The Animator's Survival Kit, by Richard Williams - I was looking forward to reading this massive tome by the great Richard Williams. It's very informative, filled with excellent artwork, and a good reference -- if you do not already have one that covers the same subjects. Because unfortunately, for me, this book didn't really contain any information that was new to me (my copies of Preston Blair's instructional books for Walter Foster have long ago been loved to death. Don't worry, I have the very nice omnibus edition as well.) Williams also does not talk much about his experiences in the animation world, and because he has had one of the most interesting careers imaginable as an animation artist, it was a huge letdown to find the book nearly half-filled with walk-cycles instead.
Color and Light, by James Gurney - Some time ago, on his excellent blog, James Gurney wrote a long and extensive series of posts about color theory, lighting effects, and different painting media and their lightfastness and whether "Cadmium Red", for example, will be exactly the same no matter what paint brand you buy. All of that information, ALL of it and plenty more, is collected in this book. It is definitely worth a read for all artists, but is probably especially useful for painters. For the rest of us, at least it is a very nice compilation of Gurney's beautiful art.
Chanticleer and the Fox, illustrated by Marc Davis - Speaking of beautiful art, this picture book is illustrated with the wonderful concept art Marc Davis created for the shelved Disney film based off the tales of Reynard the Fox and Chanticleer the Rooster. The character designs are wonderful, even if the story is a little mediocre. As it happens, this little book is more informative and interesting than some of the longer collections of never-produced Disney animation. Speaking of...
Disney Lost and Found, by Charles Solomon - Full disclosure: I read this a while ago and I don't even remember if I reviewed it here. It has, as you might expect, a lot of art in it. It also has very little explanation as to what you are looking at. Like, one of the particularly strange paintings in the first third of the book will simply have subtext that says, "This was going to be a scene in 'Rescuers Down Under'." The two chapters that contain art from two features that were never made have *just* a bit more information. "My Peoples" probably would have been charming, but "Wild Life" would have been fascinating. Funny thing is, there's more information about one of the lost films in this incredible, and very sad, blog post then there is in the book.
"The Butterfly Ball" - Three years ago(!?!) I wrote a post about a strange animated music video that turned out to be part of a larger concert film. That film quickly went into my Netflix "saved" queue and now it's finally here and I have watched it.
Welp.
Turns out "Love is All" may be the ultimate case of "Context will not help you in any way at all, sorry." That animated video is actually the least strange part of the show. I'm at a loss to describe the concert film, but there's a part of me who wants to rent it again next time I have a party and have it running in the background, just to see how long it takes for guests to wonder WTF they are looking at.
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Sketch of the Day!
Hey, finally a current sketch! Here is my incredibly appropriate contribution to a stunningly significant recent historical event:
