Ideal Concepts - Artmania Movies

 

I made alot more new characters this week so far and imagining ideas for feature film projects.

I'm recently watching every Disney movie from the 2000s and from what I'm experiencing so far, the movies from that era have slightly influenced my story-telling a little bit. There seems to be alot more human characters and unique concepts. 

I made one myself titled A New Millennium where as Allen, and his daughter, Gidget live in the year 2999 almost 3000 to solve problems. 

I really miss model sheets like this because there's more to these characters than just their size and rotation. You can draw them in multiple expressions and poses.

Still learning the difficult practices on how to draw realistic humans. 

It's useful. Still better than how I used to draw them when I was 8.

Here's some sketches of the pink elephant, James. I was having a night session whereas I watched some animation reels like Rod Scribner so I can express what I see and draw them immediately on paper. It actually helps and works perfectly.

Also in two of the doodles, he doesn't have a hat. Later on he buys one. It's a slick bowler hat. One of my favorite types of hats.

Now here's some Scribner inspired drawings. This was Day 2 at the job. 

The full story I haven't completely decided what to do with it but it definitely involves mainly on James and his spirit pixie elf friend. 

I decided that the elf needed a model sheet too. So I gave him some appealing expressions, he's sometimes determined upon himself.

I edited the model sheets to be on a grayscale. It's not the official colors of the images but it's more attractive and pleasent. 

I designed more characters from the new millennium movie. All of these I came up within seconds. I also was careful on what they do and what objects they use since I doubt they don't use wooden toys, small iphones or TVs.

I'm kinda mixed on stuff like that with the Disney films. Aladdin for example feels like it takes place thousands of years ago yet The Genie is impersonating celebrities from the 20th century. Who knows maybe it's pushing for a more modern re-telling of the story I assume. 

This is for an angel vs devil war. I had fun drawing Satan in particular. He has alot of personality in these drawings.

This is a talking dog I made with floppy ears.

I would love to talk more about appealing character designs but I made WAY too much of those even when they're mentioned a teensy bit. 

Animation feels like an easy escape to create something that others can appreciate and the designs all having charm or influence.

The Coolest Cowboy In Films : Pecos Bill - Melody Time (1948)

 

I cannot think of a single unique and expressive character that has so much style, facial expressions and wit like Pecos Bill. He's truly an amazing and fascinating hidden gem of a protagonist.

What makes him special is that he only appears in one overlooked movie. He was one of the best parts of that movie alongside Blame It On The Samba.

When I ranked all the war-time era Disney  movies, I didn't give enough credit to his scenes. Coming back to them now I was instantly influenced by them. They are quick, sharp and well drawn like most Disney films and other classic animation studios. 

I love this close-up shot of the horse and Pecos himself. 

Most of these scenes were animated by Ward Kimball who is easily the best of the 9 old men at the Disney headquarters back then. The rubbery and playful antics in these is truly unforgotten and appealing to the max.

I really miss when Disney made original stories even smaller ones so seeing stuff like this made back in the 40s feels dreamy and calm even though some of the moments feel challenging at times.

Notice how his expression is the same for a few seconds.

Disney is known for being less cartoony than the other animation studios, but I really like it that way. Now Warner Bros, MGM and especially Fleischers made amazing and timeless films but you can't beat Disney with it's impact. The scenery, the style, the amount of things happening, even in movies I dislike they still have something to like about them.

Look at this drawing. That's stellar. 

 The late 40s was full of distinctive moments in particular. All of the elements felt natural, understandable and logical. It wasn't too keen on repetitiveness, and too simple character designs. 

I love all of these animated frames of Pecos Bill especially with his single eye closed to be doing something rowdy.

This seems so hard to animate in particular, but it looks so clean and confident. There's alot of realism and personality for each of the characters.

Animation is also a useful tool for observation. My favorite tool for animating something is to have some fun animated characters and visually pleasing backgrounds. Also I'm not too keen on too much dialogue so having a straightforward and simple story is always key even if your starting out animating like me.

Almost every Disney character especially from the golden age has memorable and interesting designs that fit the movie very well. While Melody Time is a package film, it still has a ton of unique variety to those short films especially the ones that feel more abstract. 

I want to closely observe this singular scene of Pecos Bill silently minding his business with his lasso. It's a perfect 5 seconds of your time. 

It's really expressive and neatly drawn.

Then after all that he shows us another facial expression.

I love when people have different interests on characters they feel drawn to the best.  

Pecos Bill might not be one of my favorite characters, but he's definitely got alot of fascinating qualities to him. I'm always on the go exploring new characters and stories. That's why I buy DVDs and explore the media of art. Heck you all are probably doing it too with my entire blog. 

The Life Of An Artist

 

I haven't posted anything surprising lately because of how dry it is out there and I'm just zoning out my inner world since I'm off for at least 15 days.

It makes sense that I'm not posting as much as I did in March. Ho-ho, you should really check how much pressure and hardwork I made to entertain you last month. 

Lately I've been loving the classic feel of things and listening to music. It's a good hobby whenever your having a mental day off.

I just realized how powerful Classic Disney is with it's realistic characters, and astonishing backgrounds they're basically aesthetic titans. I see these regularly and they influence me.

Previously I showed some drawings I made. This is sorta of a Part 2 but I'm mostly going to be talking about other aspects that inspire me.

The beginning of my drawing career was copying designs from my old toys and books. I didn't knew Preston Blair until I was in the 11th grade, so it was a long journey to get me there, but ey it was truly fun back then.

The toys I had back then were really appealing and easy to draw. The octonauts toys I had were similar to these. I loved that show as a kid but I seemed to like the toys more, they were colorful, highly expressive and cute.

When I discovered model sheets and Preston Blair for the first time, it was successful and life-changing. You can't beat classic animation because the designs, facial expressions and creativity was on another level. No computers, no electronics, but isn't cheaply made, and has natural potential. Which is such a disappointing sign nowadays since everything made should be made for only adults and not everyone.

Now I want to make my cartoons somewhat homage the classic cartoons but have a more modern approach. I don't want to make it just standard even though I adore characters that feel more alive. Animators seem to disgrace modern animation, I'm kinda the same way, but I don't outright tell them to change their style. Modern Disney 2D animation, and 3D animation can be expressive at times. I'm not expecting everything to be funny or round-shaped, as long as it looks good and feels alive I wouldn't mind it because if people made these for passion and dedication, why hate it and have little appreciation with it? 

My taste in cartoons feels kinda restricted but I'm only saying that because I kinda have short-attention with entertainment. I don't watch too much TV shows or movies because I like to do other stuff in my spare time like exploring various media, listening to old music and taking a moment to breathe.

You can look into more of my interests in my post on how strict my interests are with this link.

https://sngexplorationblog.blogspot.com/2025/02/am-i-strict-with-my-interests.html?m=1

I'm always trying to slightly improve my drawing skills here and there because sometimes I mess up or I get too drawn to details I want to practice drawing them. 

I tried to study the Bugs and Willoughby frame from The Heckling Hare.

The reason why I'm doing this on my notes app on my phone is because I have more time to zoom in and check for any errors.

I'm highly impressed with this drawing. I didn't trace it in the slightest. I carefully planned each of the shapes and sizes for both characters and I managed to do it quite well. Took me about 20 minutes.

If you wanna see my original characters I've been designing lately I'll talk about em.

DALLASON DUCK

Dallason is an anthropomorphic duck who has a cool and calm nature but often uses his imagination and takes his strangers to another world or into something he has problems with. His fashion is inspired by 90s fashion and the rise of cool hip cartoon characters.

Here's a more sketched and constructed version

I'm not a big fan of the daydreaming concept, Calvin and Hobbes, the Ralph Phillips shorts, while those can have good moments at times and feels original and interesting, they don't hit me as much because it usually happens when they're at school and usually they would get laughed at which I don't like. 

This is Dallason's pet frog. He's caring, fun-loving and always ready for an adventure. 

The last character for now is his school teacher. She's the successful authority figure who doesn't like when her students misbehave or cause a mess.

PINK ELEPHANT

Take this as some sorta modern old tale of Pinocchio. He was born drunk and unstable, he became an elephant. Sorta points out the scene with the bad kids turning into donkeys. Man I still have chills from that scene. I wanted to do the same. 

I had a dream a few nights ago where there was a random pixie elf flying around and searching for the pink elephant in overalls, he was mistreated by a bunch of bulky men trying to impress themselves from a mirror. It was at that time I started creating the characters and their distinct traits.

This is the pixie glitter elf. Just how he looked like in my dream. 

This takes place in 1922, New City. It was renamed a few years later for obvious reasons. It has a campy amusement park, nickelodeon theatre, music bands, paper airplanes flying around 24/7, you name it. 

The 6 men rule this place and try to help the pink elephant from running into trouble.

They were obviously inspired by my love for J.C Leyendecker, Norman Rockwell and old photography. 

I drew one of my current comic heroes.

Would you like to know how I drew characters 2 years ago? 

The redesign I carefully planned out completely. You can definitely see more fluidity. 

When I watched Disney, such as their movies, alongside MGM and Walter Lantz, I knew I had to step up my gain and improve my drawings since they looked like the cartoons from the 70s-80s.

My biggest inspirations was The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, mostly the scenes involving Scribner's Duck Twacy scenes, The Three Stooges, Three Caballeros, and classic musicals, such as Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire. Trust me I have the biggest inner world ever. 

I believe that films should still allow freedom and creativity. My ideal ways on making a film is using storyboards and appealing to everyone just like with Looney Tunes, Ren and Stimpy and Spongebob and those are shows that changed the world for the better.