Fallen

Posted on by Thor

I moved into the Yahala, Florida studio. Most everything is still in boxes but My Disney Feature Animation desk is partially set up and running, so I can sit down and write.

This is a sketch on the side of the property. Hurricane Milton ripped through Yalaha and knocked down about 4 trees. Thankfully none of them fell on the house. All of them fell to the south. On the north of the neighborhood, a few blocks away is Lake Harris which is huge. The winds from the north blew over the lake with no obstructions and then slammed into Yalaha. Since I moved in work had started in cutting the fallen trees. This particular tree was cut into about 5 foot sections and those huge logs were moved to the roadside. It is hoped that they will remove the logs before the job is done. They will be returning to work on the other slightly smaller fallen trees later in the week.

Also visible in this sketch behind the tree is a composing station. This station had 3 stations of hay. Because this big tree was cut back to the roots, there was room to work on the compost pile. The primary composting area had gotten cold and so the compost was no longer breaking down. Also the wood palates that separated the sections had broken down and so it had to be reconstructed. While I broke apart pallets for the wood, Stella worked on rebuilding the bins. The sin set as we were working. I managed to kneel down on a rusty nail. Luckily I knelled down on the head of the nail so I didn’t draw blood. By the time the sun set we had two sections reconstructed.

Stella added new hay to the first bin and dug a hole down to the ground. She compressed the hay out to the outer edged of the bin and then filled the new hole with food scraps. There were lots of scraps since the refrigerator held food that was purchased before Hurricane Milton hit. A whole chicken was added to the composer. I didn’t realize meat could be composted.

With everything inside. Stella spread hay over the top of what was added. A metal mesh was put on top of the pile and held down with stones so no critters could get inside.  The final touch was a thermometer to see how the compost was heating up inside. After a year, the food scraps should break down and then they will be added to another bin. Hay will then be added to the first bin and the process starts all over again.

Milton Damage

Posted on by Thor

Hurricane Milton caused some major damage in Florida.

Stella Arbelaez, a former Disney Feature Animation effects artist, lives north west of Lake Apopka and I have been helping her constructing a large bamboo sculpture.

There are many tall pine trees in her back yard and Hurricane Milton knocked over a bunch of them. Luckily none of them hit her house, but one is leaning precariously against a shed and several other fell over taking out fencing.

Stella and I both had work accepted at FusionFest over the Thanksgiving weekend. Stella volunteered to paint on location during FusionFest. I thought I had a cold after going to the Pittsburgh Shorts Film Festival to promote COVID Dystopia. I actually was infected with COVID-19 for the first time when flying back to Orlando on Delta flight 1652. I tested myself the first night back and now know that the test was a false negative. I proceeded to help with Stella’s project thinking I just had a cold. I didn’t feel healthy enough to go to Fusion Fest, so I stayed behind while Stella went to paint in Downtown Orlando.

Later in the day I sketched this tree which had been uprooted by Milton. The ripped open root ball reminded me of how my insides felt. COVID is an airborne vascular disease that affects the heart, arteries and fuses brain cells killing off grey matter. It effects just about every organ in the body. The “cold” had knocked me on my ass. The sun started to set as I worked on the sketch, so I rushed to finish before it got too cold out. The ripped open root ball reminds me of the unseen damage being done to my inner vascular system.

Pandemic Studio

Posted on by Thor

I did this sketch of my pandemic studio for one of my online students. Today I find myself doing a similar sketch as I plan for a tight space.

The Disney Feature Animation desk is huge and heavy along with the flat files and a hand made bookcase.

Since I am doing a similar sketch today I will probably do it the same way by adding a bit of depth using one point perspective.

In July of 2020 about 8200 Americans were dying due to COVID-19 each week. Much larger waves of death would follow, and I sat in this studio documenting the vents each day through my surreal paintings. The COVID Dystopia animated short film is doing the rounds at Film Festivals ad the 200 page book with over 600 illustrations is nearing completion. The pandemic is not over and a new virus, H5N1 is spreading in California. That new virus has a mortality rate of 50% while COVID has a mortality rate of an estimated 1.4%. If H5N1 starts spreading from human to human the devastation will make COVID look like a walk in the park.

Disney Feature Animation Building Demolition

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I got an unexpected shock to her that Disney is planning to demolish the Disney Feature Animation Building on the back lot of Disney;s Hollywood Studios.

I stated work in this building and the trailers in the parking lot with Lion King, Pocahontas, Hunchback of Notre Dame, Mulan, Lilo and Stitch and Brother Bear, to name a few. It was an amazing decade and this studio produced some real gems.

Disney is planning to replace the Feature Animation building with a Monsters Inc ride. Apparently, the folks in the building were told on Friday August 16, 2024 that they will be relocated to new offices. Unfortunately Disney Executive never fully grasped the creativity that went on inside these walls. The  legacy of all the artists will probably be destroyed to make way for a roller coaster. It is kind of ironic that Roller Coaster Rabbit was also created in this building.

Disney Feature Animation Internship: Final Thumbnails

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This was one set of thumbnails I did to plan out the final project animation for the internship. The assignment was to have Baloo from The Jungle Book pull something.

I had him scratch his back against a tree so  much that he caused a fire. He then ran, and pulled an elephant into the scene by the trunk to put the fire out.

This was an insanely over ambitious project involving animating two characters along with the effects animation of fire and water. I attempted it simply because I didn’t know any better. I still have the animation on a huge VHS tape that I haven’t looked at for over 30 years. I tried to convert the tape to digital a while back and they didn’t have any way to play the tape in order to convert it. The scene was pretty much a train wreck of mistakes and yet surprisingly Disney still hired me to work on animated films for the next 10 years.

Disney Feature Animation Internship: Baloo

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The final project for the Disney Feature Animation internship involved animating a scene in which Baloo from The Jungle Book, pulls on something.

These are just a few of the quick studies I did to get a feeling for how to construct the character. These are just a few of the many sketches I did to get a feel for the character before animating. There were just 22 days to go before the internship ended. I was going quite stir craze and longed to get back to NYC.

My plan was to have Baloo pull an elephant’s trunk. I don’t know why I couldn’t just have him pull a rope or a vine. I always have to over complicate things. This would mean I would be animating two characters instead of one.

Disney Feature Animation Internship: MGM

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Since the Disney Feature Animation Studio was on the back lot of the Disney MGM Studios theme park, I often walked into the park to sketch at lunch time. I didn’t have an art stool, so I would always sketch from whatever bench happened to be available. Benches are seldom situated in scenic spots.

I do believe that is the Brown Derby Restaurant. They had a really good Cobb Salad that I liked. A very rough sketch of the Tower of Terror is off to the left.

After a day of animating, I would see the search lights probing the sky above Epcot. It always resembled an air raid over London although I doubt that is the effect they were looking for. Perhaps my impression just matched my mood. The final project was an ongoing battle. I didn’t feel I was fully grasping the animation principles that had been thrown at me the past few months.

A day of work on Lion King production felt like a welcome vacati0n. Production work felt real and practical.

Disney Feature Animation Internship: Disney Resorts

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There was a boat launch near the animation studio which was an easy way to boat over to the Disney Resorts. I liked to walk around this lake to clear my head. It was also an easy walk to Epcot. I started a series of sketched around the Epcot lagoon. The idea was that each sketch would be a full 180 degree view and lead into the next sketch so they could all work together as a scroll. That project got sidelined since I had so much animation to do.

My idea for a final project was approved and I began animating. From this point to the end of the internship I would have my head down animating full time. It is odd that I never showed these sketched to the Disney approval board. These sketches were done for myself to ground myself in reality.

Disney Feature Animation Internship: Epcot Center

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Roy Disney was visiting the Florida Feature Animation Studio. I spotted him near the animation camera.

I was feeling a bit like the walking dead since I had just spent a day reworking my final project animation idea. I had Baloo scratching his back against a tree and he spontaneously burst into flames. He was extinguished by an elephant squirting water on him. After all that work however I realized I had overlooked the basic premise of the scene which was to have Baloo pull on something. I had to go back to the drawing board and start over.

Disney Feature Animation Internship: Halloween Party

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This sketch was done from the wooden porch in front of the Animation parking lot trailer. There was a Halloween parade by Animation staff. I didn’t position myself very well to sketch the parade itself, instead I caught the interns crowded on the porch to watch.

Following the parade and costume judging, there were games. One game was an egg toss. Folks had to line up facing one another and toss an egg back and forth. The trick was to catch the egg on your head in a cushioned basket. Things got messy as people had to back up after each toss. Few of the interns had costumes since we were in the thick of animating our final projects.

Work on the Lion King was in it’s final stages and the artists were thinking ahead to their next film, Pocahontas. One artist is wearing an early Pocahontas Tee shirt and clearly someone dresses as Pocahontas herself.

The feature animation tourist attraction is in the background of the sketch. There tourists could watch Disney Animation Artists at work from behind a sound proof glass wall. I would end up working in that building against the glass wall when I first started working on Pocahontas. I helped with the unit that worked on Powhatan, Pocahontas’s father. My supervisor was James Parris who approved my drawings and gave me endless tips. He went on to work not only in traditional animation but also CGI effects animation for Marvel movies and story boarding. He also went on to produce and direct his own shorts. He inspired me to pursue that route for myself.

Working with this Disney Animation family left me putting down roots in Orlando. Now those roots have been unearthed. I am searching for where I should set up my next studio.