A Lovely Anhinga Sketch

The Anhinga is also known as the Water-Turkey (for it's broad tail, and being a swimmer) or Snake Bird (because only its head and neck can often be visible while swimming).  They can be seen spreading their wings out to help them dry and a nice dip.

Random Pen and Ink Abstract Warmup

Only so much time in the day.  Here's a warmup that came out pretty interesting. Enjoy.

Animation Quote of the Day! Walt Disney Risk Taker and Ward Kimball

"Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive."

Walt Disney

Despite how safe and formulaic Disney movies eventually became, Walt was a risk taker who did experiment with different kinds of animation.  Movies like the Skeleton Dance,

Fantasia, Song of the South, and one of my personal favorites The Three Caballeros. And pretty much anything Ward Kimball directed or had a hand in at the studio.  Here are two Kimball movies that won Academy Awards!

"Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom"

"It's Tough to be a Bird" and educational movie, but awesome. Look it up and watch it. Big time fun factor.


Ralph Bakshi is another fellow who pushed animation into new territory.  His collaborative work with legend Frank Frazetta on "Fire and Ice" is my favorite of his work and a must see!

The point is Animation is a medium not a genre, it can be used in any genre.

More recently, I thought "9" was a very good, dark, and not child friendly movie.  I am looking forward to the director Shane Acker's new movie "Beasts of Burden" and any other movies that want to break the current mold of animation as strictly a family friendly medium (even though I do have a soft spot for the looney golden age stuff).

New Year Pinnups! Oh My

Some fresh pencil sketches, a little workout.

Dinosaur Illustration: boy meets Deinonychus family

Here's the first page of a dinosaur adventure kids book I'm working on.  It's something I would have loved to read when I was a pup.

I chose to use the most cutting edge ideas about dinosaurs.  Certain dino fossils have been found with feathers covering their entire body!  Most famously Archaeopteryx seen below.

No big surprise, Archaeopteryx had a bone structure very similar to modern day birds.  Therefore, one can assume that other dinos, like theropods who also shared this bone structure, very well had feathers covering their bodies.  I would guess for camouflage, communicating, and/or mating.  For a kids book, I chose to go with the more visually ravishing tropical kind of color schemes.