The other day I was talking to Ryan (Punch my Face) about the caricatures we used to do of each other at Walt Disney Feature Animation in Burbank. We had this white dry erase marker board on the wall outside of the "bullpen" that was probably supposed to be used for announcements and such, but the artists quickly took it over. One would enter the hallway to the sound of a squeaking dry erase marker, and see a person standing inches away from the board intensly focusing on what was to be a very jacked up rendition of someone else. You would hope that you weren't the featured subject. Sometimes there would be a crowd of people surrounding the person at the board, pointing, and laughing. If they looked at you and started laughing harder, that was a bad sign. It's a shame that the art on this board had to be erased, there was a lot of hilarious work that will never be seen.
There were the usual suspects (Niko, Whitney, Bob P., myself) who perfected a particular jacked up way of drawing one another. Some actually made it to paper. I found this one I did of Niko during one of our internal figure drawing classes, before he got his few hairs cut (drawing at right). It was probably more funny to me back then when I had a full head of hair. I feel your pain, Niko.
The Drawing at left is a European fellow named Nils of MacKenzie Childs.
As I find more of these drawings I will post. I also want to dust off my sketchbook and start doing this sort of thing again... good times.
5 comments:
cooool drawings!
do you ever hear from those guys from animation? this one of Niko is good. I remember him from the Metrolink and I think he was in a caricature class i taught at WDFA.
Thanks. I haven't heard from Niko Frangos since I left LA. Don't think he's involved with animation anymore, although that would be a shame, he had some really funny ideas that he was pursuing at one point. I believe Whitney Martin was working on story for King of the Hill last I knew, and Bob P. (Because I don't remember how spell his last name) also moved into story, maybe Dreamworks. I keep in regular touch with John Ripa and a few other people from feature, but not sure where a lot of them ended up since the big transition from traditional animation to CG.
Speaking of teaching classes, why aren't you teaching one?
Hey! I have a few pictures I took of the board before I blew out of FA! I even think a Niko rendition of Whitney was on it at the time! I ought to find 'em and post 'em! We were obviously working down in the dungeons at the same time, but why can't I place your name???.....This is Jill Friemark, btw, though I don't expect you'll remember me, either! :) Sounds like you were fortunate enough to leave LA LA land! :)
Hey Jill,
I can't say I remember the name, but I bet I would remember your face (us visual people, eh?) What did you work on? Yeah, those were good times. I did make it out, made my way to Cleveland, and now I'm working on developing characters (writing) and character design. Love what I'm doing!
I'd love to see the pix! I'd even post here. Let me know!
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