Alice Project - Artist: Don Bluth

Don Bluth

Don Bluth is an animator for several successful films and an ex-animator of Disney.
Bluth attended Brigham Young University in Utah for one year and after got a job at The Walt Disney Company. He started in 1955 as an assistant to John Lounsbery for Sleeping Beauty. In 1957 Bluth left Disney only two years after being hired. Afterwards Bluth spent two-and-a-half years in Argentina on a mission for the LDS Church. He returned to the United States where he opened the Bluth Brothers Theater along with his younger brother Fred, though he occasionally worked with Disney. Bluth returned to college where he got a degree in English Literature from Brigham Young. Bluth returned to animation business and joined Filmation in 1967 where he worked on layouts for The Archies and other projects. He returned full-time to Disney in 1971 where he worked on Robin Hood (Which happens to be one of my favorite Disney films from my childhood.), Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too, The Rescuers and directing animation on Pete's Dragon. His last involvement with Disney was the 1978 short The Small One. Then he went on to make and produce his first short, Banjo the Woodpile Cat (1979), which takes place in his hometown Payson, Utah during the 1940s as Banjo travels to Salt Lake City to find the urban world.

Here is a list of his work:

·         Sleeping Beauty (1959, assistant animator, uncredited)

·         Popeye the Sailor (1960-1962, animation director (Jack Kinney), uncredited)

·         The Sword in the Stone (1963, assistant director, uncredited)

·         Fantastic Voyage (1968, TV series, layout artist)

·         Archies and His New Pals (1969, TV special, layout artist)

·         Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down (1970, TV series, layout artist)

·         Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies (1970, TV series, layout artist)

·         Robin Hood (1973, character animator)

·         Journey Back to Oz (1974, layout artist)

·         Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too (1974, short film)

·         The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977, directing and character animator)

·         The Rescuers (1977, directing animator)

·         Pete's Dragon (1977, animation director)

·         The Small One (1978, short film)

·         Banjo the Woodpile Cat (1979, short film)

·         Xanadu (1980, animated sequence unit, animator)

·         The Fox and the Hound (1981, animator)

·         The Secret of NIMH (1982)

·         Dragon's Lair (1983, video game)

·         Dragon's Lair (1983, TV series)

·         Space Ace (1984, video game)

·         Space Ace (1984, TV series)

·         An American Tail (1986)

·         The Chipmunk Adventure (1987, animation style)

·         The Land Before Time (1988)

·         All Dogs Go to Heaven (1989)

·         The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera (1990, ride)

·         Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp (1991, video game)

·         Rock-a-Doodle (1992)

·         Jungledyret (1993, animation style)

·         Thumbelina (1994)

·         A Troll in Central Park (1994)

·         The Pebble and the Penguin (1995)

·         Anastasia (1997)

·         Bartok the Magnificent (1999)

·         Titan A.E. (2000)

·         Dragon's Lair 3D: Return to the Lair (2002, video game)

·         Mary by the Scissor Sisters (2004, animated segments of music video)

·         Tapper World Tour (2010, video game)

                                              
One of the last animated films Don Bluth worked on was 20th Century Fox’s Titan A.E (Which is also one of my favorite movies of all time.), but unfortunately, the film did poorly in the box office (Only earning back $37M of the $70M budget.) and causing the company Bluth was employed under to be shut down in Titan A.E’s wake and no longer developed 2D features.

Since 2000, Bluth has been anything but idle, as he has been working on smaller projects, like music videos and video games and also hosting a website where he teaches budding artists the art of animation.
He also plans to do a brand new animated feature entirely 2D in the coming future thanks to overwhelmingly positive reaction to the Blu-Ray re-release of Anastasia.

He has described his interest in animation as “An attraction to the beauty of how the drawn characters come to life.”

Mock FMP - Rethinking my Idea

I’ve decided to rethink my idea for my Mock FMP
I was happy with my initial idea, The Knightingale Chronicles to begin with, but after a while, I noticed I had no motivation or goal for the idea, I was just drawing the characters and had no idea what to do with the idea next.
This happened before with the Story and ‘Symbiosis’ projects, where I stuck with an initial Idea I disliked and ended up with a poor outcome due to lack of interest and not enough exploring.
So I’ve decided to put my work so far on my first idea as experimenting with ideas and concepts, and I plan to try a new idea which could be alot more enjoyable and more towards a subject I like, and in turn produce a better idea and project.

I’ve had an idea for a cartoon/Classic video game style video game that I’d be making concept art for, similar to the Games project we did in the first half of Year 2.
I’ve contemplated what genre its to be, and since I did an action platformer for my Games design, I am instead going to try and do a racing game, similar to Mario Kart, Donkey Kong Barrel Blast and Crash Team Racing.

I’d be making character art, object designs, vehicle designs, track concepts and maybe even a front cover if I have enough time.
If I don’t have enough time and I have more ideas at the end of my Mock FMP, this may very well be the idea I carry across to my FMP if it comes to fruition in the Mock.

Mock FMP - Final Idea

Final Mock FMP Idea- Knightingale Chronicles: Trading Cards

For my mock FMP, I plan to make a set of trading cards, consisting of Fantasy-themed characters and being similar to popular card games such as Top Trumps, Magic the Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh.
For the project, I’ll be researching the layout and format of existing trading card games and also researching into the various fantasy themes that I intend to portray, such as mythological and fictional creatures, portrayal of said creatures in existing media such as video games, films and other card games.
For each character and item, I intend to do a full-colour digital image for each.
I will then make the card layout, which will show the art of the character, a small backstory and the stats of the character along with an image for the back of the card. (Still contemplating what to do on the back, it might just be a logo.)
By the end of the mock FMP, I hope to have at least six hero characters, three villain characters and a few traps and items made as actual cards, printed out and cut into actual cards.
If I can achieve this, I’ll expand this project into my proper FMP and make more character and item art, the cards for these arts, the packaging for said cards and when it comes to showing my FMP at the exhibition, I’m going to leave a stack of cards for people to take a card for themselves as a sort of freebie thing.

Textiles - Screen Printing

Screen Printing
Screen printing is a printing technique that uses a woven mesh to support an ink-blocking stencil. The attached stencil forms open areas of mesh that transfer ink or other printable materials which can be pressed through the mesh as a sharp-edged image onto a substrate. A fill blade or squeegee is moved across the screen stencil, forcing or pumping ink into the mesh openings for transfer by capillary action during the squeegee stroke. Basically, it is the process of using a stencil to apply ink onto another material.
Screen printing is also a stencil method of print making in which a design is imposed on a screen of polyester or other fine mesh, with blank areas coated with an impermeable substance. Ink is forced into the mesh openings by the fill blade or squeegee and onto the printing surface during the squeegee stroke. It is also known as silkscreen, serigraphy, and serigraph printing. A number of screens can be used to produce a multicoloured image.

Screen printing is a form of stenciling that first appeared in a recognizable form in China during the Song Dynasty (960–1279 AD).  It was then adapted by other Asian countries like Japan, and was furthered by creating newer methods.
Screen printing was largely introduced to Western Europe from Asia sometime in the late 18th century, but did not gain large acceptance or use in Europe until silk mesh was more available for trade from the east and a profitable outlet for the medium discovered.

Textiles - Artists

John Mollo

John Mollo has been interested in European and American military uniforms since a very young age and wrote several books on the subject. This led him to costume design, first being an advisor for the movie Charge of the Light Brigade in 1966 and later a costume designer, his first film being George Lucas' Star Wars in 1977. Mollo has also been a military advisor on the films Zulu Dawn, Barry Lyndon and Nicholas and Alexandria.

He uses Military influences to create Sci-Fi clothing, such as Darth Vaders outfit and the Stormtrooper armor.

Darth Vaders helmet in particular was inspired by WWII Nazi helmets and Gas Masks, with a Samuri feel to it to match the characters use of a sword.





 

 
Lindy Hemming

Lindy Hemming is a Welsh costume designer, who won the Academy Award for Costume Design for Topsy-Turvy (1999). After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, she designed costumes for productions at West End theatres, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre, and has also created costumes for the James Bond films from GoldenEye (1995) to Casino Royale (2006).

Other films she has worked on include The Krays, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, as well as Christopher Nolan's Batman films Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Dark Knight Rises.

On The Dark Knight Rises, she was the main costume designer for Bane, and had to create a look which gave off a feeling of animalistic traits, ragged clothing created from scrap and still look like a bulky brute.
The coat, mask and armor he wears went through multiple design changes.


At the Costume Designers Guild Awards 2008, she won Best Costume Design in a Fantasy Film for The Dark Knight.



Trisha Biggar

Trisha Biggar was the lead costume designer on the Star Wars prequels, and created almost every outfit across the three films.
She used various materials from all around the world to create elegant yet alien looking clothing for the various characters in the film.
On one documentary, she was describing some of Padmé Amidala’s clothing, and one she mentioned was one dress being made from a material which changes colour depending on what lighting is currently being used.
It was dubbed the ‘Peacock Dress’, due to its similarity with the colour changing Peacock birds feathers.