Minase Souya Comic Books

A very good Japanese friend of mine has been hard at work over the past few years creating several comic books. Minase Souya works as a character modeler during the day, but he's up to late hours working on these great books. If any of you know how he can get them published, please get in touch. Thanks.   http://minase-souya.sakura.ne.jp/

Finnigan

It's been awhile since I posted something to my blog, but that's only because I haven't been ready to post what I've been very busy working on. I'm quite excited about this project and I hope to be making an announcement within the next month or two. There will be a new website for my work and I'll tell you more as my release date approaches. In the meantime, here's a colourful section from one of my paintings.

Pencil Kings

Hey Everyone,

My friend Tim Linklater has set up a new online training site. Check out his latest interviews with a couple of my friends from my time at Blue Sky Studios. Aaron Hartline who's now an Animator at Pixar and Mike Thurmeier Supervising Animator at Blue Sky and Co- Director on Ice Age 3.

http://www.pencilkings.com/how-to-become-a-professional-artist

Anatomy

It's been far too long since I added anything to my blog, so here are a few updates. I'm currently taking some awesome anatomy courses with AnatomyTools in Alameda California. Ironically the courses are taught in a building about 15 blocks from where I used to live, so I've been enjoying the old neighbourhood. Anyway, here are a few photos of my work in progress.

Characters I Modeled for the Shorts "Lifted", "One Man Band" and "Boundin'"

I thoroughly enjoyed working on these shorts. The crews were smaller. Our time was precious because we were usually between films and could ramp onto a feature at anytime, and our resources were limited, which ultimately made us think more creatively. Working with the directors Gary Rydstrom (Lifted), Mark Andrews and Andrew Jiminez (One Man Band) and Bud Luckey (Boundin') was some of the best times I had at Pixar! They were fabulous to work with! One of the highlights of working at Pixar was the chance to work with the legendary Bud Luckey. Did you know Bud animated and sang on a lot of the old Sesame Street animated shorts? Check them out on youtube... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7DkhdR8I3w&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGpJJM2c7dg&feature=related

Working on The Incredibles

I had an awesome time working on The Incredibles. My favorite characters to model were Rick Dicker, Jack Jack and Syndrome. I was fortunate to be asked to sculpt the Syndrome clay expression maquettes. I first sculpted the neutral head where the face is quite relaxed. This was then sent off to have a mold made. Two clay heads were cast from that head mold, and I used these clay copies to resculpt Syndrome into the squash smiling and the stretch screaming poses you see here.
My last assignment on The Incredibles was a large sculpture of Nomanisan Island. The dimensions were approximately 4' x 4' x 2.5'. This model was really helpful in blocking in the 100 mile dash sequence. Unfortunately I have no photographs of the sculpture and the last time I saw it in the hallways at Pixar it was looking the worse for wear.
Jack Jack was the first character I modeled and put into the pipeline. I loved the character design on him. I was asked to make his body muscular similar to that of a little gorilla.
When I came on board the Art Department a large resin cast had already been made of Helen's head. I was asked to model her body. Her forms had to be motherly with the wider hips, whilst maintaining a certain sexiness to the shapes.
Rick Dicker was great fun to work on. We were going for a Nixon like quality to his forms. The children you see here were to be Dashes classmates. Unfortunately due to time and budget constraints, they eventually got mothballed.
This was an early preproduction model of Buddy Pine I worked on. The final Buddy Pine was later modeled by Brian Tindal. I did model these boots which are the same as in the final film.
Snug the pilot was originally to have a larger role in the film, but his role was largely cut to make the story tighter. We were in the middle of working on his scene in which he dies in the plane crash when 911 happened. Although the scene in which Helen and the kids get shot out of the sky is intense, having Snug die was just too much and was ultimately cut from the story.

The King

This is a little mpeg of a maquette I sculpted for Space Chimps. This was to be the original King. the puppets on his hands were his advisors and made for some very funny gags... all of which got scrapped. Thanks to Steerling Sheehy for doing the stop mo for me.

Ratatouille Background characters Serge and Dog Lady