Book Review: ROUGH DRAFT by Mike Yamada and Victoria Ying

Mike Yamada and his wife Victoria Ying have pretty impressive animation credits for a couple of young artists: He’s worked on Puss in Boots, Kung Fu Panda 2, How to Train Your Dragon, Flushed Away, Monsters vs. Aliens as well as a bunch of live-action films and she’s worked at Disney Animation on Tangled, Paperman, Wreck it Ralph and Frozen. So, when they write a book about Visual Development, it’s time to pay attention.
2011-2013 rough Draft: The Collected Art Demos of Mike Yamada and Victoria Ying ($20+shipping for the paperback version or $15 for the ebook) is a slim volume of only 46 pages that gives a great introduction to the field of Visual Development (Vis Dev in industry slang.) The book is split into two parts: Part One – Ideas and Part Two – Case Studies.
Part one gives a brief introduction to the world of Vis Dev including the many roles the Visual Development Artist plays in the early stages of an animated film, helping to create the “look” of the the film. There are sections of research, how to match the lighting of your world to the needs of the story, and a step by step look at their painting process.

Part Two follows the Vis Dev process from start to finish through three case studies taken from classes Yamada and Ying taught at the Concept Design Academy in Pasadena, California: Snow White set in Feudal Japan, Pinocchio set in Tibet and Peter Pan set in the South Seas. Seeing how the pair worked through each of their concepts, changed the design and developed the color scripts for the projects is really an eye opening experience and could be helpful to traditional artists as well as animators. I found the color scripting sections the most interesting, how the changing dominant colors in the sequences followed the progression of the story as well as how certain colors become identified with different characters. Although I'm not an animator, aspects this concept seems to be applicable to any sort of of illustration work, especially if you are working on multiple pieces to illustrate a book or story  (I just ran across this same concept in James Gurney's (Dinotopia) painting book Imaginative Realism. ) After reading and studying Ying's and Yamada's work, I definitely have a better feel for how to relate the colors associated with certain characters in my work with the appropriate feelings I want to evoke. And there is so much more: how to develop props and do set dressing, creating characters who seem live in the same world, and how incorporate parts of your reference pictures so that your work feels genuine without being a slave copy of the original.

If you are interested in animation and Vis Dev in particular, Rough Draft is great little book well worth the price (hey, the book is self-published so you are supporting some awesome artists.) For more of Yamada’s and Ying’s work, check out their blog site Extracurricular Activities – they update regularly with tips, product reviews and thoughts on being an artist.

If you are interested in further reading about Visual Development/ Production Design, check out Hans Bacher’s Dream Worlds: Production Design for Animation (2007) which I will review in a future post.

“Got My Eye on You”

Art Size: 9 1/2" x 9 1/4" ( 11 1/2" x 11 1/2" matted)
Frame size: 12 3/4" x 12 3/4"
 
I have to admit that I didn’t see Monsters, Inc. when it was originally released back in 2001. That was pretty busy year for my wife and me: we bought a house and then spent months doing extensive renovations before we were married in October. Also, our Disney obsession hadn’t kicked in yet. I’ve always been a fan of Disney Animation and I loved the first two Toy Story films from Pixar, but it wasn’t our older daughter was old enough to really enjoy the Disney magic that our true obsession manifested. I have seen Monsters, Inc. on video numerous times since then (it’s now among my favorite animated films) and made sure to see the 3D conversion in the theater the other year.
 
It’s really is no surprise that Mike Wazowski has been my favorite character, as well as one of my favorite Disney characters period, since I first saw the film. I’ve been a fan of Billy Crystal’s smart-alecky style of comedy for years. He’s note perfect in films like When Harry Met Sally, City Slickers and even his bit part in The Princess Bride. In Monster's, Inc, Crystal played Mike as the embodiment of the everyman nerd, a perfect balance of joie de vie, chutzpah and sarcasm. The relationship between Mike and Sully (John Goodman) is the closest to the old Vaudeville acts of Abbot & Costello or Laurel & Hardy we are likely to see.

I created this illustration around the time that Monster’s University was released in the Summer of 2013. While Mike’s overall design is a simple ball with arms, legs and an eye, there is actually a bit more nuance to him as he appears in the film. I created the interior of his mouth from several layers of paper and then added detail with Sepia Pigma Micron  drawing pen and a tan Copic  brush marker on his teeth (I used the same technique on his horns.) I also used watercolor paint for shadow areas (the first time for this) and scored/bent the paper around his mouth and on his eyelid to give a more three-dimensional look.

   

For the First time in forever…

 

Now, that we’re over half-way through January 2015, it seems like a good time to recap what I did in 2014. I didn’t accomplish everything I’d planned in my January 2014 post, but I did manage quite a bit. I created 13 new works, by far my greatest output so far,  participated in a local arts & crafts fair and sold eight pieces (included in that total were three commission pieces – two for family/friends and one for someone who saw my work at the craft fair.) I also submitted my  piece “The Hatbox Ghost” (coming a future post) for consideration in a group show, but, unfortunately, wasn’t chosen.

2015 looks to be an exciting year. I’m currently working on another commission piece that will grace the walls  the soon-to-open “Game Tavern” – my good friends Raithe and Barry have been renovating half their basement into a Medieval-themed tavern for our Dungeons &Dragons role playing group (best mid-life crisis ever!) The piece is  based on Dave Trampier’s cover for the 1979 Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook, probably one of the most famous/recognizable pictures in fantasy art. We decided to put a bit of a person twist on the project and replace the adventurers in Trampier’s original with five of the legendary characters from Barry’s over thirty-year-old campaign world Ultanya (he started this world when we were in elementary school!) For this project, I’m departing from my general practice of using commercially available craft paper and, instead, I’m going to hand paint each and every piece to capture the feel of the original. I’m working to bring my acrylic painting skills up to the level of the task ahead.

Skill building is actually a lot of what the first part of this year will be about. Besides painting, I’m also working on my drawing skills so that when my younger daughter starts Kindergarten in the Fall, I can really start seriously producing pieces. Look for posts about my progress along the way as well as reviews of the books I’m using – I’m currently working my way through Andrew Loomis’ Drawing the Head and Hands, a 1956 classic that inspired many modern illustrators (including the phenomenal Alex Ross) and has only come back into print in the last few years. Beyond that, I’ve also recently reorganized a spare room into a studio space so that I will no longer have to work at the dining room table – a big relief for our whole family.

Over the next few weeks I will post pictures of my 2014 work (  as well as some older pieces I never posted) and some reviews and later this Spring possibly even a tutorial so you can see how I work. Happy 2015!