Fairy Tales in Taipei

I've been on vacation in Asia for the last week or so. I had the chance to visit the ever bustling Hong Kong and now I'm in Taipei, Taiwan. On the plan ride over to Taipei, I read an ad in the in-flight magazine on an exhibit at a nearby museum on the Art of Disney. The first free moment I got, I went out there and checked it out.

At the National Museum of History in Taipei, from now until mid March, you can go see some of the behind the scenes, sketches, designs, notes, and all other kinds of fun little bits of information on some of Disney's most famous fairy tales. Ranging from Snow White all the way to Tangled, you can get a really unique perspective of these films. I'm a sucker for sketches and notes on designs of animations and films so I had a really good time. No pictures inside the exhibit though...:(

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Bad Boys, Bad Boys

Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

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Two Faced

Cool Alter-Ego designs by Danny Haas. Check out his gallery here.

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Just Around The Corner

Christmas Trees are everywhere! To each their own :)

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The Art of Waiting...

Warm up doodle.

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A Villains Gallery

If you've spent any amount of time in the geek world, then you'll unavoidably become familiar with some of cartoon's and comic's most famous Good vs Evil relationships. Many of us know the villains just as well as our heroes. Spider-Man had his Green Goblin, Batman his Joker, the Ninja Turtles their Shredder and The X-Men their Magneto. Despite the main villain holding their own in terms of characterization, a lot of times, what most people will agree on is that the reason many of these heroes have become so popular is due to their gallery of villains. Not only was there the Joker for Batman, but he also had an extremely large gallery of foes. As interesting as your heros are, a large cast of interesting, unique and different villains will bring so much more out of the hero than by themselves. Each villain should provide a new facet of challenge that will continue to round out the hero.

With that in mind, I've spent the last few months brainstorming and doodling ideas and potential characters just so I have a large gallery to choose from. Even if some of these are never used, its still really fun to just make up the character and backgrounds of potential bad guys. Above is a design for a band of villains that may find themselves showing up soon.

Its the "bad" in our lives that sometimes enhances and reveals, often times beautifully, the "good" that we have.

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Brave

Disney and Pixar have released their new trailer for their upcoming film Brave. Check it out here.

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Round 2

There's a method in there somewhere to the madness above. The itch is back. Volume II, lets get it going.

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Pioneers

"Leaders are visionaries with a poorly developed sense of fear and no concept of the odds against them."

- Robert Jarvik

Here is an interesting Charlie Rose interview with John Lasseter and Steve Jobs, both visionary pioneers, back in 1995 as they discuss the computer generated animation process and their company, Pixar. I'm not a huge Apple person, but there is no denying the impact Steve Jobs has made in this world. Check out the video below.

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Thank You Mr. Jones

I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that downtown San Diego has a great art gallery of original sketches, paintings and other works of the legendary Looney Tunes animator and creator of Bugs Bunny, Chuck Jones. Drove down this past weekend for a short inspiring visit to this gallery and loved it. Its always great to see these works up close, you get to see each pencil stroke and every shade of color. The man lead an incredible career and kept the most creative company. Dr. Seuss is a known close friend of Chuck Jones, and some original Dr. Seuss art can be seen here as well. I highly recommend a visit.Chuck Jones Galleries

232 Fifth Avenue

San Diego, CA 92101

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