VIGNALI STUDIO

Paul Wee is a tremedous artist, and he also happens to be one of my oldest and dearest friends.

Paul and I went to art school together, and shared a lot of the same teachers. At one point we even lived together in a really scary part of Los Angeles, heh-heh, I've got a few funny stories about the time we got broken-into, the dead body in the parking lot, and about the earthquake. Ah, the good old days. Paul and started our professional careers in the same studio, and used to carpool into work back in those days.

Fast forward 24 years later, Paul Wee now has a blog. Please stop by and say hello. Just click on Paul Wee to see his blog. I've also linked him on my site.

Here's another doodle I found while cleaning my office. I thought it went nicely with the other faerie drawing I did, so I decided to post it. I was lazy, and didn't finish the wings -- but that's the beauty of doodles.

I went ahead and Photoshopped in some nice manilla paper, some texture, and some text, but the drawing is untouched and is as it appears on my paper. It was originally drawn in graphite, along with graphite smudges.

I normally draw with a piece of paper under my hand to keep me from smudging my artwork, and this doodle was drawn on that paper, that's why there are so many graphite smudges alongside the drawing.

My friend David Colman put a book together of many of his doodles, life drawings and animal sketches. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in the character design and visual development (and, Bud Plant also recommends the book too). You can find the book on the web at Bud Plant, or at David's site. That's right, go to David's Doodles to buy this book.

David and I worked together on Sony Pictures Animation's Open Season and Surf's Up. He's a tremendous talent.

I was cleaning out my office because they are moving me to another office just a few doors down from where I was. I'm really happy with the room because this room has so much light.

As I was cleaning my office, I came across a ton of doodle sketches I've done. Some for work -- others for play. I thought I would go ahead and post this one I did of a little faerie. I kept the fold across the drawing (rather than Photoshop it out) because it authenticates this doodle.

Never underestimate the power of the doodle. I once had colleague confess to me that he never doodles because he only draws when he gets paid. After which, he plummeted in my esteem. My view of him was later verified when I had the chance to work with him and found his talents only technical – with very little imagination.

For those that want to become visual development artists (or better put, visual problem solvers), it is imperative to doodle. Without doodles an artist cannot cultivate the fertile soils of his/her imagination, but instead will be left to toil in weeds of their self made desert.

Greetings everyone. This is a figure drawing I did last year. It was probably about five minutes or less. Like I said before, our figure drawing class at work doesn't have poses that last much longer than five minutes. On occasion, we may stretch it out to seven or eight, but this one looks like a five minute sketch.

I feel so guilty, I haven't posted since January! Sorry about that everyone.

I drew this one way back when I was working for Disney's Lilo & Stitch back in 1999. I did several drawings for the project where I just took my pencil and my imagination, and wandered around Lilo's town trying to imagine the world from her point of view. I did a aerial shot of her town with a gas station at the entrance. So, this drawing represented Lilo's perspective on the gas station.

I figured she would have the town all scoped out from her sense of priorities. Here, the gumball machine and drinking fountain were the subject of focus. Each one framed in shadow, with the lighted areas blown out. Look at the graphic shape of the light against the counter, notice how I was able to isolate both props, while directing the eye on both items at the same time. I let the light touch the foot of the gumball machine and the corner of the water fountain to hold our focus.

I think it also helped that my dad used to run an auto bodyshop. I used to work there during the summers -- and carried the scent of motor oil in my hair and skin, even after I showered. Even today, when I smell an auto shop, it immediately takes me back. I didn't come from an art family, and THIS was my background growing up.

I drew this one for Disney -- *gasp* ten years ago! Oh, I feel old, especially since my birthday is coming up this Sunday; I'm going to be 42.

OK, when I drew this one back in the day when visual development was drawn on "papyrus," I was playing around with the composition. There are rules about staging, silhouette, composition and focus, and then there are opportunities when you can break them. This was such an occasion.

I wanted the focus to first go to the view of the little harbor, but I slipped a couple subtle silhouettes of some of the characters in the foreground to take you into the foreground – allowing them to become the second-read.

I think I mentioned it before that I really enjoyed working on Disney’s Atlantis. It’s just a shame the story didn’t hold together as well as most of the designs and animation.

I drew this one with graphite and ink and brush on ledger paper.

Remember that event in December at my church where they built a little Bethlehem town -- and my daughter and I performed as the flower vendors? Well, this past weekend we had our wrap party for the cast and crew. We got to see slides and a video presentation of our four days during the event. We also had a chance to mingle with each other, swap stories and eat desserts.

Afterwards, our church gave out the Golden Shekel award to the most spirited contributors, as in organization, construction, training, contribution and performance. Guess what? I won the Golden Shekel for the best performer! It helps that people can't win the award more than once, but I got it!

I won the award for being the nutty flower vendor that wouldn't take "no" for an answer.

I’m not going to kid myself, it’s not the Academy Awards, but you should have seen the expression on my kid’s faces! It might as well have been the Academy Awards when they called me up to the lectern! They were so proud of me, it was an incredible feeling to give them that experience. I always tell them to do the best they can at what ever they do, and here I had a chance to show them that I practice what I preach. The award proudly sits atop our mantle at home...where the kids can see it.

Here's one you won't find in the Open Season book. Actually, the image is in the book, but it is a painted version by then-production designer, Michael Humphries. (By the way, he did a beautiful job using traditional media.)

I highly recommend getting the book, I have to say, it is by far the best Making-Of book I've ever seen, it beats out any Disney Making-Of book. Not only is the artwork stunning, but the way the book was packaged, presented and designed is truly a gem. This book is a must see!

I digress, I drew this image as a test. We were trying to figure out how to stylize the edge of water in how it interacted with the shoreline. We were also testing reflections, atmosphere and of course the stylization.

The end result was stunning -- too bad no one other than us in vis dev had a chance to see it. But, if you saw the movie Open Season, you saw the fruits of such exercises and tests.

The image was drawn using graphite on ledger paper.

I thought I would go ahead and post a sketchbook page from my Sketchclub sketchbook (try saying that three times fast!).

These were drawn during our Friday get together lunch we call Sketchclub. You see, the first part of Sketchclub is dedicated to good food, good friends, and some fun drawing. We have to draw these without being spotted, so sometimes I draw with my sketchbook on my lap and the book nearly concealed under the table. Unless I can find a wall to sit up against so no one can sneak up behind me and say, "Hey, my nose isn't that big!" Fortunately, I draw with a very intense expression on my face, which tends to frighten off most lookie-loos. Only the bravest approach me.

The latter part of Sketchclub is the part when we draw someone from memory. If you want to see some memory sketches, check out the link on the left hand side.

Happy New Year everyone! CHEERS! ...here's to another year of fun blogging.

Hey, that guy looks familiar!

My church, Journey Of Faith, put together a wonderful Christmas event this December. You can check them out at Journey To Bethlehem to find out more about the event.

In a nutshell, my church built a mini version of Bethlehem in their parking lot and opened the event to the public for four days -- and my oldest daughter and I were flower peddlers during the entire four days. (Note: We were going to be shepherds, but my daughter broke her ankle a month before the event so we had to find a more sedentary role. Flower peddlers turned out to be the logical choice.)

The event was a wonderful way for our church to remind Christians what Christmas is all about, and a fun way for families of any denomination to spend their December evening. When guests entered the event, the Three Wise Kings (complete with camel) gave them five shekels. When they entered the gates of Bethlehem they had to pay one of those shekels to the Roman tax collectors conducting the census. (The Roman guards were a hoot, they looked like a couple of linebackers -- and the guy played the part of Governor Quirinius was probably 150 pounds soaking wet.)

Once inside, the guests could spend their shekels on any of the many activities. For one shekel, guests could buy baklava, hot cider, fruit, bread and cheese, or a flower. The kids could also use the shekels to buy a leather strap and some beads to make a bracelet, make mud bricks, make a clay pot, or to enter the petting farm.

Also, during the course of the event, Joseph and a very pregnant Mary would weave their way through the crowds on a real donkey -- asking if they could stay the night somewhere. Our job as citizens of Bethlehem were to direct them to the inn, but when they got there they would be told there was no room, but instead were offered the stable.

Once Mary and Joseph were safely inside the stable, angels would appear and announce the birth of Jesus Christ using the verse straight out of the Bible. Guests would then line up at the stable to see the Baby Jesus. We even had a couple real babies play the role!

Happy Holidays to all my fellow blogger friends, Merry Christmas to my Christian friends, and a Happy New Year to one and all!

I kinda like this not-shavin'-deal!

Here's one I did back in 1999 for Lilo & Stitch.

I wanted to create a soft ambient glow, so I drew this one with vellum and black Prisma pencil. You can compare this one with the graphite drawing a couple installments below.

Here's my memory sketch that I have posted at SKETCHCLUB , have a look at what everyone else did...when they post.

I thought this image appropriate for the anniversary date. A friend of mine just went to the Joseph Christian Leyendecker show and said it was well worth the trip to see it. The show is going to be traveling around, so it would be a shame to miss if it comes by your town.

For those of you that don't know who is he is, J.C. Leyendecker was the premiere illustrator for the first half of the last century. Essencially, the most emulated and respected illustrator of the golden era of illustration. Check out his biography at: http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/leyendec.htm

Here are some blogs with photos!

http://www.louisgonzales.com/blog/?p=33

http://www.louisgonzales.com/blog/?p=36

http://www.louisgonzales.com/blog/?p=37

I thought I would go ahead and post some of my old Disney stuff again. I did these drawings while doing some exploration for one of their projects back in 2000 (wow, can you believe it's going to be seven years ago!). Mind you, these two images were for the same project.


I varied my style so that the directors would have more to choose from: from the stylized, to the idealized.





Both of these were done in graphite on ledger paper. Since these were loose sketches, there was no need to polish the drawings with Prismapencil and vellum.

I thought this girl had a striking look when she entered the restaurant during Sketchclub. After sketching her, I realized that she looked like a cartoon burglar -- with her knit cap and striped shirt.


Hello everyone, It's been a little while since I posted anything...forgive me. So, I thought I would go ahead and post a sketch from my sketchbook. This isn't a memory drawing like the ones I post on Sketchclub, this drawing was done while seated in the restaurant. This is the fun part of Sketchclub where we all sit, eat, draw, and make merriment! It's a rollicking good time and the highight of my week. As a matter of fact, I refilled my ink pens on Tuesday in anticipation for Friday's Sketchclub!!!

I have posted at: El-Pacifico Our on-line gratis comic continues to sail into adventure.

I haven't been able to do any posting on our El-Pacifico blog for the reason that I ended up picking up some freelance fantasy illustration work. I had been asked to do some full color illustrations for Warcraft, who are going to be getting into the gaming card business. If you've played the game, then you know the sort of fun look the cards are going to have. Since the debut of the cards is being kept under wraps, I can't post the illustrations on my blog until after they are on the market.

I have also posted at: Sketchclub

Here's my version that I have posted at SKETCHCLUB , have a look at what everyone else did.

At Sketchclub we had an all-star group of professionals join us. This is my version, come take a look at the other versions of the same memory drawing.

Here's one I did for Kingdom of the Sun, which used to be called Children of the Sun, then Children in the Sun, but was ultimately called The Emperor's New Groove. Go figure?

We have to go waaaaaay back to 1996-7 for this one. I drew it as a pan starting up from the Machu Pichu city, going up towards the hitching post for the sun.

Again, this was done in Prismacolor pencil on Vellum (or tracing paper, I can't remember). In it I worked out the entrance, town, plaza, and the Temple of the Sun ... and of course the hitching post at the very top.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS PUMPKIN BOY?

I'm in a bind, we bought this 30" or 36" pumpkin plush holiday decoration a couple years ago. My daughter loved it -- unfortunately a few months back we lost "Pumpkin Boy" in a flood we had at the house.

(I know-I know, first flood, then fire. What could we do? We're due for frogs and locus at any moment.)

Thing is, I would like to replace this decoration. If you have seen one at a store, or you have bought one, or your neighbor has one, I would like to buy it from you. I don't care if it's a little worn around the edges.

If you spot one on E-bay, let me know. I keep checking, but I haven't found one yet.

That's right, go to Sketchclub and check out my lastest memory drawing.

As an added bonus, Jeremy Spears drove all the way from San Luis Obispo to come and draw with us at Sketchclub. He's a terrific cartoonist, so if you haven't seen his work, I recommend checking out Jeremy's blog site. So far both of us have posted at Sketchclub, so go and have a look!

It was a dream come true for me! I got to meet one of my personal heroes. From the moment I first laid eyes on Mad Magazine, I was hooked -- and Jack Davis was a huge part of that.

And, as the photo suggests, I got a chance to shake his hand and tell him so personally.

Thanks to CAPS and my friend Stephen Silver for making it happen.

Hello everyone. Marcos was teasing me for having mentioned my dryer fire, at the same time I put up a post. I didn't think about it at the time, but it is funny. "Help, FIRE...oh, by the way, here's another post."

Marcos told me I should have posted the drawing with burned edges.

Anyway, here is a picture of the dryer. Sherri, my wife, said the flames were shooting out of the machine, and she knew if she waited for the firemen to arrive, we might loose the house. So, she quickly filled a couple small buckets of water and doused the fire. It was still on fire when the firemen did arrive, but those buckets-full never let the fire get out of control.

The scary thing is that it is a gas dryer, so if the gas line heated up, it could have exploded. Or, with all the electrical components exposed, when she through the buckets of water on it, she could have been electrocuted or shocked into unconsciousness. Either way, we're lucky "the Mrs." didn't get hurt.

This whole thing sure has scared the kids.

I'm sorry I haven't posted anything lately. I've had a lot going on.

Today, as I was driving home, my wife called me to tell me that we had a fire in our home. Oof, what a mess. There wasn't much fire damage, but lots of water and smoke damage.

I'll try and post something else when I get a chance. For now, I'll just post this figure drawing. This was probably no more than five mintues.

This is an illustration I did for Wizards of the Coast.

Alas, the days of paint and canvas are now behind me. I did this one on the computer using Photoshop. It's funny in a way, I can paint on the computer, but I still don't like to draw on the computer.

The client asked to have the images look as traditional as possible, without computer effects and textures, so it's pretty traditional looking, despite being a digital painting. It's so practical doing things digitally. If you save in layers, changes are easier, and mailing your work in is as simple as sitting at your computer drinking coffee while you upload your images onto a server.

The job assignment was to illustrate a fictional, colorful bird that creates a rainbow with its tail. This colorful bird was to bring contrast to the drab/gothic city.

Wizards printed this card as a much-coveted FOIL card!

Open Season opened up this weekend with a respectable $23 million box office gate. Not huge numbers, but it was still number one in the box office. The overall audience response seems to be positive, so hopefully it will perform as well next week (wouldn’t that be a treat for Sony).

Yes, I did character design work for the film while it was in early development. And, although my characters didn’t make it to screen, I got both Boog and Elliot about 75-80% of the way there. Then, the very talented designer Carter Goodrich finalized the style and direction that the characters would ultimately take.

The Open Season art-of book has a lot of my early development sketches.

This is my version of Boog and Elliot.

This weekend, Open Season is going to be released in the theaters. Although I'm proud of the work I've done on that project, I'm even more excited to see that Sony is going to be releasing our Surf's Up trailer for next year's feature animated film.

For the past two and a half years I've been one of the art directors for Surf's Up; I'm telling you the film will blow your mind!

Take a look at the Surf's Up trailer.
This movie will be like going on vacation to an island in the South Pacific!

I know you've all been waiting for this, because I've been waiting for this. I've been trying to goad Marcos Mateu into starting up his own blog for months, and finally the nagging has paid off.

This is going to be Marcos' own personal blog where he is going to post sketches, artwork, doodles -- and his own on-line "improvisational" comic book!

Marcos is one of the top talents in the animation industry, and one of the most talented individuals I've ever had the pleasure of working with. On top of that, he's a great guy and a good friend. So, please stop by http://www.marcosmateu.blogspot.com and say hello.

Without further ado...

Take me there now!

If you want to see the complete image, just click on this link... I gotta see it NOW!

Due to popular demand, I thought I would post few more drawings from my sketchbook. The figure drawing model wasn't very exciting, so...I decided I would turn the tables and draw some of the artists.

These were drawn with marker and ink.

As you know, our Sketchclub group goes out every Friday to draw in our sketchbooks. Marcos has been bugging me to post some of these sketchbook sketches, so I've gone ahead and put one up. This is taken directly from my sketchbook. This is how I laid it out on my page.

You're looking at a beautiful painting by Marcos Mateu that we have posted at http://www.el-pacifico.blogspot.com

I know it was my turn to do the next installment for El Pacifico, but since I've been swamped as of late, I just couldn't do it. So, Marcos and I did a collaboration on this one. I had roughed out a page, and Marcos was kind enough to work up the image. Wow, I was blown away at the artwork (better than I could have done). Go and check out the full page!

Marcos and I talked about where we would like to take the story, and we've come up with some pretty fun (unconventional) ideas that will take it out of the historical, and move it into the fantasy...without going into full fledged Pirates of the Carribean territory. (Not that we don't like that film, but we certainly don't want to do what's already been done.) To do this, we've added another character, an evil Cardinal to battle with the humble Friars!

Don't forget to check in on El-Pacifico from time to time to see where the story goes.

A couple years back, I did some cartoon characters that I thought were worth posting. I love drawing character designs, but I usually get hired to develop concepts and backgrounds instead.

There are a lot of people that draw characters really well in the industry, but good background artists are a little harder to find. Because I do both, I work a lot in Visual Development.

I think what has enabled me to do both characters and backgrounds is that I started out as a character designer for animation in 1987, then over the years I developed my skills as a background designer.

I believe it is easier to come from a character design background and do backgrounds, than it is the other way around. I'm not really sure why, but it would seem when someone starts out doing backgrounds, they have a hard time being able to draw characters.

Another reason I enjoy drawing characters is trying to discover who the characters are. More than just create the design elements that work well together, I have to figure out the character's personality.

Again, these were done old school with ink and marker on newsprint.

Here's another three minute sketch.

This woman was a lot of fun to draw, she stretched about like taffy! It was relatively easy finding the longest lines and pushing the design.

For those of you that don't know me, I'm a huge boxing fan. I did little fighting when I was a young man, and it's been in my blood ever since.

I did this sketch for a friend and mailed it to him via the Post Office. Of course I had to include the new Ray Robinson Commemorative stamp. Not that this is a drawing of Sugar Ray, but rather a just a drawing of a boxer giving it his all.

I used a little Prismapencil and watercolor.

No, this isn’t a drawing of 9/11, but rather this was drawn two years earlier for Lilo & Stitch.

When I was working on Lilo & Stitch in 1999, there was a scene where Stitch hijacks a 747 while attempting to escape capture. This ensues a chase scene that takes the jumbo jet throughout Honolulu; in this scene Stitch takes the airliner into the heart of Honolulu.

I was working from Utah at the time as a freelancer, but from what I heard, the entire scene was animated and colored when 9/11 hit. At which point the company knew they could never release the movie with that scene…so it was pulled and redone. The chase scene that ended up in the final version of the movie was the alien spaceship being chased through the Hawaiian mountains.

This was drawn with Prismacolor pencil and vellum. There was no Photoshop or other computer program used to create this effect. It was done purely old-school.

I wasn't sure how much time I had spent on first in this series of three figure drawings, so I estimated that it was between eight minutes or seven, but now I'm doubtful that is accurate. I was poking around my sketch pads and I came across this drawing where I had written down the time limit as three minutes.

I think I may have estimated that one too high, it may in fact be another three or five minute sketch instead of seven to eight. The seven to eight may be the second posting, and this last posting without a doubt is listed as three minutes.

If I have confused you, that's OK, because it is now clear in my mind...I think.

O.K. here’s the answer to the question I posed to you all in the last entry. The difference between rendering and drawing is extreme.

Rendering is what most art schools teach. Through careful observation, the artist copies the information in front of him/her by rendering the values and shapes as accurately as they can…sometimes with no real understanding. This is an important skill to master, but it isn’t drawing.

A camera can render, a Xerox machine can render, but neither understands the structure or composition of that which it has rendered. Given enough time, even mediocre artists can render their way out of drawing problems without fully solving them or understanding them.

Drawing is the ability to understand what you are attempting to describe with your pencil, either through line or value. Drawing, such as figure drawing, involves construction drawing, perspective, anatomy, composition and design. Rendering can become part of the drawing, but a drawing doesn’t need rendering in order to work.

Here's another figure drawing. I can't remember how long it took to draw it, but NONE of the poses are ever longer than eight minutes, and it's been a while since I've drawn an eight minute sketch. So, I'm going to guess it's between eight minutes or seven. Again, there' s not a whole lot of time to work things out, just enough time to practice your proportions and design skills.

This isn't my class, but when I was teaching up in Utah, I typically liked to start with ten three minute sketches, then go to four fives...and then two tens. Having been properly warmed up, the students were now ready to draw. The longest pose my student's would draw would be 20 minutes. This is enough time to do a little rendering, but not enough rendering to hide weakness in their drawings.

Drawing and rendering are not the same thing! Go ahead and post what you think the differences are between the two.

Here's a figure drawing I did last week.

Having been inspired by Marcos Mateu, I thought I would do some figure drawing with a magic marker.

Hello everyone:
Some people have been asking how I work, and what my roughs look like...so here are a few I did for Lilo & Stitch.

My friend Paul Felix had done an earlier version of Lilo's house that set the style for the architecture, I put it up on the hill with the carport underneath, and then he came back and added the extra room on top. Afterwhich, I took my pencil like a camera and went scouting for location ideas and compositions.

For those of you that are unfamilar with Sketchclub, it's a memory drawing game. We spot a person, try to memorize them quickly as we walk by, and then attempt to draw them from memory once we get back to the office. The trick is not to see what the other artists are doing.

Once the drawings are completed, we post them at www.sketchclub.blogspot and...only then... we see how close we came to each other's memory drawing of that person. This is my post, and Armand Serrano will be posting his version soon.

Ladies and gents, I've posted my latest installment at El-Pacifico.

If you would like to follow the on-line improvisational blog comic, go to http://www.el-pacifico.blogspot.com, or click on the link provided to your left in the "Links" section.

Here's one I did for Brother Bear. I was asked to draw the abandoned human's village.

The initial intent of the directors was to make the landscape look more prehistoric, so I added these giant Redwood trees to make the land look more interesting, I also thought it would give the human world a more diminuative role within nature; I wanted these trees to look like skycrapers.

Sadly, they didn't use the idea and instead went for a more straight foward/natural landscape. My job as a visual development artist is to come up with visually compelling, unique and thought provoking images, and I think this one does just that.

Today we had our usual figure drawing class, but the model wasn't very inspiring.

So, I hid in a corner and in a clandestine manner sketched out my collegues!

These are kind of what my sketches look like when I go Sketchclubbing on Fridays.

In this scene, the Tut shrine was delivered at the dock.

I did a series of roughs like this, but the client wanted me to pull back a bit on the visual caricature of the backgrounds.

Again, this one was done "old school" with ink and magic marker.