What a fun job it must be to get to draw every day, as in you come to work….to draw. Okay, maybe not for me, because I have not one drawing bone in my body…I’ve tried and failed many a times. The best I can do is a heart, star, basically all your simple shapes. The Disney Story Artists are the people who bring the concept of a character to life. As we sat and talked with them it was amazing to see the process of concept, to presentation, to finally seeing the video in it’s finished form. We learned that it can take hundreds of tries before getting one scene just right. Today I am going to share with you a little some of the things we learned chatting with the Story Artists from Disney’s Planes
Dan Abraham and Art Hernandez are two of the story artists who had the opportunity to be a part in making PLANES happen. We were walked through the story process of an animated movie and what a process it is! The process starts with the story artists getting the script, though in some rare cases there isn’t one. Can you imagine trying to draw a story with nothing to go on but an idea of who the characters are and maybe a little of what the movie is about? Yeah, me either. Of course I can’t imagine drawing much of anything so it’s a moot point with me.
The story artists set up the template for everything that comes after them. The animators, the people who model the characters, the background painters…they are pretty much the starting point of the what the characters and scenes look like. After that, they just hope whomever comes after them likes what they have done, otherwise it’s back to the drawing board.
One of the challenges the artists faced with PLANES, was the “acting” of the characters. Unlike other animated movies and pretty much all non-animated movies, where you can have facial expressions, body language, and lots of other things to help show things, in PLANES it wasn’t so. They were pretty much limited to limited to three things to get emotion, expression, and personality. They had the eyes, mouth, and suspension. A plane can’t throw themselves down on the ground, throw their arms up in exasperation, or pick something up. So, the story artists really had their job cut out for them.
While we met with them we had the chance to try out our hand at drawing PLANES main character, Dusty…
In the end, even this non-artist, did a pretty decent job!
My daughter loves to draw, so when she was the following tutorial on how to draw Dusty she was so excited. I may have a future Disney Story Artist on my hand…maybe she’ll be a presenter at one of Disney’s press trips in the future! Here’s the fun tutorial so you, too, can try your hand at being a story artist!
So, how’d you do? I am going to venture out and say, if I did a pretty decent job, then 99.999% of the rest of you should be able to do GREAT! It’s amazing how the story artists help movies like PLANES come to life! So much talent and hard work goes into movies like this, I am sure I am not alone when I say Thank you to them for all the hard work they do!
Keep up with all things PLANES on the website, facebook, and twitter!
Did you realize how much work went into an animated movie like Disney’s Planes ?
Toni Patton
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Your Dusty turned out so good Toni!
great job and looks like so much fun. I love talking to Disney’s artists they are always full of so much passion
Wow so cool! M loves this movie too 🙂
I totally can not draw so I truly admire these fantastic artists who can make a drawing come to life.