“Since everyone else draws hot women, I want to be the guy that draws fat men.” - Stephen Silver, in the comments section of his blog

So, if you dig…umm…chunky males…then head on over to Stephen Silver’s new sketchblog HERE. Don’t worry, he draws other stuff too. Also, I wanted to extend a congrats to Stephen, who recently jumped over to Sony Feature Animation and has become the lead character designer on their third CG movie, currently due to be out in 2008.

The Eurovision Art Contest is a monthly drawing contest where artists create an illustration based on a specific theme. The contest is open to anybody who registers on the site, but it seems that many of the participants are in-house staffers at the top-grade London commercial animation studio Uli Meyer (the contest is hosted on the studio’s servers, but not sponsored by them). The quality of the contest entries is generally stellar and I thoroughly enjoyed browsing through the contest archives. You probably will too.

Also worth noting, a couple of the animation artists participating in these contests have just started their own blogs and they’ve already begun filling them up with great artwork. Check them out:

Gerben Steenks
Stephane Kardos

We’re giving away two full passes to North America’s most prestigious animation event, the Ottawa International Animation Festival (September 21-25, 2005). We will select the two best entries from readers who submit an essay (50 words or less) based on the theme: “Why I want to go to Ottawa”. We’ll also accept drawings based on that idea.

You must provide your own transportation to the festival and your own lodging in Ottawa. Contest closes when we get too many entries or on Friday, whichever comes first. Send your essay to: jbeck6540@aol.com

CINDERELLA (1950) played an important role in setting the Disney feature animation style of the 1950s, it inspired key attractions at Disneyland - but most significantly, it restored financial stability to the studio after a difficult decade. To celebrate its 55th anniversary, the El Capitan Theatre in Hollywood will be running a digitally restored presentation of CINDERELLA on the big screen for eleven days, September 15th through the 25th, with an opening night panel discussion (9/15 @ 7pm) with animators and filmmakers (names to be announced).Click on the Mary Blair concept painting (from Van Eaton Gallery) above for a larger image.

I missed Day #1.
But my vote on Day #2 goes to Jessica Borutski’s I LIKE PANDAS.
• Nextoons site

Disney has announced the contents for the fifth wave of their Treasures dvd sets. Of particular interest is the contents of DISNEY RARITIES: CELEBRATED SHORTS, 1920s-1960s, which includes the majority of the studio’s most highly stylized films. Among the shorts included are the offbeat Bill Justice/X. Atencio stop motion shorts NOAH’S ARK and A SYMPOSIUM ON POPULAR SONGS, Ward Kimball’s MELODY and TOOT WHISTLE PLUNK AND BOOM, and other nicely designed one-shots like PIGS IS PIGS, PAUL BUNYAN, THE SAGA OF WINDWAGON SMITH, JACK AND OLD MAC, THE STORY OF ANYBURG, USA and THE LITTLE HOUSE. The biggest omission is Kimball’s 1969 short IT’S TOUGH TO BE A BIRD, which fits into the theme of the collection, but was excluded for some unfortunate reason. Also, the audio commentaries seem lacking. There’s one for composer Richard Sherman on A SYMPOSIUM ON POPULAR SONGS, but why not get a commentary from NOAH’S ARK song writer Mel Leven, or from artists like X. Atencio and Art Stevens who were both heavily involved in numerous shorts on this collection? There’s not a lot of these guys still around, and it would have been nice to document the contributions of these undervalued artists. Nevertheless it’s a pretty solid set with a lot of difficult to find cartoons. DISNEY RARITIES will be out on December 6. Pre-order at Amazon.

Our Ottawa Animation Festival CONTEST, in which we’ll be giving away two complete passes to the festival, will take place tomorrow morning. Stay tuned.

I couldn’t let this pass by without making some mention of it: here’s a belated happy birthday to legendary jazz pianist Oscar Peterson, who turned 80 last Monday. He celebrated his birthday in Toronto with the unveiling of a new Canadian postage stamp bearing his likeness. It marks the first time a Canadian stamp has paid tribute to a living Canadian. Peterson has a bit of a history with the animation world as well. In 1949, he collaborated with Norman McLaren on the quintessential scratch-and-paint-on-film short BEGONE DULL CARE. In the mid-1950s, he recorded songs for John Hubley’s animated feature FINIAN’S RAINBOW. Though the film was never produced, John and Faith Hubley used Peterson’s recording of “Tenderly,” with Ella Fitzgerald on vocals, as the backdrop for their exquisite short TENDER GAME (1958). Peterson’s animation resume is brief, but if you’re going to have only two cartoons to your credit, it’s hard to do any better than BEGONE DULL CARE and TENDER GAME. And if you’re looking for prime Peterson on disc, I highly recommend the 4-cd set EXCLUSIVELY FOR MY FRIENDS. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t play a cut from these recordings. It is four hours of pure genius… live trio and solo recordings from the mid-1960s that simply can’t be beat.