Dice Tsutsumi Autographs - Sketchtravel

A few months ago, I had the chance to talk to Daisuke "Dice" Tsutsumi, the Colour and Lighting Art Director on Toy Story 3, via e-mail. Dice is a fantastic artist, responsible  for a large portion of the artwork - namely the colour scripts - in the Art of Toy Story 3 book, and was kind enough to agree to autograph a few of his drawings for me.

Not only was it a pleasure to talk to Dice, but he was kind enough to take some time out of his very hectic and busy schedule to sign them for me and I am insanely grateful!

Dice, who runs Simplestroke.com, is also co-running the very noble and extremely interesting, Sketchtravel project. Sketchtravel is a project where 71 illustrators and artists, including Glen Keane and Hayao Miyazaki, have contributed brilliant and stunning art to a sketch book. The original book will be auctioned on October 17 in Brussels, with proceeds of the book, and royalties from its subsequent publication, going to Room to Read, an international, non-profit, literacy organisation.

Needless to say, this is a fantastic cause and I am fully behind Dice, and the other co-founder, Gerald Guerlais, and encourage you to support them as much as possible and share the facebook page and website, and just help however you can!

The Art of Kung Fu Panda 2 Review - A Masterful Menagerie of Martial Arts Art

Firstly, I'd like to thank the kind folk over at Titan books for the complimentary review copy of this utterly stunning book. Those of you that read my review of the film on which The Art of Kung Fu Panda 2 is based, Kung Fu Panda 2, will know that I wasn't really expecting a lot from the film, as DreamWorks are notoriously not great with sequels. However, DreamWorks have really stepped it up in the past couple of years and I was happy to be proved wrong by the utterly awesome Kung Fu Panda 2. But, one thing that I could never doubt about Kung Fu Panda 2, was how gorgeous it was; the animation in the film was stunning, ergo, the artwork would surely be breathtaking. And it is.

The Art of Cars 2 Review - A Work of Art

The first thing I have to say is that I’m insanely grateful to Abrams&Chronicle for the free copy; however, it won’t influence my review in any way shape or form. Now this is not to say that it needs the help; the book is fantastic and another great addition to the already strong ‘Art of’ range. The book is written by Ben Queen (the Cars 2 screenwriter) and Karen Paik (who wrote the Art of Ratatouille book) and they’re previous professional writing experience shines though, as they do a great job of it. I’m still inclined to say the Art of Toy Story 3 is better, as it felt more special, like a legacy of the franchise of Toy Story, whereas this book deals specifically with Cars 2, not the original Cars. The book is also decidedly less wordy for the aforementioned reasons; however this is somewhat of a good thing, as it brings more attention to the fantastic artwork. The book is still extraordinarily detailed and is just a bit easier to get into, whereas with the previous instalment, you had to sit and read it for a while, whereas here you can dip in and out, yet you will still want to commit to it, which is to be commended.

Christmas Thoughts

I hope everyone out there had a great, happy and caring Christmastime, and that you all got what you wanted for Christmas.
I just thought I'd share some thoughts on some animation related presents that I received:

I was given DreamWorks smash hit from earlier in the year, How to Train Your Dragon (above), on DVD, this was actually the first time I had seen this film. As such, I had heard and taken in all of the hype, I was expecting a good film, however I wasn't expecting anything spectacular. Sufficed to say, I was pleasantly surprised to find a genuinely, brilliant and touching gem of a film that can more than stack up to and hold its own against Toy Story 3. I loved all of the characters and the animation was beautiful, furthermore I found the relationship between Hiccup and Toothless genuinely moving, something lacking from a lot of animated films nowadays. This is going to make my choice for the A113Animation Awards all the more difficult.

I also received The Art of Toy Story 3 book (above), whilst I have loved all of Pixar's films, I have never got round to buying one of these books, so I was very happy to receive it. The book is extremely interesting and detailed, with beautiful concept art, sketches and developmental drawings. However, the reason I love the book so much, is that it isn't just The Art of Toy Story 3, it details the legacy and genesis of the entire Toy Story franchise, covering Toy Story and Toy Story 2 and gives a great insight into the progress since 1995.

I was overjoyed to receive these presents, I hope you all got great presents and had a wonderful time - feel free to comment below and let me know what you got for Christmas -, on a side note, here are a few pictures I wanted to show you all.

Above is the Christmas Card from Pixar Animation Studios this year, featured on Pixar animator Austin Madison's (who recently sat down, alongside Chris Chua, for an interview with Derrick Clements of the Pixar Podcast) blog. The card, that shows Finn McMissile, Tow Mater and Holley Shiftwell, from the upcoming Cars 2, was entitled Missile, Tow and Holley. Clever.

Finally, this picture was featured as fan art on HeyUGuys and shows Buzz Lightyear in the grid, a la Tron: Legacy. Once again, clever.