El Pacifico - "The Last Stand!"

Check out my latest posting on El Pacifico. His Holiness' ship is down to two guards and are about to make their last stand though overwhelmingly outnumbered. Then comes Dinga Man doing an Errol Flyn and finishes the job. Our pirates hoist the "Dinga" version of the Jolly Roger. I am preparing the stage now for our gang to sail. The page was completely done digitally in Photoshop.

Grand Canyon Trip

My family with some friends took a trip at the southern rim of the Grand canyon in Arizona late last week and here's a couple of photos I took from that "grand" experience. Because of the epic size and scale of the place (fig. 1) the background always looks like a flat painted billboard on a lot of my photos (fig. 2 & 3). The whole place was such an awesome sight to see.

Praying Lilo

©Disney
Seldom we see prayer being shown especially in animation. Well here's a favorite shot. It was a very quick drawing for a camera test. There's a big pull back starting very tight on Lilo then revealing the open door of the room with Nani listening just right outside. Lilo was praying for an angel then the next shot we cut to Stitch coming out of the big crater. The size of the sketch for the test fits on an 8.5x11 paper but the original layout ended up a 16 fld set up. Note the date at the bottom. That's already seven years ago... can still remember that day vidly.

Lilo's Bed Design

©Disney
Being assigned to do the bed design for Lilo & Stitch, rather than going on a field trip to Hawaii, I ended up driving myself to a Rooms To Go Kids along Orange Blossom Trail in Orlando. I went straight to the bedroom showroom and started sketching. The idea of a messy bed full of stuff came from our Production Designer Paul Felix. The bed reflects Lilo's personality of being playful and different. Here are my five bed design sketches Bed 2 was the one approved.

Workbook Series #1: Mulan Prologue

©Disney
Though it's the prologue for the movie, Mulans first sequence where the Huns attacked the Great Wall was actually one of the last sequences to be done in workbook. There were two versions and I had the privilege on doing both. It was the second one that ended up on the big screen. Our production designer Hans Bacher wasn't so happy on this decision and in a way I agree with him. But the product turned out really well on the screen and probably one of my favorite start in an animated movie. Here is the version that made it to theatrical release and the first installment in my blog's new workbook series.

Silver Surfer in NY

©Marvel
This might be one of the oldest artworks I have with me. Back in 1993-1995, I was with Philippine Animation Studio and supervising layout for the overseas productions of Marvel TV series. One of them was one whole season of Fantastic Four (actually the two-season DVD for Fantastic Four 1995-96 is now available in stores). Every episode, they have a guest superhero and on this one, they have the great Silver Surfer. Silver Surfer is supposed to be right smack in the middle of the frame hovering fast towards the camera. The middle part was rendered dark to to give a good contrast on the character (light over dark). This is a 16 fld set-up (which is already big considering the TV standard of 12 fld). There is a camera pull back following the Surfer and a fancy camera rotation as well. The artwork is done on TV 16 fld-size smooth vellum paper using black prismacolor.

The Tank

While working on the defunc "My Peoples" in September, 2003, I did a small movie of my toys inside the Disney studio. The whole thing was done in my pod and it took me a month to finish this "secret" project of mine. Everything was shot using my regular Sony video camera on green screen bg and did a little bit of matte painting. I used a bit of efx tricks I learned from watching DVD extras to create the explosion. The movie was edited on my laptop using Adobe Premiere and re-edited in Final Cut. Music was from the re-release CD of the 1925 Ben-Hur and sound efx were acquired online. Arrangements were being made for this short to be shown on the dailies but sadly the studio was shut down and never made it into the 'big screen'. Well here it is for you to enjoy.
Notes: If you see a 'hand' on one shot, that's mine. Also, I didn't mean to make the bad guy win. It just so happen that's the available toy at the moment and I had a "deadline".

The Culvert

©Disney
It was last March I believe that my good friend Marcelo posted on his blog about a development art he did of Lilo and Stitch standing in a culvert (fig. 1). He thought it never made it into the film. Well, it did. Back in 1999 right after working on Tarzan, I was being launched to work on Lilo and Stitch when I came across a development art that for me one of the few that really stood out - Lilo and Stitch in a culvert. It could be the scale of the culvert, the childish fun or both that attracted me to that artwork. Since the idea was not associated with any particular sequence it was put aside. But somehow I always had it at the back of my mind just waiting for the right moment for me to use the idea in my workbook. Then comes the perfect opportunity. I was asigned to do the workbook for an Elvis song sequence titled "Dysfunctional Angel". It's a series of events introducing the mischievousness of Stitch. On the opening shot for the sequence, Chris Sanders didn't suggest any location for the characters in his storyboard. It was even framed originally very tight on the characters. Then the culvert idea came back! I quickly designed the first shot on my workbook with the elements from Marcelo's but toning down a bit specially on the size of the culvert in order not to divert attention from the characters and even on the scale of the bridge in order to make it more "playskool"-ish. I took out the water drop from the concept art so it can just be painted and not be animated by efx anymore. By the way, Chris' character drawings on the storyboard has so much charm that I kept them in my workbook panel (fig. 2). Chris and Dean bought the idea and the design and eventually made it into the film (fig. 3). That was the one and only time the culvert was seen in the movie. In a small way, I hope that gave justice to a well thought and well designed concept art.

Pixar Visit

Last Friday, I went up to the Bay area and visited a few friends over at Pixar. On the photo with me are Nelson Bohol (left) and Craig Grasso (middle). Nelson and I went all the way back to our freelance days at Pacific Rim Animation Studios in Manila doing Saturday morning cartoons. He then worked on Anastasia for Fox Animation in Arizona before moving on to Pixar and worked in visual development for Finding Nemo. Craig on the other hand is my most challenging video game buddy at Disney and we both worked on Mulan, Lilo and Brother Bear. He then help visually develop Ice Age 2 for Blue Sky then now at Pixar as a storyboard artists. You guys are awesome!

Shang-Yu

©Disney
Here's another one. A layout pose of Shang Yu giving the halt signal to his men after capturing two imperial soldiers. layout was done I believe in 1997.

Yao

©Disney
While doing my move last weekend, I came across my old stack of Mulan artworks (only copies of course!) and found this layout pose of Yao. This is from the avalanche sequence where Yao is sitting on Ling's shoulders. He's about to fire an arrow with a rope tied around it to save Mulan and Shang as they were being dragged by the snow. This was done using prismacolor on 24 fld animation paper. It is one of my favorite layout poses and since I found a bunch of them, there's more to come...

A Take on Lilo's House

©Disney
Here's probably one of the most famous shots of the house in Lilo & Stitch. The scene has Nani running into frame in perspective from the left towards the house. She has to make it in time before the social service guy, Cobra Bubbles, arrive. I did the rough layout for this shot and originally I designed the scene with a tree and their mailbox in the middle foreground of the scene for interest (fig.1). Then the directors suggested to move the objects to the left. I kinda like where the mailbox is so I suggested to keep the mailbox and just move the tree (fig.2). But of course when the actual animation was done, I have to say bye bye to my beloved mailbox to give more 'stage' for Nani's action (fig.3). It's all good as long the scene works. Photoshop wasn't being used that much then so I have to use the good old reliable 'gumby'. You can still see the 'ghosts' of the the tree and the mailbox in the original layout drawing.