Thursday, February 28, 2008

Lilo & Stitch Layouts

Digging the archives again, I came across my old Lilo & Stitch BG layouts which I'd like to share. Above is a shot of Lilo's house done in prismacolor and velum. Notice the tape mark I used to stretch the bg dates the artwork back to the pre-photoshop era.

Above is one of my favorites. The simpler the shot, the more challenging to make it interesting since there's litttle to play with. I was asked not only to lay this one out but also to design the the book cover. This is the only time this book is going to be seen on the screen so it has to be very clear for a one second shot. I did a couple of designs and this was the one I was happy with. Remember, this was pre-PS days so I have to do do the fonts by hand. Done in graphite on paper and the same goes with the rest of the artworks below.


Again, above are two layouts that were simple but challenging. For those of you into 2D, the front door was a 24 fld vertical pan setup. The 5000 peg mark can still be seen on the left hand border.

This is a layout of a street corner from a deleted scene. The painted bg turned out so nice that the directors decided to include it in the Wynona Judd song montage sequence at the end of the movie.

I never expected this one to be a favorite of mine when I was working on it because of the shot's "simplicity". This layout was painted by the "master", Xiangyuan Jie (Check my link to his site, it's amazing). Click here to see the painted version online.


A couple of my warm up design sketches before production kicked in. All images in this posting are ©Disney.

34 comments:

  1. These are just wonderful! Great work, man. And refreshingly non digital :)

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  2. Beautiful. That movie remains one of my favorite animated features -- such a beautiful style throughout it. Thanks for posting these up.

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  3. These are really nice Armand. I mentioned to you once at Sony about the sense of 'light right after the storm' that you got in those.
    Fantastic.

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  4. Beautiful work, Armand! I'm always very inspired after visiting your blog and I'm sure I'm no the only one!

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  5. Hi Oliver,
    Can't agree with you more on the refreshing part. Every now and then, I still work in pencil and bring it to PS. No digital tool yet can effectively mimic graphite on paper much more prismacolor on velum.

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  6. Hey Marcos,

    I remember you mentioning that before (back when we used to be "neighbors"!). That exactly was the idea of being in the tropical islands. It always has that feeling of either before or after the storm. Thanks my friend.

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  7. These are so awesome man. Your tonal work is unmatched!

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  8. Hey Armand. These are truly inspirational. I was just wondering if you could have a look at my work and give me some pointers as to how I may further improve my stuff. I've been doing mostly character drawings up to this point, but I'm planning to spent the next couple of months on subjects which have always intimidated me like location and inanimate object drawings. I guess there aren't any shortcuts other than to take the time to study the subjects. Still, it'd be great to get someone with a fresh eye to see what's lacking in my drawings and where I could go from here. Thanks.

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  9. Haha Armand, you may not believe it but I've always loved *that shot* with the vodoo spoons and the book.. :) I am so happy to see where it came from.
    Beautiful work in this post my friend.

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  10. Always enjoy seeing the L&S layouts. Nice work!

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  11. you know I have never bought Lilo and Stitch because I have been waiting for the special edition with all the production art.. I guess I can FINALLY just go ahead and get it since you body slam your blog with so much great work from the film!

    thanks!

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  12. ...and now I can swoon and go to bed happy. These are -beautiful-, Armand! Non-digital even, and that makes me -so- happy because I am, sadly, a totally non-digital person. I can't colour for long digitally; it hurts my eyes so much I'm practically blind when I finish so I don't do it often.

    These capture the tropics -perfectly-. And that shot of the sidewalk and the flowers is stunning. So is the book! That lettering would have earned you a double A from my old theatre head of department...

    --Shuku

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  13. It's always nice to see the original layout. Thanks for the posting. Beautiful work

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  14. Eh...ey...ummmm.....wow!!! Really great!!

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  15. Awesome!, really nice work man!

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  16. Awesome incredibly beautiful stuff. You guys really did an amazing job on that film.

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  17. Oh my frick....!!! beautiful man!

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  18. Now that's stunning! Beautiful work! - which custom brush did you use? ;)

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  19. Thanks, guys. Lilo is a favorite of mine as well. I still got a boxful of artworks and just need to digitalize the stack so I could share them here in the blog. So there's more coming in the next few weeks (or months).


    C.G. Leow,

    Thanks for the comment and I'll definitely check on your site.


    Sim-r,

    That's the good old default analog brush. Thanks my friend.

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  20. Wow, these are absolutely beautiful . . . thanks for sharing these!

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  21. these are creative!

    my bday is in feb, too

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  22. Wooowww!!! Your work is astonishing!! AMAZING! I love the drawings for Lilo and Stich!! the boards designs for Surf's up! you must have had loads of fun doing them, I bet... And the tonal drawings for Mulan are just Incredible!! You just got one more fan !! :D thanks for sharing

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  23. Beautiful!!! Such great work, thank you for posting these Armand!! Please post more.

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  24. Hey Armand it's brandon, juts wanted to say hello and ask what medium these Lilo and Stitch pieces are. They look like graphite pencil but could be prismacolor. Either way they are amazing, definitely good enough for the Wall of Majesty we were telling you about. Keep up the inspiring work. Take care and god bless...

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  25. freakin awesome! Would it be possible to see a demo of this magical process?

    but really thanks for posting these! its like a constant inspiration for us.

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  26. Thanks again, guys.


    Hey Craig,

    I'll be posting more in the future as soon as I scannned the rest. Thanks and see you at Sketchclub.


    Hey Brandon,

    It's good to hear from you. The first piece was done in prismacolor on velum. The rest were done in graphite on heavy animation paper. Hey I'm having goose bumps regarding the Wall of Majesty. Don't know about the "majesty" part...but thanks anyway and hope we could have lunch again one of these days. Regards to Tony and Andrew. Take care.

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  27. Hey Erik,

    Thanks for the comment. Actually, you gave me an idea. Maybe I should make one of those time lapse videos. Seldom we see drawing demos with real pencil nowadays. I'll let you know. Take care.

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  28. Great, great and greater! Thanks for posting these, I really like the "simple" shots as well, there is a certain poetry to them that is very appealing.

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  29. These are really nice Armand!!
    Awesome incredibly beautiful stuff!!

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  30. hey so great your art....are cool ..i like all i see of you in this page :)
    bye bye

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  31. Hello,

    I am doing an essay about Lilo and Stitch and just wanted to ask you

    a) What was your experience like working on Lilo and Stitch? and
    b) Why do you think it was so different to other animated movies at the time?

    Thank you.

    Best Regards,

    Daryl-Rhys Taylor

    drt_@hotmail.co.uk

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  32. these pictures are fantastic my 3yr old little girl loves this film we watch it 3-7 times a day i love the way stich is drawn i'm glad to see these in pencil not computer design keep up the work

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