Bil Baird 2: The Sound of Music

These are great to draw from- the big, blocky shapes really help you to see the form and perspective.

Bil Baird

I picked up an old vhs tape at Goodwill recently called "Davey Jones' Locker", featuring Bil Baird's marionettes and I can't believe how awesome the designs of the puppets are. They look like they were designed by Roy Nelson and Vernon Grant, which may not be a coincidence since Baird attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts around the same time as both and they clearly share a similar design sensibility.
I couldn't find any clips online and because It's a vhs tape I can't make any frame grabs, but I'm attaching a few Baird images found online (there isn't much) to hopefully motivate you to check out more.
I wish the current cgi movies had this variety in design. I can't figure out why all the girls in cgi movies have the exact same round head- the girls in Bolt, Monsters vs Aliens, and Cloudy Meatballs all seem like the same design, and the neck never attaches to the head right. Maybe it's a limitation of the technology, because the best character designers in the world worked on those movies.
You can buy a dvd of some of Baird's early films here. I recommend it highly.
S.

DOWNTOWN L.A. ARTWALK

Come thru and pick up your limited edition can from UpperPlayGround x MTN
This Thursday at the Downtown LA Artwalk..

UPPERPLAYGROUND X MTN

Mr. Cartoon x MTN x UP from MR. PERFECT on Vimeo.

Check out this video from when we went out to S.F (Lower Haight) for a signing at UpperPlayground to promote my Limited Edition Spray Can with MTN and UP...

Some More Mickey Mouse Magazine Pages.

Once in a while I got to do some illustrations of the characters from the Disney feature films, as some issues would tie in to one that was perhaps being released on VHS at the time. I enjoyed doing the spot paintings above of the Lady and the Tramp characters, although there was something that I took exception to and didn't hesitate to make my argument known. You'll note that in the second column it refers to "Scamp's brother and sisters", which, as every Disney fan knows, is just plain wrong! Scamp had three sisters but no brothers, so I insisted on depicting them exactly as they appeared in the film. While the editors allowed that, they resisted changing the text in the story to match, as I think they wanted to indulge in some political correctness to be more "inclusive" of their boy readers. By the way, the writer of the piece was noted Disney historian and author, Jim Fanning, and he wasn't to blame either. I talked with Jim about it afterward and he said he was just as uncomfortable writing it like that too!

The following set of four illustrations featuring the Pinocchio characters were a lot of fun to do, although the concept of the pages really frustrated me. The round holes were meant to be cut out so the kids could poke their fingers through and do finger puppets. While it may have worked okay on Pinoke's nose and Figaro's tail, I'm afraid that the Blue Fairy and Jiminy Cricket didn't fare so well. With or without the kid's fingers acting as arms and legs, these two characters were doomed to looking like war amputees! Still, the job was fun to paint, as I was trying to capture that watercolour look of the backgrounds from Pinocchio. I just wish I could have included all those missing appendages...

LAY AND PLAY

Here are a couple of pictures we got from JaeBueno of the carshow we went to out at Bonelli Park over the weekend... Dr.Greenthumb (1961 Impala "Bubbletop") busted out for the first time.. I'll be posting some more pictures so look out for those. We all had a good time with the family and friends. Thanks To Bomb Club, JaeBueno and Lifestyle C.C.

Mickey Mouse Magazine

Despite growing up loving Disney animation since I was a young kid, these days I am not particularly enchanted with the company. In fact, I think that when they changed the name from Walt Disney Productions to the more corporate The Walt Disney Company, that signified the beginning of the end for me. Still, back in the 90s, I must admit I was getting some very good freelance jobs, some from within Disney itself, but mostly from their licensed vendors and publishers. Here are some samples I thought I'd post of various illustrations I had done for The Mickey Mouse Magazine, a very nicely produced publication put out by Welsh Publishing from about 1991 through 1996. They were also putting out Duck Tales Magazine at the same time, which of course was a tie-in with the popular TV cartoon. I was a regular freelancer on both publications for the duration of their run.

The art director I was dealing with on both magazines was a delightfully wacky lady with a sly sense of humour named Margaret Ottosen. Margaret was just wonderful to work with and she would always send her rough layouts to me in envelopes covered with various rubber stamped images cobbled together in amusing situations, just for a laugh.


I had a lot of fun on these illustrations, as I got to take each one from rough sketch, through clean-up pencil, to finished painting. All of these were painted in gouache on illustration board. Even if I were to do these today, at most I would only use Photoshop to perhaps paint the characters on a separate layer like an animation cel, but I would still paint the backgrounds traditionally with real paint. Trying to paint in a style as close to the look of the animated cartoon shorts was always my goal.


I also liked to include obscure secondary characters from the shorts whenever an animal was called for in a scene, rather than just make up some generic cartoon animal. The cat in the above Pluto illustration was from the cartoon, Plutopia. I guess I must like Spike the Bee, as the little rascal snuck into both of the illustrations above!

Margaret knew that I had a particular penchant for drawing the Disney ducks, so I would often get assignments featuring Donald, Daisy, and the nephews.





Alas, Disney no longer does much with their standard characters anymore. No longer in vogue in publishing or other merchandising, Mickey and friends have instead been relegated to babysitting the preschool set on the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse series. Additionally, they've been given a bland CG makeover too, as the Disney brass have made it quite clear that they really don't like cartoons.