the one finger and asked if I could still see her finger and I let her know that it was still attached to her hand.

What had been a red blob in my patch covered vision was now a blurry and wet view of the office. The lower half of my vision was till a grey air bubble. I can see through the grey air bubble but it is like looking through gauze of a thick fog.

My eye looks like I was punched by Mike Tyson without a boxing glove on. There is no white to my eye, it is all a bloody mess. I was told the bubble sloshing around in my eye will disappear in several weeks. In the mean time I tend to get sea sick whenever I move my head. It turns out I am always moving my head except when I sleep.

I will not be venturing out to sketch on location for a few weeks. My Sunday Crealde classes were canceled, not because I look like a monster, but because not enough students signed up. I am thankful to have the Sundays off to recover, but I have a dozen virtual classes each week that I need to pace myself through. I had rescheduled virtual classes that were slated for the day of the surgery to the following day. I am very glad I did that because I felt nauseous and rested most of the day after surgery. The make up classes went alright but I rested between the classes. Today I have 8 hours of virtual classes back to back. It will be an adventure to see how I hold up.

Maitland Art Center Demo

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This sketch was done as a demo for one of my students. It was a nice day, cool and sunny. We did several sketched on the property.

I am always stressing the importance of perspective when doing a sketch on location. The sign in the foreground and the building inn the background have the same vanishing point. The fact that the vanishing point is off the pace often throws a beginning sketcher.

There is also a vanishing point off the page to the right which defines that sidewalk triangle shape in the lower right corner and the angles in the roadway.

Now that I am on my own, I am feeling the need to get out and sketch on location more often. The trouble is that most days I teach until 8pm and most events start earlier.

I might just start doing nocturnal digital paintings after 8pm. I am thinking I can go to event venues and sketch from outside. A COVID cautious artist doing outsider views of crowded venues might be interesting. I used to document each hellish superspreader event, but those are happening every day now.

Yesterday I started designing the COVID Dystopia book. The format I am considering is a hardbound book 10 1/4 by 13 1/4 inches. Learning InDesign is proving problematic. I have the cover set up but there are many technical issues I need to address. I made a mistake downsizing cover art, and now it is pixelated. Well. if I can teach myself Premiere and After Effects, I should be able to tackle InDesign.

Retina Pre-Op

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A friend drove me to Central Florida Retina for a Pre-op check in. My left eye is distorting images so that I end up seeing double with both eyes open. For now I tend to close my left eye when sketching and when typing.

We went from one small waiting room to another small waiting room neither of which had HEPA air filtration. Ironically in the second waiting room the news station on the TV was featuring a story about Long COVID. The volume was down so I didn’t hear what was being covered. Two others in the room were masked.

This was certainly an older demographic of patients waiting to be seen. The guy in the corner of the room was busy on his iPad but using it seemed foreign to him. He poked at the screen like he was trying to kill a bug.

Then he took a phone call and shouted into the phone. I don’t think he had any idea how loud he was shouting. He then needed to look up a contact and didn’t know how to do it. My friend stepped in and showed him how to find the contacts list. After the call he started talking to her about his past. He was from Jamaica and went though many screenings before being able to immigrate to America. He was annoyed that illegal immigrants were making that process more cumbersome. Then he said he should have listened to his mother. The only reason he was loosing his eye sight was because he had looked at too many Penthouse magazines. I must say he made the wait far more interesting.

Everything that was done at this appointment had been done several weeks prior. I learned nothing new. The only possible reason for this second appointment would be to bill the insurance company again. Anyway my eye surgery is in a week. Hopefully it will correct the distortions I am experiencing. I will wear an eye patch for a day and then I hope the vision will slowly recover. I was also warned that because of the surgery I will likely develop a yellowish have over time. If you see me doing more yellow paintings, you now know why.

COVID Dystopia: Vote

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This scene from COVID Dystopia was created the week before the former president lost the presidential election. Ignorance in the face of a deadly pandemic was my only issue I considered in that election. Joe Biden promised change but one happened after he was elected. Now in the upcoming election I face a choice between the same tow numskulls, namely Dumb and Dumber. It is a hard choice.

At the time Omicron was ripping through society and it was the worst spike of deaths since the start of the pandemic. Everyone compares the COVID Death toll today to that huge spike during the election. Today there are about 600 reported deaths a week due to COVID. That is about the same weekly death toll as people who die in automobile accidents. So, granted I have to drive my car to get supplies and survive, but I wear a seat belt which increases my chance of surviving if I am side swiped by a lunatic. That is that same reason I wear a mask indoors and in crowds outdoors. If there is one thing the pandemic taught me is that everyone is a lunatic.

Lunatics prefer to blame lock downs and vaccines for their constant illnesses from  some “Mystery” virus. They come back from cruises sick and then go to crowded graduations to spread the virus to others. Hospitals have dropped making requirements for doctors to they are now cesspools of infection. Masking in N-95s to protect others is a step too far. I visited a new doctor a week ago and she was mask less. At least one of her receptionists wore a baggy blue. People are desperate to conform to the social norm and since most people do not mask the only way to fit in is to be constantly sick with a virus that destroys the immune system and causes vascular and brain damage. The numbers of young people dying from heart problems is staggering but COVID is never mentioned on the death certificates.