Happy Halloween! 🎃

 

 

Chizhikov's Winnie The Pooh

These are watercolor artworks created by Victor Chizhikov. He's a very talented Russian illustrator. My favorite works by his are easily the Winnie The Pooh illustrations from the 80s.

I love everything Pooh related especially when it comes to Disney's rights to the characters. It's my all-time favorite franchises. These illustrations are simple, pleasent, and adorable. 

I also love Chizhikov's designs of the characters. They are memorable like Disney's, so as the color scheme.

Now I never read the original A.A Milne books, but these pictures definitely capture the charm of the books and the films. Below is definitely inspired by a rare Pooh film called A Day For Eeyore. I love the trees and natural colors.

I truly loved these! They were appealing and really fascinating. Vintage stuff like this inspires me the most. There's just so much personality, cute characters and small details to keep you invested!

 

Haredevil Hare (1948)

 

The more I re-watch the old Looney Tunes shorts, the more they feel nostalgic, and simple to watch. There are still countless of iconic Looney Tunes shorts I could say are fantastic like The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, Duck Dodgers And The 24th 1/2 Century, Duck Amuck and Scaredy Cat. I honestly have changed alot of my opinions with this franchise, Chuck Jones is probably one of my favorite Looney Tunes directors nowadays, he improved so much over the years and the amount of expressions, concepts and characters he made are truly outstanding. 

I think reasons as to why he wasn't my favorite back then it's because I wanted more zany and comedic entertainment especially at a time where life wasn't too peaceful for me.

While I don't like his Roadrunner or Pepe Le Pew cartoons, they still have a good element to them, I sometimes relate to the dialogue and the stretchy movements of the characters and the more toned-down pacing.

This is a great example of a cartoon by his that I love simply for it's background style. This is a cartoon titled Haredevil Hare (1948), it's taken in space, and Bugs and Marvin are the stars of the film. (Get it?)

I'm a huge fan of space themed art, it's so vast and full of possibilities. It's like my love for The Hubble Galaxy stuff. 

Marvin The Martian is an underrated character, he's different than most of the main Looney Tunes characters which makes him unique and likeable. The problem was that he didn't get enough potential and recognition which only resulted 5 cartoons in the classic era. He's a character I like the more I experience him.

I love the environment itself, it's detailed and not too distracting. 

This cartoon is a masterpiece, I love the comedic timing and character acting, coming from an artist myself. 

Since this is a Chuck Jones cartoon and Halloween is in a few days, why haven't I checked out something like Hair Raising Hare or Scaredy Cat? I mainly wanted to talk about Haredevil Hare because of it's space backgrounds, I did not plan this entirely, but I did anyway, maybe there isn't enough for me to talk about with those spookier films but I would like to revisit them someday. 

The Best Surrealism In Cartoons/ Artmania Halloween

 

Now that we're closer to Halloween, I want to talk about what I've been working on lately and the inspirations behind it.

These are surreal cartoons I actually do tend to be invested by. Usually I'm not into abstract filmmaking, but if it's fast, and done well, it's hella fun. I tend to be inspired by more creative and amusing concepts in animated films. I don't watch cartoons that has done a premise over hundreds of times, or is just too short.

One of my favorite animated moments are particuarly spooky and mysterious, my favorite cartoons are ambitious like The Old Mill, The Goddess Of Spring, The Legend Of Sleepy Hollow, Father Noah's Ark, Minnie The Moocher, The Great Piggy Bank Robbery, heck even some of Fantasia's scenes like the Night of Bald Mountain scenes mostly animated by William Shull are purely untouched and are absolute masterpieces.

I was planning a Christmas special last December, I'm not too keen on the project nowadays because it feels a little too basic. I didn't feel like I conveyed what the true spirit of Christmas was so I spat out a bunch of childish ideas like having factory workers and focusing way too much on Truffles, a tree that is a cliche of a comic relief. I definitely will think of more concepts and character development soon.

I'm not really a Halloween celebrant anymore, I do tend to enjoy more important holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. I guess I'm just too iffy on the aspects of a modern Halloween night like trick or treating and wearing costumes. 

I like Halloween for the vibe, the pumpkins, the color scheme, I love looking at decorations to feel inspired.

I made some storyboards, this is a music sequence.

This is while Szac and Dredd are trick or treating, Dredd starts to fantasize the sinister atmosphere of the night, his pumpkin bag suddenly comes alive and bonks Dredd in the head, a ghost appears as he tells Dredd that ghosts are real and get into your soul sometimes to make you feel utterly shaky, as Dredd changes colors and patterns while moving dysfunctionally. He then turns into a snail, and while he continues, the camera zooms into his shell as it turns into an egg, in fact multiple eggs start to dance until one completely explodes, and goo is everywhere causing Dredd to almost pass out, 

Szac finally arrives and says, "Mac! What's gotten into you? We just left the house!" Then in a sudden attempt to using the staging principle in animation, the light then turns to complete flame, and burns Dredd causing him to push Szac into a gravestone with my signature. Dredd stops feeling the pain and walks slowly in the wrong direction, Szac steadily sprints until a hand with sharp red claws grabs Szac's costume and a baseball bat appears to swing and beat Szac, he then rides a minecart, with devilish imps flying around him, Szac attempts to get out of the cart and falls into a bed curled up alongside Dredd, Szac is shocked as he wakes up Dredd, Dredd explains that he has had a nightmare but is talking in fast gibberish like tiny cartoon characters do. Then a floating pig, cow and chicken arrive to haunt Dredd and Szac as they talk about the wrongness of eating too much animals, the pig then transforms into a musician as he sings a love song on the mandolin. He then tries to catch the both of them in a surrealistic chase and their fantasy is over.

Here's some of the characters I mentioned. Including one of the floating animal heads.

I sorta like a bit of creepy and unusual stuff from time to time, it's a good way to challenge yourself and get through more darker themes and mature scenarios. I see myself enjoying films with dialogue and tension nowadays. I'm actually interested in watching films like It's A Wonderful Life and 12 Angry Men, I seen a few minutes of those films and am highly interested in checking them out fully.

They're the "best" films of all time for a reason. Almost anyone can relate to more human feelings and entertaining scenarios. 

Even when I was younger, I kinda like a good chilling moment in something I have watched. 

Heck, what made me feel inspired to make that drawing of the pig in the first place was a random moment in Malcolm In The Middle's season 7 episode Cattle Court, I remember this particular scene vividly where Reese has a nightmare where he is sentence to trial. It's a truly underrated scene from otherwise a magnificent sitcom.

Like I was saying earlier, Halloween is in a few days, and I'm trying to experience as much stuff as I can with the holiday. There will be more concepts and ideas of what an artmania halloween film could look like.  

Leftovers

 

Been busy these past few days, so here's some drawings I done recently.

Since I love simple plots, real characters and good music, I decide to make something similar to what I admire, titled Dance of The Red Heels. 

Most of the musicals I tend to enjoy the most feature more creative and original ideas. Stuff like the alter ego dance in Cover Girl (1944) are true masterpieces, couple more mentions are the disembodied hands with Ann Miller in Small Town Girl (1953) and the ceiling dance in Royal Wedding (1951). 

No one could dare touch scenes like those ever again and to be honest with you, it's kinda disappointing. People could make stuff like that happen with the use of technology, and it's getting more advanced and visually stunning, so we're just not gonna care and only use A.I, explosions, inappropriate content and unnecessary cuts? 

I remember liking fairytales and Mother Goose fables because they were straightforward and endless. Goldilocks and The Three Bears is easily the most iconic of them all. Looney Tunes, heck MGM made a cartoon around the fable. I designed Goldilocks already, here's concept art for the three bears. 

If you seen my post of the Bonjour Paris scene in Funny Face (1957), you probably seen this image. But I'm gonna show it the second time anyway.

I thought about a hot-headed self-controlled character like Ox Fisher to create, I had fun with this.

Here's some information of Szac's hillbilly family. I included some outlandish text for entertainment purposes. 

Here's some sketches I did on my old sketchpad. I've been looking into old animation drawings lately and I use those for inspiration. Been loving it. So here's my favorite characters to draw. The Wolf alongside Cauliflower.

This is a drawing I really like that I made a few years ago.

And finally some Szac sketches.

Food For Feudin' (1950)

 

I was recently browsing through old cartoons, mostly not watching them but still experiencing what the small details have to offer and there was this one short I had to talk about now that it's literally autumn for real. It's a Disney animated short called Food for Feudin' (1950).

Now obviously I didn't watch the full cartoon because I thought it was going to be boring or straight up annoying, I'm not a fan of both Pluto and Chip and Dale but the backgrounds were genuinely pleasent and the right amount of colors the fall season resembles. Reds greens, yellows and oranges.

I didn't really have much time to truly sink in the feel of this cartoon mostly because the antics that these outlandish chipmunks do really irritate me. I love the crafty look of the trees and leftover leaves in the grass.

I use these images for studying and examining more natural elements on creating something, this is a perfect example of a cartoon that uses really decent color schemes, even though the other bits don't particularly interest me in the slightest.

If your interested in topics like this I have other posts that relate.

https://sngexplorationblog.blogspot.com/2025/07/fall-out-fall-in-1943.html?m=1

https://sngexplorationblog.blogspot.com/2025/08/fun-and-fancy-free-bongo.html?m=1

 

Szac & Scotty

 

I made some concept art lately of Szac and a kid he's trying to assist. I'm truly a fan of simple stories, but there needs to be a sense of emotional intelligence and realism to them in order for me to be really invested in them.

This is taken place in the 50s, where Szac plays the titular role of being a secure agent, I came up with a short story where he has to help a kid find his pet salamander in a mysterious gloomy pond.

I named the kid Scotty. He's lonely but very calm. His fashion is a mix of black and grey,  very easy colors and fits his personality perfectly.  

Here's some of the concept art and models.

I have nothing else to really point out with the rest of the idea, but I do have one more additional bonus sketch of Scotty's dad.

Vintage Art / Two-Tone Limited Color Technique

I tend to prefer something more subtle when it comes to art forms and influence. I've been interested in vintage fashion art nowadays. I often seek amusement by exploring into various images of how humans were dressed back in the 20th century, and my favorite designs seem to be the limited colors, sorta the two-tone feel to them, but not exactly two colors at once, just supposedly different shades.

I absolutely love this type of stuff, it's actually really smart and rare on occasions.

I tried looking into movie posters with this particular style, and I didn't see any that peaked what I was talking about except for this rare poster promoting My Man Godfrey (1936) that's both really handsome and simple.

Here's an artist I like who is a master at two-tone color styling, James R. Bingham. He's incredible, I discovered him today and he's already giving me inspiration, I truly love the colors in each image, it represents the situations perfectly.

His work reminds me of what I like about watching movies particuarly the older films, they have the best mood and atmosphere.  

I could probably think of animation that goes for appropriate limited colors in a scene, my best bet for now is Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961). 

The visuals and style in this movie is different than with most other Disney films which is why I have a secret admiration for the entire film, especially with the xerox animation, it fits perfectly with the calming sorta laid-back tones.

I really wish that more artists could replicate this style, I'm trying to go for a style like that as well for aesthetic reasons, something action-oriented or old-fashion related. 

Here's a bonus treat. 💥

The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (1946) is still one of my all-time favorite pieces of animation, and this poster relates to what I talked about. This is awesome!

Credits goes to Mondo, this was during their convention back in 2019,  designed by Phantom City Creative. They're really talented.