Hey everyone! It's been a while since I've posted anything on this blog.. just been really busy at work and usually too tired to draw anything not work related.. which is not good~.. Next weekend the movie "Tangled" is coming out, and it's my first real screen credit on a feature film as a character designer! I'm really proud to be a part of this film and the talented people that worked on it, especially the directors (Byron and Nathan) who gave me my first real opportunity to do character design proffesionally.. On the actual film there only a few credited for the character designs (me, jin kim, bill schwabb, and glen keane).. but there were many talented character designers that were on it earlier that had tons of fantastic stuff.. (joe moshier, tron mai, lorelay bove, claire keane, brigette..etc) that never made it to the art of book but should have been recognized as well..

Stylistically, my job was to make the characters fit in the same world as Rapunzel.. who was drawn by none other then the great Glen Keane! He had already done soooooo many awesome drawings on her for the past 7 years at Disney that Rapunzel already had a real clear direction on who she was and how she should drawn.. It was a tall order for me to follow up on it so I did my best to really understand Glen's aesthetics and his influences.. I made it a point to really look at his work from his more recent Tarzan drawings.. to some of his early stuff like Oliver and Company and Ratigan from the great mouse detective.. even looking at earlier artists like Ollie Johnson, Fred Moore, Hank Ketchum, Kathee Kollwitz, Leyendecker, Robert Fawcett, Hirschfield, Carl Spitzweg, Raphael and photographers like Edward Steichen.. I found that even Glen's animation notes were hidden gems on his design process as well.. It wasn't good enough to just copy shallow mark making or shapes but to understand his perspective and the "why" he draws the way he does..

In the end, I don't even know if all this studying had a direct impact on the drawings I did.. or if I really succeeded in understanding the "glen keane" style.. but I did learn a lot and grew from it..

Glen's vision for the aesthetics for the film was summed up with one word: sprettzatura.. which means "art that hides it's art".. something I'm always trying to strive for myself every day!

So go check out the film next week~ Practically all the shots had Glen drawing over the key poses in the scene so you can see his touch everywhere..



..and stay and check out the credits as well! : )