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.

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.