Cutest Santa Design Ever

 The santa that people most likely know about is his white & red attire, and jolly personality. There's nothing wrong about him. I love the gift of giving and warm hearts rising. But what about in popular culture perhaps? 

I stumbled across social media and discovered this rare holiday gem with the most adorable Santa illustrations I ever seen. It's from a 1963 Whitman Tell-A-Tale book called The Night Before Christmas, adapted by the poem by Clement C. Moore. Illustrated by Carol Munshi.

The First Great Looney Tunes Short

 

Back in the early to midst of the late 1930s, Warner Bros. still figured out inventive methods in order to fit in one the successful animation studios during the Golden Age. 

In 1930, Hugh Harman and Rudolf Ising started making Bosko cartoons and Merrie Melodies, just three years later both Harman and Ising moved to MGM to own the Bosko character at that studio for a designated redesign and the addition of Technicolor. While short films started to use color in their animated shorts around the mid 1930s, they were still against studios like Disney and most of the cartoons were not funny or deeply intriguing.

In my opinion, the first well-regarded Looney Tunes short to ever release is A Cartoonist's Nightmare (1935). Given that this is officially the 113th short, it didn't took too long to fully craft something this outstanding.

Directed by Jack King, he also was well known directing Donald Duck cartoons at the Disney studio. He made some truly untouched and overlooked films during that era like Donald's Crime, Chef Donald, The Trial of Mr. Duck, and my favorite by his, Donald's Dilemma. I also do like his Looney Tunes shorts as well. Shanghaied Shipmates has some great characters for it's time. 

But now let's focus on this cartoon.

This cartoon begins with a very unique shot of the animated cartoon studio. It looks stellar in B&W. 

I always liked those openings whereas an elder man leaves a department store and closes down at night, I love the lighting and atmosphere. It's honestly well-animated.

The staff members leave except for one animator. I just noticed this recently, but... THAT IS A TON OF SHEETS! Even just one singular row. I could just imagine working that hard drawing animated characters and lasting over hundreds maybe thousands of drawings.

Beans The Cat was a short-lived Looney Tunes star, and in this short, the animator works on drawing this menacing monster in a dungeon. After some time, the monster comes to life meanwhile the animator takes a solid nap. This makes matters worse as while the animator is snoozing, the brute carries him onto the scene. It's got great animation in it. 

I love how more creative and engaging this cartoon gets. After the animator faces a few hits, the beast sends him not into the door of Cartoon Heroes but Cartoon Villains. 

I love these villains. Some of them appeared in previous Warner Bros. shorts or maybe similarly look like their counterparts.

Spike The Spider must have been inspired by the evil ladybug from Your Too Careless With Your Kisses! (1932)

One Punch Otto is probably that octopus from Mr. And Ms. Is The Name (1935).

The Mad Doctor similarly resembles Rice-Puddin' from Wake Up The Gypsy In Me (1933).

And the beast is definitely from Merrie Melodies's version of Beauty and The Beast (1934).

Also Dirty Dan mentioned, reminds me alot of that one scene from Spongebob.

I'm not gonna lie, I don't really enjoy alot of the songs Looney Tunes produced this period. They either sound too wishy-washy or forgettable, but I do like this song the villains sing here. It's less sappy and more threatening almost like Dumbo's Pink Elephants or Winnie The Pooh's Heffalumps and Woozles song.

The gags are also really enjoyable, Beans eating a loaf of bread then stuck inside is a saw to cut the bars to escape. I just love it. It sorta gives me shows I loved when I was little vibes.

Beans then enters into the villains entrance and also has a pair of boots for good measure. It all ties with great action and sharp humor. The dream ends off with both the animator and Beans shaking hands as it fades with the watchman awaking the animator. 

The ending is very sweet. The animator quickly draws and paints a treat for Beans. A plate of jelly.

I love this cartoon for it's originality and inovative ideas. Before then, the Looney Tunes shorts were mostly focused on the uncomforting damsel in distress and group of clones dancing. It was mostly filler anyway and perfectly safe, but man when I first watched this short after having experiencing the first hundreds of cartoons as a journey, this was the first Looney Tunes short to succeed that passion and creativity to an otherwise decent and timeless franchise.

Wanna watch this yourself? 

https://www.toontales.net/short/a-cartoonists-nightmare/

René Gruau

 

There's this artist I've been loving lately. I discovered him on Pinterest. His name is René Gruau. 

I always loved fashion illustrations and I think he has the most unique and pleasant style ever. I love the bold black outlines, and poses. 

Most of these illustrations are probably from the 50s, they look handsome yet very cool and inspiring. 

It's extremely pleasent for the use of the two-tone color palette. It has simple design but you can immediately sense the details and the actual color schemes are impressive.

This one's a smart move. Well-drawn posture but most importantly the hat hanging on the letter C of the vintage Club logo. 

Alot of this reminds me of what I particularly like about the 1950s, it's load of high fashion and "beatnik" without being too off-putting like Funny Face (1957).  

Once Upon a Wintertime

 

We got snow this morning and it's also Walt Disney's 124th birthday today, so that's great. I admire the older Disney movies and there's a great scene from Melody Time (1948), Once Upon A Wintertime. The colors are absoutely pleasent and it's also very simple yet cute.

Thought I would show some screencaps. 

This short film is so stylish but I mean that in a good way. There's no slapstick, no damsel in distress, it's just great animation and passion.

The color styling is very memorable and inspiring. Often using two-tone color palettes. I had to look into more research with this short. It has had recognition over the years, re-releasing the animated film in September of 1954 and a wondefully illustrated Little Golden book. Dennis West explains the short more clearly than I do but I would definitely check out the video of this particular short on his channel, West Of Neverland. It's great.

Here's a little clip of the actual short. 

New Drawings

 

After Thanksgiving was over, I think it was a good time to get into the holiday spirit, listening to old Christmas music, making the tree, and of course drew this.

Here's a random but fun drawing I made of a wild jungle boy laughing.

I sometimes use drafts for the poses. Also, I had to draw my own fist in order to make this sketch work. 

I'm sure in previous drawing posts you've seen this character before. This is Eduardo Gmidgets.

Above is some Wise Ol' Owl drawings, a character I enjoy drawing nowadays, and below is another character I enjoy drawing is Cauliflower.

I've been watching the first few episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force lately. It's fine but I always liked the distinctive designs of the three main characters. I would've imagined what would happen if this trio was aimed at a suitable audience. There would be more of that likeable action and mystery involved. 

I liked this Bugs Bunny drawing I made.

I was designing dogs lately and one of the dogs would've worked perfectly as a parody of 12 Angry Men called 12 Angry Dogs. I really liked the original 1957 movie, so this was fun and inventive to create.

I actually had to look into more of the characters, because it's funny that they don't have real names mentioned in the film.

Credits to Medium.

Here's more of my Donald Duck drawings in a vintage commercial art style. It's inspired by my favorite version of the character from a 1954 cartoon Donald's Diary. Also no hard feelings to Donald Duck's original actors but I seemingly like him in a more sophisticated voice.

Alright, this is the last drawing for now. Have nothing to say, just a guy. 

Now We're Getting Somewhere! - Snow Bear Animated Film

 

At this time in age, we have basically fallen into a world filled with artificial intelligence spreading social media and desirable quantities and costs for a single sequel, remake or tame 3D film releasing to either theaters or streaming services. Just recently, on Aaron's Blaise's official YouTube channel, posted a new animated short film titled Snow Bear. A hand-drawn animated film. Now it previously was shown in various film festivals. It took a span of three years to fully create this 10 minutes of beauty.

I first saw the trailer back in February of 2025, and immediately was interested in watching the whole thing, finally it posted just over 9 months later. I was impressed.

This film is everything I like about short films, not just using the traditional 2D animation, but has an emotional and well-crafted pace, memorable and lively visuals and full of passion and creativity. 

Aaron Blaise if you didn't know, also directed Brother Bear (2003) a very overlooked Disney film that similarly has a unique and beautiful style to it. What's more pleasent about this short though is it's pleasurable elements to it. It doesn't have any dialogue, yet it tells a very heartwarming and tear-jerking story. It's absolutely enjoyable and cineamtic stuff. To be honest, I almost kinda cried at the ending scene it was just done so carefully and I admired it. 

That's how I feel about other short films like Chuck Jones's Feed The Kitty and The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse.

I have the link so you can watch the short film yourself!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xOXolSQcEb4

The Band Wagon (1953) + Other Movies

 

Well, it's that time of month, Happy Holidays everyone! 

Anyways, I want to start fairly normal right now. It's officially been a year since I did a series of posts that were ideas for an Artmania Christmas Special and to be honest, I'm not exactly sure about the whole thing. I changed my style a little more and became less keen on movies without a coherent plot whatsoever.

Recently I went on [FILMGRAB] and was inspired by pictures online, they felt like the best bits from the actual movies. 

It's been exactly 5 months since I last watched The Band Wagon (1953), it's still mostly phenomenal work to this day despite some of the characters. 

MGM musicals. While there isn't too much structure, their Technicolor movies are beautiful and have the best songs in cinema, that's why I easily like them especially when they create novelty sequences most of the time. 

This movie is well-known for the third act. It's like nothing you'd ever see in older movies, so much effort and creativity, yet it moves at an equitable pace. Look at the red staircases and the camera angle. It's satisfying.

 

Here's another example from The 39 Steps, I bought it on DVD and it did not look like the scenes above mostly because I bought it at the flea market and expected it to be somewhat decent. 

This movie has great cinematography. However what suffers it is it's wonky premise and bland characters.

I was slightly disappointed after watching the movie because I expected something more cruel, and frightening. It was just badly paced and characters spoke TOO fast. 

Now am I judging or criticizing these films harshly? No. These were products at the time, and it's fair for me to express my opinions on a certain film. I have not once ever watched a film that ruined me ever, none of the films I watched wasted my time because why is that a considerably good thing to say? Nothing is a waste of time, it's part of learning and knowing your perspective.

I honestly like experiencing new things almost all the time. I would never know whenever I like a film or not. Here's another B&W movie, Winter Light (1963). It's a better paced film than The 39 Steps (1935). Realistic dialogue, a story that expresses real situations and events and more focus. It's a great film with a mix of Christian imagery.

Now if you mixed Winter Light and The Band Wagon simultaneously, it's something I would equally be interested in creating the most.

The Band Wagon (1953) has magnificent color schemes while Winter Light (1963) has phenomenal acting and pacing.

I don't remember everything from The Band Wagon, but this reminds me of Fantasia (1940) I have no idea if this was supposed to be animated, not gonna lie I doubt it but I could imagine it like that. The two-tone colors are incredible, it could give a more abstract meaning on what's behind the situation or thought just like with Gene Kelly's fantasies with films like An American In Paris, and Anchor's Aweigh.

I wouldn't change everything with my Christmas posts from last year. I felt like some of the concepts would work perfectly.

Dredd The Moose at the start would come along and sing White Christmas to homeless men. 

https://sngexplorationblog.blogspot.com/2024/12/artmania-christmas-special-other.html?m=1