Don’t miss this charming set of sketchbook drawings by legendary Disney production designer Ken Anderson, posted at Mark Kennedy’s always excellent Temple of the Seven Golden Camels blog.

(via Michael Sporn’s Splog)

Disney animator Rob Corley (Mulan, Lilio and Stitch) has posted this fun little (80 second) pencil test he made around ‘94 or ‘95, produced during down time at Disney Animation in Orlando, FL.

Corley explains on his blog:

I wanted to play around with squash and stretch so I decided to start animating straight ahead and see how many ways I could change the character….after many moons, and after my hand almost fell off, I went back and just created a set up and ending to the piece to finish it off. It was a lot of work, but also a lot of fun to do.

Rob is now co-owner of FunnyPages Productions with Tom Bancroft.

Lou Romano (The Incredibles, Powerpuff Girls) recently had his own personal drawing jam where he made dozens of sketches and then painted them digitally. He writes on his blog, “These drawings were done one right after another without any plan in mind. Then they were scanned and painted digitally in the order in which they were drawn. The goal for me was to get ideas out of my head, on to paper and into color as fluidly and as quickly as possible.”

The results are all posted here.

Diogo Kalil, an art director and animator from Brazil, currently living in Santa Monica, California, is looking to change his professional focus and move from advertising into other filmmaking opportunities. To that end he’s posted his new reel on his website and it’s quite good. Says Kalil, “I work with 3D and 2D software, and like to play with stop motion and cel animation.” I really like his work and hope he’ll keep us posted on his future plans.

Warning: The video below contains strong language.

Seriously though, would you expect anything less from the guy who created Lupo? This is an entertaining and informal interview with Danny Antonucci, who is also the creator of the long-running Cartoon Network series Ed Edd n Eddy. Antonucci speaks the truth when he says the industry is becoming too sterile; it’s encouraging to hear that he wants to shake things up and return to his indie animation roots.

Animator Dan Meth (of Hebrew Crunk fame) just completed an animation experiment. He animated his latest film while getting drunk in a local pub.

Dan went out to a bar with, as he says on his blog, “a stack of index-cards, some markers, a lightbox, and no storyboard”. He drew and drank himself silly, all the while covering over 300 cards with drawings for a short film he’s completing this week, part of a new Frederator shorts series of one minute cartoons.

He’s post all 329 drawings on a Flickr page for everyone to see in advance of the film. Don’t know if anyone’s posted any archive like this before, or used Flickr to create an animated film, but it sure seems like a good idea to me.

Animation legend Frédéric Back (Crac, The Man Who Planted Trees, The Mighty River), who turned 83 this week, has launched a new website at FredericBack.com. Currently, the French version is functional, while the English version will go live next week. Even with only the French version available, I couldn’t resist linking to it because the site is phenomenal. It’s a comprehensive site featuring dozens of autobiographical pages documenting Back’s career with plenty of photos and artwork, video examples of all his animation including his commercial work from the 1950s and ’60s, and many galleries of Back’s illustrations and paintings. Definitely a fitting tribute to one of animation’s greats.

Eric Pigors has worked at Disney Feature animation for fifteen years. He’s also contributed his art to Family Dog, Ed, Edd and Eddy and made his own demented Liquid TV cartoon short, Let’s Chop Soo-E, with Marv Newland’s International Rocketship.

But Pigor’s heart has been in creating his own world and expanding his Toxictoons empire, with a website showcasing his macabre art, toys, T-shirts, stickers, and so on. He’s got an artshow coming up at the Hyaena Gallery in Burbank April 16th-30th, and you can meet the mind behind the madness at the reception on Friday April 20th at 8pm.