Comics, Movies, and Inspirations
SpaceCat updates, Deadpool and Wolverine, and studying Disney artists
Hi Folks,
Lately, I have been collecting old paperbacks of science fiction, fantasy, and mystery stories. I especially love collections of short stories. I wanted to share this from the introduction to Ray Bradbury’s fantasy short story anthology that he edited called “Timeless Stories for Today and Tomorrow”.
I feel it explains well why stories are important, especially those stories that allow us to see beyond our day-to-day.
“I have always believed that Life itself is more than fantastic. Therefore, most of these stories simply illustrate how fantastic life is. Life, to the believer or the agnostic, is a pretty wonderful affair. I mean wonderful in the sense of true wonder, awful in the sense of awe, stressing the im in im-possible. It is truly a miracle that we are here at all, to sleep, to rise, to down quick breakfasts and run for trains and be on time or late, as Fate decides.
A child, realizing this, finds something magnificent in the world on his fingertips. As adults we soon transfer our attentions from our hands to our bodies to other people's bodies and circumstances and sooner or later we fall in love and that is a pretty strange business, too, another wonderful, awful, sometimes unbelievable business. But no matter how old we get there should always be that sense of living on the margin of impossibility.
…So a passenger through the lands of fantasy contained in this book should return, freshened and clear of eye to his normal existence. It this book achieves only one purpose, causes you to appreciate the stuff that holds you together, gives you an awareness of life that you may have lost somewhere between childhood and here, it will have done more than enough.”
- Ray Bradbury
🖊️ SpaceCat Adventures
I released a YouTube video showing some of the original inked Art of my early SpaceCat pages. I also showed a bit of my very first SpaceCat comic strip that I made in high school back in 1996.
It was fun to look back at some of the evolution of SpaceCat’s design, even since the first page of my comic.
I’m currently inking page 26 of “The Adventures of SpaceCat”. I have a few pages ready for color.
I am finding that coloring the comics have been a bottle neck, so wish me luck in getting into an efficient workflow with color.
📢 Cons, Expos and Festivals
Sadly, I was not accepted to VanCAF, Emerald City or any other shows this year. I’ll do my best to make more comics and hopefully SpaceCat can return to shows in 2025. Hang in there and wait for me.
🎬 DUNE
Greig Fraiser announced on his Instagram that he and Josh Brolin are releasing a Dune book. I can see not assume it will be full of beautiful photographs from the work on set. Fraiser is also me of my favorite cinematographers working today and so you can expect this book to be beautiful and insightful whether you are a student of cinematography and filmmaking or just a fan of Dune and the new films.
Dune: Part 2 released this weekend. Let me know what you thought of the film.
🎥 Cinematographers Steve Yedlin and Roger and Deakins chat
This Team Deakins podcast interview with Rian Johnson’s cinematographer Steve Yedlin.
Yedlin mentioned how the vfx system is “broken”, the way that they are forced to compete for bids and then expected to do multiple revisions.
Also, Roger Deakins mentioned how a director may just identify that it is not working, but a cinematographer can tell you why a vfx shot is not working.
🎨 The Art Director’s Guild as a resource for studying Visual Devlopment and Art in General
A friend pointed me to the Art Director’s Guild website. The ADG has awards each year for Art Direction in Series and Film, both for Animated and Live Action Films.
They often will make available PDF files fore each project with samples of the work. Imagine small “Art of..” books for each project. Its very cool to see into the Art Development for projects like The Last of Us, The Mandalorian S3 , and The Creator
https://adg.org/awards/adg/winners/2024/
🎨 Before the Animation Begins
And speaking of “Art of..” books, this morning I released a youtube video stepping through the 1996 book "Before the Animation Begin's - The Art and Lives of Disney Inspirational Sketch Artists" by John Canemaker. It is a wonderful look at the the early visual development of Walt Disney Feature Animation's classic animated films. Whether you are a student of art and animation, or just a fan animated features, this book is a fantastic look into the VisDev (Visual Development), Character Design, and Concept Art from the early days of Disney Feature Animation from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves through to The Rescuers. It also gives a peak at the artists working on features in the 90s, like Pocahontas and The Lion King.
🎬 My next VFX Project at ILM
I’ve finished up my run on Star Wars Skeleton Crew and started at Creature Supervisor on ILM’s work on Deadpool & Wolverine. It should be a lot of fun. Wolverine was my intro into superhero comics when I was in the 4th grade, so it’s been fun to be a part of his latest adventure.
Ok, that should wrap it up for now. Take care,
Ed
This is all great, thank you for the update!